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<XMLBIBLE xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" biblename="ENGLISHMSG">
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="1" bname="Genesis">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> First this: God created the Heavens and Earth--all you see, all you don't see.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God's Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> God spoke: "Light!" And light appeared.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> God saw that light was good and separated light from dark.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> God named the light Day, he named the dark Night. It was evening, it was morning-- Day One.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> God spoke: "Sky! In the middle of the waters; separate water from water!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> God made sky. He separated the water under sky from the water above sky. And there it was:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> he named sky the Heavens; It was evening, it was morning-- Day Two.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> God spoke: "Separate! Water-beneath-Heaven, gather into one place; Land, appear!" And there it was.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> God named the land Earth. He named the pooled water Ocean. God saw that it was good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> God spoke: "Earth, green up! Grow all varieties of seed-bearing plants, Every sort of fruit-bearing tree." And there it was.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Earth produced green seed-bearing plants, all varieties, And fruit-bearing trees of all sorts. God saw that it was good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> It was evening, it was morning-- Day Three.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> God spoke: "Lights! Come out! Shine in Heaven's sky! Separate Day from Night. Mark seasons and days and years,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Lights in Heaven's sky to give light to Earth." And there it was.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> God made two big lights, the larger to take charge of Day, The smaller to be in charge of Night; and he made the stars.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> God placed them in the heavenly sky to light up Earth</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And oversee Day and Night, to separate light and dark. God saw that it was good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> It was evening, it was morning-- Day Four.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> God spoke: "Swarm, Ocean, with fish and all sea life! Birds, fly through the sky over Earth!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> God created the huge whales, all the swarm of life in the waters, And every kind and species of flying birds. God saw that it was good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> God blessed them: "Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Ocean! Birds, reproduce on Earth!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> It was evening, it was morning-- Day Five.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> God spoke: "Earth, generate life! Every sort and kind: cattle and reptiles and wild animals--all kinds." And there it was:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> wild animals of every kind, Cattle of all kinds, every sort of reptile and bug. God saw that it was good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> God spoke: "Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle, And, yes, Earth itself, and every animal that moves on the face of Earth."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> God created human beings; he created them godlike, Reflecting God's nature. He created them male and female.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> God blessed them: "Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge! Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Then God said, "I've given you every sort of seed-bearing plant on Earth And every kind of fruit-bearing tree, given them to you for food.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> To all animals and all birds, everything that moves and breathes, I give whatever grows out of the ground for food." And there it was.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> God looked over everything he had made; it was so good, so very good! It was evening, it was morning-- Day Six.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Heaven and Earth were finished, down to the last detail.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> By the seventh day God had finished his work. On the seventh day he rested from all his work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> God blessed the seventh day. He made it a Holy Day Because on that day he rested from his work, all the creating God had done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> This is the story of how it all started, of Heaven and Earth when they were created.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> At the time GOD made Earth and Heaven, before any grasses or shrubs had sprouted from the ground--GOD hadn't yet sent rain on Earth, nor was there anyone around to work the ground</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> (the whole Earth was watered by underground springs)--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD formed Man out of dirt from the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life. The Man came alive--a living soul!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then GOD planted a garden in Eden, in the east. He put the Man he had just made in it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD made all kinds of trees grow from the ground, trees beautiful to look at and good to eat. The Tree-of-Life was in the middle of the garden, also the Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> A river flows out of Eden to water the garden and from there divides into four rivers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The first is named Pishon; it flows through Havilah where there is gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The gold of this land is good. The land is also known for a sweet-scented resin and the onyx stone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The second river is named Gihon; it flows through the land of Cush.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The third river is named Hiddekel and flows east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> GOD took the Man and set him down in the Garden of Eden to work the ground and keep it in order.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> GOD commanded the Man, "You can eat from any tree in the garden,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> except from the Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil. Don't eat from it. The moment you eat from that tree, you're dead."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> GOD said, "It's not good for the Man to be alone; I'll make him a helper, a companion."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> So GOD formed from the dirt of the ground all the animals of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the Man to see what he would name them. Whatever the Man called each living creature, that was its name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The Man named the cattle, named the birds of the air, named the wild animals; but he didn't find a suitable companion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> GOD put the Man into a deep sleep. As he slept he removed one of his ribs and replaced it with flesh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> GOD then used the rib that he had taken from the Man to make Woman and presented her to the Man.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The Man said, "Finally! Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh! Name her Woman for she was made from Man."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and embraces his wife. They become one flesh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The two of them, the Man and his Wife, were naked, but they felt no shame.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal GOD had made. He spoke to the Woman: "Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The Woman said to the serpent, "Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> It's only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, 'Don't eat from it; don't even touch it or you'll die.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The serpent told the Woman, "You won't die.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you'll see what's really going on. You'll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When the Woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it--she'd know everything!--she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Immediately the two of them did "see what's really going on"--saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> When they heard the sound of GOD strolling in the garden in the evening breeze, the Man and his Wife hid in the trees of the garden, hid from GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD called to the Man: "Where are you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He said, "I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD said, "Who told you you were naked? Did you eat from that tree I told you not to eat from?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The Man said, "The Woman you gave me as a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree, and, yes, I ate it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> GOD said to the Woman, "What is this that you've done?" "The serpent seduced me," she said, "and I ate."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD told the serpent: "Because you've done this, you're cursed, cursed beyond all cattle and wild animals, Cursed to slink on your belly and eat dirt all your life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I'm declaring war between you and the Woman, between your offspring and hers. He'll wound your head, you'll wound his heel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He told the Woman: "I'll multiply your pains in childbirth; you'll give birth to your babies in pain. You'll want to please your husband, but he'll lord it over you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He told the Man: "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree That I commanded you not to eat from, 'Don't eat from this tree,' The very ground is cursed because of you; getting food from the ground Will be as painful as having babies is for your wife; you'll be working in pain all your life long.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The ground will sprout thorns and weeds, you'll get your food the hard way, Planting and tilling and harvesting,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> sweating in the fields from dawn to dusk, Until you return to that ground yourself, dead and buried; you started out as dirt, you'll end up dirt."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The Man, known as Adam, named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all the living.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> GOD made leather clothing for Adam and his wife and dressed them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> GOD said, "The Man has become like one of us, capable of knowing everything, ranging from good to evil. What if he now should reach out and take fruit from the Tree-of-Life and eat, and live forever? Never--this cannot happen!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> So GOD expelled them from the Garden of Eden and sent them to work the ground, the same dirt out of which they'd been made.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He threw them out of the garden and stationed angel-cherubim and a revolving sword of fire east of it, guarding the path to the Tree-of-Life.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Adam slept with Eve his wife. She conceived and had Cain. She said, "I've gotten a man, with GOD's help!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Then she had another baby, Abel. Abel was a herdsman and Cain a farmer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Time passed. Cain brought an offering to GOD from the produce of his farm.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Abel also brought an offering, but from the firstborn animals of his herd, choice cuts of meat. GOD liked Abel and his offering,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> but Cain and his offering didn't get his approval. Cain lost his temper and went into a sulk.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD spoke to Cain: "Why this tantrum? Why the sulking?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> If you do well, won't you be accepted? And if you don't do well, sin is lying in wait for you, ready to pounce; it's out to get you, you've got to master it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Cain had words with his brother. They were out in the field; Cain came at Abel his brother and killed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" He said, "How should I know? Am I his babysitter?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> GOD said, "What have you done! The voice of your brother's blood is calling to me from the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> From now on you'll get nothing but curses from this ground; you'll be driven from this ground that has opened its arms to receive the blood of your murdered brother.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> You'll farm this ground, but it will no longer give you its best. You'll be a homeless wanderer on Earth."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Cain said to GOD, "My punishment is too much. I can't take it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> You've thrown me off the land and I can never again face you. I'm a homeless wanderer on Earth and whoever finds me will kill me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> GOD told him, "No. Anyone who kills Cain will pay for it seven times over." GOD put a mark on Cain to protect him so that no one who met him would kill him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Cain left the presence of GOD and lived in No-Man's-Land, east of Eden.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Cain slept with his wife. She conceived and had Enoch. He then built a city and named it after his son, Enoch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Enoch had Irad, Irad had Mehujael, Mehujael had Methushael, Methushael had Lamech.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Lamech married two wives, Adah and Zillah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Adah gave birth to Jabal, the ancestor of all who live in tents and herd cattle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> His brother's name was Jubal, the ancestor of all who play the lyre and flute.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Zillah gave birth to Tubal-Cain, who worked at the forge making bronze and iron tools. Tubal-Cain's sister was Naamah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Lamech said to his wives, Adah and Zillah, listen to me; you wives of Lamech, hear me out: I killed a man for wounding me, a young man who attacked me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> If Cain is avenged seven times, for Lamech it's seventy-seven!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Adam slept with his wife again. She had a son whom she named Seth. She said, "God has given me another child in place of Abel whom Cain killed."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> And then Seth had a son whom he named Enosh. That's when men and women began praying and worshiping in the name of GOD.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> This is the family tree of the human race: When God created the human race, he made it godlike, with a nature akin to God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He created both male and female and blessed them, the whole human race.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When Adam was 130 years old, he had a son who was just like him, his very spirit and image, and named him Seth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> After the birth of Seth, Adam lived another 800 years, having more sons and daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Adam lived a total of 930 years. And he died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When Seth was 105 years old, he had Enosh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> After Seth had Enosh, he lived another 807 years, having more sons and daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Seth lived a total of 912 years. And he died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When Enosh was ninety years old, he had Kenan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> After he had Kenan, he lived another 815 years, having more sons and daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Enosh lived a total of 905 years. And he died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When Kenan was seventy years old, he had Mahalalel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> After he had Mahalalel, he lived another 840 years, having more sons and daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Kenan lived a total of 910 years. And he died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> When Mahalalel was sixty-five years old, he had Jared.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> After he had Jared, he lived another 830 years, having more sons and daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Mahalalel lived a total of 895 years. And he died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When Jared was 162 years old, he had Enoch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> After he had Enoch, he lived another 800 years, having more sons and daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Jared lived a total of 962 years. And he died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> When Enoch was sixty-five years old, he had Methuselah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Enoch walked steadily with God. After he had Methuselah, he lived another 300 years, having more sons and daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Enoch lived a total of 365 years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Enoch walked steadily with God. And then one day he was simply gone: God took him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> When Methuselah was 187 years old, he had Lamech.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> After he had Lamech, he lived another 782 years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Methuselah lived a total of 969 years. And he died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> When Lamech was 182 years old, he had a son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> He named him Noah, saying, "This one will give us a break from the hard work of farming the ground that GOD cursed."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> After Lamech had Noah, he lived another 595 years, having more sons and daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Lamech lived a total of 777 years. And he died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> When Noah was 500 years old, he had Shem, Ham, and Japheth.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When the human race began to increase, with more and more daughters being born,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> the sons of God noticed that the daughters of men were beautiful. They looked them over and picked out wives for themselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then GOD said, "I'm not going to breathe life into men and women endlessly. Eventually they're going to die; from now on they can expect a life span of 120 years."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> This was back in the days (and also later) when there were giants in the land. The giants came from the union of the sons of God and the daughters of men. These were the mighty men of ancient lore, the famous ones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD saw that human evil was out of control. People thought evil, imagined evil--evil, evil, evil from morning to night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD was sorry that he had made the human race in the first place; it broke his heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD said, "I'll get rid of my ruined creation, make a clean sweep: people, animals, snakes and bugs, birds--the works. I'm sorry I made them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But Noah was different. GOD liked what he saw in Noah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> This is the story of Noah: Noah was a good man, a man of integrity in his community. Noah walked with God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> As far as God was concerned, the Earth had become a sewer; there was violence everywhere.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> God took one look and saw how bad it was, everyone corrupt and corrupting--life itself corrupt to the core.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> God said to Noah, "It's all over. It's the end of the human race. The violence is everywhere; I'm making a clean sweep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Build yourself a ship from teakwood. Make rooms in it. Coat it with pitch inside and out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Make it 450 feet long, seventy-five feet wide, and forty-five feet high.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Build a roof for it and put in a window eighteen inches from the top; put in a door on the side of the ship; and make three decks, lower, middle, and upper.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "I'm going to bring a flood on the Earth that will destroy everything alive under Heaven. Total destruction.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "But I'm going to establish a covenant with you: You'll board the ship, and your sons, your wife and your sons' wives will come on board with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> You are also to take two of each living creature, a male and a female, on board the ship, to preserve their lives with you:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> two of every species of bird, mammal, and reptile--two of everything so as to preserve their lives along with yours.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Also get all the food you'll need and store it up for you and them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Noah did everything God commanded him to do.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Next GOD said to Noah, "Now board the ship, you and all your family--out of everyone in this generation, you're the righteous one.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Take on board with you seven pairs of every clean animal, a male and a female; one pair of every unclean animal, a male and a female;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> and seven pairs of every kind of bird, a male and a female, to insure their survival on Earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> In just seven days I will dump rain on Earth for forty days and forty nights. I'll make a clean sweep of everything that I've made."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Noah did everything GOD commanded him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters covered the Earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Noah and his wife and sons and their wives boarded the ship to escape the flood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Clean and unclean animals, birds, and all the crawling creatures</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> came in pairs to Noah and to the ship, male and female, just as God had commanded Noah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> In seven days the floodwaters came.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> It was the six-hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month that it happened: all the underground springs erupted and all the windows of Heaven were thrown open.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Rain poured for forty days and forty nights.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> That's the day Noah and his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, accompanied by his wife and his sons' wives, boarded the ship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And with them every kind of wild and domestic animal, right down to all the kinds of creatures that crawl and all kinds of birds and anything that flies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They came to Noah and to the ship in pairs--everything and anything that had the breath of life in it,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> male and female of every creature came just as God had commanded Noah. Then GOD shut the door behind him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The flood continued forty days and the waters rose and lifted the ship high over the Earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The waters kept rising, the flood deepened on the Earth, the ship floated on the surface.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The flood got worse until all the highest mountains were covered--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> the high water mark reached twenty feet above the crest of the mountains.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Everything died. Anything that moved--dead. Birds, farm animals, wild animals, the entire teeming exuberance of life--dead. And all people--dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Every living, breathing creature that lived on dry land died;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> he wiped out the whole works--people and animals, crawling creatures and flying birds, every last one of them, gone. Only Noah and his company on the ship lived.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The floodwaters took over for 150 days.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then God turned his attention to Noah and all the wild animals and farm animals with him on the ship. God caused the wind to blow and the floodwaters began to go down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The underground springs were shut off, the windows of Heaven closed and the rain quit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Inch by inch the water lowered. After 150 days the worst was over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ship landed on the Ararat mountain range.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The water kept going down until the tenth month. On the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains came into view.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> After forty days Noah opened the window that he had built into the ship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He sent out a raven; it flew back and forth waiting for the floodwaters to dry up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then he sent a dove to check on the flood conditions,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> but it couldn't even find a place to perch--water still covered the Earth. Noah reached out and caught it, brought it back into the ship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He waited seven more days and sent out the dove again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> It came back in the evening with a freshly picked olive leaf in its beak. Noah knew that the flood was about finished.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He waited another seven days and sent the dove out a third time. This time it didn't come back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> In the six-hundred-first year of Noah's life, on the first day of the first month, the flood had dried up. Noah opened the hatch of the ship and saw dry ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the Earth was completely dry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> God spoke to Noah:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Leave the ship, you and your wife and your sons and your sons' wives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And take all the animals with you, the whole menagerie of birds and mammals and crawling creatures, all that brimming prodigality of life, so they can reproduce and flourish on the Earth."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Noah disembarked with his sons and wife and his sons' wives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Then all the animals, crawling creatures, birds--every creature on the face of the Earth--left the ship family by family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Noah built an altar to GOD. He selected clean animals and birds from every species and offered them as burnt-offerings on the altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> GOD smelled the sweet fragrance and thought to himself, "I'll never again curse the ground because of people. I know they have this bent toward evil from an early age, but I'll never again kill off everything living as I've just done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> For as long as Earth lasts, planting and harvest, cold and heat, Summer and winter, day and night will never stop."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> God blessed Noah and his sons: He said, "Prosper! Reproduce! Fill the Earth!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Every living creature--birds, animals, fish--will fall under your spell and be afraid of you. You're responsible for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> All living creatures are yours for food; just as I gave you the plants, now I give you everything else.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Except for meat with its lifeblood still in it--don't eat that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "But your own lifeblood I will avenge; I will avenge it against both animals and other humans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Whoever sheds human blood, by humans let his blood be shed, Because God made humans in his image reflecting God's very nature.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You're here to bear fruit, reproduce, lavish life on the Earth, live bountifully!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then God spoke to Noah and his sons:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "I'm setting up my covenant with you including your children who will come after you,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> along with everything alive around you--birds, farm animals, wild animals--that came out of the ship with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I'm setting up my covenant with you that never again will everything living be destroyed by floodwaters; no, never again will a flood destroy the Earth."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> God continued, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and everything living around you and everyone living after you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I'm putting my rainbow in the clouds, a sign of the covenant between me and the Earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> From now on, when I form a cloud over the Earth and the rainbow appears in the cloud,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I'll remember my covenant between me and you and everything living, that never again will floodwaters destroy all life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When the rainbow appears in the cloud, I'll see it and remember the eternal covenant between God and everything living, every last living creature on Earth."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant that I've set up between me and everything living on the Earth."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The sons of Noah who came out of the ship were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> These are the three sons of Noah; from these three the whole Earth was populated.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Noah, a farmer, was the first to plant a vineyard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He drank from its wine, got drunk and passed out, naked in his tent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Ham, the father of Canaan, saw that his father was naked and told his two brothers who were outside the tent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Shem and Japheth took a cloak, held it between them from their shoulders, walked backwards and covered their father's nakedness, keeping their faces turned away so they did not see their father's exposed body.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> When Noah woke up with his hangover, he learned what his youngest son had done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> He said, Cursed be Canaan! A slave of slaves, a slave to his brothers!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Blessed be GOD, the God of Shem, but Canaan shall be his slave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> God prosper Japheth, living spaciously in the tents of Shem. But Canaan shall be his slave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Noah lived another 350 years following the flood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> He lived a total of 950 years. And he died.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> This is the family tree of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. After the flood, they themselves had sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, Tiras.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath, Togarmah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, Rodanim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The seafaring peoples developed from these, each in its own place by family, each with its own language.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put, Canaan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba, Dedan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Cush also had Nimrod. He was the first great warrior on Earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He was a great hunter before GOD. There was a saying, "Like Nimrod, a great hunter before GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> His kingdom got its start with Babel; then Erech, Akkad, and Calneh in the country of Shinar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> From there he went up to Asshur and built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> and Resen between Nineveh and the great city Calah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Egypt was ancestor to the Ludim, the Anamim, the Lehabim, the Naphtuhim,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> the Pathrusim, the Casluhim (the origin of the Philistines), and the Kaphtorim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Canaan had Sidon his firstborn, Heth,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. Later the Canaanites spread out,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> going from Sidon toward Gerar, as far south as Gaza, and then east all the way over to Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and on to Lasha.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> These are the descendants of Ham by family, language, country, and nation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Shem, the older brother of Japheth, also had sons. Shem was ancestor to all the children of Eber.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The sons of Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether, Meshech.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Arphaxad had Shelah and Shelah had Eber.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Eber had two sons, Peleg (so named because in his days the human race divided) and Joktan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Joktan had Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Obal, Abimael, Sheba,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab--all sons of Joktan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Their land goes from Mesha toward Sephar as far as the mountain ranges in the east.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> These are the descendants of Shem by family, language, country, and nation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> This is the family tree of the sons of Noah as they developed into nations. From them nations developed all across the Earth after the flood.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> At one time, the whole Earth spoke the same language.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> It so happened that as they moved out of the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They said to one another, "Come, let's make bricks and fire them well." They used brick for stone and tar for mortar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then they said, "Come, let's build ourselves a city and a tower that reaches Heaven. Let's make ourselves famous so we won't be scattered here and there across the Earth."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD came down to look over the city and the tower those people had built.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD took one look and said, "One people, one language; why, this is only a first step. No telling what they'll come up with next--they'll stop at nothing!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Come, we'll go down and garble their speech so they won't understand each other."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then GOD scattered them from there all over the world. And they had to quit building the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> That's how it came to be called Babel, because there GOD turned their language into "babble." From there GOD scattered them all over the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> This is the story of Shem. When Shem was 100 years old, he had Arphaxad. It was two years after the flood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> After he had Arphaxad, he lived 600 more years and had other sons and daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When Arphaxad was thirty-five years old, he had Shelah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> After Arphaxad had Shelah, he lived 403 more years and had other sons and daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> When Shelah was thirty years old, he had Eber.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> After Shelah had Eber, he lived 403 more years and had other sons and daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When Eber was thirty-four years old, he had Peleg.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> After Eber had Peleg, he lived 403 more years and had other sons and daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When Peleg was thirty years old, he had Reu.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> After he had Reu, he lived 209 more years and had other sons and daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> When Reu was thirty-two years old, he had Serug.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> After Reu had Serug, he lived 207 more years and had other sons and daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> When Serug was thirty years old, he had Nahor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> After Serug had Nahor, he lived 200 more years and had other sons and daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> When Nahor was twenty-nine years old, he had Terah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> After Nahor had Terah, he lived 119 more years and had other sons and daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> When Terah was seventy years old, he had Abram, Nahor, and Haran.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> This is the story of Terah. Terah had Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran had Lot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Haran died before his father, Terah, in the country of his family, Ur of the Chaldees.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Abram and Nahor each got married. Abram's wife was Sarai; Nahor's wife was Milcah, the daughter of his brother Haran. Haran had two daughters, Milcah and Iscah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Sarai was barren; she had no children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot (Haran's son), and Sarai his daughter-in-law (his son Abram's wife) and set out with them from Ur of the Chaldees for the land of Canaan. But when they got as far as Haran, they settled down there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Terah lived 205 years. He died in Haran.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD told Abram: "Leave your country, your family, and your father's home for a land that I will show you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I'll make you a great nation and bless you. I'll make you famous; you'll be a blessing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I'll bless those who bless you; those who curse you I'll curse. All the families of the Earth will be blessed through you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> So Abram left just as GOD said, and Lot left with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Abram took his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot with him, along with all the possessions and people they had gotten in Haran, and set out for the land of Canaan and arrived safe and sound.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Abram passed through the country as far as Shechem and the Oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites occupied the land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD appeared to Abram and said, "I will give this land to your children." Abram built an altar at the place GOD had appeared to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He moved on from there to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent between Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. He built an altar there and prayed to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Abram kept moving, steadily making his way south, to the Negev.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then a famine came to the land. Abram went down to Egypt to live; it was a hard famine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> As he drew near to Egypt, he said to his wife, Sarai, "Look. We both know that you're a beautiful woman.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When the Egyptians see you they're going to say, 'Aha! That's his wife!' and kill me. But they'll let you live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Do me a favor: tell them you're my sister. Because of you, they'll welcome me and let me live."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> When Abram arrived in Egypt, the Egyptians took one look and saw that his wife was stunningly beautiful.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Pharaoh's princes raved over her to Pharaoh. She was taken to live with Pharaoh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Because of her, Abram got along very well: he accumulated sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, men and women servants, and camels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But GOD hit Pharaoh hard because of Abram's wife Sarai; everybody in the palace got seriously sick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Pharaoh called for Abram, "What's this that you've done to me? Why didn't you tell me that she's your wife?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Why did you say, 'She's my sister' so that I'd take her as my wife? Here's your wife back--take her and get out!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Pharaoh ordered his men to get Abram out of the country. They sent him and his wife and everything he owned on their way.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> So Abram left Egypt and went back to the Negev, he and his wife and everything he owned, and Lot still with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> By now Abram was very rich, loaded with cattle and silver and gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He moved on from the Negev, camping along the way, to Bethel, the place he had first set up his tent between Bethel and Ai</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> and built his first altar. Abram prayed there to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Lot, who was traveling with Abram, was also rich in sheep and cattle and tents.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But the land couldn't support both of them; they had too many possessions. They couldn't both live there--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> quarrels broke out between Abram's shepherds and Lot's shepherds. The Canaanites and Perizzites were also living on the land at the time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Abram said to Lot, "Let's not have fighting between us, between your shepherds and my shepherds. After all, we're family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Look around. Isn't there plenty of land out there? Let's separate. If you go left, I'll go right; if you go right, I'll go left."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Lot looked. He saw the whole plain of the Jordan spread out, well watered (this was before GOD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah), like GOD's garden, like Egypt, and stretching all the way to Zoar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Lot took the whole plain of the Jordan. Lot set out to the east. That's how they came to part company, uncle and nephew.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Abram settled in Canaan; Lot settled in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent near Sodom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The people of Sodom were evil--flagrant sinners against GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> After Lot separated from him, GOD said to Abram, "Open your eyes, look around. Look north, south, east, and west.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Everything you see, the whole land spread out before you, I will give to you and your children forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I'll make your descendants like dust--counting your descendants will be as impossible as counting the dust of the Earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> So--on your feet, get moving! Walk through the country, its length and breadth; I'm giving it all to you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Abram moved his tent. He went and settled by the Oaks of Mamre in Hebron. There he built an altar to GOD.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then this: Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Kedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goiim</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> went off to war to fight Bera king of Sodom, Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, that is, Zoar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> This second group of kings, the attacked, came together at the Valley of Siddim, that is, the Salt Sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They had been under the thumb of Kedorlaomer for twelve years. In the thirteenth year, they revolted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> In the fourteenth year, Kedorlaomer and the kings allied with him set out and defeated the Rephaim in Ashteroth Karnaim, the Zuzim in Ham, the Emim in Shaveh Kiriathaim,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> and the Horites in their hill country of Seir as far as El Paran on the far edge of the desert.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> On their way back they stopped at En Mishpat, that is, Kadesh, and conquered the whole region of the Amalekites as well as that of the Amorites who lived in Hazazon Tamar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> That's when the king of Sodom marched out with the king of Gomorrah, the king of Admah, the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, that is, Zoar. They drew up in battle formation against their enemies in the Valley of Siddim--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> against Kedorlaomer king of Elam, Tidal king of Goiim, Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar, four kings against five.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The Valley of Siddim was full of tar pits. When the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, they fell into the tar pits, but the rest escaped into the mountains.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The four kings captured all the possessions of Sodom and Gomorrah, all their food and equipment, and went on their way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They captured Lot, Abram's nephew who was living in Sodom at the time, taking everything he owned with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> A fugitive came and reported to Abram the Hebrew. Abram was living at the Oaks of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol and Aner. They were allies of Abram.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> When Abram heard that his nephew had been taken prisoner, he lined up his servants, all of them born in his household--there were 318 of them--and chased after the captors all the way to Dan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Abram and his men split into small groups and attacked by night. They chased them as far as Hobah, just north of Damascus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They recovered all the plunder along with nephew Lot and his possessions, including the women and the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> After Abram returned from defeating Kedorlaomer and his allied kings, the king of Sodom came out to greet him in the Valley of Shaveh, the King's Valley.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine--he was priest of The High God--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> and blessed him: Blessed be Abram by The High God, Creator of Heaven and Earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And blessed be The High God, who handed your enemies over to you. Abram gave him a tenth of all the recovered plunder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The king of Sodom said to Abram, "Give me back the people but keep all the plunder for yourself."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But Abram told the king of Sodom, "I swear to GOD, The High God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, this solemn oath,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> that I'll take nothing from you, not so much as a thread or a shoestring. I'm not going to have you go around saying, 'I made Abram rich.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Nothing for me other than what the young men ate and the share of the men who went with me, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre; they're to get their share of the plunder."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> After all these things, this word of GOD came to Abram in a vision: "Don't be afraid, Abram. I'm your shield. Your reward will be grand!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Abram said, "GOD, Master, what use are your gifts as long as I'm childless and Eliezer of Damascus is going to inherit everything?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Abram continued, "See, you've given me no children, and now a mere house servant is going to get it all."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then GOD's Message came: "Don't worry, he won't be your heir; a son from your body will be your heir."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then he took him outside and said, "Look at the sky. Count the stars. Can you do it? Count your descendants! You're going to have a big family, Abram!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And he believed! Believed GOD! God declared him "Set-Right-with-God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD continued, "I'm the same GOD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldees and gave you this land to own."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Abram said, "Master GOD, how am I to know this, that it will all be mine?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD said, "Bring me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, and a dove and a young pigeon."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He brought all these animals to him, split them down the middle, and laid the halves opposite each other. But he didn't split the birds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Vultures swooped down on the carcasses, but Abram scared them off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> As the sun went down a deep sleep overcame Abram and then a sense of dread, dark and heavy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> GOD said to Abram, "Know this: your descendants will live as outsiders in a land not theirs; they'll be enslaved and beaten down for 400 years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Then I'll punish their slave masters; your offspring will march out of there loaded with plunder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But not you; you'll have a long and full life and die a good and peaceful death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Not until the fourth generation will your descendants return here; sin is still a thriving business among the Amorites."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When the sun was down and it was dark, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch moved between the split carcasses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> That's when GOD made a covenant with Abram: "I'm giving this land to your children, from the Nile River in Egypt to the River Euphrates in Assyria--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> the country of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaim,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Sarai, Abram's wife, hadn't yet produced a child. She had an Egyptian maid named Hagar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Sarai said to Abram, "GOD has not seen fit to let me have a child. Sleep with my maid. Maybe I can get a family from her." Abram agreed to do what Sarai said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> So Sarai, Abram's wife, took her Egyptian maid Hagar and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife. Abram had been living ten years in Canaan when this took place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He slept with Hagar and she got pregnant. When she learned she was pregnant, she looked down on her mistress.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Sarai told Abram, "It's all your fault that I'm suffering this abuse. I put my maid in bed with you and the minute she knows she's pregnant, she treats me like I'm nothing. May GOD decide which of us is right."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "You decide," said Abram. "Your maid is your business." Sarai was abusive to Hagar and she ran away.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> An angel of GOD found her beside a spring in the desert; it was the spring on the road to Shur.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He said, "Hagar, maid of Sarai, what are you doing here?" She said, "I'm running away from Sarai my mistress."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The angel of GOD said, "Go back to your mistress. Put up with her abuse."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He continued, "I'm going to give you a big family, children past counting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> From this pregnancy, you'll get a son: Name him Ishmael; for GOD heard you, GOD answered you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He'll be a bucking bronco of a man, a real fighter, fighting and being fought, Always stirring up trouble, always at odds with his family."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> She answered GOD by name, praying to the God who spoke to her, "You're the God who sees me!" "Yes! He saw me; and then I saw him!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> That's how that desert spring got named "God-Alive-Sees-Me Spring." That spring is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Hagar gave Abram a son. Abram named him Ishmael.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar gave him his son, Ishmael.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="17">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When Abram was ninety-nine years old, GOD showed up and said to him, "I am The Strong God, live entirely before me, live to the hilt!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I'll make a covenant between us and I'll give you a huge family."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Overwhelmed, Abram fell flat on his face. Then God said to him,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "This is my covenant with you: You'll be the father of many nations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Your name will no longer be Abram, but Abraham, meaning that 'I'm making you the father of many nations.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I'll make you a father of fathers--I'll make nations from you, kings will issue from you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I'm establishing my covenant between me and you, a covenant that includes your descendants, a covenant that goes on and on and on, a covenant that commits me to be your God and the God of your descendants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And I'm giving you and your descendants this land where you're now just camping, this whole country of Canaan, to own forever. And I'll be their God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> God continued to Abraham, "And you: You will honor my covenant, you and your descendants, generation after generation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> This is the covenant that you are to honor, the covenant that pulls in all your descendants: Circumcise every male.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Circumcise by cutting off the foreskin of the penis; it will be the sign of the covenant between us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Every male baby will be circumcised when he is eight days old, generation after generation--this includes house-born slaves and slaves bought from outsiders who are not blood kin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Make sure you circumcise both your own children and anyone brought in from the outside. That way my covenant will be cut into your body, a permanent mark of my permanent covenant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> An uncircumcised male, one who has not had the foreskin of his penis cut off, will be cut off from his people--he has broken my covenant."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> God continued speaking to Abraham, "And Sarai your wife: Don't call her Sarai any longer; call her Sarah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I'll bless her--yes! I'll give you a son by her! Oh, how I'll bless her! Nations will come from her; kings of nations will come from her."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Abraham fell flat on his face. And then he laughed, thinking, "Can a hundred-year-old man father a son? And can Sarah, at ninety years, have a baby?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Recovering, Abraham said to God, "Oh, keep Ishmael alive and well before you!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But God said, "That's not what I mean. Your wife, Sarah, will have a baby, a son. Name him Isaac (Laughter). I'll establish my covenant with him and his descendants, a covenant that lasts forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "And Ishmael? Yes, I heard your prayer for him. I'll also bless him; I'll make sure he has plenty of children--a huge family. He'll father twelve princes; I'll make him a great nation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But I'll establish my covenant with Isaac whom Sarah will give you about this time next year."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> God finished speaking with Abraham and left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Then Abraham took his son Ishmael and all his servants, whether houseborn or purchased--every male in his household--and circumcised them, cutting off their foreskins that very day, just as God had told him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> His son Ishmael was thirteen years old when he was circumcised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Abraham and Ishmael were circumcised the same day</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> together with all the servants of his household, those born there and those purchased from outsiders--all were circumcised with him.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="18">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD appeared to Abraham at the Oaks of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance of his tent. It was the hottest part of the day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He looked up and saw three men standing. He ran from his tent to greet them and bowed before them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He said, "Master, if it please you, stop for a while with your servant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'll get some water so you can wash your feet. Rest under this tree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I'll get some food to refresh you on your way, since your travels have brought you across my path." They said, "Certainly. Go ahead."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah. He said, "Hurry. Get three cups of our best flour; knead it and make bread."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Then Abraham ran to the cattle pen and picked out a nice plump calf and gave it to the servant who lost no time getting it ready.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then he got curds and milk, brought them with the calf that had been roasted, set the meal before the men, and stood there under the tree while they ate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The men said to him, "Where is Sarah your wife?" He said, "In the tent."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> One of them said, "I'm coming back about this time next year. When I arrive, your wife Sarah will have a son." Sarah was listening at the tent opening, just behind the man.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Abraham and Sarah were old by this time, very old. Sarah was far past the age for having babies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Sarah laughed within herself, "An old woman like me? Get pregnant? With this old man of a husband?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> GOD said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh saying, 'Me? Have a baby? An old woman like me?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Is anything too hard for GOD? I'll be back about this time next year and Sarah will have a baby."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Sarah lied. She said, "I didn't laugh," because she was afraid. But he said, "Yes you did; you laughed."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When the men got up to leave, they set off for Sodom. Abraham walked with them to say good-bye.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then GOD said, "Shall I keep back from Abraham what I'm about to do?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Abraham is going to become a large and strong nation; all the nations of the world are going to find themselves blessed through him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Yes, I've settled on him as the one to train his children and future family to observe GOD's way of life, live kindly and generously and fairly, so that GOD can complete in Abraham what he promised him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> GOD continued, "The cries of the victims in Sodom and Gomorrah are deafening; the sin of those cities is immense.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I'm going down to see for myself, see if what they're doing is as bad as it sounds. Then I'll know."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The men set out for Sodom, but Abraham stood in GOD's path, blocking his way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Abraham confronted him, "Are you serious? Are you planning on getting rid of the good people right along with the bad?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> What if there are fifty decent people left in the city; will you lump the good with the bad and get rid of the lot?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Wouldn't you spare the city for the sake of those fifty innocents? I can't believe you'd do that, kill off the good and the bad alike as if there were no difference between them. Doesn't the Judge of all the Earth judge with justice?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> GOD said, "If I find fifty decent people in the city of Sodom, I'll spare the place just for them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Abraham came back, "Do I, a mere mortal made from a handful of dirt, dare open my mouth again to my Master?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> What if the fifty fall short by five--would you destroy the city because of those missing five?" He said, "I won't destroy it if there are forty-five."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Abraham spoke up again, "What if you only find forty?" "Neither will I destroy it if for forty."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> He said, "Master, don't be irritated with me, but what if only thirty are found?" "No, I won't do it if I find thirty."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> He pushed on, "I know I'm trying your patience, Master, but how about for twenty?" "I won't destroy it for twenty."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> He wouldn't quit, "Don't get angry, Master--this is the last time. What if you only come up with ten?" "For the sake of only ten, I won't destroy the city."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> When GOD finished talking with Abraham, he left. And Abraham went home.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="19">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening. Lot was sitting at the city gate. He saw them and got up to welcome them, bowing before them</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> and said, "Please, my friends, come to my house and stay the night. Wash up. You can rise early and be on your way refreshed." They said, "No, we'll sleep in the street."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But he insisted, wouldn't take no for an answer; and they relented and went home with him. Lot fixed a hot meal for them and they ate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Before they went to bed men from all over the city of Sodom, young and old, descended on the house from all sides and boxed them in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They yelled to Lot, "Where are the men who are staying with you for the night? Bring them out so we can have our sport with them!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Lot went out, barring the door behind him,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> and said, "Brothers, please, don't be vile!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Look, I have two daughters, virgins; let me bring them out; you can take your pleasure with them, but don't touch these men--they're my guests."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They said, "Get lost! You drop in from nowhere and now you're going to tell us how to run our lives. We'll treat you worse than them!" And they charged past Lot to break down the door.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But the two men reached out and pulled Lot inside the house, locking the door.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then they struck blind the men who were trying to break down the door, both leaders and followers, leaving them groping in the dark.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The two men said to Lot, "Do you have any other family here? Sons, daughters--anybody in the city? Get them out of here, and now!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> We're going to destroy this place. The outcries of victims here to GOD are deafening; we've been sent to blast this place into oblivion."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Lot went out and warned the fianc�s of his daughters, "Evacuate this place; GOD is about to destroy this city!" But his daughters' would-be husbands treated it as a joke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> At break of day, the angels pushed Lot to get going, "Hurry. Get your wife and two daughters out of here before it's too late and you're caught in the punishment of the city."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Lot was dragging his feet. The men grabbed Lot's arm, and the arms of his wife and daughters--GOD was so merciful to them!--and dragged them to safety outside the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When they had them outside, Lot was told, "Now run for your life! Don't look back! Don't stop anywhere on the plain--run for the hills or you'll be swept away."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But Lot protested, "No, masters, you can't mean it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I know that you've taken a liking to me and have done me an immense favor in saving my life, but I can't run for the mountains--who knows what terrible thing might happen to me in the mountains and leave me for dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Look over there--that town is close enough to get to. It's a small town, hardly anything to it. Let me escape there and save my life--it's a mere wide place in the road."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He said to him, "All right. If you insist. I'll let you have your way. And I won't stamp out the town you've spotted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But hurry up. Run for it! I can't do anything until you get there." That's why the town was called Zoar, that is, Smalltown.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The sun was high in the sky when Lot arrived at Zoar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Then GOD rained brimstone and fire down on Sodom and Gomorrah--a river of lava from GOD out of the sky!--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> and destroyed these cities and the entire plain and everyone who lived in the cities and everything that grew from the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> But Lot's wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Abraham got up early the next morning and went to the place he had so recently stood with GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> He looked out over Sodom and Gomorrah, surveying the whole plain. All he could see was smoke belching from the Earth, like smoke from a furnace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> And that's the story: When God destroyed the Cities of the Plain, he was mindful of Abraham and first got Lot out of there before he blasted those cities off the face of the Earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Lot left Zoar and went into the mountains to live with his two daughters; he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He lived in a cave with his daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> One day the older daughter said to the younger, "Our father is getting old and there's not a man left in the country by whom we can get pregnant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Let's get our father drunk with wine and lie with him. We'll get children through our father--it's our only chance to keep our family alive."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> They got their father drunk with wine that very night. The older daughter went and lay with him. He was oblivious, knowing nothing of what she did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The next morning the older said to the younger, "Last night I slept with my father. Tonight, it's your turn. We'll get him drunk again and then you sleep with him. We'll both get a child through our father and keep our family alive."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> So that night they got their father drunk again and the younger went in and slept with him. Again he was oblivious, knowing nothing of what she did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Both daughters became pregnant by their father, Lot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> The older daughter had a son and named him Moab, the ancestor of the present-day Moabites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> The younger daughter had a son and named him Ben-Ammi, the ancestor of the present-day Ammonites.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="20">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Abraham traveled from there south to the Negev and settled down between Kadesh and Shur. While he was camping in Gerar,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Abraham said of his wife Sarah, "She's my sister." So Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent for Sarah and took her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But God came to Abimelech in a dream that night and told him, "You're as good as dead--that woman you took, she's a married woman."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Now Abimelech had not yet slept with her, hadn't so much as touched her. He said, "Master, would you kill an innocent man?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Didn't he tell me, 'She's my sister'? And didn't she herself say, 'He's my brother'? I had no idea I was doing anything wrong when I did this."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> God said to him in the dream, "Yes, I know your intentions were pure, that's why I kept you from sinning against me; I was the one who kept you from going to bed with her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So now give the man's wife back to him. He's a prophet and will pray for you--pray for your life. If you don't give her back, know that it's certain death both for you and everyone in your family."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Abimelech was up first thing in the morning. He called all his house servants together and told them the whole story. They were shocked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then Abimelech called in Abraham and said, "What have you done to us? What have I ever done to you that you would bring on me and my kingdom this huge offense? What you've done to me ought never to have been done."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Abimelech went on to Abraham, "Whatever were you thinking of when you did this thing?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Abraham said, "I just assumed that there was no fear of God in this place and that they'd kill me to get my wife.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Besides, the truth is that she is my half sister; she's my father's daughter but not my mother's.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> When God sent me out as a wanderer from my father's home, I told her, 'Do me a favor; wherever we go, tell people that I'm your brother.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Then Abimelech gave Sarah back to Abraham, and along with her sent sheep and cattle and servants, both male and female.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He said, "My land is open to you; live wherever you wish."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> And to Sarah he said, "I've given your brother a thousand pieces of silver--that clears you of even a shadow of suspicion before the eyes of the world. You're vindicated."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then Abraham prayed to God and God healed Abimelech, his wife and his maidservants, and they started having babies again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> For GOD had shut down every womb in Abimelech's household on account of Sarah, Abraham's wife.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="21">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD visited Sarah exactly as he said he would; GOD did to Sarah what he promised:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Sarah became pregnant and gave Abraham a son in his old age, and at the very time God had set.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Abraham named him Isaac.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When his son was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him just as God had commanded.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Sarah said, God has blessed me with laughter and all who get the news will laugh with me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> She also said, Whoever would have suggested to Abraham that Sarah would one day nurse a baby! Yet here I am! I've given the old man a son!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The baby grew and was weaned. Abraham threw a big party on the day Isaac was weaned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> One day Sarah saw the son that Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham, poking fun at her son Isaac.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> She told Abraham, "Get rid of this slave woman and her son. No child of this slave is going to share inheritance with my son Isaac!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The matter gave great pain to Abraham--after all, Ishmael was his son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But God spoke to Abraham, "Don't feel badly about the boy and your maid. Do whatever Sarah tells you. Your descendants will come through Isaac.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Regarding your maid's son, be assured that I'll also develop a great nation from him--he's your son too."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Abraham got up early the next morning, got some food together and a canteen of water for Hagar, put them on her back and sent her away with the child. She wandered off into the desert of Beersheba.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> When the water was gone, she left the child under a shrub</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> and went off, fifty yards or so. She said, "I can't watch my son die." As she sat, she broke into sobs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Meanwhile, God heard the boy crying. The angel of God called from Heaven to Hagar, "What's wrong, Hagar? Don't be afraid. God has heard the boy and knows the fix he's in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Up now; go get the boy. Hold him tight. I'm going to make of him a great nation."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Just then God opened her eyes. She looked. She saw a well of water. She went to it and filled her canteen and gave the boy a long, cool drink.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> God was on the boy's side as he grew up. He lived out in the desert and became a skilled archer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He lived in the Paran wilderness. And his mother got him a wife from Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> At about that same time, Abimelech and the captain of his troops, Phicol, spoke to Abraham: "No matter what you do, God is on your side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> So swear to me that you won't do anything underhanded to me or any of my family. For as long as you live here, swear that you'll treat me and my land as well as I've treated you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Abraham said, "I swear it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> At the same time, Abraham confronted Abimelech over the matter of a well of water that Abimelech's servants had taken.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Abimelech said, "I have no idea who did this; you never told me about it; this is the first I've heard of it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> So the two of them made a covenant. Abraham took sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Abraham set aside seven sheep from his flock.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Abimelech said, "What does this mean? These seven sheep you've set aside."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Abraham said, "It means that when you accept these seven sheep, you take it as proof that I dug this well, that it's my well."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> That's how the place got named Beersheba (the Oath-Well), because the two of them swore a covenant oath there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> After they had made the covenant at Beersheba, Abimelech and his commander, Phicol, left and went back to Philistine territory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and worshiped GOD there, praying to the Eternal God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Abraham lived in Philistine country for a long time.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="22">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> After all this, God tested Abraham. God said, "Abraham!" "Yes?" answered Abraham. "I'm listening."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He said, "Take your dear son Isaac whom you love and go to the land of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I'll point out to you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Abraham got up early in the morning and saddled his donkey. He took two of his young servants and his son Isaac. He had split wood for the burnt offering. He set out for the place God had directed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> On the third day he looked up and saw the place in the distance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Abraham told his two young servants, "Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I are going over there to worship; then we'll come back to you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and gave it to Isaac his son to carry. He carried the flint and the knife. The two of them went off together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Isaac said to Abraham his father, "Father?" "Yes, my son." "We have flint and wood, but where's the sheep for the burnt offering?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Abraham said, "Son, God will see to it that there's a sheep for the burnt offering." And they kept on walking together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They arrived at the place to which God had directed him. Abraham built an altar. He laid out the wood. Then he tied up Isaac and laid him on the wood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Abraham reached out and took the knife to kill his son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Just then an angel of GOD called to him out of Heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!" "Yes, I'm listening."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Don't lay a hand on that boy! Don't touch him! Now I know how fearlessly you fear God; you didn't hesitate to place your son, your dear son, on the altar for me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Abraham looked up. He saw a ram caught by its horns in the thicket. Abraham took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Abraham named that place GOD-Yireh (GOD-Sees-to-It). That's where we get the saying, "On the mountain of GOD, he sees to it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The angel of GOD spoke from Heaven a second time to Abraham:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "I swear--GOD's sure word!--because you have gone through with this, and have not refused to give me your son, your dear, dear son,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I'll bless you--oh, how I'll bless you! And I'll make sure that your children flourish--like stars in the sky! like sand on the beaches! And your descendants will defeat their enemies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> All nations on Earth will find themselves blessed through your descendants because you obeyed me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Then Abraham went back to his young servants. They got things together and returned to Beersheba. Abraham settled down in Beersheba.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> After all this, Abraham got the news: "Your brother Nahor is a father! Milcah has given him children:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Uz, his firstborn, his brother Buz, Kemuel (he was the father of Aram),</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Kesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethuel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> (Bethuel was the father of Rebekah.) Milcah gave these eight sons to Nahor, Abraham's brother.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> His concubine, Reumah, gave him four more children: Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="23">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Sarah lived 127 years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Sarah died in Kiriath Arba, present-day Hebron, in the land of Canaan. Abraham mourned for Sarah and wept.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then Abraham got up from mourning his dead wife and spoke to the Hittites:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "I know I'm only an outsider here among you, but sell me a burial plot so that I can bury my dead decently."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The Hittites responded,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Why, you're no mere outsider here with us, you're a prince of God! Bury your dead wife in the best of our burial sites. None of us will refuse you a place for burial."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Then Abraham got up, bowed respectfully to the people of the land, the Hittites,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> and said, "If you're serious about helping me give my wife a proper burial, intercede for me with Ephron son of Zohar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Ask him to sell me the cave of Machpelah that he owns, the one at the end of his land. Ask him to sell it to me at its full price for a burial plot, with you as witnesses."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Ephron was part of the local Hittite community. Then Ephron the Hittite spoke up, answering Abraham with all the Hittites who were part of the town council listening:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Oh no, my master! I couldn't do that. The field is yours--a gift. I'll give it and the cave to you. With my people as witnesses, I give it to you. Bury your deceased wife."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Abraham bowed respectfully before the assembled council</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> and answered Ephron: "Please allow me--I want to pay the price of the land; take my money so that I can go ahead and bury my wife."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Then Ephron answered Abraham,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "If you insist, master. What's four hundred silver shekels between us? Now go ahead and bury your wife."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Abraham accepted Ephron's offer and paid out the sum that Ephron had named before the town council of Hittites--four hundred silver shekels at the current exchange rate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> That's how Ephron's field next to Mamre--the field, its cave, and all the trees within its borders--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> became Abraham's property. The town council of Hittites witnessed the transaction.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Abraham then proceeded to bury his wife Sarah in the cave in the field of Machpelah that is next to Mamre, present-day Hebron, in the land of Canaan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The field and its cave went from the Hittites into Abraham's possession as a burial plot.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="24">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Abraham was now an old man. GOD had blessed Abraham in every way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Abraham spoke to the senior servant in his household, the one in charge of everything he had, "Put your hand under my thigh</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> and swear by GOD--God of Heaven, God of Earth--that you will not get a wife for my son from among the young women of the Canaanites here,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> but will go to the land of my birth and get a wife for my son Isaac."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The servant answered, "But what if the woman refuses to leave home and come with me? Do I then take your son back to your home country?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Abraham said, "Oh no. Never. By no means are you to take my son back there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD, the God of Heaven, took me from the home of my father and from the country of my birth and spoke to me in solemn promise, 'I'm giving this land to your descendants.' This God will send his angel ahead of you to get a wife for my son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And if the woman won't come, you are free from this oath you've sworn to me. But under no circumstances are you to take my son back there."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So the servant put his hand under the thigh of his master Abraham and gave his solemn oath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The servant took ten of his master's camels and, loaded with gifts from his master, traveled to Aram Naharaim and the city of Nahor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Outside the city, he made the camels kneel at a well. It was evening, the time when the women came to draw water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He prayed, "O GOD, God of my master Abraham, make things go smoothly this day; treat my master Abraham well!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> As I stand here by the spring while the young women of the town come out to get water,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> let the girl to whom I say, 'Lower your jug and give me a drink,' and who answers, 'Drink, and let me also water your camels'--let her be the woman you have picked out for your servant Isaac. Then I'll know that you're working graciously behind the scenes for my master."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> It so happened that the words were barely out of his mouth when Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel whose mother was Milcah the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, came out with a water jug on her shoulder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The girl was stunningly beautiful, a pure virgin. She went down to the spring, filled her jug, and came back up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The servant ran to meet her and said, "Please, can I have a sip of water from your jug?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> She said, "Certainly, drink!" And she held the jug so that he could drink.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> When he had satisfied his thirst she said, "I'll get water for your camels, too, until they've drunk their fill."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> She promptly emptied her jug into the trough and ran back to the well to fill it, and she kept at it until she had watered all the camels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The man watched, silent. Was this GOD's answer? Had GOD made his trip a success or not?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> When the camels had finished drinking, the man brought out gifts, a gold nose ring weighing a little over a quarter of an ounce and two arm bracelets weighing about four ounces, and gave them to her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> He asked her, "Tell me about your family? Whose daughter are you? Is there room in your father's house for us to stay the night?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> She said, "I'm the daughter of Bethuel the son of Milcah and Nahor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> And there's plenty of room in our house for you to stay--and lots of straw and feed besides."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> At this the man bowed in worship before GOD</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> and prayed, "Blessed be GOD, God of my master Abraham: How generous and true you've been to my master; you've held nothing back. You led me right to the door of my master's brother!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> And the girl was off and running, telling everyone in her mother's house what had happened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Rebekah had a brother named Laban. Laban ran outside to the man at the spring.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> He had seen the nose ring and the bracelets on his sister and had heard her say, "The man said this and this and this to me." So he went to the man and there he was, still standing with his camels at the spring.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Laban welcomed him: "Come on in, blessed of GOD! Why are you standing out here? I've got the house ready for you; and there's also a place for your camels."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> So the man went into the house. The camels were unloaded and given straw and feed. Water was brought to bathe the feet of the man and the men with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Then Laban brought out food. But the man said, "I won't eat until I tell my story." Laban said, "Go ahead; tell us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The servant said, "I'm the servant of Abraham.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> GOD has blessed my master--he's a great man; GOD has given him sheep and cattle, silver and gold, servants and maidservants, camels and donkeys.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> And then to top it off, Sarah, my master's wife, gave him a son in her old age and he has passed everything on to his son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> My master made me promise, 'Don't get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites in whose land I live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> No, go to my father's home, back to my family, and get a wife for my son there.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> I said to my master, 'But what if the woman won't come with me?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> He said, 'GOD before whom I've walked faithfully will send his angel with you and he'll make things work out so that you'll bring back a wife for my son from my family, from the house of my father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Then you'll be free from the oath. If you go to my family and they won't give her to you, you will also be free from the oath.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> "Well, when I came this very day to the spring, I prayed, 'GOD, God of my master Abraham, make things turn out well in this task I've been given.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> I'm standing at this well. When a young woman comes here to draw water and I say to her, Please, give me a sip of water from your jug,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> and she says, Not only will I give you a drink, I'll also water your camels--let that woman be the wife GOD has picked out for my master's son.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> "I had barely finished offering this prayer, when Rebekah arrived, her jug on her shoulder. She went to the spring and drew water and I said, 'Please, can I have a drink?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> She didn't hesitate. She held out her jug and said, 'Drink; and when you're finished I'll also water your camels.' I drank, and she watered the camels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> I asked her, 'Whose daughter are you?' She said, 'The daughter of Bethuel whose parents were Nahor and Milcah.' I gave her a ring for her nose, bracelets for her arms,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> and bowed in worship to GOD. I praised GOD, the God of my master Abraham who had led me straight to the door of my master's family to get a wife for his son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> "Now, tell me what you are going to do. If you plan to respond with a generous yes, tell me. But if not, tell me plainly so I can figure out what to do next."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Laban and Bethuel answered, "This is totally from GOD. We have no say in the matter, either yes or no.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> Rebekah is yours: Take her and go; let her be the wife of your master's son, as GOD has made plain."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> When Abraham's servant heard their decision, he bowed in worship before GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> Then he brought out gifts of silver and gold and clothing and gave them to Rebekah. He also gave expensive gifts to her brother and mother.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> He and his men had supper and spent the night. But first thing in the morning they were up. He said, "Send me back to my master."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> Her brother and mother said, "Let the girl stay a while, say another ten days, and then go."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> He said, "Oh, don't make me wait! GOD has worked everything out so well--send me off to my master."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> They said, "We'll call the girl; we'll ask her."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> They called Rebekah and asked her, "Do you want to go with this man?" She said, "I'm ready to go."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="59"> So they sent them off, their sister Rebekah with her nurse, and Abraham's servant with his men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="60"> And they blessed Rebekah saying, You're our sister--live bountifully! And your children, triumphantly!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="61"> Rebekah and her young maids mounted the camels and followed the man. The servant took Rebekah and set off for home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="62"> Isaac was living in the Negev. He had just come back from a visit to Beer Lahai Roi.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="63"> In the evening he went out into the field; while meditating he looked up and saw camels coming.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="64"> When Rebekah looked up and saw Isaac, she got down from her camel</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="65"> and asked the servant, "Who is that man out in the field coming toward us?" "That is my master." She took her veil and covered herself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="66"> After the servant told Isaac the whole story of the trip,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="67"> Isaac took Rebekah into the tent of his mother Sarah. He married Rebekah and she became his wife and he loved her. So Isaac found comfort after his mother's death.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="25">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Abraham married a second time; his new wife was named Keturah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> She gave birth to Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Jokshan had Sheba and Dedan. Dedan's descendants were the Asshurim, the Letushim, and the Leummim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Midian had Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida, and Eldaah--all from the line of Keturah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But Abraham gave everything he possessed to Isaac.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> While he was still living, he gave gifts to the sons he had by his concubines, but then sent them away to the country of the east, putting a good distance between them and his son Isaac.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Abraham lived 175 years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then he took his final breath. He died happy at a ripe old age, full of years, and was buried with his family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah in the field of Ephron son of Zohar the Hittite, next to Mamre.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> It was the field that Abraham had bought from the Hittites. Abraham was buried next to his wife Sarah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> After Abraham's death, God blessed his son Isaac. Isaac lived at Beer Lahai Roi.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> This is the family tree of Ishmael son of Abraham, the son that Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah's maid, bore to Abraham.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> These are the names of Ishmael's sons in the order of their births: Nebaioth, Ishmael's first-born, Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Mishma, Dumah, Massa,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> all the sons of Ishmael. Their settlements and encampments were named after them. Twelve princes with their twelve tribes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Ishmael lived 137 years. When he breathed his last and died he was buried with his family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> His children settled down all the way from Havilah near Egypt eastward to Shur in the direction of Assyria. The Ishmaelites didn't get along with any of their kin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> This is the family tree of Isaac son of Abraham: Abraham had Isaac.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan Aram. She was the sister of Laban the Aramean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Isaac prayed hard to GOD for his wife because she was barren. GOD answered his prayer and Rebekah became pregnant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But the children tumbled and kicked inside her so much that she said, "If this is the way it's going to be, why go on living?" She went to GOD to find out what was going on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> GOD told her, Two nations are in your womb, two peoples butting heads while still in your body. One people will overpower the other, and the older will serve the younger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> When her time to give birth came, sure enough, there were twins in her womb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The first came out reddish, as if snugly wrapped in a hairy blanket; they named him Esau (Hairy).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> His brother followed, his fist clutched tight to Esau's heel; they named him Jacob (Heel). Isaac was sixty years old when they were born.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The boys grew up. Esau became an expert hunter, an outdoorsman. Jacob was a quiet man preferring life indoors among the tents.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Isaac loved Esau because he loved his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> One day Jacob was cooking a stew. Esau came in from the field, starved.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Esau said to Jacob, "Give me some of that red stew--I'm starved!" That's how he came to be called Edom (Red).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Jacob said, "Make me a trade: my stew for your rights as the firstborn."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Esau said, "I'm starving! What good is a birthright if I'm dead?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Jacob said, "First, swear to me." And he did it. On oath Esau traded away his rights as the firstborn.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Jacob gave him bread and the stew of lentils. He ate and drank, got up and left. That's how Esau shrugged off his rights as the firstborn.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="26">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> There was a famine in the land, as bad as the famine during the time of Abraham. And Isaac went down to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, in Gerar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD appeared to him and said, "Don't go down to Egypt; stay where I tell you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Stay here in this land and I'll be with you and bless you. I'm giving you and your children all these lands, fulfilling the oath that I swore to your father Abraham.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'll make your descendants as many as the stars in the sky and give them all these lands. All the nations of the Earth will get a blessing for themselves through your descendants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And why? Because Abraham obeyed my summons and kept my charge--my commands, my guidelines, my teachings."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So Isaac stayed put in Gerar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The men of the place questioned him about his wife. He said, "She's my sister." He was afraid to say "She's my wife." He was thinking, "These men might kill me to get Rebekah, she's so beautiful."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> One day, after they had been there quite a long time, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out his window and saw Isaac fondling his wife Rebekah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Abimelech sent for Isaac and said, "So, she's your wife. Why did you tell us 'She's my sister'?" Isaac said, "Because I thought I might get killed by someone who wanted her."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Abimelech said, "But think of what you might have done to us! Given a little more time, one of the men might have slept with your wife; you would have been responsible for bringing guilt down on us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then Abimelech gave orders to his people: "Anyone who so much as lays a hand on this man or his wife dies."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Isaac planted crops in that land and took in a huge harvest. GOD blessed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The man got richer and richer by the day until he was very wealthy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He accumulated flocks and herds and many, many servants, so much so that the Philistines began to envy him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They got back at him by throwing dirt and debris into all the wells that his father's servants had dug back in the days of his father Abraham, clogging up all the wells.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Finally, Abimelech told Isaac: "Leave. You've become far too big for us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> So Isaac left. He camped in the valley of Gerar and settled down there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Isaac dug again the wells which were dug in the days of his father Abraham but had been clogged up by the Philistines after Abraham's death. And he renamed them, using the original names his father had given them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> One day, as Isaac's servants were digging in the valley, they came on a well of spring water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The shepherds of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's shepherds, claiming, "This water is ours." So Isaac named the well Esek (Quarrel) because they quarreled over it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They dug another well and there was a difference over that one also, so he named it Sitnah (Accusation).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> He went on from there and dug yet another well. But there was no fighting over this one so he named it Rehoboth (Wide-Open Spaces), saying, "Now GOD has given us plenty of space to spread out in the land."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> From there he went up to Beersheba.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> That very night GOD appeared to him and said, I am the God of Abraham your father; don't fear a thing because I'm with you. I'll bless you and make your children flourish because of Abraham my servant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Isaac built an altar there and prayed, calling on GOD by name. He pitched his tent and his servants started digging another well.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Then Abimelech came to him from Gerar with Ahuzzath his advisor and Phicol the head of his troops.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Isaac asked them, "Why did you come to me? You hate me; you threw me out of your country."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> They said, "We've realized that GOD is on your side. We'd like to make a deal between us--a covenant</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> that we maintain friendly relations. We haven't bothered you in the past; we treated you kindly and let you leave us in peace. So--GOD's blessing be with you!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Isaac laid out a feast and they ate and drank together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Early in the morning they exchanged oaths. Then Isaac said good-bye and they parted as friends.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Later that same day, Isaac's servants came to him with news about the well they had been digging, "We've struck water!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Isaac named the well Sheba (Oath), and that's the name of the city, Beersheba (Oath-Well), to this day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> When Esau was forty years old he married Judith, daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath, daughter of Elon the Hittite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> They turned out to be thorns in the sides of Isaac and Rebekah.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="27">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When Isaac had become an old man and was nearly blind, he called his eldest son, Esau, and said, "My son." "Yes, Father?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "I'm an old man," he said; "I might die any day now.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Do me a favor: Get your quiver of arrows and your bow and go out in the country and hunt me some game.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then fix me a hearty meal, the kind that you know I like, and bring it to me to eat so that I can give you my personal blessing before I die."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Rebekah was eavesdropping as Isaac spoke to his son Esau. As soon as Esau had gone off to the country to hunt game for his father,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Rebekah spoke to her son Jacob. "I just overheard your father talking with your brother, Esau. He said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> 'Bring me some game and fix me a hearty meal so that I can eat and bless you with GOD's blessing before I die.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Now, my son, listen to me. Do what I tell you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Go to the flock and get me two young goats. Pick the best; I'll prepare them into a hearty meal, the kind that your father loves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then you'll take it to your father, he'll eat and bless you before he dies."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "But Mother," Jacob said, "my brother Esau is a hairy man and I have smooth skin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> What happens if my father touches me? He'll think I'm playing games with him. I'll bring down a curse on myself instead of a blessing."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "If it comes to that," said his mother, "I'll take the curse on myself. Now, just do what I say. Go and get the goats."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> So he went and got them and brought them to his mother and she cooked a hearty meal, the kind his father loved so much.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Rebekah took the dress-up clothes of her older son Esau and put them on her younger son Jacob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> She took the goatskins and covered his hands and the smooth nape of his neck.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then she placed the hearty meal she had fixed and fresh bread she'd baked into the hands of her son Jacob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> He went to his father and said, "My father!" "Yes?" he said. "Which son are you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Jacob answered his father, "I'm your firstborn son Esau. I did what you told me. Come now; sit up and eat of my game so you can give me your personal blessing."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Isaac said, "So soon? How did you get it so quickly?" "Because your GOD cleared the way for me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Isaac said, "Come close, son; let me touch you--are you really my son Esau?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> So Jacob moved close to his father Isaac. Isaac felt him and said, "The voice is Jacob's voice but the hands are the hands of Esau."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> He didn't recognize him because his hands were hairy, like his brother Esau's. But as he was about to bless him</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> he pressed him, "You're sure? You are my son Esau?" "Yes. I am."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Isaac said, "Bring the food so I can eat of my son's game and give you my personal blessing." Jacob brought it to him and he ate. He also brought him wine and he drank.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Then Isaac said, "Come close, son, and kiss me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> He came close and kissed him and Isaac smelled the smell of his clothes. Finally, he blessed him, Ahhh. The smell of my son is like the smell of the open country blessed by GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> May God give you of Heaven's dew and Earth's bounty of grain and wine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> May peoples serve you and nations honor you. You will master your brothers, and your mother's sons will honor you. Those who curse you will be cursed, those who bless you will be blessed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> And then right after Isaac had blessed Jacob and Jacob had left, Esau showed up from the hunt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> He also had prepared a hearty meal. He came to his father and said, "Let my father get up and eat of his son's game, that he may give me his personal blessing."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> His father Isaac said, "And who are you?" "I am your son, your firstborn, Esau."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Isaac started to tremble, shaking violently. He said, "Then who hunted game and brought it to me? I finished the meal just now, before you walked in. And I blessed him--he's blessed for good!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Esau, hearing his father's words, sobbed violently and most bitterly, and cried to his father, "My father! Can't you also bless me?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> "Your brother," he said, "came here falsely and took your blessing."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Esau said, "Not for nothing was he named Jacob, the Heel. Twice now he's tricked me: first he took my birthright and now he's taken my blessing." He begged, "Haven't you kept back any blessing for me?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Isaac answered Esau, "I've made him your master, and all his brothers his servants, and lavished grain and wine on him. I've given it all away. What's left for you, my son?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> "But don't you have just one blessing for me, Father? Oh, bless me my father! Bless me!" Esau sobbed inconsolably.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Isaac said to him, You'll live far from Earth's bounty, remote from Heaven's dew.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> You'll live by your sword, hand-to-mouth, and you'll serve your brother. But when you can't take it any more you'll break loose and run free.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Esau seethed in anger against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him; he brooded, "The time for mourning my father's death is close. And then I'll kill my brother Jacob."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> When these words of her older son Esau were reported to Rebekah, she called her younger son Jacob and said, "Your brother Esau is plotting vengeance against you. He's going to kill you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Son, listen to me. Get out of here. Run for your life to Haran, to my brother Laban.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Live with him for a while until your brother cools down,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> until his anger subsides and he forgets what you did to him. I'll then send for you and bring you back. Why should I lose both of you the same day?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Rebekah spoke to Isaac, "I'm sick to death of these Hittite women. If Jacob also marries a native Hittite woman, why live?"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="28">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> So Isaac called in Jacob and blessed him. Then he ordered him, "Don't take a Caananite wife.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Leave at once. Go to Paddan Aram to the family of your mother's father, Bethuel. Get a wife for yourself from the daughters of your uncle Laban.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "And may The Strong God bless you and give you many, many children, a congregation of peoples;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> and pass on the blessing of Abraham to you and your descendants so that you will get this land in which you live, this land God gave Abraham."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> So Isaac sent Jacob off. He went to Paddan Aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah who was the mother of Jacob and Esau.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Esau learned that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him to Paddan Aram to get a wife there, and while blessing him commanded, "Don't marry a Canaanite woman,"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> and that Jacob had obeyed his parents and gone to Paddan Aram.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> When Esau realized how deeply his father Isaac disliked the Canaanite women,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son. This was in addition to the wives he already had.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Jacob left Beersheba and went to Haran.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He came to a certain place and camped for the night since the sun had set. He took one of the stones there, set it under his head and lay down to sleep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And he dreamed: A stairway was set on the ground and it reached all the way to the sky; angels of God were going up and going down on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then GOD was right before him, saying, "I am GOD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. I'm giving the ground on which you are sleeping to you and to your descendants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Your descendants will be as the dust of the Earth; they'll stretch from west to east and from north to south. All the families of the Earth will bless themselves in you and your descendants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Yes. I'll stay with you, I'll protect you wherever you go, and I'll bring you back to this very ground. I'll stick with you until I've done everything I promised you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Jacob woke up from his sleep. He said, "GOD is in this place--truly. And I didn't even know it!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He was terrified. He whispered in awe, "Incredible. Wonderful. Holy. This is God's House. This is the Gate of Heaven."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Jacob was up first thing in the morning. He took the stone he had used for his pillow and stood it up as a memorial pillar and poured oil over it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He christened the place Bethel (God's House). The name of the town had been Luz until then.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Jacob vowed a vow: "If God stands by me and protects me on this journey on which I'm setting out, keeps me in food and clothing,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> and brings me back in one piece to my father's house, this GOD will be my God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> This stone that I have set up as a memorial pillar will mark this as a place where God lives. And everything you give me, I'll return a tenth to you."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="29">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Jacob set out again on his way to the people of the east.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He noticed a well out in an open field with three flocks of sheep bedded down around it. This was the common well from which the flocks were watered. The stone over the mouth of the well was huge.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When all the flocks were gathered, the shepherds would roll the stone from the well and water the sheep; then they would return the stone, covering the well.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Jacob said, "Hello friends. Where are you from?" They said, "We're from Haran."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Jacob asked, "Do you know Laban son of Nahor?" "We do."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Are things well with him?" Jacob continued. "Very well," they said. "And here is his daughter Rachel coming with the flock."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Jacob said, "There's a lot of daylight still left; it isn't time to round up the sheep yet, is it? So why not water the flocks and go back to grazing?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "We can't," they said. "Not until all the shepherds get here. It takes all of us to roll the stone from the well. Not until then can we water the flocks."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> While Jacob was in conversation with them, Rachel came up with her father's sheep. She was the shepherd.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The moment Jacob spotted Rachel, daughter of Laban his mother's brother, saw her arriving with his uncle Laban's sheep, he went and single-handedly rolled the stone from the mouth of the well and watered the sheep of his uncle Laban.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then he kissed Rachel and broke into tears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He told Rachel that he was related to her father, that he was Rebekah's son. She ran and told her father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> When Laban heard the news--Jacob, his sister's son!--he ran out to meet him, embraced and kissed him and brought him home. Jacob told Laban the story of everything that had happened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Laban said, "You're family! My flesh and blood!" When Jacob had been with him for a month,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Laban said, "Just because you're my nephew, you shouldn't work for me for nothing. Tell me what you want to be paid. What's a fair wage?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Now Laban had two daughters; Leah was the older and Rachel the younger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Leah had nice eyes, but Rachel was stunningly beautiful.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And it was Rachel that Jacob loved. So Jacob answered, "I will work for you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "It is far better," said Laban, "that I give her to you than marry her to some outsider. Yes. Stay here with me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> So Jacob worked seven years for Rachel. But it only seemed like a few days, he loved her so much.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then Jacob said to Laban, "Give me my wife; I've completed what we agreed I'd do. I'm ready to consummate my marriage."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Laban invited everyone around and threw a big feast.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> At evening, though, he got his daughter Leah and brought her to the marriage bed, and Jacob slept with her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> (Laban gave his maid Zilpah to his daughter Leah as her maid.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Morning came: There was Leah in the marriage bed! Jacob confronted Laban, "What have you done to me? Didn't I work all this time for the hand of Rachel? Why did you cheat me?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "We don't do it that way in our country," said Laban. "We don't marry off the younger daughter before the older.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Enjoy your week of honeymoon, and then we'll give you the other one also. But it will cost you another seven years of work."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Jacob agreed. When he'd completed the honeymoon week, Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> (Laban gave his maid Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her maid.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Jacob then slept with her. And he loved Rachel more than Leah. He worked for Laban another seven years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> When GOD realized that Leah was unloved, he opened her womb. But Rachel was barren.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Leah became pregnant and had a son. She named him Reuben (Look-It's-a-Boy!). "This is a sign," she said, "that GOD has seen my misery; and a sign that now my husband will love me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> She became pregnant again and had another son. "GOD heard," she said, "that I was unloved and so he gave me this son also." She named this one Simeon (GOD-Heard).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> She became pregnant yet again--another son. She said, "Now maybe my husband will connect with me--I've given him three sons!" That's why she named him Levi (Connect).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> She became pregnant a final time and had a fourth son. She said, "This time I'll praise GOD." So she named him Judah (Praise-GOD). Then she stopped having children.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="30">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When Rachel realized that she wasn't having any children for Jacob, she became jealous of her sister. She told Jacob, "Give me sons or I'll die!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Jacob got angry with Rachel and said, "Am I God? Am I the one who refused you babies?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Rachel said, "Here's my maid Bilhah. Sleep with her. Let her substitute for me so I can have a child through her and build a family."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> So she gave him her maid Bilhah for a wife and Jacob slept with her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Bilhah became pregnant and gave Jacob a son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Rachel said, "God took my side and vindicated me. He listened to me and gave me a son." She named him Dan (Vindication).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Rachel's maid Bilhah became pregnant again and gave Jacob a second son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Rachel said, "I've been in an all-out fight with my sister--and I've won." So she named him Naphtali (Fight).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When Leah saw that she wasn't having any more children, she gave her maid Zilpah to Jacob for a wife.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Zilpah had a son for Jacob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Leah said, "How fortunate!" and she named him Gad (Lucky).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When Leah's maid Zilpah had a second son for Jacob,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Leah said, "A happy day! The women will congratulate me in my happiness." So she named him Asher (Happy).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> One day during the wheat harvest Reuben found some mandrakes in the field and brought them home to his mother Leah. Rachel asked Leah, "Could I please have some of your son's mandrakes?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Leah said, "Wasn't it enough that you got my husband away from me? And now you also want my son's mandrakes?" Rachel said, "All right. I'll let him sleep with you tonight in exchange for your son's love-apples."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When Jacob came home that evening from the fields, Leah was there to meet him: "Sleep with me tonight; I've bartered my son's mandrakes for a night with you." So he slept with her that night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> God listened to Leah; she became pregnant and gave Jacob a fifth son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> She said, "God rewarded me for giving my maid to my husband." She named him Issachar (Bartered).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Leah became pregnant yet again and gave Jacob a sixth son,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> saying, "God has given me a great gift. This time my husband will honor me with gifts--I've given him six sons!" She named him Zebulun (Honor).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Last of all she had a daughter and named her Dinah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> And then God remembered Rachel. God listened to her and opened her womb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> She became pregnant and had a son. She said, "God has taken away my humiliation."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> She named him Joseph (Add), praying, "May GOD add yet another son to me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> After Rachel had had Joseph, Jacob spoke to Laban, "Let me go back home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Give me my wives and children for whom I've served you. You know how hard I've worked for you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Laban said, "If you please, I have learned through divine inquiry that GOD has blessed me because of you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> He went on, "So name your wages. I'll pay you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Jacob replied, "You know well what my work has meant to you and how your livestock has flourished under my care.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The little you had when I arrived has increased greatly; everything I did resulted in blessings for you. Isn't it about time that I do something for my own family?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "So, what should I pay you?" Jacob said, "You don't have to pay me a thing. But how about this? I will go back to pasture and care for your flocks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Go through your entire flock today and take out every speckled or spotted sheep, every dark-colored lamb, every spotted or speckled goat. They will be my wages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> That way you can check on my honesty when you assess my wages. If you find any goat that's not speckled or spotted or a sheep that's not black, you will know that I stole it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "Fair enough," said Laban. "It's a deal."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> But that very day Laban removed all the mottled and spotted billy goats and all the speckled and spotted nanny-goats, every animal that had even a touch of white on it plus all the black sheep and placed them under the care of his sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Then he put a three-day journey between himself and Jacob. Meanwhile Jacob went on tending what was left of Laban's flock.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> But Jacob got fresh branches from poplar, almond, and plane trees and peeled the bark, leaving white stripes on them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> He stuck the peeled branches in front of the watering troughs where the flocks came to drink. When the flocks were in heat, they came to drink</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> and mated in front of the streaked branches. Then they gave birth to young that were streaked or spotted or speckled.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Jacob placed the ewes before the dark-colored animals of Laban. That way he got distinctive flocks for himself which he didn't mix with Laban's flocks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> And when the sturdier animals were mating, Jacob placed branches at the troughs in view of the animals so that they mated in front of the branches.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> But he wouldn't set up the branches before the feebler animals. That way the feeble animals went to Laban and the sturdy ones to Jacob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> The man got richer and richer, acquiring huge flocks, lots and lots of servants, not to mention camels and donkeys.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="31">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Jacob learned that Laban's sons were talking behind his back: "Jacob has used our father's wealth to make himself rich at our father's expense."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> At the same time, Jacob noticed that Laban had changed toward him. He wasn't treating him the same.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> That's when GOD said to Jacob, "Go back home where you were born. I'll go with you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> So Jacob sent word for Rachel and Leah to meet him out in the field where his flocks were.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He said, "I notice that your father has changed toward me; he doesn't treat me the same as before. But the God of my father hasn't changed; he's still with me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> You know how hard I've worked for your father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Still, your father has cheated me over and over, changing my wages time and again. But God never let him really hurt me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> If he said, 'Your wages will consist of speckled animals' the whole flock would start having speckled lambs and kids. And if he said, 'From now on your wages will be streaked animals' the whole flock would have streaked ones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Over and over God used your father's livestock to reward me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Once, while the flocks were mating, I had a dream and saw the billy goats, all of them streaked, speckled, and mottled, mounting their mates.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> In the dream an angel of God called out to me, 'Jacob!' "I said, 'Yes?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "He said, 'Watch closely. Notice that all the goats in the flock that are mating are streaked, speckled, and mottled. I know what Laban's been doing to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I'm the God of Bethel where you consecrated a pillar and made a vow to me. Now be on your way, get out of this place, go home to your birthplace.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Rachel and Leah said, "Has he treated us any better?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Aren't we treated worse than outsiders? All he wanted was the money he got from selling us, and he's spent all that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Any wealth that God has seen fit to return to us from our father is justly ours and our children's. Go ahead. Do what God told you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Jacob did it. He put his children and his wives on camels</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> and gathered all his livestock and everything he had gotten, everything acquired in Paddan Aram, to go back home to his father Isaac in the land of Canaan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Laban was off shearing sheep. Rachel stole her father's household gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And Jacob had concealed his plans so well that Laban the Aramean had no idea what was going on--he was totally in the dark.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Jacob got away with everything he had and was soon across the Euphrates headed for the hill country of Gilead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Three days later, Laban got the news: "Jacob's run off."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Laban rounded up his relatives and chased after him. Seven days later they caught up with him in the hill country of Gilead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> That night God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream and said, "Be careful what you do to Jacob, whether good or bad."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> When Laban reached him, Jacob's tents were pitched in the Gilead mountains; Laban pitched his tents there too.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "What do you mean," said Laban, "by keeping me in the dark and sneaking off, hauling my daughters off like prisoners of war?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Why did you run off like a thief in the night? Why didn't you tell me? Why, I would have sent you off with a great celebration--music, timbrels, flutes!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> But you wouldn't permit me so much as a kiss for my daughters and grandchildren. It was a stupid thing for you to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> If I had a mind to, I could destroy you right now, but the God of your father spoke to me last night, 'Be careful what you do to Jacob, whether good or bad.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> I understand. You left because you were homesick. But why did you steal my household gods?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Jacob answered Laban, "I was afraid. I thought you would take your daughters away from me by brute force.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> But as far as your gods are concerned, if you find that anybody here has them, that person dies. With all of us watching, look around. If you find anything here that belongs to you, take it." Jacob didn't know that Rachel had stolen the gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Laban went through Jacob's tent, Leah's tent, and the tents of the two maids but didn't find them. He went from Leah's tent to Rachel's.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> But Rachel had taken the household gods, put them inside a camel cushion, and was sitting on them. When Laban had gone through the tent, searching high and low without finding a thing,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Rachel said to her father, "Don't think I'm being disrespectful, my master, that I can't stand before you, but I'm having my period." So even though he turned the place upside down in his search, he didn't find the household gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Now it was Jacob's turn to get angry. He lit into Laban: "So what's my crime, what wrong have I done you that you badger me like this?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> You've ransacked the place. Have you turned up a single thing that's yours? Let's see it--display the evidence. Our two families can be the jury and decide between us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> "In the twenty years I've worked for you, ewes and she-goats never miscarried. I never feasted on the rams from your flock.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> I never brought you a torn carcass killed by wild animals but that I paid for it out of my own pocket--actually, you made me pay whether it was my fault or not.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> I was out in all kinds of weather, from torrid heat to freezing cold, putting in many a sleepless night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> For twenty years I've done this: I slaved away fourteen years for your two daughters and another six years for your flock and you changed my wages ten times.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not stuck with me, you would have sent me off penniless. But God saw the fix I was in and how hard I had worked and last night rendered his verdict."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Laban defended himself: "The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, the flock is my flock--everything you see is mine. But what can I do about my daughters or for the children they've had?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> So let's settle things between us, make a covenant--God will be the witness between us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> Jacob took a stone and set it upright as a pillar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Jacob called his family around, "Get stones!" They gathered stones and heaped them up and then ate there beside the pile of stones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> Laban named it in Aramaic, Yegar-sahadutha (Witness Monument); Jacob echoed the naming in Hebrew, Galeed (Witness Monument).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> Laban said, "This monument of stones will be a witness, beginning now, between you and me." (That's why it is called Galeed--Witness Monument.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> It is also called Mizpah (Watchtower) because Laban said, "GOD keep watch between you and me when we are out of each other's sight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> If you mistreat my daughters or take other wives when there's no one around to see you, God will see you and stand witness between us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> Laban continued to Jacob, "This monument of stones and this stone pillar that I have set up is a witness,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> a witness that I won't cross this line to hurt you and you won't cross this line to hurt me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor (the God of their ancestor) will keep things straight between us." Jacob promised, swearing by the Fear, the God of his father Isaac.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> Then Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain and worshiped, calling in all his family members to the meal. They ate and slept that night on the mountain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> Laban got up early the next morning, kissed his grandchildren and his daughters, blessed them, and then set off for home.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="32">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> And Jacob went his way. Angels of God met him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> When Jacob saw them he said, "Oh! God's Camp!" And he named the place Mahanaim (Campground).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then Jacob sent messengers on ahead to his brother Esau in the land of Seir in Edom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He instructed them: "Tell my master Esau this, 'A message from your servant Jacob: I've been staying with Laban and couldn't get away until now.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I've acquired cattle and donkeys and sheep; also men and women servants. I'm telling you all this, my master, hoping for your approval.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The messengers came back to Jacob and said, "We talked to your brother Esau and he's on his way to meet you. But he has four hundred men with him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Jacob was scared. Very scared. Panicked, he divided his people, sheep, cattle, and camels into two camps.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He thought, "If Esau comes on the first camp and attacks it, the other camp has a chance to get away."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And then Jacob prayed, "God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, GOD who told me, 'Go back to your parents' homeland and I'll treat you well.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I don't deserve all the love and loyalty you've shown me. When I left here and crossed the Jordan I only had the clothes on my back, and now look at me--two camps!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Save me, please, from the violence of my brother, my angry brother! I'm afraid he'll come and attack us all, me, the mothers and the children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> You yourself said, 'I will treat you well; I'll make your descendants like the sands of the sea, far too many to count.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He slept the night there. Then he prepared a present for his brother Esau from his possessions:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> two hundred female goats, twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> thirty camels with their nursing young, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He put a servant in charge of each herd and said, "Go ahead of me and keep a healthy space between each herd."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then he instructed the first one out: "When my brother Esau comes close and asks, 'Who is your master? Where are you going? Who owns these?'--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> answer him like this, 'Your servant Jacob. They are a gift to my master Esau. He's on his way.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He gave the same instructions to the second servant and to the third--to each in turn as they set out with their herds:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "Say 'Your servant Jacob is on his way behind us.'" He thought, "I will soften him up with the succession of gifts. Then when he sees me face-to-face, maybe he'll be glad to welcome me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> So his gifts went before him while he settled down for the night in the camp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But during the night he got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants, and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> He got them safely across the brook along with all his possessions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> But Jacob stayed behind by himself, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> When the man saw that he couldn't get the best of Jacob as they wrestled, he deliberately threw Jacob's hip out of joint.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The man said, "Let me go; it's daybreak." Jacob said, "I'm not letting you go 'til you bless me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The man said, "What's your name?" He answered, "Jacob."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The man said, "But no longer. Your name is no longer Jacob. From now on it's Israel (God-Wrestler); you've wrestled with God and you've come through."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Jacob asked, "And what's your name?" The man said, "Why do you want to know my name?" And then, right then and there, he blessed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Jacob named the place Peniel (God's Face) because, he said, "I saw God face-to-face and lived to tell the story!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The sun came up as he left Peniel, limping because of his hip.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> (This is why Israelites to this day don't eat the hip muscle; because Jacob's hip was thrown out of joint.)</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="33">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Jacob looked up and saw Esau coming with his four hundred men. He divided the children between Leah and Rachel and the two maidservants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He put the maidservants out in front, Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph last.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He led the way and, as he approached his brother, bowed seven times, honoring his brother.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But Esau ran up and embraced him, held him tight and kissed him. And they both wept.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then Esau looked around and saw the women and children: "And who are these with you?" Jacob said, "The children that God saw fit to bless me with."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then the maidservants came up with their children and bowed;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> then Leah and her children, also bowing; and finally, Joseph and Rachel came up and bowed to Esau.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Esau then asked, "And what was the meaning of all those herds that I met?" "I was hoping that they would pave the way for my master to welcome me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Esau said, "Oh, brother. I have plenty of everything--keep what is yours for yourself."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Jacob said, "Please. If you can find it in your heart to welcome me, accept these gifts. When I saw your face, it was as the face of God smiling on me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Accept the gifts I have brought for you. God has been good to me and I have more than enough." Jacob urged the gifts on him and Esau accepted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then Esau said, "Let's start out on our way; I'll take the lead."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But Jacob said, "My master can see that the children are frail. And the flocks and herds are nursing, making for slow going. If I push them too hard, even for a day, I'd lose them all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> So, master, you go on ahead of your servant, while I take it easy at the pace of my flocks and children. I'll catch up with you in Seir."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Esau said, "Let me at least lend you some of my men." "There's no need," said Jacob. "Your generous welcome is all I need or want."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So Esau set out that day and made his way back to Seir.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And Jacob left for Succoth. He built a shelter for himself and sheds for his livestock. That's how the place came to be called Succoth (Sheds).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And that's how it happened that Jacob arrived all in one piece in Shechem in the land of Canaan--all the way from Paddan Aram. He camped near the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He bought the land where he pitched his tent from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem. He paid a hundred silver coins for it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Then he built an altar there and named it El-Elohe-Israel (Mighty Is the God of Israel).</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="34">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> One day Dinah, the daughter Leah had given Jacob, went to visit some of the women in that country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite who was chieftain there, saw her and raped her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then he felt a strong attraction to Dinah, Jacob's daughter, fell in love with her and wooed her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Shechem went to his father Hamor, "Get me this girl for my wife."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Jacob heard that Shechem had raped his daughter Dinah, but his sons were out in the fields with the livestock so he didn't say anything until they got home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Hamor, Shechem's father, went to Jacob to work out marriage arrangements.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Meanwhile Jacob's sons on their way back from the fields heard what had happened. They were outraged, explosive with anger. Shechem's rape of Jacob's daughter was intolerable in Israel and not to be put up with.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Hamor spoke with Jacob and his sons, "My son Shechem is head over heels in love with your daughter--give her to him as his wife.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Intermarry with us. Give your daughters to us and we'll give our daughters to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Live together with us as one family. Settle down among us and make yourselves at home. Prosper among us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Shechem then spoke for himself, addressing Dinah's father and brothers: "Please, say yes. I'll pay anything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Set the bridal price as high as you will--the sky's the limit! Only give me this girl for my wife."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Jacob's sons answered Shechem and his father with cunning. Their sister, after all, had been raped.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They said, "This is impossible. We could never give our sister to a man who was uncircumcised. Why, we'd be disgraced.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The only condition on which we can talk business is if all your men become circumcised like us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Then we will freely exchange daughters in marriage and make ourselves at home among you and become one big, happy family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But if this is not an acceptable condition, we will take our sister and leave."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> That seemed fair enough to Hamor and his son Shechem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The young man was so smitten with Jacob's daughter that he proceeded to do what had been asked. He was also the most admired son in his father's family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> So Hamor and his son Shechem went to the public square and spoke to the town council:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "These men like us; they are our friends. Let them settle down here and make themselves at home; there's plenty of room in the country for them. And, just think, we can even exchange our daughters in marriage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But these men will only accept our invitation to live with us and become one big family on one condition, that all our males become circumcised just as they themselves are.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> This is a very good deal for us--these people are very wealthy with great herds of livestock and we're going to get our hands on it. So let's do what they ask and have them settle down with us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Everyone who was anyone in the city agreed with Hamor and his son, Shechem; every male was circumcised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Three days after the circumcision, while all the men were still very sore, two of Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, each with his sword in hand, walked into the city as if they owned the place and murdered every man there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> They also killed Hamor and his son Shechem, rescued Dinah from Shechem's house, and left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> When the rest of Jacob's sons came on the scene of slaughter, they looted the entire city in retaliation for Dinah's rape.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Flocks, herds, donkeys, belongings--everything, whether in the city or the fields--they took.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> And then they took all the wives and children captive and ransacked their homes for anything valuable.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, "You've made my name stink to high heaven among the people here, these Canaanites and Perizzites. If they decided to gang up on us and attack, as few as we are we wouldn't stand a chance; they'd wipe me and my people right off the map."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> They said, "Nobody is going to treat our sister like a whore and get by with it."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="35">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> God spoke to Jacob: "Go back to Bethel. Stay there and build an altar to the God who revealed himself to you when you were running for your life from your brother Esau."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Jacob told his family and all those who lived with him, "Throw out all the alien gods which you have, take a good bath and put on clean clothes,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> we're going to Bethel. I'm going to build an altar there to the God who answered me when I was in trouble and has stuck with me everywhere I've gone since."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They turned over to Jacob all the alien gods they'd been holding on to, along with their lucky-charm earrings. Jacob buried them under the oak tree in Shechem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then they set out. A paralyzing fear descended on all the surrounding villages so that they were unable to pursue the sons of Jacob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Jacob and his company arrived at Luz, that is, Bethel, in the land of Canaan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He built an altar there and named it El-Bethel (God-of-Bethel) because that's where God revealed himself to him when he was running from his brother.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And that's when Rebekah's nurse, Deborah, died. She was buried just below Bethel under the oak tree. It was named Allon-Bacuth (Weeping-Oak).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> God revealed himself once again to Jacob, after he had come back from Paddan Aram and blessed him:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Your name is Jacob (Heel); but that's your name no longer. From now on your name is Israel (God-Wrestler)."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> God continued, I am The Strong God. Have children! Flourish! A nation--a whole company of nations!-- will come from you. Kings will come from your loins;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> the land I gave Abraham and Isaac I now give to you, and pass it on to your descendants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And then God was gone, ascended from the place where he had spoken with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Jacob set up a stone pillar on the spot where God had spoken with him. He poured a drink offering on it and anointed it with oil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Jacob dedicated the place where God had spoken with him, Bethel (God's-House).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They left Bethel. They were still quite a ways from Ephrath when Rachel went into labor--hard, hard labor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When her labor pains were at their worst, the midwife said to her, "Don't be afraid--you have another boy."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> With her last breath, for she was now dying, she named him Ben-oni (Son-of-My-Pain), but his father named him Ben-jamin (Son-of-Good-Fortune).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Rachel died and was buried on the road to Ephrath, that is, Bethlehem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Jacob set up a pillar to mark her grave. It is still there today, "Rachel's Grave Stone."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Israel kept on his way and set up camp at Migdal Eder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> While Israel was living in that region, Reuben went and slept with his father's concubine, Bilhah. And Israel heard of what he did. There were twelve sons of Jacob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The sons by Leah: Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The sons by Rachel: Joseph, Benjamin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The sons by Bilhah, Rachel's maid: Dan, Naphtali.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The sons by Zilpah, Leah's maid: Gad, Asher. These were Jacob's sons, born to him in Paddan Aram.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Finally, Jacob made it back home to his father Isaac at Mamre in Kiriath Arba, present-day Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac had lived.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Isaac was now 180 years old.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Isaac breathed his last and died--an old man full of years. He was buried with his family by his sons Esau and Jacob.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="36">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> This is the family tree of Esau, who is also called Edom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Esau married women of Canaan: Adah, daughter of Elon the Hittite; Oholibamah, daughter of Anah and the granddaughter of Zibeon the Hivite;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> and Basemath, daughter of Ishmael and sister of Nebaioth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Adah gave Esau Eliphaz; Basemath had Reuel;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Oholibamah had Jeush, Jalam, and Korah. These are the sons of Esau who were born to him in the land of Canaan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Esau gathered up his wives, sons and daughters, and everybody in his household, along with all his livestock--all the animals and possessions he had gotten in Canaan--and moved a considerable distance away from his brother Jacob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The brothers had too many possessions to live together in the same place; the land couldn't support their combined herds of livestock.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> So Esau ended up settling in the hill country of Seir (Esau and Edom are the same).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So this is the family tree of Esau, ancestor of the people of Edom, in the hill country of Seir.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The names of Esau's sons: Eliphaz, son of Esau's wife Adah; Reuel, son of Esau's wife Basemath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The sons of Eliphaz: Teman, Omar, Zepho, Gatam, and Kenaz.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> (Eliphaz also had a concubine Timna, who had Amalek.) These are the grandsons of Esau's wife Adah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And these are the sons of Reuel: Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzah--grandsons of Esau's wife Basemath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> These are the sons of Esau's wife Oholibamah, daughter of Anah the son of Zibeon. She gave Esau his sons Jeush, Jalam, and Korah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> These are the chieftains in Esau's family tree. From the sons of Eliphaz, Esau's firstborn, came the chieftains Teman, Omar, Zepho, Kenaz,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Korah, Gatam, and Amalek--the chieftains of Eliphaz in the land of Edom; all of them sons of Adah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> From the sons of Esau's son Reuel, came the chieftains Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzah. These are the chieftains of Reuel in the land of Edom; all these were sons of Esau's wife Basemath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> These are the sons of Esau's wife Oholibamah: the chieftains Jeush, Jalam, and Korah--chieftains born of Esau's wife Oholibamah, daughter of Anah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> These are the sons of Esau, that is, Edom, and these are their chieftains.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> This is the family tree of Seir the Horite, who were native to that land: Lotan, Shobal, Zibeon, Anah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Dishon, Ezer, and Dishan. These are the chieftains of the Horites, the sons of Seir in the land of Edom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The sons of Lotan were Hori and Homam; Lotan's sister was Timna.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The sons of Shobal were Alvan, Manahath, Ebal, Shepho, and Onam.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The sons of Zibeon were Aiah and Anah--this is the same Anah who found the hot springs in the wilderness while herding his father Zibeon's donkeys.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The children of Anah were Dishon and his daughter Oholibamah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The sons of Dishon were Hemdan, Eshban, Ithran, and Keran.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The sons of Ezer: Bilhan, Zaavan, and Akan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The sons of Dishan: Uz and Aran.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> And these were the Horite chieftains: Lotan, Shobal, Zibeon, Anah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Dishon, Ezer, and Dishan--the Horite chieftains clan by clan in the land of Seir.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> And these are the kings who ruled in Edom before there was a king in Israel:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Bela son of Beor was the king of Edom; the name of his city was Dinhabah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> When Bela died, Jobab son of Zerah from Bozrah became the next king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> When Jobab died, he was followed by Hushan from the land of the Temanites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> When Hushan died, he was followed by Hadad son of Bedad; he was the king who defeated the Midianites in Moab; the name of his city was Avith.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> When Hadad died, Samlah of Masrekah became the next king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> When Samlah died, Shaul from Rehoboth-on-the-River became king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> When Shaul died, he was followed by Baal-Hanan son of Acbor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> When Baal-Hanan son of Acbor died, Hadad became king; the name of his city was Pau; his wife's name was Mehetabel daughter of Matred, daughter of Me-Zahab.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> And these are the chieftains from the line of Esau, clan by clan, region by region: Timna, Alvah, Jetheth,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Oholibamah, Elah, Pinon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Kenaz, Teman, Mibzar,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Magdiel, and Iram--the chieftains of Edom as they occupied their various regions. This accounts for the family tree of Esau, ancestor of all Edomites.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="37">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Meanwhile Jacob had settled down where his father had lived, the land of Canaan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> This is the story of Jacob. The story continues with Joseph, seventeen years old at the time, helping out his brothers in herding the flocks. These were his half brothers actually, the sons of his father's wives Bilhah and Zilpah. And Joseph brought his father bad reports on them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons because he was the child of his old age. And he made him an elaborately embroidered coat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When his brothers realized that their father loved him more than them, they grew to hate him--they wouldn't even speak to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Joseph had a dream. When he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He said, "Listen to this dream I had.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> We were all out in the field gathering bundles of wheat. All of a sudden my bundle stood straight up and your bundles circled around it and bowed down to mine."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> His brothers said, "So! You're going to rule us? You're going to boss us around?" And they hated him more than ever because of his dreams and the way he talked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He had another dream and told this one also to his brothers: "I dreamed another dream--the sun and moon and eleven stars bowed down to me!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When he told it to his father and brothers, his father reprimanded him: "What's with all this dreaming? Am I and your mother and your brothers all supposed to bow down to you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Now his brothers were really jealous; but his father brooded over the whole business.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> His brothers had gone off to Shechem where they were pasturing their father's flocks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Israel said to Joseph, "Your brothers are with flocks in Shechem. Come, I want to send you to them." Joseph said, "I'm ready."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He said, "Go and see how your brothers and the flocks are doing and bring me back a report." He sent him off from the valley of Hebron to Shechem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> A man met him as he was wandering through the fields and asked him, "What are you looking for?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "I'm trying to find my brothers. Do you have any idea where they are grazing their flocks?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The man said, "They've left here, but I overheard them say, 'Let's go to Dothan.'" So Joseph took off, tracked his brothers down, and found them in Dothan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They spotted him off in the distance. By the time he got to them they had cooked up a plot to kill him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The brothers were saying, "Here comes that dreamer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Let's kill him and throw him into one of these old cisterns; we can say that a vicious animal ate him up. We'll see what his dreams amount to."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Reuben heard the brothers talking and intervened to save him, "We're not going to kill him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> No murder. Go ahead and throw him in this cistern out here in the wild, but don't hurt him." Reuben planned to go back later and get him out and take him back to his father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> When Joseph reached his brothers, they ripped off the fancy coat he was wearing,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> grabbed him, and threw him into a cistern. The cistern was dry; there wasn't any water in it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Then they sat down to eat their supper. Looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites on their way from Gilead, their camels loaded with spices, ointments, and perfumes to sell in Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Judah said, "Brothers, what are we going to get out of killing our brother and concealing the evidence?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Let's sell him to the Ishmaelites, but let's not kill him--he is, after all, our brother, our own flesh and blood." His brothers agreed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> By that time the Midianite traders were passing by. His brothers pulled Joseph out of the cistern and sold him for twenty pieces of silver to the Ishmaelites who took Joseph with them down to Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Later Reuben came back and went to the cistern--no Joseph! He ripped his clothes in despair.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Beside himself, he went to his brothers. "The boy's gone! What am I going to do!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> They took Joseph's coat, butchered a goat, and dipped the coat in the blood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> They took the fancy coat back to their father and said, "We found this. Look it over--do you think this is your son's coat?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> He recognized it at once. "My son's coat--a wild animal has eaten him. Joseph torn limb from limb!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Jacob tore his clothes in grief, dressed in rough burlap, and mourned his son a long, long time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> His sons and daughters tried to comfort him but he refused their comfort. "I'll go to the grave mourning my son." Oh, how his father wept for him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> In Egypt the Midianites sold Joseph to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's officials, manager of his household affairs.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="38">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> About that time, Judah separated from his brothers and hooked up with a man in Adullam named Hirah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> While there, Judah met the daughter of a Canaanite named Shua. He married her, they went to bed,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> she became pregnant and had a son named Er.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> She got pregnant again and had a son named Onan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> She had still another son; she named this one Shelah. They were living at Kezib when she had him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn. Her name was Tamar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But Judah's firstborn, Er, grievously offended GOD and GOD took his life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> So Judah told Onan, "Go and sleep with your brother's widow; it's the duty of a brother-in-law to keep your brother's line alive."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But Onan knew that the child wouldn't be his, so whenever he slept with his brother's widow he spilled his semen on the ground so he wouldn't produce a child for his brother.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> GOD was much offended by what he did and also took his life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> So Judah stepped in and told his daughter-in-law Tamar, "Live as a widow at home with your father until my son Shelah grows up." He was worried that Shelah would also end up dead, just like his brothers. So Tamar went to live with her father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Time passed. Judah's wife, Shua's daughter, died. When the time of mourning was over, Judah with his friend Hirah of Adullam went to Timnah for the sheep shearing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Tamar was told, "Your father-in-law has gone to Timnah to shear his sheep."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> She took off her widow's clothes, put on a veil to disguise herself, and sat at the entrance to Enaim which is on the road to Timnah. She realized by now that even though Shelah was grown up, she wasn't going to be married to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Judah saw her and assumed she was a prostitute since she had veiled her face.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He left the road and went over to her. He said, "Let me sleep with you." He had no idea that she was his daughter-in-law. She said, "What will you pay me?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "I'll send you," he said, "a kid goat from the flock." She said, "Not unless you give me a pledge until you send it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "So what would you want in the way of a pledge?" She said, "Your personal seal-and-cord and the staff you carry." He handed them over to her and slept with her. And she got pregnant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> She then left and went home. She removed her veil and put her widow's clothes back on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Judah sent the kid goat by his friend from Adullam to recover the pledge from the woman. But he couldn't find her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He asked the men of that place, "Where's the prostitute that used to sit by the road here near Enaim?" They said, "There's never been a prostitute here."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> He went back to Judah and said, "I couldn't find her. The men there said there never has been a prostitute there."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Judah said, "Let her have it then. If we keep looking, everyone will be poking fun at us. I kept my part of the bargain--I sent the kid goat but you couldn't find her."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Three months or so later, Judah was told, "Your daughter-in-law has been playing the whore--and now she's a pregnant whore." Judah yelled, "Get her out here. Burn her up!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> As they brought her out, she sent a message to her father-in-law, "I'm pregnant by the man who owns these things. Identify them, please. Who's the owner of the seal-and-cord and the staff?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Judah saw they were his. He said, "She's in the right; I'm in the wrong--I wouldn't let her marry my son Shelah." He never slept with her again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> When her time came to give birth, it turned out that there were twins in her womb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> As she was giving birth, one put his hand out; the midwife tied a red thread on his hand, saying, "This one came first."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> But then he pulled it back and his brother came out. She said, "Oh! A breakout!" So she named him Perez (Breakout).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Then his brother came out with the red thread on his hand. They named him Zerah (Bright).</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="39">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> After Joseph had been taken to Egypt by the Ishmaelites, Potiphar an Egyptian, one of Pharaoh's officials and the manager of his household, bought him from them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> As it turned out, GOD was with Joseph and things went very well with him. He ended up living in the home of his Egyptian master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> His master recognized that GOD was with him, saw that GOD was working for good in everything he did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He became very fond of Joseph and made him his personal aide. He put him in charge of all his personal affairs, turning everything over to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> From that moment on, GOD blessed the home of the Egyptian--all because of Joseph. The blessing of GOD spread over everything he owned, at home and in the fields,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> and all Potiphar had to concern himself with was eating three meals a day. Joseph was a strikingly handsome man.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> As time went on, his master's wife became infatuated with Joseph and one day said, "Sleep with me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He wouldn't do it. He said to his master's wife, "Look, with me here, my master doesn't give a second thought to anything that goes on here--he's put me in charge of everything he owns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He treats me as an equal. The only thing he hasn't turned over to me is you. You're his wife, after all! How could I violate his trust and sin against God?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> She pestered him day after day after day, but he stood his ground. He refused to go to bed with her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> On one of these days he came to the house to do his work and none of the household servants happened to be there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> She grabbed him by his cloak, saying, "Sleep with me!" He left his coat in her hand and ran out of the house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> When she realized that he had left his coat in her hand and run outside,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> she called to her house servants: "Look--this Hebrew shows up and before you know it he's trying to seduce us. He tried to make love to me but I yelled as loud as I could.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> With all my yelling and screaming, he left his coat beside me here and ran outside."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> She kept his coat right there until his master came home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> She told him the same story. She said, "The Hebrew slave, the one you brought to us, came after me and tried to use me for his plaything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When I yelled and screamed, he left his coat with me and ran outside."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> When his master heard his wife's story, telling him, "These are the things your slave did to me," he was furious.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Joseph's master took him and threw him into the jail where the king's prisoners were locked up. But there in jail</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> GOD was still with Joseph: He reached out in kindness to him; he put him on good terms with the head jailer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The head jailer put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners--he ended up managing the whole operation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The head jailer gave Joseph free rein, never even checked on him, because GOD was with him; whatever he did GOD made sure it worked out for the best.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="40">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> As time went on, it happened that the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt crossed their master, the king of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Pharaoh was furious with his two officials, the head cupbearer and the head baker,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> and put them in custody under the captain of the guard; it was the same jail where Joseph was held.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The captain of the guard assigned Joseph to see to their needs. After they had been in custody for a while,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> the king's cupbearer and baker, while being held in the jail, both had a dream on the same night, each dream having its own meaning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When Joseph arrived in the morning, he noticed that they were feeling low.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So he asked them, the two officials of Pharaoh who had been thrown into jail with him, "What's wrong? Why the long faces?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They said, "We dreamed dreams and there's no one to interpret them." Joseph said, "Don't interpretations come from God? Tell me the dreams."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> First the head cupbearer told his dream to Joseph: "In my dream there was a vine in front of me</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> with three branches on it: It budded, blossomed, and the clusters ripened into grapes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I was holding Pharaoh's cup; I took the grapes, squeezed them into Pharaoh's cup, and gave the cup to Pharaoh."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Joseph said, "Here's the meaning. The three branches are three days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Within three days, Pharaoh will get you out of here and put you back to your old work--you'll be giving Pharaoh his cup just as you used to do when you were his cupbearer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Only remember me when things are going well with you again--tell Pharaoh about me and get me out of this place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I was kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews. And since I've been here, I've done nothing to deserve being put in this hole."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When the head baker saw how well Joseph's interpretation turned out, he spoke up: "My dream went like this: I saw three wicker baskets on my head;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> the top basket had assorted pastries from the bakery and birds were picking at them from the basket on my head."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Joseph said, "This is the interpretation: The three baskets are three days;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> within three days Pharaoh will take off your head, impale you on a post, and the birds will pick your bones clean."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And sure enough, on the third day it was Pharaoh's birthday and he threw a feast for all his servants. He set the head cupbearer and the head baker in places of honor in the presence of all the guests.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then he restored the head cupbearer to his cupbearing post; he handed Pharaoh his cup just as before.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> And then he impaled the head baker on a post, following Joseph's interpretations exactly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But the head cupbearer never gave Joseph another thought; he forgot all about him.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="41">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Two years passed and Pharaoh had a dream: He was standing by the Nile River.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Seven cows came up out of the Nile, all shimmering with health, and grazed on the marsh grass.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then seven other cows, all skin and bones, came up out of the river after them and stood by them on the bank of the Nile.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The skinny cows ate the seven healthy cows. Then Pharaoh woke up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He went back to sleep and dreamed a second time: Seven ears of grain, full-bodied and lush, grew out of a single stalk.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then seven more ears grew up, but these were thin and dried out by the east wind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The thin ears swallowed up the full, healthy ears. Then Pharaoh woke up--another dream.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> When morning came, he was upset. He sent for all the magicians and sages of Egypt. Pharaoh told them his dreams, but they couldn't interpret them to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The head cupbearer then spoke up and said to Pharaoh, "I just now remembered something--I'm sorry, I should have told you this long ago.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Once when Pharaoh got angry with his servants, he locked me and the head baker in the house of the captain of the guard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> We both had dreams on the same night, each dream with its own meaning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> It so happened that there was a young Hebrew slave there with us; he belonged to the captain of the guard. We told him our dreams and he interpreted them for us, each dream separately.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Things turned out just as he interpreted. I was returned to my position and the head baker was impaled."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Pharaoh at once sent for Joseph. They brought him on the run from the jail cell. He cut his hair, put on clean clothes, and came to Pharaoh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "I dreamed a dream," Pharaoh told Joseph. "Nobody can interpret it. But I've heard that just by hearing a dream you can interpret it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Joseph answered, "Not I, but God. God will set Pharaoh's mind at ease."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, "In my dream I was standing on the bank of the Nile.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Seven cows, shimmering with health, came up out of the river and grazed on the marsh grass.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> On their heels seven more cows, all skin and bones, came up. I've never seen uglier cows anywhere in Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Then the seven skinny, ugly cows ate up the first seven healthy cows.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But you couldn't tell by looking--after eating them up they were just as skinny and ugly as before. Then I woke up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "In my second dream I saw seven ears of grain, full-bodied and lush, growing out of a single stalk,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> and right behind them, seven other ears, shriveled, thin, and dried out by the east wind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> And the thin ears swallowed up the full ears. I've told all this to the magicians but they can't figure it out."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Joseph said to Pharaoh, "Pharaoh's two dreams both mean the same thing. God is telling Pharaoh what he is going to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The seven healthy cows are seven years and the seven healthy ears of grain are seven years--they're the same dream.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The seven sick and ugly cows that followed them up are seven years and the seven scrawny ears of grain dried out by the east wind are the same--seven years of famine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "The meaning is what I said earlier: God is letting Pharaoh in on what he is going to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Seven years of plenty are on their way throughout Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> But on their heels will come seven years of famine, leaving no trace of the Egyptian plenty. As the country is emptied by famine,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> there won't be even a scrap left of the previous plenty--the famine will be total.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The fact that Pharaoh dreamed the same dream twice emphasizes God's determination to do this and do it soon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "So: Pharaoh needs to look for a wise and experienced man and put him in charge of the country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Then Pharaoh needs to appoint managers throughout the country of Egypt to organize it during the years of plenty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Their job will be to collect all the food produced in the good years ahead and stockpile the grain under Pharaoh's authority, storing it in the towns for food.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> This grain will be held back to be used later during the seven years of famine that are coming on Egypt. This way the country won't be devastated by the famine."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> This seemed like a good idea to Pharaoh and his officials.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Then Pharaoh said to his officials, "Isn't this the man we need? Are we going to find anyone else who has God's spirit in him like this?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> So Pharaoh said to Joseph, "You're the man for us. God has given you the inside story--no one is as qualified as you in experience and wisdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> From now on, you're in charge of my affairs; all my people will report to you. Only as king will I be over you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> So Pharaoh commissioned Joseph: "I'm putting you in charge of the entire country of Egypt."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Then Pharaoh removed his signet ring from his finger and slipped it on Joseph's hand. He outfitted him in robes of the best linen and put a gold chain around his neck.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> He put the second-in-command chariot at his disposal, and as he rode people shouted "Bravo!" Joseph was in charge of the entire country of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Pharaoh told Joseph, "I am Pharaoh, but no one in Egypt will make a single move without your stamp of approval."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> Then Pharaoh gave Joseph an Egyptian name, Zaphenath-Paneah (God Speaks and He Lives). He also gave him an Egyptian wife, Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera, the priest of On (Heliopolis). And Joseph took up his duties over the land of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Joseph was thirty years old when he went to work for Pharaoh the king of Egypt. As soon as Joseph left Pharaoh's presence, he began his work in Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> During the next seven years of plenty the land produced bumper crops.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> Joseph gathered up the food of the seven good years in Egypt and stored the food in cities. In each city he stockpiled surplus from the surrounding fields.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> Joseph collected so much grain--it was like the sand of the ocean!--that he finally quit keeping track.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Joseph had two sons born to him before the years of famine came. Asenath, daughter of Potiphera the priest of On, was their mother.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> Joseph named the firstborn Manasseh (Forget), saying, "God made me forget all my hardships and my parental home."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> He named his second son Ephraim (Double Prosperity), saying, "God has prospered me in the land of my sorrow."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> Then Egypt's seven good years came to an end</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> and the seven years of famine arrived, just as Joseph had said. All countries experienced famine; Egypt was the only country that had bread.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> When the famine spread throughout Egypt, the people called out in distress to Pharaoh, calling for bread. He told the Egyptians, "Go to Joseph. Do what he tells you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> As the famine got worse all over the country, Joseph opened the storehouses and sold emergency supplies to the Egyptians. The famine was very bad.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> Soon the whole world was coming to buy supplies from Joseph. The famine was bad all over.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="42">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When Jacob learned that there was food in Egypt, he said to his sons, "Why do you sit around here and look at one another?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I've heard that there is food in Egypt. Go down there and buy some so that we can survive and not starve to death."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Ten of Joseph's brothers went down to Egypt to get food.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Jacob didn't send Joseph's brother Benjamin with them; he was afraid that something bad might happen to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> So Israel's sons joined everyone else that was going to Egypt to buy food, for Canaan, too, was hit hard by the famine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Joseph was running the country; he was the one who gave out rations to all the people. When Joseph's brothers arrived, they treated him with honor, bowing to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Joseph recognized them immediately, but treated them as strangers and spoke roughly to them. He said, "Where do you come from?" "From Canaan," they said. "We've come to buy food."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Joseph knew who they were, but they didn't know who he was.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Joseph, remembering the dreams he had dreamed of them, said, "You're spies. You've come to look for our weak spots."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "No, master," they said. "We've only come to buy food.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> We're all the sons of the same man; we're honest men; we'd never think of spying."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He said, "No. You're spies. You've come to look for our weak spots."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They said, "There were twelve of us brothers--sons of the same father in the country of Canaan. The youngest is with our father, and one is no more."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But Joseph said, "It's just as I said, you're spies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> This is how I'll test you. As Pharaoh lives, you're not going to leave this place until your younger brother comes here.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Send one of you to get your brother while the rest of you stay here in jail. We'll see if you're telling the truth or not. As Pharaoh lives, I say you're spies."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then he threw them into jail for three days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> On the third day, Joseph spoke to them. "Do this and you'll live. I'm a God-fearing man.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> If you're as honest as you say you are, one of your brothers will stay here in jail while the rest of you take the food back to your hungry families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But you have to bring your youngest brother back to me, confirming the truth of your speech--and not one of you will die." They agreed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then they started talking among themselves. "Now we're paying for what we did to our brother--we saw how terrified he was when he was begging us for mercy. We wouldn't listen to him and now we're the ones in trouble."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Reuben broke in. "Didn't I tell you, 'Don't hurt the boy'? But no, you wouldn't listen. And now we're paying for his murder."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Joseph had been using an interpreter, so they didn't know that Joseph was understanding every word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Joseph turned away from them and cried. When he was able to speak again, he took Simeon and had him tied up, making a prisoner of him while they all watched.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Then Joseph ordered that their sacks be filled with grain, that their money be put back in each sack, and that they be given rations for the road. That was all done for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> They loaded their food supplies on their donkeys and set off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> When they stopped for the night, one of them opened his sack to get food for his donkey; there at the mouth of his bag was his money</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> He called out to his brothers, "My money has been returned; it's right here in my bag!" They were puzzled--and frightened. "What's God doing to us?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> When they got back to their father Jacob, back in the land of Canaan, they told him everything that had happened, saying,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "The man who runs the country spoke to us roughly and accused us of being spies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> We told him, 'We are honest men and in no way spies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> There were twelve of us brothers, sons of one father; one is gone and the youngest is with our father in Canaan.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "But the master of the country said, 'Leave one of your brothers with me, take food for your starving families, and go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Bring your youngest brother back to me, proving that you're honest men and not spies. And then I'll give your brother back to you and you'll be free to come and go in this country.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> As they were emptying their food sacks, each man came on his purse of money. On seeing their money, they and their father were upset.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Their father said to them, "You're taking everything I've got! Joseph's gone, Simeon's gone, and now you want to take Benjamin. If you have your way, I'll be left with nothing."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Reuben spoke up: "I'll put my two sons in your hands as hostages. If I don't bring Benjamin back, you can kill them. Trust me with Benjamin; I'll bring him back."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> But Jacob refused. "My son will not go down with you. His brother is dead and he is all I have left. If something bad happens to him on the road, you'll put my gray, sorrowing head in the grave."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="43">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The famine got worse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> When they had eaten all the food they had brought back from Egypt, their father said, "Go back and get some more food."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But Judah said, "The man warned us most emphatically, 'You won't so much as see my face if you don't have your brother with you.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> If you're ready to release our brother to go with us, we'll go down and get you food.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But if you're not ready, we aren't going. What would be the use? The man told us, 'You won't so much as see my face if you don't have your brother with you.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Israel said, "Why are you making my life so difficult! Why did you ever tell the man you had another brother?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They said, "The man pressed us hard, asking pointed questions about our family: 'Is your father alive? Do you have another brother?' So we answered his questions. How did we know that he'd say, 'Bring your brother here'?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Judah pushed his father Israel. "Let the boy go; I'll take charge of him. Let us go and be on our way--if we don't get going, we're all going to starve to death--we and you and our children too!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'll take full responsibility for his safety; it's my life on the line for his. If I don't bring him back safe and sound, I'm the guilty one; I'll take all the blame.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> If we had gone ahead in the first place instead of procrastinating like this, we could have been there and back twice over."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Their father Israel gave in. "If it has to be, it has to be. But do this: stuff your packs with the finest products from the land you can find and take them to the man as gifts--some balm and honey, some spices and perfumes, some pistachios and almonds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And take plenty of money--pay back double what was returned to your sacks; that might have been a mistake.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Take your brother and get going. Go back to the man.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And may The Strong God give you grace in that man's eyes so that he'll send back your other brother along with Benjamin. For me, nothing's left; I've lost everything."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The men took the gifts, double the money, and Benjamin. They lost no time in getting to Egypt and meeting Joseph.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When Joseph saw that they had Benjamin with them, he told his house steward, "Take these men into the house and make them at home. Butcher an animal and prepare a meal; these men are going to eat with me at noon."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The steward did what Joseph had said and took them inside.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But they became anxious when they were brought into Joseph's home, thinking, "It's the money; he thinks we ran off with the money on our first trip down here. And now he's got us where he wants us--he's going to turn us into slaves and confiscate our donkeys."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> So they went up to Joseph's house steward and talked to him in the doorway.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> They said, "Listen, master. We came down here one other time to buy food.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> On our way home, the first night out we opened our bags and found our money at the mouth of the bag--the exact amount we'd paid. We've brought it all back</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> and have plenty more to buy more food with. We have no idea who put the money in our bags."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The steward said, "Everything's in order. Don't worry. Your God and the God of your father must have given you a bonus. I was paid in full." And with that, he presented Simeon to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He then took them inside Joseph's house and made them comfortable--gave them water to wash their feet and saw to the feeding of their donkeys.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The brothers spread out their gifts as they waited for Joseph to show up at noon--they had been told that they were to have dinner with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> When Joseph got home, they presented him with the gifts they had brought and bowed respectfully before him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Joseph welcomed them and said, "And your old father whom you mentioned to me, how is he? Is he still alive?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> They said, "Yes--your servant our father is quite well, very much alive." And they again bowed respectfully before him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Then Joseph picked out his brother Benjamin, his own mother's son. He asked, "And is this your youngest brother that you told me about?" Then he said, "God be gracious to you, my son."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Deeply moved on seeing his brother and about to burst into tears, Joseph hurried out into another room and had a good cry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Then he washed his face, got a grip on himself, and said, "Let's eat."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Joseph was served at his private table, the brothers off by themselves and the Egyptians off by themselves (Egyptians won't eat at the same table with Hebrews; it's repulsive to them).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> The brothers were seated facing Joseph, arranged in order of their age, from the oldest to the youngest. They looked at one another wide-eyed, wondering what would happen next.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> When the brothers' plates were served from Joseph's table, Benjamin's plate came piled high, far more so than his brothers. And so the brothers feasted with Joseph, drinking freely.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="44">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Joseph ordered his house steward: "Fill the men's bags with food--all they can carry--and replace each one's money at the top of the bag.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Then put my chalice, my silver chalice, in the top of the bag of the youngest, along with the money for his food." He did as Joseph ordered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> At break of day the men were sent off with their donkeys.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They were barely out of the city when Joseph said to his house steward, "Run after them. When you catch up with them, say, 'Why did you pay me back evil for good?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> This is the chalice my master drinks from; he also uses it for divination. This is outrageous!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He caught up with them and repeated all this word for word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They said, "What is my master talking about? We would never do anything like that!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Why, the money we found in our bags earlier, we brought back all the way from Canaan--do you think we'd turn right around and steal it back from your master?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> If that chalice is found on any of us, he'll die; and the rest of us will be your master's slaves."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The steward said, "Very well then, but we won't go that far. Whoever is found with the chalice will be my slave; the rest of you can go free."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They outdid each other in putting their bags on the ground and opening them up for inspection.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The steward searched their bags, going from oldest to youngest. The chalice showed up in Benjamin's bag.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They ripped their clothes in despair, loaded up their donkeys, and went back to the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Joseph was still at home when Judah and his brothers got back. They threw themselves down on the ground in front of him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Joseph accused them: "How can you have done this? You have to know that a man in my position would have discovered this."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Judah as spokesman for the brothers said, "What can we say, master? What is there to say? How can we prove our innocence? God is behind this, exposing how bad we are. We stand guilty before you and ready to be your slaves--we're all in this together, the rest of us as guilty as the one with the chalice."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "I'd never do that to you," said Joseph. "Only the one involved with the chalice will be my slave. The rest of you are free to go back to your father."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Judah came forward. He said, "Please, master; can I say just one thing to you? Don't get angry. Don't think I'm presumptuous--you're the same as Pharaoh as far as I'm concerned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> You, master, asked us, 'Do you have a father and a brother?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And we answered honestly, 'We have a father who is old and a younger brother who was born to him in his old age. His brother is dead and he is the only son left from that mother. And his father loves him more than anything.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Then you told us, 'Bring him down here so I can see him.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> We told you, master, that it was impossible: 'The boy can't leave his father; if he leaves, his father will die.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "And then you said, 'If your youngest brother doesn't come with you, you won't be allowed to see me.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "When we returned to our father, we told him everything you said to us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> So when our father said, 'Go back and buy some more food,'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> we told him flatly, 'We can't. The only way we can go back is if our youngest brother is with us. We aren't allowed to even see the man if our youngest brother doesn't come with us.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "Your servant, my father, told us, 'You know very well that my wife gave me two sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> One turned up missing. I concluded that he'd been ripped to pieces. I've never seen him since.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> If you now go and take this one and something bad happens to him, you'll put my old gray, grieving head in the grave for sure.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "And now, can't you see that if I show up before your servant, my father, without the boy, this son with whom his life is so bound up,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> the moment he realizes the boy is gone, he'll die on the spot. He'll die of grief and we, your servants who are standing here before you, will have killed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> And that's not all. I got my father to release the boy to show him to you by promising, 'If I don't bring him back, I'll stand condemned before you, Father, all my life.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "So let me stay here as your slave, not this boy. Let the boy go back with his brothers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> How can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? Oh, don't make me go back and watch my father die in grief!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="45">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Joseph couldn't hold himself in any longer, keeping up a front before all his attendants. He cried out, "Leave! Clear out--everyone leave!" So there was no one with Joseph when he identified himself to his brothers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> But his sobbing was so violent that the Egyptians couldn't help but hear him. The news was soon reported to Pharaoh's palace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Joseph spoke to his brothers: "I am Joseph. Is my father really still alive?" But his brothers couldn't say a word. They were speechless--they couldn't believe what they were hearing and seeing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Come closer to me," Joseph said to his brothers. They came closer. "I am Joseph your brother whom you sold into Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But don't feel badly, don't blame yourselves for selling me. God was behind it. God sent me here ahead of you to save lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> There has been a famine in the land now for two years; the famine will continue for five more years--neither plowing nor harvesting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> God sent me on ahead to pave the way and make sure there was a remnant in the land, to save your lives in an amazing act of deliverance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> So you see, it wasn't you who sent me here but God. He set me in place as a father to Pharaoh, put me in charge of his personal affairs, and made me ruler of all Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Hurry back to my father. Tell him, 'Your son Joseph says: I'm master of all of Egypt. Come as fast as you can and join me here.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I'll give you a place to live in Goshen where you'll be close to me--you, your children, your grandchildren, your flocks, your herds, and anything else you can think of.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I'll take care of you there completely. There are still five more years of famine ahead; I'll make sure all your needs are taken care of, you and everyone connected with you--you won't want for a thing.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Look at me. You can see for yourselves, and my brother Benjamin can see for himself, that it's me, my own mouth, telling you all this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Tell my father all about the high position I hold in Egypt, tell him everything you've seen here, but don't take all day--hurry up and get my father down here."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Then Joseph threw himself on his brother Benjamin's neck and wept, and Benjamin wept on his neck.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He then kissed all his brothers and wept over them. Only then were his brothers able to talk with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The story was reported in Pharaoh's palace: "Joseph's brothers have come." It was good news to Pharaoh and all who worked with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Tell your brothers, 'This is the plan: Load up your pack animals; go to Canaan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> get your father and your families and bring them back here. I'll settle you on the best land in Egypt--you'll live off the fat of the land.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Also tell them this: 'Here's what I want you to do: Take wagons from Egypt to carry your little ones and your wives and load up your father and come back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Don't worry about having to leave things behind; the best in all of Egypt will be yours.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And they did just that, the sons of Israel. Joseph gave them the wagons that Pharaoh had promised and food for the trip.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> He outfitted all the brothers in brand-new clothes, but he gave Benjamin three hundred pieces of silver and several suits of clothes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> He sent his father these gifts: ten donkeys loaded with Egypt's best products and another ten donkeys loaded with grain and bread, provisions for his father's journey back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Then he sent his brothers off. As they left he told them, "Take it easy on the journey; try to get along with each other."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> They left Egypt and went back to their father Jacob in Canaan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> When they told him, "Joseph is still alive--and he's the ruler over the whole land of Egypt!" he went numb; he couldn't believe his ears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> But the more they talked, telling him everything that Joseph had told them and when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him back, the blood started to flow again--their father Jacob's spirit revived.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Israel said, "I've heard enough--my son Joseph is still alive. I've got to go and see him before I die."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="46">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> So Israel set out on the journey with everything he owned. He arrived at Beersheba and worshiped, offering sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> God spoke to Israel in a vision that night: "Jacob! Jacob!" "Yes?" he said. "I'm listening."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> God said, "I am the God of your father. Don't be afraid of going down to Egypt. I'm going to make you a great nation there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'll go with you down to Egypt; I'll also bring you back here. And when you die, Joseph will be with you; with his own hand he'll close your eyes."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then Jacob left Beersheba. Israel's sons loaded their father and their little ones and their wives on the wagons Pharaoh had sent to carry him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They arrived in Egypt with the livestock and the wealth they had accumulated in Canaan. Jacob brought everyone in his family with him--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> sons and grandsons, daughters and granddaughters. Everyone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> These are the names of the Israelites, Jacob and his descendants, who went to Egypt: Reuben, Jacob's firstborn.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Reuben's sons: Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Simeon's sons: Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jakin, Zohar, and Shaul the son of a Canaanite woman.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Levi's sons: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Judah's sons: Er, Onan, Shelah, Perez, and Zerah (Er and Onan had already died in the land of Canaan). The sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Issachar's sons: Tola, Puah, Jashub, and Shimron.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Zebulun's sons: Sered, Elon, and Jahleel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> These are the sons that Leah bore to Jacob in Paddan Aram. There was also his daughter Dinah. Altogether, sons and daughters, they numbered thirty-three.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Gad's sons: Zephon, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi, and Areli.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Asher's sons: Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi, and Beriah. Also their sister Serah, and Beriah's sons, Heber and Malkiel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> These are the children that Zilpah, the maid that Laban gave to his daughter Leah, bore to Jacob--sixteen of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The sons of Jacob's wife Rachel were Joseph and Benjamin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Joseph was the father of two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, from his marriage to Asenath daughter of Potiphera, priest of On. They were born to him in Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Benjamin's sons were Bela, Beker, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi, Rosh, Muppim, Huppim, and Ard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> These are the children born to Jacob through Rachel--fourteen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Dan's son: Hushim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Naphtali's sons: Jahziel, Guni, Jezer, and Shillem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> These are the children born to Jacob through Bilhah, the maid Laban had given to his daughter Rachel--seven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Summing up, all those who went down to Egypt with Jacob--his own children, not counting his sons' wives--numbered sixty-six.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Counting in the two sons born to Joseph in Egypt, the members of Jacob's family who ended up in Egypt numbered seventy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Jacob sent Judah on ahead to get directions to Goshen from Joseph. When they got to Goshen,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Joseph gave orders for his chariot and went to Goshen to meet his father Israel. The moment Joseph saw him, he threw himself on his neck and wept. He wept a long time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Israel said to Joseph, "I'm ready to die. I've looked into your face--you are indeed alive."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Joseph then spoke to his brothers and his father's family. "I'll go and tell Pharaoh, 'My brothers and my father's family, all of whom lived in Canaan, have come to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The men are shepherds; they've always made their living by raising livestock. And they've brought their flocks and herds with them, along with everything else they own.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> When Pharaoh calls you in and asks what kind of work you do,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> tell him, 'Your servants have always kept livestock for as long as we can remember--we and our parents also.' That way he'll let you stay apart in the area of Goshen--for Egyptians look down on anyone who is a shepherd."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="47">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Joseph went to Pharaoh and told him, "My father and brothers with their flocks and herds and everything they own have come from Canaan. Right now they are in Goshen."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He had taken five of his brothers with him and introduced them to Pharaoh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Pharaoh asked them, "What kind of work do you do?" "Your servants are shepherds, the same as our fathers were.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> We have come to this country to find a new place to live. There is no pasture for our flocks in Canaan. The famine has been very bad there. Please, would you let your servants settle in the region of Goshen?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Pharaoh looked at Joseph. "So, your father and brothers have arrived--a reunion!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Egypt welcomes them. Settle your father and brothers on the choicest land--yes, give them Goshen. And if you know any among them that are especially good at their work, put them in charge of my own livestock."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Next Joseph brought his father Jacob in and introduced him to Pharaoh. Jacob blessed Pharaoh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Pharaoh asked Jacob, "How old are you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Jacob answered Pharaoh, "The years of my sojourning are 130--a short and hard life and not nearly as long as my ancestors were given."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then Jacob blessed Pharaoh and left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Joseph settled his father and brothers in Egypt, made them proud owners of choice land--it was the region of Rameses (that is, Goshen)--just as Pharaoh had ordered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Joseph took good care of them--his father and brothers and all his father's family, right down to the smallest baby. He made sure they had plenty of everything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The time eventually came when there was no food anywhere. The famine was very bad. Egypt and Canaan alike were devastated by the famine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Joseph collected all the money that was to be found in Egypt and Canaan to pay for the distribution of food. He banked the money in Pharaoh's palace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> When the money from Egypt and Canaan had run out, the Egyptians came to Joseph. "Food! Give us food! Are you going to watch us die right in front of you? The money is all gone."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Joseph said, "Bring your livestock. I'll trade you food for livestock since your money's run out."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> So they brought Joseph their livestock. He traded them food for their horses, sheep, cattle, and donkeys. He got them through that year in exchange for all their livestock.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When that year was over, the next year rolled around and they were back, saying, "Master, it's no secret to you that we're broke: our money's gone and we've traded you all our livestock. We've nothing left to barter with but our bodies and our farms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> What use are our bodies and our land if we stand here and starve to death right in front of you? Trade us food for our bodies and our land. We'll be slaves to Pharaoh and give up our land--all we ask is seed for survival, just enough to live on and keep the farms alive."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> So Joseph bought up all the farms in Egypt for Pharaoh. Every Egyptian sold his land--the famine was that bad. That's how Pharaoh ended up owning all the land</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> and the people ended up slaves; Joseph reduced the people to slavery from one end of Egypt to the other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Joseph made an exception for the priests. He didn't buy their land because they received a fixed salary from Pharaoh and were able to live off of that salary. So they didn't need to sell their land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Joseph then announced to the people: "Here's how things stand: I've bought you and your land for Pharaoh. In exchange I'm giving you seed so you can plant the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> When the crops are harvested, you must give a fifth to Pharaoh and keep four-fifths for yourselves, for seed for yourselves and your families--you're going to be able to feed your children!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> They said, "You've saved our lives! Master, we're grateful and glad to be slaves to Pharaoh."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Joseph decreed a land law in Egypt that is still in effect, A Fifth Goes to Pharaoh. Only the priests' lands were not owned by Pharaoh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> And so Israel settled down in Egypt in the region of Goshen. They acquired property and flourished. They became a large company of people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Jacob lived in Egypt for seventeen years. In all, he lived 147 years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> When the time came for Israel to die, he called his son Joseph and said, "Do me this favor. Put your hand under my thigh, a sign that you're loyal and true to me to the end. Don't bury me in Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> When I lie down with my fathers, carry me out of Egypt and bury me alongside them." "I will," he said. "I'll do what you've asked."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Israel said, "Promise me." Joseph promised. Israel bowed his head in submission and gratitude from his bed.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="48">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Some time after this conversation, Joseph was told, "Your father is ill." He took his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, and went to Jacob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> When Jacob was told, "Your son Joseph has come," he roused himself and sat up in bed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Jacob said to Joseph, "The Strong God appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He said, 'I'm going to make you prosperous and numerous, turn you into a congregation of tribes; and I'll turn this land over to your children coming after you as a permanent inheritance.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I'm adopting your two sons who were born to you here in Egypt before I joined you; they have equal status with Reuben and Simeon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But any children born after them are yours; they will come after their brothers in matters of inheritance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I want it this way because, as I was returning from Paddan, your mother Rachel, to my deep sorrow, died as we were on our way through Canaan when we were only a short distance from Ephrath, now called Bethlehem."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Just then Jacob noticed Joseph's sons and said, "Who are these?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Joseph told his father, "They are my sons whom God gave to me in this place." "Bring them to me," he said, "so I can bless them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Israel's eyesight was poor from old age; he was nearly blind. So Joseph brought them up close. Old Israel kissed and embraced them</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> and then said to Joseph, "I never expected to see your face again, and now God has let me see your children as well!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Joseph took them from Israel's knees and bowed respectfully, his face to the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then Joseph took the two boys, Ephraim with his right hand setting him to Israel's left, and Manasseh with his left hand setting him to Israel's right, and stood them before him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But Israel crossed his arms and put his right hand on the head of Ephraim who was the younger and his left hand on the head of Manasseh, the firstborn.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Then he blessed them: The God before whom walked my fathers Abraham and Isaac, The God who has been my shepherd all my lifelong to this very day,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The Angel who delivered me from every evil, Bless the boys. May my name be echoed in their lives, and the names of Abraham and Isaac, my fathers, And may they grow covering the Earth with their children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When Joseph saw that his father had placed his right hand on Ephraim's head, he thought he had made a mistake, so he took hold of his father's hand to move it from Ephraim's head to Manasseh's,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> saying, "That's the wrong head, Father; the other one is the firstborn; place your right hand on his head."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But his father wouldn't do it. He said, "I know, my son; but I know what I'm doing. He also will develop into a people, and he also will be great. But his younger brother will be even greater and his descendants will enrich nations."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Then he blessed them both: Israel will use your names to give blessings: May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh. In that he made it explicit: he put Ephraim ahead of Manasseh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Israel then said to Joseph, "I'm about to die. God be with you and give you safe passage back to the land of your fathers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> As for me, I'm presenting you, as the first among your brothers, the ridge of land I took from Amorites with my sword and bow."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="49">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Jacob called his sons and said, "Gather around. I want to tell you what you can expect in the days to come."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Come together, listen sons of Jacob, listen to Israel your father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Reuben, you're my firstborn, my strength, first proof of my manhood, at the top in honor and at the top in power,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But like a bucket of water spilled, you'll be at the top no more, Because you climbed into your father's marriage bed, mounting that couch, and you defiled it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Simeon and Levi are two of a kind, ready to fight at the drop of a hat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I don't want anything to do with their vendettas, want no part in their bitter feuds; They kill men in fits of temper, slash oxen on a whim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> A curse on their uncontrolled anger, on their indiscriminate wrath. I'll throw them out with the trash; I'll shred and scatter them like confetti throughout Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You, Judah, your brothers will praise you: Your fingers on your enemies' throat, while your brothers honor you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You're a lion's cub, Judah, home fresh from the kill, my son. Look at him, crouched like a lion, king of beasts; who dares mess with him?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The scepter shall not leave Judah; he'll keep a firm grip on the command staff Until the ultimate ruler comes and the nations obey him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He'll tie up his donkey to the grapevine, his purebred prize to a sturdy branch. He will wash his shirt in wine and his cloak in the blood of grapes,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> His eyes will be darker than wine, his teeth whiter than milk.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Zebulun settles down on the seashore; he's a safe harbor for ships, right alongside Sidon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Issachar is one tough donkey crouching between the corrals;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> When he saw how good the place was, how pleasant the country, He gave up his freedom and went to work as a slave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Dan will handle matters of justice for his people; he will hold his own just fine among the tribes of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Dan is only a small snake in the grass, a lethal serpent in ambush by the road When he strikes a horse in the heel, and brings its huge rider crashing down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I wait in hope for your salvation, GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Gad will be attacked by bandits, but he will trip them up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Asher will become famous for rich foods, candies and sweets fit for kings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Naphtali is a deer running free that gives birth to lovely fawns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Joseph is a wild donkey, a wild donkey by a spring, spirited donkeys on a hill.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The archers with malice attacked, shooting their hate-tipped arrows;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> But he held steady under fire, his bow firm, his arms limber, With the backing of the Champion of Jacob, the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The God of your father--may he help you! And may The Strong God--may he give you his blessings, Blessings tumbling out of the skies, blessings bursting up from the Earth-- blessings of breasts and womb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> May the blessings of your father exceed the blessings of the ancient mountains, surpass the delights of the eternal hills; May they rest on the head of Joseph, on the brow of the one consecrated among his brothers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; all morning he gorges on his kill, at evening divides up what's left over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> All these are the tribes of Israel, the twelve tribes. And this is what their father said to them as he blessed them, blessing each one with his own special farewell blessing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Then he instructed them: "I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave which is in the field of Ephron the Hittite,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> the cave in the field of Machpelah facing Mamre in the land of Canaan, the field Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite for a burial plot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried there; Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried there; I also buried Leah there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The field and the cave were bought from the Hittites."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Jacob finished instructing his sons, pulled his feet into bed, breathed his last, and was gathered to his people.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="50">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Joseph threw himself on his father, wept over him, and kissed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Joseph then instructed the physicians in his employ to embalm his father. The physicians embalmed Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The embalming took forty days, the period required for embalming. There was public mourning by the Egyptians for seventy days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When the period of mourning was completed, Joseph petitioned Pharaoh's court:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "If you have reason to think kindly of me, present Pharaoh with my request: My father made me swear, saying, 'I am ready to die. Bury me in the grave plot that I prepared for myself in the land of Canaan.' Please give me leave to go up and bury my father. Then I'll come back."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Pharaoh said, "Certainly. Go and bury your father as he made you promise under oath."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So Joseph left to bury his father. And all the high-ranking officials from Pharaoh's court went with him, all the dignitaries of Egypt,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> joining Joseph's family--his brothers and his father's family. Their children and flocks and herds were left in Goshen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Chariots and horsemen accompanied them. It was a huge funeral procession.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Arriving at the Atad Threshing Floor just across the Jordan River, they stopped for a period of mourning, letting their grief out in loud and lengthy lament. For seven days, Joseph engaged in these funeral rites for his father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> When the Canaanites who lived in that area saw the grief being poured out at the Atad Threshing Floor, they said, "Look how deeply the Egyptians are mourning." That is how the site at the Jordan got the name Abel Mizraim (Egyptian Lament).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Jacob's sons continued to carry out his instructions to the letter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They took him on into Canaan and buried him in the cave in the field of Machpelah facing Mamre, the field that Abraham had bought as a burial plot from Ephron the Hittite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> After burying his father, Joseph went back to Egypt. All his brothers who had come with him to bury his father returned with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> After the funeral, Joseph's brothers talked among themselves: "What if Joseph is carrying a grudge and decides to pay us back for all the wrong we did him?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So they sent Joseph a message, "Before his death, your father gave this command:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Tell Joseph, 'Forgive your brothers' sin--all that wrongdoing. They did treat you very badly.' Will you do it? Will you forgive the sins of the servants of your father's God?" When Joseph received their message, he wept.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Then the brothers went in person to him, threw themselves on the ground before him and said, "We'll be your slaves."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Joseph replied, "Don't be afraid. Do I act for God?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Don't you see, you planned evil against me but God used those same plans for my good, as you see all around you right now--life for many people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Easy now, you have nothing to fear; I'll take care of you and your children." He reassured them, speaking with them heart-to-heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Joseph continued to live in Egypt with his father's family. Joseph lived 110 years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> He lived to see Ephraim's sons into the third generation. The sons of Makir, Manasseh's son, were also recognized as Joseph's.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> At the end, Joseph said to his brothers, "I am ready to die. God will most certainly pay you a visit and take you out of this land and back to the land he so solemnly promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Then Joseph made the sons of Israel promise under oath, "When God makes his visitation, make sure you take my bones with you as you leave here."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Joseph died at the age of 110 years. They embalmed him and placed him in a coffin in Egypt.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="2" bname="Exodus">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> These are the names of the Israelites who went to Egypt with Jacob, each bringing his family members:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Seventy persons in all generated by Jacob's seed. Joseph was already in Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then Joseph died, and all his brothers--that whole generation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But the children of Israel kept on reproducing. They were very prolific--a population explosion in their own right--and the land was filled with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> A new king came to power in Egypt who didn't know Joseph.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He spoke to his people in alarm, "There are way too many of these Israelites for us to handle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> We've got to do something: Let's devise a plan to contain them, lest if there's a war they should join our enemies, or just walk off and leave us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> So they organized them into work-gangs and put them to hard labor under gang-foremen. They built the storage cities Pithom and Rameses for Pharaoh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But the harder the Egyptians worked them the more children the Israelites had--children everywhere! The Egyptians got so they couldn't stand the Israelites</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> and treated them worse than ever, crushing them with slave labor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They made them miserable with hard labor--making bricks and mortar and back-breaking work in the fields. They piled on the work, crushing them under the cruel workload.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The king of Egypt had a talk with the two Hebrew midwives; one was named Shiphrah and the other Puah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He said, "When you deliver the Hebrew women, look at the sex of the baby. If it's a boy, kill him; if it's a girl, let her live."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But the midwives had far too much respect for God and didn't do what the king of Egypt ordered; they let the boy babies live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The king of Egypt called in the midwives. "Why didn't you obey my orders? You've let those babies live!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The midwives answered Pharaoh, "The Hebrew women aren't like the Egyptian women; they're vigorous. Before the midwife can get there, they've already had the baby."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> God was pleased with the midwives. The people continued to increase in number--a very strong people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And because the midwives honored God, God gave them families of their own.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> So Pharaoh issued a general order to all his people: "Every boy that is born, drown him in the Nile. But let the girls live."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A man from the family of Levi married a Levite woman.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The woman became pregnant and had a son. She saw there was something special about him and hid him. She hid him for three months.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When she couldn't hide him any longer she got a little basket-boat made of papyrus, waterproofed it with tar and pitch, and placed the child in it. Then she set it afloat in the reeds at the edge of the Nile.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The baby's older sister found herself a vantage point a little way off and watched to see what would happen to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Pharaoh's daughter came down to the Nile to bathe; her maidens strolled on the bank. She saw the basket-boat floating in the reeds and sent her maid to get it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> She opened it and saw the child--a baby crying! Her heart went out to him. She said, "This must be one of the Hebrew babies."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Then his sister was before her: "Do you want me to go and get a nursing mother from the Hebrews so she can nurse the baby for you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Pharaoh's daughter said, "Yes. Go." The girl went and called the child's mother.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Pharaoh's daughter told her, "Take this baby and nurse him for me. I'll pay you." The woman took the child and nursed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> After the child was weaned, she presented him to Pharaoh's daughter who adopted him as her son. She named him Moses (Pulled-Out), saying, "I pulled him out of the water."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Time passed. Moses grew up. One day he went and saw his brothers, saw all that hard labor. Then he saw an Egyptian hit a Hebrew--one of his relatives!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He looked this way and then that; when he realized there was no one in sight, he killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The next day he went out there again. Two Hebrew men were fighting. He spoke to the man who started it: "Why are you hitting your neighbor?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The man shot back: "Who do you think you are, telling us what to do? Are you going to kill me the way you killed that Egyptian?" Then Moses panicked: "Word's gotten out--people know about this."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Pharaoh heard about it and tried to kill Moses, but Moses got away to the land of Midian. He sat down by a well.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came and drew water, filling the troughs and watering their father's sheep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When some shepherds came and chased the girls off, Moses came to their rescue and helped them water their sheep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When they got home to their father, Reuel, he said, "That didn't take long. Why are you back so soon?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "An Egyptian," they said, "rescued us from a bunch of shepherds. Why, he even drew water for us and watered the sheep."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He said, "So where is he? Why did you leave him behind? Invite him so he can have something to eat with us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Moses agreed to settle down there with the man, who then gave his daughter Zipporah (Bird) to him for his wife.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> She had a son, and Moses named him Gershom (Sojourner), saying, "I'm a sojourner in a foreign country."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Many years later the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned under their slavery and cried out. Their cries for relief from their hard labor ascended to God:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> God listened to their groanings. God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> God saw what was going on with Israel. God understood.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Moses was shepherding the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the west end of the wilderness and came to the mountain of God, Horeb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The angel of GOD appeared to him in flames of fire blazing out of the middle of a bush. He looked. The bush was blazing away but it didn't burn up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Moses said, "What's going on here? I can't believe this! Amazing! Why doesn't the bush burn up?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD saw that he had stopped to look. God called to him from out of the bush, "Moses! Moses!" He said, "Yes? I'm right here!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> God said, "Don't come any closer. Remove your sandals from your feet. You're standing on holy ground."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then he said, "I am the God of your father: The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob." Moses hid his face, afraid to look at God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD said, "I've taken a good, long look at the affliction of my people in Egypt. I've heard their cries for deliverance from their slave masters; I know all about their pain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And now I have come down to help them, pry them loose from the grip of Egypt, get them out of that country and bring them to a good land with wide-open spaces, a land lush with milk and honey, the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "The Israelite cry for help has come to me, and I've seen for myself how cruelly they're being treated by the Egyptians.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> It's time for you to go back: I'm sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the People of Israel, out of Egypt."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Moses answered God, "But why me? What makes you think that I could ever go to Pharaoh and lead the children of Israel out of Egypt?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "I'll be with you," God said. "And this will be the proof that I am the one who sent you: When you have brought my people out of Egypt, you will worship God right here at this very mountain."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the People of Israel and I tell them, 'The God of your fathers sent me to you'; and they ask me, 'What is his name?' What do I tell them?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> God said to Moses, "I-AM-WHO-I-AM. Tell the People of Israel, 'I-AM sent me to you.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> God continued with Moses: "This is what you're to say to the Israelites: 'GOD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob sent me to you.' This has always been my name, and this is how I always will be known.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Now be on your way. Gather the leaders of Israel. Tell them, 'GOD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, appeared to me, saying, "I've looked into what's being done to you in Egypt,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> and I've determined to get you out of the affliction of Egypt and take you to the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, a land brimming over with milk and honey."'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Believe me, they will listen to you. Then you and the leaders of Israel will go to the king of Egypt and say to him: 'GOD, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness where we will worship GOD--our God.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "I know that the king of Egypt won't let you go unless forced to,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> so I'll intervene and hit Egypt where it hurts--oh, my miracles will send them reeling!--after which they'll be glad to send you off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I'll see to it that this people get a hearty send-off by the Egyptians--when you leave, you won't leave empty-handed!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Each woman will ask her neighbor and any guests in her house for objects of silver and gold, for jewelry and extra clothes; you'll put them on your sons and daughters. Oh, you'll clean the Egyptians out!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Moses objected, "They won't trust me. They won't listen to a word I say. They're going to say, 'GOD? Appear to him? Hardly!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> So GOD said, "What's that in your hand?" "A staff."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Throw it on the ground." He threw it. It became a snake; Moses jumped back--fast!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD said to Moses, "Reach out and grab it by the tail." He reached out and grabbed it--and he was holding his staff again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "That's so they will trust that GOD appeared to you, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD then said, "Put your hand inside your shirt." He slipped his hand under his shirt, then took it out. His hand had turned leprous, like snow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He said, "Put your hand back under your shirt." He did it, then took it back out--as healthy as before.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "So if they don't trust you and aren't convinced by the first sign, the second sign should do it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But if it doesn't, if even after these two signs they don't trust you and listen to your message, take some water out of the Nile and pour it out on the dry land; the Nile water that you pour out will turn to blood when it hits the ground."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Moses raised another objection to GOD: "Master, please, I don't talk well. I've never been good with words, neither before nor after you spoke to me. I stutter and stammer."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD said, "And who do you think made the human mouth? And who makes some mute, some deaf, some sighted, some blind? Isn't it I, GOD?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> So, get going. I'll be right there with you--with your mouth! I'll be right there to teach you what to say."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He said, "Oh, Master, please! Send somebody else!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD got angry with Moses: "Don't you have a brother, Aaron the Levite? He's good with words, I know he is. He speaks very well. In fact, at this very moment he's on his way to meet you. When he sees you he's going to be glad.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> You'll speak to him and tell him what to say. I'll be right there with you as you speak and with him as he speaks, teaching you step by step.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He will speak to the people for you. He'll act as your mouth, but you'll decide what comes out of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Now take this staff in your hand; you'll use it to do the signs."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said, "I need to return to my relatives who are in Egypt. I want to see if they're still alive." Jethro said, "Go. And peace be with you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> GOD said to Moses in Midian: "Go. Return to Egypt. All the men who wanted to kill you are dead."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> So Moses took his wife and sons and put them on a donkey for the return trip to Egypt. He had a firm grip on the staff of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> GOD said to Moses, "When you get back to Egypt, be prepared: All the wonders that I will do through you, you'll do before Pharaoh. But I will make him stubborn so that he will refuse to let the people go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Then you are to tell Pharaoh, 'GOD's Message: Israel is my son, my firstborn!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> I told you, "Free my son so that he can serve me." But you refused to free him. So now I'm going to kill your son, your firstborn.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> On the journey back, as they camped for the night, GOD met Moses and would have killed him but</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Zipporah took a flint knife and cut off her son's foreskin, and touched Moses' member with it. She said, "Oh! You're a bridegroom of blood to me!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Then GOD let him go. She used the phrase "bridegroom of blood" because of the circumcision.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> GOD spoke to Aaron, "Go and meet Moses in the wilderness." He went and met him at the mountain of God and kissed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Moses told Aaron the message that GOD had sent him to speak and the wonders he had commanded him to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> So Moses and Aaron proceeded to round up all the leaders of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Aaron told them everything that GOD had told Moses and demonstrated the wonders before the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> And the people trusted and listened believingly that GOD was concerned with what was going on with the Israelites and knew all about their affliction. They bowed low and they worshiped.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> After that Moses and Aaron approached Pharaoh. They said, "GOD, the God of Israel, says, 'Free my people so that they can hold a festival for me in the wilderness.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Pharaoh said, "And who is GOD that I should listen to him and send Israel off? I know nothing of this so-called 'GOD' and I'm certainly not going to send Israel off."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They said, "The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness so we can worship our GOD lest he strike us with either disease or death."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But the king of Egypt said, "Why on earth, Moses and Aaron, would you suggest the people be given a holiday? Back to work!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Pharaoh went on, "Look, I've got all these people bumming around, and now you want to reward them with time off?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Pharaoh took immediate action. He sent down orders to the slave-drivers and their underlings:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Don't provide straw for the people for making bricks as you have been doing. Make them get their own straw.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And make them produce the same number of bricks--no reduction in their daily quotas! They're getting lazy. They're going around saying, 'Give us time off so we can worship our God.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Crack down on them. That'll cure them of their whining, their god-fantasies."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The slave-drivers and their underlings went out to the people with their new instructions. "Pharaoh's orders: No more straw provided.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Get your own straw wherever you can find it. And not one brick less in your daily work quota!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The people scattered all over Egypt scrabbling for straw.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The slave-drivers were merciless, saying, "Complete your daily quota of bricks--the same number as when you were given straw."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The Israelite foremen whom the slave-drivers had appointed were beaten and badgered. "Why didn't you finish your quota of bricks yesterday or the day before--and now again today!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The Israelite foremen came to Pharaoh and cried out for relief: "Why are you treating your servants like this?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Nobody gives us any straw and they tell us, 'Make bricks!' Look at us--we're being beaten. And it's not our fault."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But Pharaoh said, "Lazy! That's what you are! Lazy! That's why you whine, 'Let us go so we can worship GOD.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Well then, go--go back to work. Nobody's going to give you straw, and at the end of the day you better bring in your full quota of bricks."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The Israelite foremen saw that they were in a bad way, having to go back and tell their workers, "Not one brick short in your daily quota."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> As they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The foremen said to them, "May GOD see what you've done and judge you--you've made us stink before Pharaoh and his servants! You've put a weapon in his hand that's going to kill us!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Moses went back to GOD and said, "My Master, why are you treating this people so badly? And why did you ever send me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> From the moment I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, things have only gotten worse for this people. And rescue? Does this look like rescue to you?"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD said to Moses, "Now you'll see what I'll do to Pharaoh: With a strong hand he'll send them out free; with a strong hand he'll drive them out of his land."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> God continued speaking to Moses, reassuring him, "I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as The Strong God, but by my name GOD (I-Am-Present) I was not known to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the country in which they lived as sojourners.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But now I've heard the groanings of the Israelites whom the Egyptians continue to enslave and I've remembered my covenant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Therefore tell the Israelites: "I am GOD. I will bring you out from under the cruel hard labor of Egypt. I will rescue you from slavery. I will redeem you, intervening with great acts of judgment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I'll take you as my own people and I'll be God to you. You'll know that I am GOD, your God who brings you out from under the cruel hard labor of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I'll bring you into the land that I promised to give Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and give it to you as your own country. I AM GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But when Moses delivered this message to the Israelites, they didn't even hear him--they were that beaten down in spirit by the harsh slave conditions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then GOD said to Moses,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Go and speak to Pharaoh king of Egypt so that he will release the Israelites from his land."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Moses answered GOD, "Look--the Israelites won't even listen to me. How do you expect Pharaoh to? And besides, I stutter."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But GOD again laid out the facts to Moses and Aaron regarding the Israelites and Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he again commanded them to lead the Israelites out of the land of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> These are the heads of the tribes: The sons of Reuben, Israel's firstborn: Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi--these are the families of Reuben.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The sons of Simeon: Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jakin, Zohar, and Saul, the son of a Canaanite woman--these are the families of Simeon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> These are the names of the sons of Levi in the order of their birth: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. Levi lived 137 years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The sons of Gershon by family: Libni and Shimei.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel. Kohath lived to be 133.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi. These are the sons of Levi in the order of their birth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Amram married his aunt Jochebed and she had Aaron and Moses. Amram lived to be 137.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The sons of Izhar: Korah, Nepheg, and Zicri.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The sons of Uzziel: Mishael, Elzaphan, and Sithri.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Aaron married Elisheba, the daughter of Amminadab and sister of Nahshon, and she had Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The sons of Korah: Assir, Elkanah, and Abiasaph. These are the families of the Korahites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Aaron's son Eleazar married one of the daughters of Putiel and she had Phinehas. These are the heads of the Levite families, family by family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> This is the Aaron and Moses whom GOD ordered: "Bring the Israelites out of the land of Egypt clan by clan."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> These are the men, Moses and Aaron, who told Pharaoh king of Egypt to release the Israelites from Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> And that's how things stood when GOD next spoke to Moses in Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> God addressed Moses, saying, "I am GOD. Tell Pharaoh king of Egypt everything I say to you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> And Moses answered, "Look at me. I stutter. Why would Pharaoh listen to me?"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD told Moses, "Look at me. I'll make you as a god to Pharaoh and your brother Aaron will be your prophet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> You are to speak everything I command you, and your brother Aaron will tell it to Pharaoh. Then he will release the Israelites from his land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> At the same time I am going to put Pharaoh's back up and follow it up by filling Egypt with signs and wonders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Pharaoh is not going to listen to you, but I will have my way against Egypt and bring out my soldiers, my people the Israelites, from Egypt by mighty acts of judgment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The Egyptians will realize that I am GOD when I step in and take the Israelites out of their country."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Moses and Aaron did exactly what GOD commanded.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Moses was eighty and Aaron eighty-three when they spoke to Pharaoh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then GOD spoke to Moses and Aaron. He said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "When Pharaoh speaks to you and says, 'Prove yourselves. Perform a miracle,' then tell Aaron, 'Take your staff and throw it down in front of Pharaoh: It will turn into a snake.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did what GOD commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his servants, and it turned into a snake.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Pharaoh called in his wise men and sorcerers. The magicians of Egypt did the same thing by their incantations:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> each man threw down his staff and they all turned into snakes. But then Aaron's staff swallowed their staffs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Yet Pharaoh was as stubborn as ever--he wouldn't listen to them, just as GOD had said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD said to Moses: "Pharaoh is a stubborn man. He refuses to release the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> First thing in the morning, go and meet Pharaoh as he goes down to the river. At the shore of the Nile take the staff that turned into a snake</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> and say to him, 'GOD, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you with this message, "Release my people so that they can worship me in the wilderness." So far you haven't listened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> This is how you'll know that I am GOD. I am going to take this staff that I'm holding and strike this Nile River water: The water will turn to blood;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> the fish in the Nile will die; the Nile will stink; and the Egyptians won't be able to drink the Nile water.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> GOD said to Moses, "Tell Aaron, 'Take your staff and wave it over the waters of Egypt--over its rivers, its canals, its ponds, all its bodies of water--so that they turn to blood.' There'll be blood everywhere in Egypt--even in the pots and pans."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Moses and Aaron did exactly as GOD commanded them. Aaron raised his staff and hit the water in the Nile with Pharaoh and his servants watching. All the water in the Nile turned into blood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The fish in the Nile died; the Nile stank; and the Egyptians couldn't drink the Nile water. The blood was everywhere in Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But the magicians of Egypt did the same thing with their incantations. Still Pharaoh remained stubborn. He wouldn't listen to them as GOD had said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> He turned on his heel and went home, never giving it a second thought.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> But all the Egyptians had to dig inland from the river for water because they couldn't drink the Nile water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Seven days went by after GOD had struck the Nile.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh and tell him, 'GOD's Message: Release my people so they can worship me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> If you refuse to release them, I'm warning you, I'll hit the whole country with frogs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The Nile will swarm with frogs--they'll come up into your houses, into your bedrooms and into your beds, into your servants' quarters, among the people, into your ovens and pots and pans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They'll be all over you, all over everyone--frogs everywhere, on and in everything!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD said to Moses, "Tell Aaron, 'Wave your staff over the rivers and canals and ponds. Bring up frogs on the land of Egypt.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Aaron stretched his staff over the waters of Egypt and a mob of frogs came up and covered the country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But again the magicians did the same thing using their incantations--they also produced frogs in Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Pharaoh called in Moses and Aaron and said, "Pray to GOD to rid us of these frogs. I'll release the people so that they can make their sacrifices and worship GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Moses said to Pharaoh, "Certainly. Set the time. When do you want the frogs out of here, away from your servants and people and out of your houses? You'll be rid of frogs except for those in the Nile."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Make it tomorrow." Moses said, "Tomorrow it is--so you'll realize that there is no God like our GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The frogs will be gone. You and your houses and your servants and your people, free of frogs. The only frogs left will be the ones in the Nile."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Moses and Aaron left Pharaoh, and Moses prayed to GOD about the frogs he had brought on Pharaoh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> GOD responded to Moses' prayer: The frogs died off--houses, courtyards, fields, all free of frogs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They piled the frogs in heaps. The country reeked of dead frogs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But when Pharaoh saw that he had some breathing room, he got stubborn again and wouldn't listen to Moses and Aaron. Just as GOD had said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> GOD said to Moses, "Tell Aaron, 'Take your staff and strike the dust. The dust will turn into gnats all over Egypt.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He did it. Aaron grabbed his staff and struck the dust of the Earth; it turned into gnats, gnats all over people and animals. All the dust of the Earth turned into gnats, gnats everywhere in Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The magicians tried to produce gnats with their incantations but this time they couldn't do it. There were gnats everywhere, all over people and animals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The magicians said to Pharaoh, "This is God's doing." But Pharaoh was stubborn and wouldn't listen. Just as GOD had said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> GOD said to Moses, "Get up early in the morning and confront Pharaoh as he goes down to the water. Tell him, 'GOD's Message: Release my people so they can worship me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> If you don't release my people, I'll release swarms of flies on you, your servants, your people, and your homes. The houses of the Egyptians and even the ground under their feet will be thick with flies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But when it happens, I'll set Goshen where my people live aside as a sanctuary--no flies in Goshen. That will show you that I am GOD in this land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> I'll make a sharp distinction between your people and mine. This sign will occur tomorrow.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> And GOD did just that. Thick swarms of flies in Pharaoh's palace and the houses of his servants. All over Egypt, the country ruined by flies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Pharaoh called in Moses and Aaron and said, "Go ahead. Sacrifice to your God--but do it here in this country."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Moses said, "That would not be wise. What we sacrifice to our GOD would give great offense to Egyptians. If we openly sacrifice what is so deeply offensive to Egyptians, they'll kill us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Let us go three days' journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to our GOD, just as he instructed us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Pharaoh said, "All right. I'll release you to go and sacrifice to your GOD in the wilderness. Only don't go too far. Now pray for me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Moses said, "As soon as I leave here, I will pray to GOD that tomorrow the flies will leave Pharaoh, his servants, and his people. But don't play games with us and change your mind about releasing us to sacrifice to GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Moses left Pharaoh and prayed to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> GOD did what Moses asked. He got rid of the flies from Pharaoh and his servants and his people. There wasn't a fly left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> But Pharaoh became stubborn once again and wouldn't release the people.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh and tell him, 'GOD, the God of the Hebrews, says: Release my people so they can worship me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> If you refuse to release them and continue to hold on to them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I'm giving you fair warning: GOD will come down hard on your livestock out in the fields--horses, donkeys, camels, cattle, sheep--striking them with a severe disease.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD will draw a sharp line between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt. Not one animal that belongs to the Israelites will die.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then GOD set the time: "Tomorrow GOD will do this thing."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And the next day GOD did it. All the livestock of Egypt died, but not one animal of the Israelites died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Pharaoh sent men to find out what had happened and there it was: none of the livestock of the Israelites had died--not one death. But Pharaoh stayed stubborn. He wouldn't release the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD said to Moses and Aaron, "Take fistfuls of soot from a furnace and have Moses throw it into the air right before Pharaoh's eyes;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> it will become a film of fine dust all over Egypt and cause sores, an eruption of boils on people and animals throughout Egypt."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So they took soot from a furnace, stood in front of Pharaoh, and threw it up into the air. It caused boils to erupt on people and animals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The magicians weren't able to compete with Moses this time because of the boils--they were covered with boils just like everyone else in Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> GOD hardened Pharaoh in his stubbornness. He wouldn't listen, just as GOD had said to Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> GOD said to Moses, "Get up early in the morning and confront Pharaoh. Tell him, 'GOD, the God of the Hebrews, says: Release my people so they can worship me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> This time I am going to strike you and your servants and your people with the full force of my power so you'll get it into your head that there's no one like me anywhere in all the Earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> You know that by now I could have struck you and your people with deadly disease and there would be nothing left of you, not a trace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But for one reason only I've kept you on your feet: To make you recognize my power so that my reputation spreads in all the Earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> You are still building yourself up at my people's expense. You are not letting them go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> So here's what's going to happen: At this time tomorrow I'm sending a terrific hailstorm--there's never been a storm like this in Egypt from the day of its founding until now.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> So get your livestock under roof--everything exposed in the open fields, people and animals, will die when the hail comes down.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> All of Pharaoh's servants who had respect for GOD's word got their workers and animals under cover as fast as they could,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> but those who didn't take GOD's word seriously left their workers and animals out in the field.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> GOD said to Moses: "Stretch your hands to the skies. Signal the hail to fall all over Egypt on people and animals and crops exposed in the fields of Egypt."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Moses lifted his staff to the skies and GOD sent peals of thunder and hail shot through with lightning strikes. GOD rained hail down on the land of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The hail came, hail and lightning--a fierce hailstorm. There had been nothing like it in Egypt in its entire history.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The hail hit hard all over Egypt. Everything exposed out in the fields, people and animals and crops, was smashed. Even the trees in the fields were shattered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Except for Goshen where the Israelites lived; there was no hail in Goshen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron. He said, "I've sinned for sure this time--GOD is in the right and I and my people are in the wrong.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Pray to GOD. We've had enough of GOD's thunder and hail. I'll let you go. The sooner you're out of here the better."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Moses said, "As soon as I'm out of the city, I'll stretch out my arms to GOD. The thunder will stop and the hail end so you'll know that the land is GOD's land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Still, I know that you and your servants have no respect for GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> (The flax and the barley were ruined, for they were just ripening,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> but the wheat and spelt weren't hurt--they ripen later.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Moses left Pharaoh and the city and stretched out his arms to GOD. The thunder and hail stopped; the storm cleared.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and hail and thunder had stopped, he kept right on sinning, stubborn as ever, both he and his servants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Pharaoh's heart turned rock-hard. He refused to release the Israelites, as GOD had ordered through Moses.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD said to Moses: "Go to Pharaoh. I've made him stubborn, him and his servants, so that I can force him to look at these signs</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> and so you'll be able to tell your children and grandchildren how I toyed with the Egyptians, like a cat with a mouse; you'll tell them the stories of the signs that I brought down on them, so that you'll all know that I am GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him, "GOD, the God of the Hebrews, says, 'How long are you going to refuse to knuckle under? Release my people so that they can worship me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> If you refuse to release my people, watch out; tomorrow I'm bringing locusts into your country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They'll cover every square inch of ground; no one will be able to see the ground. They'll devour everything left over from the hailstorm, even the saplings out in the fields--they'll clear-cut the trees.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And they'll invade your houses, filling the houses of your servants, filling every house in Egypt. Nobody will have ever seen anything like this, from the time your ancestors first set foot on this soil until today.'" Then he turned on his heel and left Pharaoh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Pharaoh's servants said to him, "How long are you going to let this man harass us? Let these people go and worship their GOD. Can't you see that Egypt is on its last legs?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh. He said to them, "Go ahead then. Go worship your GOD. But just who exactly is going with you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Moses said, "We're taking young and old, sons and daughters, flocks and herds--this is our worship-celebration of GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He said, "I'd sooner send you off with GOD's blessings than let you go with your children. Look, you're up to no good--it's written all over your faces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Nothing doing. Just the men are going--go ahead and worship GOD. That's what you want so badly." And they were thrown out of Pharaoh's presence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> GOD said to Moses: "Stretch your hand over Egypt and signal the locusts to cover the land of Egypt, devouring every blade of grass in the country, everything that the hail didn't get."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt. GOD let loose an east wind. It blew that day and night. By morning the east wind had brought in the locusts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The locusts covered the country of Egypt, settling over every square inch of Egypt; the place was thick with locusts. There never was an invasion of locusts like it in the past, and never will be again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The ground was completely covered, black with locusts. They ate everything, every blade of grass, every piece of fruit, anything that the hail didn't get. Nothing left but bare trees and bare fields--not a sign of green in the whole land of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Pharaoh had Moses and Aaron back in no time. He said, "I've sinned against your GOD and against you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Overlook my sin one more time. Pray to your GOD to get me out of this--get death out of here!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Moses left Pharaoh and prayed to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> GOD reversed the wind--a powerful west wind took the locusts and dumped them into the Red Sea. There wasn't a single locust left in the whole country of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But GOD made Pharaoh stubborn as ever. He still didn't release the Israelites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> GOD said to Moses: "Stretch your hand to the skies. Let darkness descend on the land of Egypt--a darkness so dark you can touch it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Moses stretched out his hand to the skies. Thick darkness descended on the land of Egypt for three days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Nobody could see anybody. For three days no one could so much as move. Except for the Israelites: they had light where they were living.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Pharaoh called in Moses: "Go and worship GOD. Leave your flocks and herds behind. But go ahead and take your children."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> But Moses said, "You have to let us take our sacrificial animals and offerings with us so we can sacrifice them in worship to our GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Our livestock has to go with us with not a hoof left behind; they are part of the worship of our GOD. And we don't know just what will be needed until we get there."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> But GOD kept Pharaoh stubborn as ever. He wouldn't agree to release them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Pharaoh said to Moses: "Get out of my sight! And watch your step. I don't want to ever see you again. If I lay eyes on you again, you're dead."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Moses said, "Have it your way. You won't see my face again."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> God said to Moses: "I'm going to hit Pharaoh and Egypt one final time, and then he'll let you go. When he releases you, that will be the end of Egypt for you; he won't be able to get rid of you fast enough.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "So here's what you do. Tell the people to ask, each man from his neighbor and each woman from her neighbor, for things made of silver and gold."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> GOD saw to it that the Egyptians liked the people. Also, Moses was greatly admired by the Egyptians, a respected public figure among both Pharaoh's servants and the people at large.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then Moses confronted Pharaoh: "GOD's Message: 'At midnight I will go through Egypt</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> and every firstborn child in Egypt will die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sits on his throne, to the firstborn of the slave girl working at her hand mill. Also the firstborn of animals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Widespread wailing will erupt all over the country, lament such as has never been and never will be again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But against the Israelites--man, woman, or animal--there won't be so much as a dog's bark, so that you'll know that GOD makes a clear distinction between Egypt and Israel.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Then all these servants of yours will go to their knees, begging me to leave, 'Leave! You and all the people who follow you!' And I will most certainly leave." Moses, seething with anger, left Pharaoh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD said to Moses, "Pharaoh's not going to listen to a thing you say so that the signs of my presence and work are going to multiply in the land of Egypt."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Moses and Aaron had performed all these signs in Pharaoh's presence, but GOD turned Pharaoh more stubborn than ever--yet again he refused to release the Israelites from his land.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD said to Moses and Aaron while still in Egypt,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "This month is to be the first month of the year for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Address the whole community of Israel; tell them that on the tenth of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one lamb to a house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> If the family is too small for a lamb, then share it with a close neighbor, depending on the number of persons involved. Be mindful of how much each person will eat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Your lamb must be a healthy male, one year old; you can select it from either the sheep or the goats.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Keep it penned until the fourteenth day of this month and then slaughter it--the entire community of Israel will do this--at dusk.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Then take some of the blood and smear it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which you will eat it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You are to eat the meat, roasted in the fire, that night, along with bread, made without yeast, and bitter herbs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Don't eat any of it raw or boiled in water; make sure it's roasted--the whole animal, head, legs, and innards.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Don't leave any of it until morning; if there are leftovers, burn them in the fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "And here is how you are to eat it: Be fully dressed with your sandals on and your stick in your hand. Eat in a hurry; it's the Passover to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "I will go through the land of Egypt on this night and strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, whether human or animal, and bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The blood will serve as a sign on the houses where you live. When I see the blood I will pass over you--no disaster will touch you when I strike the land of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "This will be a memorial day for you; you will celebrate it as a festival to GOD down through the generations, a fixed festival celebration to be observed always.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> You will eat unraised bread (matzoth) for seven days: On the first day get rid of all yeast from your houses--anyone who eats anything with yeast from the first day to the seventh day will be cut off from Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The first and the seventh days are set aside as holy; do no work on those days. Only what you have to do for meals; each person can do that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Keep the Festival of Unraised Bread! This marks the exact day I brought you out in force from the land of Egypt. Honor the day down through your generations, a fixed festival to be observed always.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> In the first month, beginning on the fourteenth day at evening until the twenty-first day at evening, you are to eat unraised bread.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> For those seven days not a trace of yeast is to be found in your houses. Anyone, whether a visitor or a native of the land, who eats anything raised shall be cut off from the community of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Don't eat anything raised. Only matzoth."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Moses assembled all the elders of Israel. He said, "Select a lamb for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the bowl of blood and smear it on the lintel and on the two doorposts. No one is to leave the house until morning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> GOD will pass through to strike Egypt down. When he sees the blood on the lintel and the two door posts, GOD will pass over the doorway; he won't let the destroyer enter your house to strike you down with ruin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "Keep this word. It's the law for you and your children, forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> When you enter the land which GOD will give you as he promised, keep doing this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> And when your children say to you, 'Why are we doing this?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> tell them: 'It's the Passover-sacrifice to GOD who passed over the homes of the Israelites in Egypt when he hit Egypt with death but rescued us.'" The people bowed and worshiped.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The Israelites then went and did what GOD had commanded Moses and Aaron. They did it all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> At midnight GOD struck every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sits on his throne, right down to the firstborn of the prisoner locked up in jail. Also the firstborn of the animals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Pharaoh got up that night, he and all his servants and everyone else in Egypt--what wild wailing and lament in Egypt! There wasn't a house in which someone wasn't dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Pharaoh called in Moses and Aaron that very night and said, "Get out of here and be done with you--you and your Israelites! Go worship GOD on your own terms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> And yes, take your sheep and cattle as you've insisted, but go. And bless me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> The Egyptians couldn't wait to get rid of them; they pushed them to hurry up, saying, "We're all as good as dead."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The people grabbed their bread dough before it had risen, bundled their bread bowls in their cloaks and threw them over their shoulders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> The Israelites had already done what Moses had told them; they had asked the Egyptians for silver and gold things and clothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> GOD saw to it that the Egyptians liked the people and so readily gave them what they asked for. Oh yes! They picked those Egyptians clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> The Israelites moved on from Rameses to Succoth, about 600,000 on foot, besides their dependents.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> There was also a crowd of riffraff tagging along, not to mention the large flocks and herds of livestock.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> They baked unraised cakes with the bread dough they had brought out of Egypt; it hadn't raised--they'd been rushed out of Egypt and hadn't time to fix food for the journey.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> The Israelites had lived in Egypt 430 years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, GOD's entire army left Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> GOD kept watch all night, watching over the Israelites as he brought them out of Egypt. Because GOD kept watch, all Israel for all generations will honor GOD by keeping watch this night--a watchnight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> GOD said to Moses and Aaron, "These are the rules for the Passover: No foreigners are to eat it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Any slave, if he's paid for and circumcised, can eat it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> No casual visitor or hired hand can eat it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Eat it in one house--don't take the meat outside the house. Don't break any of the bones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> The whole community of Israel is to be included in the meal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> "If an immigrant is staying with you and wants to keep the Passover to GOD, every male in his family must be circumcised, then he can participate in the Meal--he will then be treated as a native son. But no uncircumcised person can eat it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> "The same law applies both to the native and the immigrant who is staying with you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> All the Israelites did exactly as GOD commanded Moses and Aaron.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> That very day GOD brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt, tribe by tribe.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses, saying,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Consecrate every firstborn to me--the first one to come from the womb among the Israelites, whether person or animal, is mine."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Moses said to the people, "Always remember this day. This is the day when you came out of Egypt from a house of slavery. GOD brought you out of here with a powerful hand. Don't eat any raised bread.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "You are leaving in the spring month of Abib.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When GOD brings you into the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, which he promised to your fathers to give you, a land lavish with milk and honey, you are to observe this service during this month:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "You are to eat unraised bread for seven days; on the seventh day there is a festival celebration to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Only unraised bread is to be eaten for seven days. There is not to be a trace of anything fermented--no yeast anywhere.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Tell your child on that day: 'This is because of what GOD did for me when I came out of Egypt.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "The day of observance will be like a sign on your hand, a memorial between your eyes, and the teaching of GOD in your mouth. It was with a powerful hand that GOD brought you out of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Follow these instructions at the set time, year after year after year.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "When GOD brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he promised you and your fathers, and turns it over to you,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> you are to set aside the first birth out of every womb to GOD. Every first birth from your livestock belongs to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You can redeem every first birth of a donkey if you want to by substituting a lamb; if you decide not to redeem it, you must break its neck. "Redeem every firstborn child among your sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> When the time comes and your son asks you, 'What does this mean?' you tell him, 'GOD brought us out of Egypt, out of a house of slavery, with a powerful hand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, GOD killed every firstborn in Egypt, the firstborn of both humans and animals. That's why I make a sacrifice for every first male birth from the womb to GOD and redeem every firstborn son.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The observance functions like a sign on your hands or a symbol on the middle of your forehead: GOD brought us out of Egypt with a powerful hand."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> It so happened that after Pharaoh released the people, God didn't lead them by the road through the land of the Philistines, which was the shortest route, for God thought, "If the people encounter war, they'll change their minds and go back to Egypt."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> So God led the people on the wilderness road, looping around to the Red Sea. The Israelites left Egypt in military formation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph had made the Israelites solemnly swear to do it, saying, "God will surely hold you accountable, so make sure you bring my bones from here with you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> They moved on from Succoth and then camped at Etham at the edge of the wilderness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> GOD went ahead of them in a Pillar of Cloud during the day to guide them on the way, and at night in a Pillar of Fire to give them light; thus they could travel both day and night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The Pillar of Cloud by day and the Pillar of Fire by night never left the people.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Tell the Israelites to turn around and make camp at Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. Camp on the shore of the sea opposite Baal Zephon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Pharaoh will think, 'The Israelites are lost; they're confused. The wilderness has closed in on them.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then I'll make Pharaoh's heart stubborn again and he'll chase after them. And I'll use Pharaoh and his army to put my Glory on display. Then the Egyptians will realize that I am GOD." And that's what happened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When the king of Egypt was told that the people were gone, he and his servants changed their minds. They said, "What have we done, letting Israel, our slave labor, go free?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So he had his chariots harnessed up and got his army together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He took six hundred of his best chariots, with the rest of the Egyptian chariots and their drivers coming along.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD made Pharaoh king of Egypt stubborn, determined to chase the Israelites as they walked out on him without even looking back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The Egyptians gave chase and caught up with them where they had made camp by the sea--all Pharaoh's horse-drawn chariots and their riders, all his foot soldiers there at Pi Hahiroth opposite Baal Zephon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up and saw them--Egyptians! Coming at them! They were totally afraid. They cried out in terror to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They told Moses, "Weren't the cemeteries large enough in Egypt so that you had to take us out here in the wilderness to die? What have you done to us, taking us out of Egypt?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Back in Egypt didn't we tell you this would happen? Didn't we tell you, 'Leave us alone here in Egypt--we're better off as slaves in Egypt than as corpses in the wilderness.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Moses spoke to the people: "Don't be afraid. Stand firm and watch GOD do his work of salvation for you today. Take a good look at the Egyptians today for you're never going to see them again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD will fight the battle for you. And you? You keep your mouths shut!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> GOD said to Moses: "Why cry out to me? Speak to the Israelites. Order them to get moving.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Hold your staff high and stretch your hand out over the sea: Split the sea! The Israelites will walk through the sea on dry ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Meanwhile I'll make sure the Egyptians keep up their stubborn chase--I'll use Pharaoh and his entire army, his chariots and horsemen,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> to put my Glory on display so that the Egyptians will realize that I am GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The angel of God that had been leading the camp of Israel now shifted and got behind them. And the Pillar of Cloud that had been in front also shifted to the rear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The Cloud was now between the camp of Egypt and the camp of Israel. The Cloud enshrouded one camp in darkness and flooded the other with light. The two camps didn't come near each other all night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and GOD, with a terrific east wind all night long, made the sea go back. He made the sea dry ground. The seawaters split.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground with the waters a wall to the right and to the left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The Egyptians came after them in full pursuit, every horse and chariot and driver of Pharaoh racing into the middle of the sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> It was now the morning watch. GOD looked down from the Pillar of Fire and Cloud on the Egyptian army and threw them into a panic.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> He clogged the wheels of their chariots; they were stuck in the mud. The Egyptians said, "Run from Israel! GOD is fighting on their side and against Egypt!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> GOD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand over the sea and the waters will come back over the Egyptians, over their chariots, over their horsemen."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Moses stretched his hand out over the sea: As the day broke and the Egyptians were running, the sea returned to its place as before. GOD dumped the Egyptians in the middle of the sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The waters returned, drowning the chariots and riders of Pharaoh's army that had chased after Israel into the sea. Not one of them survived.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> But the Israelites walked right through the middle of the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall to the right and to the left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> GOD delivered Israel that day from the oppression of the Egyptians. And Israel looked at the Egyptian dead, washed up on the shore of the sea,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> and realized the tremendous power that GOD brought against the Egyptians. The people were in reverent awe before GOD and trusted in GOD and his servant Moses.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to GOD, giving voice together, I'm singing my heart out to GOD--what a victory! He pitched horse and rider into the sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD is my strength, GOD is my song, and, yes! GOD is my salvation. This is the kind of God I have and I'm telling the world! This is the God of my father-- I'm spreading the news far and wide!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> GOD is a fighter, pure GOD, through and through.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Pharaoh's chariots and army he dumped in the sea, The elite of his officers he drowned in the Red Sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Wild ocean waters poured over them; they sank like a rock in the deep blue sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Your strong right hand, GOD, shimmers with power; your strong right hand shatters the enemy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> In your mighty majesty you smash your upstart enemies, You let loose your hot anger and burn them to a crisp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> At a blast from your nostrils the waters piled up; Tumbling streams dammed up, wild oceans curdled into a swamp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The enemy spoke, "I'll pursue, I'll hunt them down, I'll divide up the plunder, I'll glut myself on them; I'll pull out my sword, my fist will send them reeling."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You blew with all your might and the sea covered them. They sank like a lead weight in the majestic waters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Who compares with you among gods, O GOD? Who compares with you in power, in holy majesty, In awesome praises, wonder-working God?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> You stretched out your right hand and the Earth swallowed them up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But the people you redeemed, you led in merciful love; You guided them under your protection to your holy pasture.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> When people heard, they were scared; Philistines writhed and trembled;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Yes, even the head men in Edom were shaken, and the big bosses in Moab. Everybody in Canaan panicked and fell faint.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Dread and terror sent them reeling. Before your brandished right arm they were struck dumb like a stone,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Until your people crossed over and entered, O GOD, until the people you made crossed over and entered. You brought them and planted them on the mountain of your heritage, The place where you live, the place you made, Your sanctuary, Master, that you established with your own hands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Let GOD rule forever, for eternity!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Yes, Pharaoh's horses and chariots and riders went into the sea and GOD turned the waters back on them; but the Israelites walked on dry land right through the middle of the sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Miriam the prophetess, Aaron's sister, took a tambourine, and all the women followed her with tambourines, dancing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Miriam led them in singing, Sing to GOD-- what a victory! He pitched horse and rider into the sea!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Moses led Israel from the Red Sea on to the Wilderness of Shur. They traveled for three days through the wilderness without finding any water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They got to Marah, but they couldn't drink the water at Marah; it was bitter. That's why they called the place Marah (Bitter).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> And the people complained to Moses, "So what are we supposed to drink?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> So Moses cried out in prayer to GOD. GOD pointed him to a stick of wood. Moses threw it into the water and the water turned sweet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> That's the place where GOD set up rules and procedures; that's where he started testing them. GOD said, "If you listen, listen obediently to how GOD tells you to live in his presence, obeying his commandments and keeping all his laws, then I won't strike you with all the diseases that I inflicted on the Egyptians; I am GOD your healer."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> They came to Elim where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees. They set up camp there by the water.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> On the fifteenth day of the second month after they had left Egypt, the whole company of Israel moved on from Elim to the Wilderness of Sin which is between Elim and Sinai.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The whole company of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron there in the wilderness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The Israelites said, "Why didn't GOD let us die in comfort in Egypt where we had lamb stew and all the bread we could eat? You've brought us out into this wilderness to starve us to death, the whole company of Israel!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD said to Moses, "I'm going to rain bread down from the skies for you. The people will go out and gather each day's ration. I'm going to test them to see if they'll live according to my Teaching or not.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> On the sixth day, when they prepare what they have gathered, it will turn out to be twice as much as their daily ration."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Moses and Aaron told the People of Israel, "This evening you will know that it is GOD who brought you out of Egypt;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> and in the morning you will see the Glory of GOD. Yes, he's listened to your complaints against him. You haven't been complaining against us, you know, but against GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Moses said, "Since it will be GOD who gives you meat for your meal in the evening and your fill of bread in the morning, it's GOD who will have listened to your complaints against him. Who are we in all this? You haven't been complaining to us--you've been complaining to GOD!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Moses instructed Aaron: "Tell the whole company of Israel: 'Come near to GOD. He's heard your complaints.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When Aaron gave out the instructions to the whole company of Israel, they turned to face the wilderness. And there it was: the Glory of GOD visible in the Cloud.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD spoke to Moses,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "I've listened to the complaints of the Israelites. Now tell them: 'At dusk you will eat meat and at dawn you'll eat your fill of bread; and you'll realize that I am GOD, your God.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> That evening quail flew in and covered the camp and in the morning there was a layer of dew all over the camp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> When the layer of dew had lifted, there on the wilderness ground was a fine flaky something, fine as frost on the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The Israelites took one look and said to one another, man-hu (What is it?). They had no idea what it was. So Moses told them, "It's the bread GOD has given you to eat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> And these are GOD's instructions: 'Gather enough for each person, about two quarts per person; gather enough for everyone in your tent.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The People of Israel went to work and started gathering, some more, some less,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> but when they measured out what they had gathered, those who gathered more had no extra and those who gathered less weren't short--each person had gathered as much as was needed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Moses said to them, "Don't leave any of it until morning."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But they didn't listen to Moses. A few of the men kept back some of it until morning. It got wormy and smelled bad. And Moses lost his temper with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They gathered it every morning, each person according to need. Then the sun heated up and it melted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> On the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, about four quarts per person. Then the leaders of the company came to Moses and reported.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Moses said, "This is what GOD was talking about: Tomorrow is a day of rest, a holy Sabbath to GOD. Whatever you plan to bake, bake today; and whatever you plan to boil, boil today. Then set aside the leftovers until morning."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> They set aside what was left until morning, as Moses had commanded. It didn't smell bad and there were no worms in it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Moses said, "Now eat it; this is the day, a Sabbath for GOD. You won't find any of it on the ground today.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Gather it every day for six days, but the seventh day is Sabbath; there won't be any of it on the ground."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> On the seventh day, some of the people went out to gather anyway but they didn't find anything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> GOD said to Moses, "How long are you going to disobey my commands and not follow my instructions?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Don't you see that GOD has given you the Sabbath? So on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. So, each of you, stay home. Don't leave home on the seventh day."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> So the people quit working on the seventh day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The Israelites named it manna (What is it?). It looked like coriander seed, whitish. And it tasted like a cracker with honey.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Moses said, "This is GOD's command: 'Keep a two-quart jar of it, an omer, for future generations so they can see the bread that I fed you in the wilderness after I brought you out of Egypt.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Moses told Aaron, "Take a jar and fill it with two quarts of manna. Place it before GOD, keeping it safe for future generations."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Aaron did what GOD commanded Moses. He set it aside before The Testimony to preserve it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> The Israelites ate the manna for forty years until they arrived at the land where they would settle down. They ate manna until they reached the border into Canaan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> According to ancient measurements, an omer is one-tenth of an ephah.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="17">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Directed by GOD, the whole company of Israel moved on by stages from the Wilderness of Sin. They set camp at Rephidim. And there wasn't a drop of water for the people to drink.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The people took Moses to task: "Give us water to drink." But Moses said, "Why pester me? Why are you testing GOD?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But the people were thirsty for water there. They complained to Moses, "Why did you take us from Egypt and drag us out here with our children and animals to die of thirst?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Moses cried out in prayer to GOD, "What can I do with these people? Any minute now they'll kill me!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD said to Moses, "Go on out ahead of the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel. Take the staff you used to strike the Nile. And go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I'm going to be present before you there on the rock at Horeb. You are to strike the rock. Water will gush out of it and the people will drink." Moses did what he said, with the elders of Israel right there watching.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He named the place Massah (Testing-Place) and Meribah (Quarreling) because of the quarreling of the Israelites and because of their testing of GOD when they said, "Is GOD here with us, or not?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Amalek came and fought Israel at Rephidim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Moses ordered Joshua: "Select some men for us and go out and fight Amalek. Tomorrow I will take my stand on top of the hill holding God's staff."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Joshua did what Moses ordered in order to fight Amalek. And Moses, Aaron, and Hur went to the top of the hill.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> It turned out that whenever Moses raised his hands, Israel was winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, Amalek was winning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But Moses' hands got tired. So they got a stone and set it under him. He sat on it and Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on each side. So his hands remained steady until the sun went down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Joshua defeated Amalek and its army in battle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD said to Moses, "Write this up as a reminder to Joshua, to keep it before him, because I will most certainly wipe the very memory of Amalek off the face of the Earth."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Moses built an altar and named it "GOD My Banner."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He said, Salute GOD's rule! GOD at war with Amalek Always and forever!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="18">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Jethro, priest of Midian and father-in-law to Moses, heard the report of all that God had done for Moses and Israel his people, the news that God had delivered Israel from Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, had taken in Zipporah, Moses' wife who had been sent back home,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> and her two sons. The name of the one was Gershom (Sojourner) for he had said, "I'm a sojourner in a foreign land";</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> the name of the other was Eliezer (God's-Help) because "The God of my father is my help and saved me from death by Pharaoh."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, brought Moses his sons and his wife there in the wilderness where he was camped at the mountain of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He had sent a message ahead to Moses: "I, your father-in-law, am coming to you with your wife and two sons."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Moses went out to welcome his father-in-law. He bowed to him and kissed him. Each asked the other how things had been with him. Then they went into the tent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Moses told his father-in-law the story of all that GOD had done to Pharaoh and Egypt in helping Israel, all the trouble they had experienced on the journey, and how GOD had delivered them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Jethro was delighted in all the good that GOD had done for Israel in delivering them from Egyptian oppression.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Jethro said, "Blessed be GOD who has delivered you from the power of Egypt and Pharaoh, who has delivered his people from the oppression of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Now I know that GOD is greater than all gods because he's done this to all those who treated Israel arrogantly."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, brought a Whole-Burnt-Offering and sacrifices to God. And Aaron, along with all the elders of Israel, came and ate the meal with Moses' father-in-law in the presence of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The next day Moses took his place to judge the people. People were standing before him all day long, from morning to night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> When Moses' father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, "What's going on here? Why are you doing all this, and all by yourself, letting everybody line up before you from morning to night?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Moses said to his father-in-law, "Because the people come to me with questions about God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When something comes up, they come to me. I judge between a man and his neighbor and teach them God's laws and instructions."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Moses' father-in-law said, "This is no way to go about it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> You'll burn out, and the people right along with you. This is way too much for you--you can't do this alone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Now listen to me. Let me tell you how to do this so that God will be in this with you. Be there for the people before God, but let the matters of concern be presented to God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Your job is to teach them the rules and instructions, to show them how to live, what to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And then you need to keep a sharp eye out for competent men--men who fear God, men of integrity, men who are incorruptible--and appoint them as leaders over groups organized by the thousand, by the hundred, by fifty, and by ten.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> They'll be responsible for the everyday work of judging among the people. They'll bring the hard cases to you, but in the routine cases they'll be the judges. They will share your load and that will make it easier for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> If you handle the work this way, you'll have the strength to carry out whatever God commands you, and the people in their settings will flourish also."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Moses listened to the counsel of his father-in-law and did everything he said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Moses picked competent men from all Israel and set them as leaders over the people who were organized by the thousand, by the hundred, by fifty, and by ten.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> They took over the everyday work of judging among the people. They brought the hard cases to Moses, but in the routine cases they were the judges.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Then Moses said good-bye to his father-in-law who went home to his own country.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="19">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Three months after leaving Egypt the Israelites entered the Wilderness of Sinai.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They followed the route from Rephidim, arrived at the Wilderness of Sinai, and set up camp. Israel camped there facing the mountain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> As Moses went up to meet God, GOD called down to him from the mountain: "Speak to the House of Jacob, tell the People of Israel:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> 'You have seen what I did to Egypt and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> If you will listen obediently to what I say and keep my covenant, out of all peoples you'll be my special treasure. The whole Earth is mine to choose from,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> but you're special: a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.' "This is what I want you to tell the People of Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Moses came back and called the elders of Israel together and set before them all these words which GOD had commanded him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The people were unanimous in their response: "Everything GOD says, we will do." Moses took the people's answer back to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD said to Moses, "Get ready. I'm about to come to you in a thick cloud so that the people can listen in and trust you completely when I speak with you." Again Moses reported the people's answer to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> GOD said to Moses, "Go to the people. For the next two days get these people ready to meet the Holy GOD. Have them scrub their clothes</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> so that on the third day they'll be fully prepared, because on the third day GOD will come down on Mount Sinai and make his presence known to all the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Post boundaries for the people all around, telling them, 'Warning! Don't climb the mountain. Don't even touch its edge. Whoever touches the mountain dies--a certain death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And no one is to touch that person, he's to be stoned. That's right--stoned. Or shot with arrows, shot to death. Animal or man, whichever--put to death.' "A long blast from the horn will signal that it's safe to climb the mountain."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Moses went down the mountain to the people and prepared them for the holy meeting. They gave their clothes a good scrubbing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Then he addressed the people: "Be ready in three days. Don't sleep with a woman."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> On the third day at daybreak, there were loud claps of thunder, flashes of lightning, a thick cloud covering the mountain, and an ear-piercing trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp shuddered in fear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Moses led the people out of the camp to meet God. They stood at attention at the base of the mountain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Mount Sinai was all smoke because GOD had come down on it as fire. Smoke poured from it like smoke from a furnace. The whole mountain shuddered in huge spasms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The trumpet blasts grew louder and louder. Moses spoke and God answered in thunder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> GOD descended to the peak of Mount Sinai. GOD called Moses up to the peak and Moses climbed up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> GOD said to Moses, "Go down. Warn the people not to break through the barricades to get a look at GOD lest many of them die.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> And the priests also, warn them to prepare themselves for the holy meeting, lest GOD break out against them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Moses said to GOD, "But the people can't climb Mount Sinai. You've already warned us well telling us: 'Post boundaries around the mountain. Respect the holy mountain.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> GOD told him, "Go down and then bring Aaron back up with you. But make sure that the priests and the people don't break through and come up to GOD, lest he break out against them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> So Moses went down to the people. He said to them:</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="20">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke all these words:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I am GOD, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of a life of slavery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> No other gods, only me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> No carved gods of any size, shape, or form of anything whatever, whether of things that fly or walk or swim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Don't bow down to them and don't serve them because I am GOD, your God, and I'm a most jealous God, punishing the children for any sins their parents pass on to them to the third, and yes, even to the fourth generation of those who hate me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But I'm unswervingly loyal to the thousands who love me and keep my commandments.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> No using the name of GOD, your God, in curses or silly banter; GOD won't put up with the irreverant use of his name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Work six days and do everything you need to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But the seventh day is a Sabbath to GOD, your God. Don't do any work--not you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your servant, nor your maid, nor your animals, not even the foreign guest visiting in your town.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> For in six days GOD made Heaven, Earth, and sea, and everything in them; he rested on the seventh day. Therefore GOD blessed the Sabbath day; he set it apart as a holy day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Honor your father and mother so that you'll live a long time in the land that GOD, your God, is giving you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> No murder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> No adultery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> No stealing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> No lies about your neighbor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> No lusting after your neighbor's house--or wife or servant or maid or ox or donkey. Don't set your heart on anything that is your neighbor's.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> All the people, experiencing the thunder and lightning, the trumpet blast and the smoking mountain, were afraid--they pulled back and stood at a distance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They said to Moses, "You speak to us and we'll listen, but don't have God speak to us or we'll die."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Moses spoke to the people: "Don't be afraid. God has come to test you and instill a deep and reverent awe within you so that you won't sin."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The people kept their distance while Moses approached the thick cloud where God was.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> GOD said to Moses, "Give this Message to the People of Israel: 'You've experienced firsthand how I spoke with you from Heaven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Don't make gods of silver and gods of gold and then set them alongside me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Make me an earthen Altar. Sacrifice your Whole-Burnt-Offerings, your Peace-Offerings, your sheep, and your cattle on it. Every place where I cause my name to be honored in your worship, I'll be there myself and bless you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> If you use stones to make my Altar, don't use dressed stones. If you use a chisel on the stones you'll profane the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Don't use steps to climb to my Altar because that will expose your nakedness.'</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="21">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "These are the laws that you are to place before them:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "When you buy a Hebrew slave, he will serve six years. The seventh year he goes free, for nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> If he came in single he leaves single. If he came in married he leaves with his wife.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> If the master gives him a wife and she gave him sons and daughters, the wife and children stay with the master and he leaves by himself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But suppose the slave should say, 'I love my master and my wife and children--I don't want my freedom,'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> then his master is to bring him before God and to a door or doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl, a sign that he is a slave for life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "When a man sells his daughter to be a handmaid, she doesn't go free after six years like the men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> If she doesn't please her master, her family must buy her back; her master doesn't have the right to sell her to foreigners since he broke his word to her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> If he turns her over to his son, he has to treat her like a daughter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> If he marries another woman, she retains all her full rights to meals, clothing, and marital relations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> If he won't do any of these three things for her, she goes free, for nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "If someone hits another and death results, the penalty is death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But if there was no intent to kill--if it was an accident, an 'act of God'--I'll set aside a place to which the killer can flee for refuge.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But if the murder was premeditated, cunningly plotted, then drag the killer away, even if it's from my Altar, to be put to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "If someone hits father or mother, the penalty is death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "If someone kidnaps a person, the penalty is death, regardless of whether the person has been sold or is still held in possession.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "If someone curses father or mother, the penalty is death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "If a quarrel breaks out and one hits the other with a rock or a fist and the injured one doesn't die but is confined to bed</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> and then later gets better and can get about on a crutch, the one who hit him is in the clear, except to pay for the loss of time and make sure of complete recovery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "If a slave owner hits a slave, male or female, with a stick and the slave dies on the spot, the slave must be avenged.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But if the slave survives a day or two, he's not to be avenged--the slave is the owner's property.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "When there's a fight and in the fight a pregnant woman is hit so that she miscarries but is not otherwise hurt, the one responsible has to pay whatever the husband demands in compensation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But if there is further damage, then you must give life for life--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "If a slave owner hits the eye of a slave or handmaid and ruins it, the owner must let the slave go free because of the eye.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> If the owner knocks out the tooth of the male or female slave, the slave must be released and go free because of the tooth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "If an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox must be stoned. The meat cannot be eaten but the owner of the ox is in the clear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> But if the ox has a history of goring and the owner knew it and did nothing to guard against it, then if the ox kills a man or a woman, the ox is to be stoned and the owner given the death penalty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> If a ransom is agreed upon instead of death, he must pay it in full as a redemption for his life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> If a son or daughter is gored, the same judgment holds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> If it is a slave or a handmaid the ox gores, thirty shekels of silver is to be paid to the owner and the ox stoned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "If someone uncovers a cistern or digs a pit and leaves it open and an ox or donkey falls into it,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> the owner of the pit must pay whatever the animal is worth to its owner but can keep the dead animal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> "If someone's ox injures a neighbor's ox and the ox dies, they must sell the live ox and split the price; they must also split the dead animal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> But if the ox had a history of goring and the owner knew it and did nothing to guard against it, the owner must pay an ox for an ox but can keep the dead animal.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="22">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "If someone steals an ox or a lamb and slaughters or sells it, the thief must pay five cattle in place of the ox and four sheep in place of the lamb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> If the thief is caught while breaking in and is hit hard and dies, there is no bloodguilt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But if it happens after daybreak, there is bloodguilt. "A thief must make full restitution for what is stolen. The thief who is unable to pay is to be sold for his thieving.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> If caught red-handed with the stolen goods, and the ox or donkey or lamb is still alive, the thief pays double.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "If someone grazes livestock in a field or vineyard but lets them loose so they graze in someone else's field, restitution must be made from the best of the owner's field or vineyard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "If fire breaks out and spreads to the brush so that the sheaves of grain or the standing grain or even the whole field is burned up, whoever started the fire must pay for the damages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "If someone gives a neighbor money or things for safekeeping and they are stolen from the neighbor's house, the thief, if caught, must pay back double.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> If the thief is not caught, the owner must be brought before God to determine whether the owner was the one who took the neighbor's goods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "In all cases of stolen goods, whether oxen, donkeys, sheep, clothing, anything in fact missing of which someone says, 'That's mine,' both parties must come before the judges. The one the judges pronounce guilty must pay double to the other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "If someone gives a donkey or ox or lamb or any kind of animal to another for safekeeping and it dies or is injured or lost and there is no witness,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> an oath before GOD must be made between them to decide whether one has laid hands on the property of the other. The owner must accept this and no damages are assessed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But if it turns out it was stolen, the owner must be compensated.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> If it has been torn by wild beasts, the torn animal must be brought in as evidence; no damages have to be paid.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "If someone borrows an animal from a neighbor and it gets injured or dies while the owner is not present, he must pay for it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But if the owner was with it, he doesn't have to pay. If the animal was hired, the payment covers the loss.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the marriage price and marry her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> If her father absolutely refuses to give her away, the man must still pay the marriage price for virgins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Don't let a sorceress live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Anyone who has sex with an animal gets the death penalty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "Anyone who sacrifices to a god other than GOD alone must be put to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Don't abuse or take advantage of strangers; you, remember, were once strangers in Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Don't mistreat widows or orphans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> If you do and they cry out to me, you can be sure I'll take them most seriously;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> I'll show my anger and come raging among you with the sword, and your wives will end up widows and your children orphans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "If you lend money to my people, to any of the down-and-out among you, don't come down hard on them and gouge them with interest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "If you take your neighbor's coat as security, give it back before nightfall;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> it may be your neighbor's only covering--what else does the person have to sleep in? And if I hear the neighbor crying out from the cold, I'll step in--I'm compassionate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "Don't curse God; and don't damn your leaders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "Don't be stingy as your wine vats fill up. "Dedicate your firstborn sons to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The same with your cattle and sheep--they are to stay for seven days with their mother, then give them to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "Be holy for my sake. "Don't eat mutilated flesh you find in the fields; throw it to the dogs.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="23">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Don't pass on malicious gossip. "Don't link up with a wicked person and give corrupt testimony.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Don't go along with the crowd in doing evil and don't fudge your testimony in a case just to please the crowd.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And just because someone is poor, don't show favoritism in a dispute.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "If you find your enemy's ox or donkey loose, take it back to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> If you see the donkey of someone who hates you lying helpless under its load, don't walk off and leave it. Help it up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "When there is a dispute concerning your poor, don't tamper with the justice due them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Stay clear of false accusations. Don't contribute to the death of innocent and good people. I don't let the wicked off the hook.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Don't take bribes. Bribes blind perfectly good eyes and twist the speech of good people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Don't take advantage of a stranger. You know what it's like to be a stranger; you were strangers in Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Sow your land for six years and gather in its crops,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> but in the seventh year leave it alone and give it a rest so that your poor may eat from it. What they leave, let the wildlife have. Do the same with your vineyards and olive groves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Work for six days and rest the seventh so your ox and donkey may rest and your servant and migrant workers may have time to get their needed rest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Listen carefully to everything I tell you. Don't pay attention to other gods--don't so much as mention their names.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Three times a year you are to hold a festival for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Hold the spring Festival of Unraised Bread when you eat unraised bread for seven days at the time set for the month of Abib, as I commanded you. That was the month you came out of Egypt. No one should show up before me empty-handed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Hold the summer Festival of Harvest when you bring in the firstfruits of all your work in the fields. "Hold the autumn Festival of Ingathering at the end of the season when you bring in the year's crops.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Three times a year all your males are to appear before the Master, GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Don't offer the blood of a sacrifice to me with anything that has yeast in it. "Don't leave the fat from my festival offering out overnight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Bring the choice first produce of the year to the house of your GOD. "Don't boil a kid in its mother's milk.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "Now get yourselves ready. I'm sending my Angel ahead of you to guard you in your travels, to lead you to the place that I've prepared.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Pay close attention to him. Obey him. Don't go against him. He won't put up with your rebellions because he's acting on my authority.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But if you obey him and do everything I tell you, I'll be an enemy to your enemies, I'll fight those who fight you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> When my Angel goes ahead of you and leads you to the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, I'll clear the country of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> So don't worship or serve their gods; don't do anything they do because I'm going to wipe them right off the face of the Earth and smash their sacred phallic pillars to bits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "But you--you serve your GOD and he'll bless your food and your water. I'll get rid of the sickness among you;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> there won't be any miscarriages nor barren women in your land. I'll make sure you live full and complete lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "I'll send my Terror on ahead of you and throw those peoples you're approaching into a panic. All you'll see of your enemies is the backs of their necks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "And I'll send Despair on ahead of you. It will push the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites out of your way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> I won't get rid of them all at once lest the land grow up in weeds and the wild animals take over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Little by little I'll get them out of there while you have a chance to get your crops going and make the land your own.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> I will make your borders stretch from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea and from the Wilderness to the Euphrates River. I'm turning everyone living in that land over to you; go ahead and drive them out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "Don't make any deals with them or their gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> They are not to stay in the same country with you lest they get you to sin by worshiping their gods. Beware. That's a huge danger."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="24">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> He said to Moses, "Climb the mountain to GOD, you and Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. They will worship from a distance;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> only Moses will approach GOD. The rest are not to come close. And the people are not to climb the mountain at all."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> So Moses went to the people and told them everything GOD had said--all the rules and regulations. They all answered in unison: "Everything GOD said, we'll do."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then Moses wrote it all down, everything GOD had said. He got up early the next morning and built an Altar at the foot of the mountain using twelve pillar-stones for the twelve tribes of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then he directed young Israelite men to offer Whole-Burnt-Offerings and sacrifice Peace-Offerings of bulls.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Moses took half the blood and put it in bowls; the other half he threw against the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it as the people listened. They said, "Everything GOD said, we'll do. Yes, we'll obey."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Moses took the rest of the blood and threw it out over the people, saying, "This is the blood of the covenant which GOD has made with you out of all these words I have spoken."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then they climbed the mountain--Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> and saw the God of Israel. He was standing on a pavement of something like sapphires--pure, clear sky-blue.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He didn't hurt these pillar-leaders of the Israelites: They saw God; and they ate and drank.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> GOD said to Moses, "Climb higher up the mountain and wait there for me; I'll give you tablets of stone, the teachings and commandments that I've written to instruct them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> So Moses got up, accompanied by Joshua his aide. And Moses climbed up the mountain of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He told the elders of Israel, "Wait for us here until we return to you. You have Aaron and Hur with you; if there are any problems, go to them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Then Moses climbed the mountain. The Cloud covered the mountain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The Glory of GOD settled over Mount Sinai. The Cloud covered it for six days. On the seventh day he called out of the Cloud to Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> In the view of the Israelites below, the Glory of God looked like a raging fire at the top of the mountain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Moses entered the middle of the Cloud and climbed the mountain. Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="25">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Tell the Israelites that they are to set aside offerings for me. Receive the offerings from everyone who is willing to give.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> These are the offerings I want you to receive from them: gold, silver, bronze;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> blue, purple, and scarlet material; fine linen; goats' hair;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> tanned rams' skins; dolphin skins; acacia wood;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> lamp oil; spices for anointing oils and for fragrant incense;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> onyx stones and other stones for setting in the Ephod and the Breastpiece.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Let them construct a Sanctuary for me so that I can live among them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You are to construct it following the plans I've given you, the design for The Dwelling and the design for all its furnishings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "First let them make a Chest using acacia wood: make it three and three-quarters feet long and two and one-quarter feet wide and deep</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> . Cover it with a veneer of pure gold inside and out and make a molding of gold all around it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Cast four gold rings and attach them to its four feet, two rings on one side and two rings on the other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Make poles from acacia wood and cover them with a veneer of gold</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> and insert them into the rings on the sides of the Chest for carrying the Chest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The poles are to stay in the rings; they must not be removed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Place The Testimony that I give you in the Chest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Now make a lid of pure gold for the Chest, an Atonement-Cover, three and three-quarters feet long and two and one-quarter feet wide.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Sculpt two winged angels out of hammered gold for either end of the Atonement-Cover,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> one angel at one end, one angel at the other. Make them of one piece with the Atonement-Cover.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Make the angels with their wings spread, hovering over the Atonement-Cover, facing one another but looking down on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Set the Atonement-Cover as a lid over the Chest and place in the Chest The Testimony that I will give you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I will meet you there at set times and speak with you from above the Atonement-Cover and from between the angel-figures that are on it, speaking the commands that I have for the Israelites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "Next make a Table from acacia wood. Make it three feet long, one and one-half feet wide and two and one-quarter feet high.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Cover it with a veneer of pure gold. Make a molding all around it of gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Make the border a handbreadth wide all around it and a rim of gold for the border.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Make four rings of gold and attach the rings to the four legs</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> parallel to the table top. They will serve as holders for the poles used to carry the Table.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Make the poles of acacia wood and cover them with a veneer of gold. They will be used to carry the Table.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "Make plates, bowls, jars, and jugs for pouring out offerings. Make them of pure gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "Always keep fresh Bread of the Presence on the Table before me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "Make a Lampstand of pure hammered gold. Make its stem and branches, cups, calyxes, and petals all of one piece.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Give it six branches, three from one side and three from the other;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> put three cups shaped like almond blossoms, each with calyx and petals, on one branch, three on the next, and so on--the same for all six branches.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> On the main stem of the Lampstand, make four cups shaped like almonds, with calyx and petals,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> a calyx extending from under each pair of the six branches,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> the entire Lampstand fashioned from one piece of hammered pure gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> "Make seven of these lamps for the Table. Arrange the lamps so they throw their light out in front.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Make the candle snuffers and trays out of pure gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> "Use a seventy-five-pound brick of pure gold to make the Lampstand and its accessories.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Study the design you were given on the mountain and make everything accordingly.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="26">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Make The Dwelling itself from ten panels of tapestry woven from fine twisted linen, blue and purple and scarlet material, with an angel-cherubim design. A skilled craftsman should do it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The panels of tapestry are each to be forty-six feet long and six feet wide.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Join five of the panels together, and then the other five together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Make loops of blue along the edge of the outside panel of the first set and the same on the outside panel of the second set.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Make fifty loops on each panel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then make fifty gold clasps and join the tapestries together so that The Dwelling is one whole.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Next make tapestries of goat hair for a tent that will cover The Dwelling. Make eleven panels of these tapestries.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The length of each panel will be forty-five feet long and six feet wide.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Join five of the panels together, and then the other six. Fold the sixth panel double at the front of the tent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Now make fifty loops along the edge of the end panel and fifty loops along the edge of the joining panel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Make fifty clasps of bronze and connect the clasps with the loops, bringing the tent together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Hang half of the overlap of the tapestry panels over the rear of The Dwelling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The eighteen inches of overlap on either side will cover the sides of the tent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Finally, make a covering for the tapestries of tanned rams' skins dyed red and over that a covering of dolphin skins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Frame The Dwelling with planks of acacia wood,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> each section of frame fifteen feet long and two and one-quarter feet wide,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> with two pegs for securing them. Make all the frames identical:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> twenty frames for the south side</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> with forty silver sockets to receive the two pegs from each of the twenty frames;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> the same construction on the north side of The Dwelling;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> (SEE 26:20)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> for the rear of The Dwelling, which faces west, make six frames</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> with two additional frames for the rear corners.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Both of the two corner frames need to be double in thickness from top to bottom and fit into a single ring--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> eight frames altogether with sixteen sockets of silver, two under each frame.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "Now make crossbars of acacia wood, five for the frames on one side of The Dwelling,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> five for the other side, and five for the back side facing west.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The center crossbar runs from end to end halfway up the frames.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Cover the frames with a veneer of gold and make gold rings to hold the crossbars. And cover the crossbars with a veneer of gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Then put The Dwelling together, following the design you were shown on the mountain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "Make a curtain of blue, purple, and scarlet material and fine twisted linen. Have a design of angel-cherubim woven into it by a skilled craftsman.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Fasten it with gold hooks to four posts of acacia wood covered with a veneer of gold, set on four silver bases.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> After hanging the curtain from the clasps, bring the Chest of The Testimony in behind the curtain. The curtain will separate the Holy Place from the Holy-of-Holies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Now place the Atonement-Cover lid on the Chest of The Testimony in the Holy-of-Holies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Place the Table and the Lampstand outside the curtain, the Lampstand on the south side of The Dwelling and the Table opposite it on the north side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> "Make a screen for the door of the tent. Weave it from blue, purple, and scarlet material and fine twisted linen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Frame the weaving with five poles of acacia wood covered with a veneer of gold and make gold hooks to hang the weaving. Cast five bronze bases for the poles.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="27">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Make an Altar of acacia wood. Make it seven and a half feet square and four and a half feet high.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Make horns at each of the four corners. The horns are to be of one piece with the Altar and covered with a veneer of bronze.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Make buckets for removing the ashes, along with shovels, basins, forks, and fire pans. Make all these utensils from bronze.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Make a grate of bronze mesh and attach bronze rings at each of the four corners.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Put the grate under the ledge of the Altar at the halfway point of the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Make acacia wood poles for the Altar and cover them with a veneer of bronze.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Insert the poles through the rings on the two sides of the Altar for carrying.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Use boards to make the Altar, keeping the interior hollow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Make a Courtyard for The Dwelling. The south side is to be 150 feet long. The hangings for the Courtyard are to be woven from fine twisted linen,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> with their twenty posts, twenty bronze bases, and fastening hooks and bands of silver.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The north side is to be exactly the same.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "For the west end of the Courtyard you will need seventy-five feet of hangings with their ten posts and bases.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Across the seventy-five feet at the front, or east end,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> you will need twenty-two and a half feet of hangings, with their three posts and bases on one side</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> and the same for the other side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> At the door of the Courtyard make a screen thirty feet long woven from blue, purple, and scarlet stuff, with fine twisted linen, embroidered by a craftsman, and hung on its four posts and bases.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> All the posts around the Courtyard are to be banded with silver, with hooks of silver and bases of bronze.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The Courtyard is to be 150 feet long and seventy-five feet wide. The hangings of fine twisted linen set on their bronze bases are to be seven and a half feet high.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> All the tools used for setting up The Holy Dwelling, including all the pegs in it and the Courtyard, are to be made of bronze.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "Now, order the Israelites to bring you pure, clear olive oil for light so that the lamps can be kept burning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> In the Tent of Meeting, the area outside the curtain that veils The Testimony, Aaron and his sons will keep this light burning from evening until morning before GOD. This is to be a permanent practice down through the generations for Israelites.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="28">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Get your brother Aaron and his sons from among the Israelites to serve me as priests: Aaron and his sons Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, Ithamar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Make sacred vestments for your brother Aaron to symbolize glory and beauty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Consult with the skilled craftsmen, those whom I have gifted in this work, and arrange for them to make Aaron's vestments, to set him apart as holy, to act as priest for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> These are the articles of clothing they are to make: Breastpiece, Ephod, robe, woven tunic, turban, sash. They are making holy vestments for your brother Aaron and his sons as they work as priests for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They will need gold; blue, purple, and scarlet material; and fine linen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Have the Ephod made from gold; blue, purple, and scarlet material; and fine twisted linen by a skilled craftsman.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Give it two shoulder pieces at two of the corners so it can be fastened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The decorated band on it is to be just like it and of one piece with it: made of gold; blue, purple, and scarlet material; and of fine twisted linen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Next take two onyx stones and engrave the names of the sons of Israel on them in the order of their birth,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> six names on one stone and the remaining six on the other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Engrave the names of the sons of Israel on the two stones the way a jeweler engraves a seal. Then mount the stones in settings of filigreed gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Fasten the two stones on the shoulder pieces of the Ephod--they are memorial stones for the Israelites. Aaron will wear these names on his shoulders as a memorial before GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Make the settings of gold filigree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Make two chains of pure gold and braid them like cords, then attach the corded chains to the settings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Now make a Breastpiece of Judgment, using skilled craftsmen, the same as with the Ephod. Use gold; blue, purple, and scarlet material; and fine twisted linen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Make it nine inches square and folded double.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Mount four rows of precious gemstones on it. First row: carnelian, topaz, emerald.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Second row: ruby, sapphire, crystal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Third row: jacinth, agate, amethyst.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Fourth row: beryl, onyx, jasper. "Set them in gold filigree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The twelve stones correspond to the names of the Israelites, with twelve names engraved, one on each, as on a seal for the twelve tribes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Then make braided chains of pure gold for the Breastpiece, like cords.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Make two rings of gold for the Breastpiece and fasten them to the two ends.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Fasten the two golden cords to the rings at the ends of the Breastpiece.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Then fasten the other ends of the two cords to the two settings of filigree, attaching them to the shoulder pieces of the Ephod in front.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Then make two rings of gold and fasten them to the two ends of the Breastpiece on its inside edge facing the Ephod.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Then make two more rings of gold and fasten them in the front of the Ephod to the lower part of the two shoulder pieces, near the seam above the decorated band.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Fasten the Breastpiece in place by running a cord of blue through its rings to the rings of the Ephod so that it rests secure on the decorated band of the Ephod and won't come loose.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "Aaron will regularly carry the names of the sons of Israel on the Breastpiece of Judgment over his heart as he enters the Sanctuary into the presence of GOD for remembrance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Place the Urim and Thummim in the Breastpiece of Judgment. They will be over Aaron's heart when he enters the presence of GOD. In this way Aaron will regularly carry the Breastpiece of Judgment into the presence of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "Make the robe for the Ephod entirely of blue,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> with an opening for the head at the center and a hem on the edge so that it won't tear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> For the edge of the skirts make pomegranates of blue, purple, and scarlet material all around and alternate them with bells of gold--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> gold bell and pomegranate, gold bell and pomegranate--all around the hem of the robe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Aaron has to wear it when he does his priestly work. The bells will be heard when he enters the Holy Place and comes into the presence of GOD, and again when he comes out so that he won't die.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> "Make a plate of pure gold. Engrave on it as on a seal: 'Holy to GOD.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Tie it with a blue cord to the front of the turban.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> It is to rest there on Aaron's forehead. He'll take on any guilt involved in the sacred offerings that the Israelites consecrate, no matter what they bring. It will always be on Aaron's forehead so that the offerings will be acceptable before GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> "Weave the tunic of fine linen. Make the turban of fine linen. The sash will be the work of an embroiderer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Make tunics, sashes, and hats for Aaron's sons to express glory and beauty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Dress your brother Aaron and his sons in them. Anoint, ordain, and consecrate them to serve me as priests.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> "Make linen underwear to cover their nakedness from waist to thigh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Aaron and his sons must wear it whenever they enter the Tent of Meeting or approach the Altar to minister in the Holy Place so that they won't incur guilt and die. This is a permanent rule for Aaron and all his priest-descendants.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="29">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "This is the ceremony for consecrating them as priests. Take a young bull and two rams, healthy and without defects.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Using fine wheat flour but no yeast make bread and cakes mixed with oil and wafers spread with oil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Place them in a basket and carry them along with the bull and the two rams.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting and wash them with water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Then take the vestments and dress Aaron in the tunic, the robe of the Ephod, the Ephod, and the Breastpiece, belting the Ephod on him with the embroidered waistband.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Set the turban on his head and place the sacred crown on the turban.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Then take the anointing oil and pour it on his head, anointing him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then bring his sons, put tunics on them</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> and gird them with sashes, both Aaron and his sons, and set hats on them. Their priesthood is upheld by law and is permanent. "This is how you will ordain Aaron and his sons:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Bring the bull to the Tent of Meeting. Aaron and his sons will place their hands on the head of the bull.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then you will slaughter the bull in the presence of GOD at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Take some of the bull's blood and smear it on the horns of the Altar with your finger; pour the rest of the blood on the base of the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Next take all the fat that covers the innards, fat from around the liver and the two kidneys, and burn it on the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But the flesh of the bull, including its hide and dung, you will burn up outside the camp. It is an Absolution-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Then take one of the rams. Have Aaron and his sons place their hands on the head of the ram.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Slaughter the ram and take its blood and throw it against the Altar, all around.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Cut the ram into pieces; wash its innards and legs, then gather the pieces and its head</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> and burn the whole ram on the Altar. It is a Whole-Burnt-Offering to GOD, a pleasant fragrance, an offering by fire to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Then take the second ram. Have Aaron and his sons place their hands on the ram's head.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Slaughter the ram. Take some of its blood and rub it on Aaron's right earlobe and on the right earlobes of his sons, on the thumbs of their right hands and on the big toes of their right feet. Sprinkle the rest of the blood against all sides of the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then take some of the blood that is on the Altar, mix it with some of the anointing oil, and splash it on Aaron and his clothes and on his sons and their clothes so that Aaron and his clothes and his sons and his sons' clothes will be made holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Take the fat from the ram, the fat tail, the fat that covers the innards, the long lobe of the liver, the two kidneys and the fat on them, and the right thigh: this is the ordination ram.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Also take one loaf of bread, an oil cake, and a wafer from the breadbasket that is in the presence of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "Place all of these in the open hands of Aaron and his sons who will wave them before GOD, a Wave-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Then take them from their hands and burn them on the Altar with the Whole-Burnt-Offering--a pleasing fragrance before GOD, a gift to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "Now take the breast from Aaron's ordination ram and wave it before GOD, a Wave-Offering. That will be your portion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "Consecrate the Wave-Offering breast and the thigh that was held up. These are the parts of the ordination ram that are for Aaron and his sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Aaron and his sons are always to get this offering from the Israelites; the Israelites are to make this offering regularly from their Peace-Offerings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "Aaron's sacred garments are to be handed down to his descendants so they can be anointed and ordained in them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The son who succeeds him as priest is to wear them for seven days and enter the Tent of Meeting to minister in the Holy Place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "Take the ordination ram and boil the meat in the Holy Place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> At the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, Aaron and his sons will eat the boiled ram and the bread that is in the basket.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Atoned by these offerings, ordained and consecrated by them, they are the only ones who are to eat them. No outsiders are to eat them; they're holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Anything from the ordination ram or from the bread that is left over until morning you are to burn up. Don't eat it; it's holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> "Do everything for the ordination of Aaron and his sons exactly as I've commanded you throughout the seven days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Offer a bull as an Absolution-Offering for atonement each day. Offer it on the Altar when you make atonement for it: Anoint and consecrate it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Make atonement for the Altar and consecrate it for seven days; the Altar will become soaked in holiness--anyone who so much as touches the Altar will become holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> "This is what you are to offer on the Altar: two year-old lambs each and every day,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> one lamb in the morning and the second lamb at evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> With the sacrifice of the first lamb offer two quarts of fine flour with a quart of virgin olive oil, plus a quart of wine for a Drink-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> The sacrifice of the second lamb, the one at evening, is also to be accompanied by the same Grain-Offering and Drink-Offering of the morning sacrifice to give a pleasing fragrance, a gift to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> "This is to be your regular, daily Whole-Burnt-Offering before GOD, generation after generation, sacrificed at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. That's where I'll meet you; that's where I'll speak with you;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> that's where I'll meet the Israelites, at the place made holy by my Glory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> I'll make the Tent of Meeting and the Altar holy. I'll make Aaron and his sons holy in order to serve me as priests.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> I'll move in and live with the Israelites. I'll be their God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> They'll realize that I am their GOD who brought them out of the land of Egypt so that I could live with them. I am GOD, your God.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="30">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Make an Altar for burning incense. Construct it from acacia wood,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> one and one-half feet square and three feet high with its horns of one piece with it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Cover it with a veneer of pure gold, its top, sides, and horns, and make a gold molding around it</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> with two rings of gold beneath the molding. Place the rings on the two opposing sides to serve as holders for poles by which it will be carried.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Make the poles of acacia wood and cover them with a veneer of gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Place the Altar in front of the curtain that hides the Chest of The Testimony, in front of the Atonement-Cover that is over The Testimony where I will meet you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Aaron will burn fragrant incense on it every morning when he polishes the lamps,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> and again in the evening as he prepares the lamps for lighting, so that there will always be incense burning before GOD, generation after generation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But don't burn on this Altar any unholy incense or Whole-Burnt-Offering or Grain-Offering. And don't pour out Drink-Offerings on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Once a year Aaron is to purify the Altar horns. Using the blood of the Absolution-Offering of atonement, he is to make this atonement every year down through the generations. It is most holy to GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "When you take a head count of the Israelites to keep track of them, all must pay an atonement-tax to GOD for their life at the time of being registered so that nothing bad will happen because of the registration.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Everyone who gets counted is to give a half-shekel (using the standard Sanctuary shekel of a fifth of an ounce to the shekel)--a half-shekel offering to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Everyone counted, age twenty and up, is to make the offering to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The rich are not to pay more nor the poor less than the half-shekel offering to GOD, the atonement-tax for your lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Take the atonement-tax money from the Israelites and put it to the maintenance of the Tent of Meeting. It will be a memorial fund for the Israelites in honor of GOD, making atonement for your lives."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Make a bronze Washbasin; make it with a bronze base. Place it between the Tent of Meeting and the Altar. Put water in it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Aaron and his sons will wash their hands and feet in it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> When they enter the Tent of Meeting or approach the Altar to serve there or offer gift offerings to GOD, they are to wash so they will not die.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They are to wash their hands and their feet so they will not die. This is the rule forever, for Aaron and his sons down through the generations."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "Take the best spices: twelve and a half pounds of liquid myrrh; half that much, six and a quarter pounds, of fragrant cinnamon; six and a quarter pounds of fragrant cane;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> twelve and a half pounds of cassia--using the standard Sanctuary weight for all of them--and a gallon of olive oil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Make these into a holy anointing oil, a perfumer's skillful blend.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "Use it to anoint the Tent of Meeting, the Chest of The Testimony,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> the Table and all its utensils, the Lampstand and its utensils, the Altar of Incense,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> the Altar of Whole-Burnt-Offerings and all its utensils, and the Washbasin and its base.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Consecrate them so they'll be soaked in holiness, so that anyone who so much as touches them will become holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "Then anoint Aaron and his sons. Consecrate them as priests to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Tell the Israelites, 'This will be my holy anointing oil throughout your generations.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Don't pour it on ordinary men. Don't copy this mixture to use for yourselves. It's holy; keep it holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Whoever mixes up anything like it, or puts it on an ordinary person, will be expelled."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> GOD spoke to Moses: "Take fragrant spices--gum resin, onycha, galbanum--and add pure frankincense. Mix the spices in equal proportions</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> to make an aromatic incense, the art of a perfumer, salted and pure--holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Now crush some of it into powder and place some of it before The Testimony in the Tent of Meeting where I will meet with you; it will be for you the holiest of holy places.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> When you make this incense, you are not to copy the mixture for your own use. It's holy to GOD; keep it that way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Whoever copies it for personal use will be excommunicated."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="31">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "See what I've done; I've personally chosen Bezalel son of Uri, son of Hur of the tribe of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I've filled him with the Spirit of God, giving him skill and know-how and expertise in every kind of craft</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> to create designs and work in gold, silver, and bronze;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> to cut and set gemstones; to carve wood--he's an all-around craftsman.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Not only that, but I've given him Oholiab, son of Ahisamach of the tribe of Dan, to work with him. And to all who have an aptitude for crafts I've given the skills to make all the things I've commanded you:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> the Tent of Meeting, the Chest of The Testimony and its Atonement-Cover, all the implements for the Tent,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> the Table and its implements, the pure Lampstand and all its implements, the Altar of Incense,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> the Altar of Whole-Burnt-Offering and all its implements, the Washbasin and its base,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> the official vestments, the holy vestments for Aaron the priest and his sons in their priestly duties,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> the anointing oil, and the aromatic incense for the Holy Place--they'll make everything just the way I've commanded you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Tell the Israelites, 'Above all, keep my Sabbaths, the sign between me and you, generation after generation, to keep the knowledge alive that I am the GOD who makes you holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Keep the Sabbath; it's holy to you. Whoever profanes it will most certainly be put to death. Whoever works on it will be excommunicated from the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> There are six days for work but the seventh day is Sabbath, pure rest, holy to GOD. Anyone who works on the Sabbath will most certainly be put to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The Israelites will keep the Sabbath, observe Sabbath-keeping down through the generations, as a standing covenant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> It's a fixed sign between me and the Israelites. Yes, because in six days GOD made the Heavens and the Earth and on the seventh day he stopped and took a long, deep breath.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When he finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, he gave Moses two tablets of Testimony, slabs of stone, written with the finger of God.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="32">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When the people realized that Moses was taking forever in coming down off the mountain, they rallied around Aaron and said, "Do something. Make gods for us who will lead us. That Moses, the man who got us out of Egypt--who knows what's happened to him?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> So Aaron told them, "Take off the gold rings from the ears of your wives and sons and daughters and bring them to me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They all did it; they removed the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He took the gold from their hands and cast it in the form of a calf, shaping it with an engraving tool. The people responded with enthusiasm: "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up from Egypt!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Aaron, taking in the situation, built an altar before the calf. Aaron then announced, "Tomorrow is a feast day to GOD!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Early the next morning, the people got up and offered Whole-Burnt-Offerings and brought Peace-Offerings. The people sat down to eat and drink and then began to party. It turned into a wild party!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD spoke to Moses, "Go! Get down there! Your people whom you brought up from the land of Egypt have fallen to pieces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> In no time at all they've turned away from the way I commanded them: They made a molten calf and worshiped it. They've sacrificed to it and said, 'These are the gods, O Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD said to Moses, "I look at this people--oh! what a stubborn, hard-headed people!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Let me alone now, give my anger free reign to burst into flames and incinerate them. But I'll make a great nation out of you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Moses tried to calm his GOD down. He said, "Why, GOD, would you lose your temper with your people? Why, you brought them out of Egypt in a tremendous demonstration of power and strength.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Why let the Egyptians say, 'He had it in for them--he brought them out so he could kill them in the mountains, wipe them right off the face of the Earth.' Stop your anger. Think twice about bringing evil against your people!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Think of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants to whom you gave your word, telling them 'I will give you many children, as many as the stars in the sky, and I'll give this land to your children as their land forever.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And GOD did think twice. He decided not to do the evil he had threatened against his people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Moses turned around and came down from the mountain, carrying the two tablets of The Testimony. The tablets were written on both sides, front and back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> God made the tablets and God wrote the tablets--engraved them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When Joshua heard the sound of the people shouting noisily, he said to Moses, "That's the sound of war in the camp!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But Moses said, Those aren't songs of victory, And those aren't songs of defeat, I hear songs of people throwing a party.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And that's what it was. When Moses came near to the camp and saw the calf and the people dancing, his anger flared. He threw down the tablets and smashed them to pieces at the foot of the mountain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He took the calf that they had made, melted it down with fire, pulverized it to powder, then scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Moses said to Aaron, "What on Earth did these people ever do to you that you involved them in this huge sin?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Aaron said, "Master, don't be angry. You know this people and how set on evil they are.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They said to me, 'Make us gods who will lead us. This Moses, the man who brought us out of Egypt, we don't know what's happened to him.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "So I said, 'Who has gold?' And they took off their jewelry and gave it to me. I threw it in the fire and out came this calf."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Moses saw that the people were simply running wild--Aaron had let them run wild, disgracing themselves before their enemies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> He took up a position at the entrance to the camp and said, "Whoever is on GOD's side, join me!" All the Levites stepped up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> He then told them, "GOD's orders, the God of Israel: 'Strap on your swords and go to work. Crisscross the camp from one end to the other: Kill brother, friend, neighbor.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The Levites carried out Moses' orders. Three thousand of the people were killed that day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Moses said, "You confirmed your ordination today--and at great cost, even killing your sons and brothers! And God has blessed you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The next day Moses addressed the people: "You have sinned an enormous sin! But I am going to go up to GOD; maybe I'll be able to clear you of your sin."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Moses went back to GOD and said, "This is terrible. This people has sinned--it's an enormous sin! They made gods of gold for themselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> And now, if you will only forgive their sin. . . . But if not, erase me out of the book you've written."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> GOD said to Moses, "I'll only erase from my book those who sin against me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> For right now, you go and lead the people to where I told you. Look, my Angel is going ahead of you. On the day, though, when I settle accounts, their sins will certainly be part of the settlement."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> GOD sent a plague on the people because of the calf they and Aaron had made.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="33">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD said to Moses: "Now go. Get on your way from here, you and the people you brought up from the land of Egypt. Head for the land which I promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying 'I will give it to your descendants.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I will send an angel ahead of you and I'll drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> It's a land flowing with milk and honey. But I won't be with you in person--you're such a stubborn, hard-headed people!--lest I destroy you on the journey."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When the people heard this harsh verdict, they were plunged into gloom and wore long faces. No one put on jewelry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD said to Moses, "Tell the Israelites, 'You're one hard-headed people. I couldn't stand being with you for even a moment--I'd destroy you. So take off all your jewelry until I figure out what to do with you.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So the Israelites stripped themselves of their jewelry from Mount Horeb on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Moses used to take the Tent and set it up outside the camp, some distance away. He called it the Tent of Meeting. Anyone who sought GOD would go to the Tent of Meeting outside the camp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> It went like this: When Moses would go to the Tent, all the people would stand at attention; each man would take his position at the entrance to his tent with his eyes on Moses until he entered the Tent;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> whenever Moses entered the Tent, the Pillar of Cloud descended to the entrance to the Tent and GOD spoke with Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> All the people would see the Pillar of Cloud at the entrance to the Tent, stand at attention, and then bow down in worship, each man at the entrance to his tent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And GOD spoke with Moses face-to-face, as neighbors speak to one another. When he would return to the camp, his attendant, the young man Joshua, stayed--he didn't leave the Tent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Moses said to GOD, "Look, you tell me, 'Lead this people,' but you don't let me know whom you're going to send with me. You tell me, 'I know you well and you are special to me.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> If I am so special to you, let me in on your plans. That way, I will continue being special to you. Don't forget, this is your people, your responsibility."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD said, "My presence will go with you. I'll see the journey to the end."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Moses said, "If your presence doesn't take the lead here, call this trip off right now.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> How else will it be known that you're with me in this, with me and your people? Are you traveling with us or not? How else will we know that we're special, I and your people, among all other people on this planet Earth?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> GOD said to Moses: "All right. Just as you say; this also I will do, for I know you well and you are special to me. I know you by name."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Moses said, "Please. Let me see your Glory."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> GOD said, "I will make my Goodness pass right in front of you; I'll call out the name, GOD, right before you. I'll treat well whomever I want to treat well and I'll be kind to whomever I want to be kind."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> GOD continued, "But you may not see my face. No one can see me and live."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> GOD said, "Look, here is a place right beside me. Put yourself on this rock.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> When my Glory passes by, I'll put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with my hand until I've passed by.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Then I'll take my hand away and you'll see my back. But you won't see my face."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="34">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses: "Cut out two tablets of stone just like the originals and engrave on them the words that were on the original tablets you smashed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Be ready in the morning to climb Mount Sinai and get set to meet me on top of the mountain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Not a soul is to go with you; the whole mountain must be clear of people, even animals--not even sheep or oxen can be grazing in front of the mountain."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> So Moses cut two tablets of stone just like the originals. He got up early in the morning and climbed Mount Sinai as GOD had commanded him, carrying the two tablets of stone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD descended in the cloud and took up his position there beside him and called out the name, GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD passed in front of him and called out, "GOD, GOD, a God of mercy and grace, endlessly patient--so much love, so deeply true--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> loyal in love for a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin. Still, he doesn't ignore sin. He holds sons and grandsons responsible for a father's sins to the third and even fourth generation."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> At once, Moses fell to the ground and worshiped,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> saying, "Please, O Master, if you see anything good in me, please Master, travel with us, hard-headed as these people are. Forgive our iniquity and sin. Own us, possess us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And GOD said, "As of right now, I'm making a covenant with you: In full sight of your people I will work wonders that have never been created in all the Earth, in any nation. Then all the people with whom you're living will see how tremendous GOD's work is, the work I'll do for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Take careful note of all I command you today. I'm clearing your way by driving out Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Stay vigilant. Don't let down your guard lest you make covenant with the people who live in the land that you are entering and they trip you up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Tear down their altars, smash their phallic pillars, chop down their fertility poles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Don't worship any other god. GOD--his name is The-Jealous-One--is a jealous God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Be careful that you don't make a covenant with the people who live in the land and take up with their sex-and-religion life, join them in meals at their altars,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> marry your sons to their women, women who take up with any convenient god or goddess and will get your sons to do the same thing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Don't make molten gods for yourselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Keep the Feast of Unraised Bread. Eat only unraised bread for seven days in the month of Abib--it was in the month of Abib that you came out of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Every firstborn from the womb is mine, all the males of your herds, your firstborn oxen and sheep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "Redeem your firstborn donkey with a lamb. If you don't redeem it you must break its neck. "Redeem each of your firstborn sons. "No one is to show up in my presence empty-handed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Work six days and rest the seventh. Stop working even during plowing and harvesting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Keep the Feast of Weeks with the first cutting of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "All your men are to appear before the Master, the GOD of Israel, three times a year.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> You won't have to worry about your land when you appear before your GOD three times each year, for I will drive out the nations before you and give you plenty of land. Nobody's going to be hanging around plotting ways to get it from you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "Don't mix the blood of my sacrifices with anything fermented. "Don't leave leftovers from the Passover Feast until morning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "Bring the finest of the firstfruits of your produce to the house of your GOD. "Don't boil a kid in its mother's milk."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> GOD said to Moses: "Now write down these words, for by these words I've made a covenant with you and Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Moses was there with GOD forty days and forty nights. He didn't eat any food; he didn't drink any water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Words.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> When Moses came down from Mount Sinai carrying the two Tablets of The Testimony, he didn't know that the skin of his face glowed because he had been speaking with GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, saw his radiant face, and held back, afraid to get close to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Moses called out to them. Aaron and the leaders in the community came back and Moses talked with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Later all the Israelites came up to him and he passed on the commands, everything that GOD had told him on Mount Sinai.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> When Moses finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> but when he went into the presence of GOD to speak with him, he removed the veil until he came out. When he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> they would see Moses' face, its skin glowing, and then he would again put the veil on his face until he went back in to speak with GOD.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="35">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Moses spoke to the entire congregation of Israel, saying, "These are the things that GOD has commanded you to do:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Work six days, but the seventh day will be a holy rest day, GOD's holy rest day. Anyone who works on this day must be put to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Don't light any fires in your homes on the Sabbath day."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Moses spoke to the entire congregation of Israel, saying, "This is what GOD has commanded:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Gather from among you an offering for GOD. Receive on GOD's behalf what everyone is willing to give as an offering: gold, silver, bronze;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> blue, purple, and scarlet material; fine linen; goats' hair;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> tanned rams' skins; dolphin skins; acacia wood;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> lamp oil; spices for anointing oils and for fragrant incense;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> onyx stones and other stones for setting in the Ephod and the Breastpiece.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Come--all of you who have skills--come and make everything that GOD has commanded:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The Dwelling with its tent and cover, its hooks, frames, crossbars, posts, and bases;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> the Chest with its poles, the Atonement-Cover and veiling curtain;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> the Table with its poles and implements and the Bread of the Presence;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> the Lampstand for giving light with its furnishings and lamps and the oil for lighting;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> the Altar of Incense with its poles, the anointing oil, the fragrant incense; the screen for the door at the entrance to The Dwelling;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> the Altar of Whole-Burnt-Offering with its bronze grate and poles and all its implements; the Washbasin with its base;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> the tapestry hangings for the Courtyard with the posts and bases, the screen for the Courtyard gate;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> the pegs for The Dwelling, the pegs for the Courtyard with their cords;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> the official vestments for ministering in the Holy Place, the sacred vestments for Aaron the priest and for his sons serving as priests."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> So everyone in the community of Israel left the presence of Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then they came back, every one whose heart was roused, whose spirit was freely responsive, bringing offerings to GOD for building the Tent of Meeting, furnishing it for worship and making the holy vestments.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> They came, both men and women, all the willing spirits among them, offering brooches, earrings, rings, necklaces--anything made of gold--offering up their gold jewelry to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> And anyone who had blue, purple, and scarlet fabrics; fine linen; goats' hair; tanned leather; and dolphin skins brought them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Everyone who wanted to offer up silver or bronze as a gift to GOD brought it. Everyone who had acacia wood that could be used in the work, brought it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> All the women skilled at weaving brought their weavings of blue and purple and scarlet fabrics and their fine linens.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> And all the women who were gifted in spinning, spun the goats' hair.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The leaders brought onyx and other precious stones for setting in the Ephod and the Breastpiece.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> They also brought spices and olive oil for lamp oil, anointing oil, and incense.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Every man and woman in Israel whose heart moved them freely to bring something for the work that GOD through Moses had commanded them to make, brought it, a voluntary offering for GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Moses told the Israelites, "See, GOD has selected Bezalel son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> He's filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability, and know-how for making all sorts of things,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> to design and work in gold, silver, and bronze;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> to carve stones and set them; to carve wood, working in every kind of skilled craft.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> And he's also made him a teacher, he and Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> He's gifted them with the know-how needed for carving, designing, weaving, and embroidering in blue, purple, and scarlet fabrics, and in fine linen. They can make anything and design anything.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="36">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Bezalel and Oholiab, along with everyone whom GOD has given the skill and know-how for making everything involved in the worship of the Sanctuary as commanded by GOD, are to start to work."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Moses summoned Bezalel and Oholiab along with all whom GOD had gifted with the ability to work skillfully with their hands. The men were eager to get started and engage in the work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They took from Moses all the offerings that the Israelites had brought for the work of constructing the Sanctuary. The people kept on bringing in their freewill offerings, morning after morning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> All the artisans who were at work making everything involved in constructing the Sanctuary came, one after another,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> to Moses, saying, "The people are bringing more than enough for doing this work that GOD has commanded us to do!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So Moses sent out orders through the camp: "Men! Women! No more offerings for the building of the Sanctuary!" The people were ordered to stop bringing offerings!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> There was plenty of material for all the work to be done. Enough and more than enough.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then all the skilled artisans on The Dwelling made ten tapestries of fine twisted linen and blue, purple, and scarlet fabric with an angel-cherubim design worked into the material.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Each panel of tapestry was forty-six feet long and six feet wide.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Five of the panels were joined together, and then the other five.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Loops of blue were made along the edge of the outside panel of the first set, and the same on the outside panel of the second set.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They made fifty loops on each panel, with the loops opposite each other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then they made fifty gold clasps and joined the tapestries together so that The Dwelling was one whole.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Next they made tapestries of woven goat hair for a tent that would cover The Dwelling. They made eleven panels of these tapestries.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The length of each panel was forty-five feet long and six feet wide.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They joined five of the panels together, and then the other six,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> by making fifty loops along the edge of the end panel and fifty loops along the edge of the joining panel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> then making fifty clasps of bronze, connecting the clasps to the loops, bringing the tent together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They finished it off by covering the tapestries with tanned rams' skins dyed red, and covered that with dolphin skins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> They framed The Dwelling with vertical planks of acacia wood,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> each section of frame fifteen feet long and two and a quarter feet wide,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> with two pegs for securing them. They made all the frames identical:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> twenty frames for the south side,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> with forty silver sockets to receive the two tenons from each of the twenty frames;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> they repeated that construction on the north side of The Dwelling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> (SEE 36:25)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> For the rear of The Dwelling facing west, they made six frames,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> with two additional frames for the rear corners.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Both of the two corner frames were double in thickness from top to bottom and fit into a single ring--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> eight frames altogether with sixteen sockets of silver, two under each frame.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> They made crossbars of acacia wood, five for the frames on one side of The Dwelling,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> five for the other side, and five for the back side facing west.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> The center crossbar ran from end to end halfway up the frames.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> They covered the frames with a veneer of gold, made gold rings to hold the crossbars, and covered the crossbars with a veneer of gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> They made the curtain of blue, purple, and scarlet material and fine twisted linen. They wove a design of angel-cherubim into it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> They made four posts of acacia wood, covered them with a veneer of gold, and cast four silver bases for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> They made a screen for the door of the tent, woven from blue, purple, and scarlet material and fine twisted linen with embroidery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> They framed the weaving with five poles of acacia wood covered with a veneer of gold, and made gold hooks to hang the weaving and five bronze bases for the poles.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="37">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Bezalel made the Chest using acacia wood: He made it three and three-quarters feet long and two and a quarter feet wide and deep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He covered it inside and out with a veneer of pure gold and made a molding of gold all around it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He cast four gold rings and attached them to its four feet, two rings on one side and two rings on the other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He made poles from acacia wood, covered them with a veneer of gold,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> and inserted the poles for carrying the Chest into the rings on the sides.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Next he made a lid of pure gold for the Chest, an Atonement-Cover, three and three-quarters feet long and two and a quarter feet wide.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He sculpted two winged angel-cherubim out of hammered gold for the ends of the Atonement-Cover,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> one angel at one end, one angel at the other. He made them of one piece with the Atonement-Cover.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The angels had outstretched wings and appeared to hover over the Atonement-Cover, facing one another but looking down on the Atonement-Cover.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He made the Table from acacia wood. He made it three feet long, one and a half feet wide and two and a quarter feet high.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He covered it with a veneer of pure gold and made a molding of gold all around it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He made a border a handbreadth wide all around it and a rim of gold for the border.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He cast four rings of gold for it and attached the rings to the four legs</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> parallel to the table top. They will serve as holders for the poles used to carry the Table.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He made the poles of acacia wood and covered them with a veneer of gold. They will be used to carry the Table.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Out of pure gold he made the utensils for the Table: its plates, bowls, jars, and jugs used for pouring.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He made a Lampstand of pure hammered gold, making its stem and branches, cups, calyxes, and petals all of one piece.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> It had six branches, three from one side and three from the other;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> three cups shaped like almond blossoms with calyxes and petals on one branch, three on the next, and so on--the same for all six branches.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> On the main stem of the Lampstand, there were four cups shaped like almonds, with calyxes and petals,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> a calyx extending from under each pair of the six branches.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The entire Lampstand with its calyxes and stems was fashioned from one piece of hammered pure gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> He made seven of these lamps with their candle snuffers, all out of pure gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He used a seventy-five-pound brick of pure gold to make the Lampstand and its accessories.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> He made an Altar for burning incense from acacia wood. He made it a foot and a half square and three feet high, with its horns of one piece with it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> He covered it with a veneer of pure gold, its top, sides, and horns, and made a gold molding around it</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> with two rings of gold beneath the molding. He placed the rings on the two opposing sides to serve as holders for poles by which it will be carried.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> He made the poles of acacia wood and covered them with a veneer of gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> He also prepared with the art of a perfumer the holy anointing oil and the pure aromatic incense.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="38">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> He made the Altar of Whole-Burnt-Offering from acacia wood. He made it seven and a half feet square and four and a half feet high.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He made horns at each of the four corners. The horns were made of one piece with the Altar and covered with a veneer of bronze.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He made from bronze all the utensils for the Altar: the buckets for removing the ashes, shovels, basins, forks, and fire pans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He made a grate of bronze mesh under the ledge halfway up the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He cast four rings at each of the four corners of the bronze grating to hold the poles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He made the poles of acacia wood and covered them with a veneer of bronze.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He inserted the poles through the rings on the two sides of the Altar for carrying it. The Altar was made out of boards; it was hollow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He made the Bronze Washbasin and its bronze stand from the mirrors of the women's work group who were assigned to serve at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And he made the Courtyard. On the south side the hangings for the Courtyard, woven from fine twisted linen, were 150 feet long,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> with their twenty posts and twenty bronze bases, and fastening hooks and bands of silver.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The north side was exactly the same.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The west end of the Courtyard had seventy-five feet of hangings with ten posts and bases, and fastening hooks and bands of silver.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Across the seventy-five feet at the front, or east end,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> were twenty-two and a half feet of hangings, with their three posts and bases on one side</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> and the same for the other side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> All the hangings around the Courtyard were of fine twisted linen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The bases for the posts were bronze and the fastening hooks and bands on the posts were of silver. The posts of the Courtyard were both capped and banded with silver.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The screen at the door of the Courtyard was embroidered in blue, purple, and scarlet fabric with fine twisted linen. It was thirty feet long and seven and a half feet high, matching the hangings of the Courtyard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> There were four posts with bases of bronze and fastening hooks of silver; they were capped and banded in silver</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> . All the pegs for The Dwelling and the Courtyard were made of bronze.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> This is an inventory of The Dwelling that housed The Testimony drawn up by order of Moses for the work of the Levites under Ithamar, son of Aaron the priest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Bezalel, the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, made everything that GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Working with Bezalel was Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, an artisan, designer, and embroiderer in blue, purple, and scarlet fabrics and fine linen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Gold. The total amount of gold used in construction of the Sanctuary, all of it contributed freely, weighed out at 1,900 pounds according to the Sanctuary standard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Silver. The silver from those in the community who were registered in the census came to 6,437 pounds according to the Sanctuary standard--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> that amounted to a beka, or half-shekel, for every registered person aged twenty and over, a total of 603,550 men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> They used the three and one-quarter tons of silver to cast the bases for the Sanctuary and for the hangings, one hundred bases at sixty-four pounds each.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> They used the remaining thirty-seven pounds to make the connecting hooks on the posts, and the caps and bands for the posts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Bronze. The bronze that was brought in weighed 4,522 pounds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> It was used to make the door of the Tent of Meeting, the Bronze Altar with its bronze grating, all the utensils of the Altar,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> the bases around the Courtyard, the bases for the gate of the Courtyard, and all the pegs for The Dwelling and the Courtyard.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="39">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Vestments. Using the blue, purple, and scarlet fabrics, they made the woven vestments for ministering in the Sanctuary. Also they made the sacred vestments for Aaron, as GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Ephod. They made the Ephod using gold and blue, purple, and scarlet fabrics and finely twisted linen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They hammered out gold leaf and sliced it into threads that were then worked into designs in the blue, purple, and scarlet fabric and fine linen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They made shoulder pieces fastened at the two ends.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The decorated band was made of the same material--gold, blue, purple, and scarlet material, and of fine twisted linen--and of one piece with it, just as GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They mounted the onyx stones in a setting of filigreed gold and engraved the names of the sons of Israel on them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> then fastened them on the shoulder pieces of the Ephod as memorial stones for the Israelites, just as GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Breastpiece. They made a Breastpiece designed like the Ephod from gold, blue, purple, and scarlet material and fine twisted linen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Doubled, the Breastpiece was nine inches square.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They mounted four rows of precious gemstones on it. First row: carnelian, topaz, emerald.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Second row: ruby, sapphire, crystal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Third row: jacinth, agate, amethyst.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Fourth row: beryl, onyx, jasper. The stones were mounted in a gold filigree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The twelve stones corresponded to the names of the sons of Israel, twelve names engraved as on a seal, one for each of the twelve tribes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They made braided chains of pure gold for the Breastpiece, like cords.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They made two settings of gold filigree and two rings of gold, put the two rings at the two ends of the Breastpiece,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> and fastened the two ends of the cords to the two rings at the end of the Breastpiece.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Then they fastened the cords to the settings of filigree, attaching them to the shoulder pieces of the Ephod in front.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Then they made two rings of gold and fastened them to the two ends of the Breastpiece on its inside edge facing the Ephod.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> They made two more rings of gold and fastened them in the front of the Ephod to the lower part of the two shoulder pieces, near the seam above the decorated band of the Ephod.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The Breastpiece was fastened by running a cord of blue through its rings to the rings of the Ephod so that it rested secure on the decorated band of the Ephod and wouldn't come loose, just as GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Robe. They made the robe for the Ephod entirely of blue.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The opening of the robe at the center was like a collar, the edge hemmed so that it wouldn't tear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> On the hem of the robe they made pomegranates of blue, purple, and scarlet material and fine twisted linen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> They also made bells of pure gold and alternated the bells and pomegranates--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> a bell and a pomegranate, a bell and a pomegranate--all around the hem of the robe that was worn for ministering, just as GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> They also made the tunics of fine linen, the work of a weaver, for Aaron and his sons,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> the turban of fine linen, the linen hats, the linen underwear made of fine twisted linen,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> and sashes of fine twisted linen, blue, purple, and scarlet material and embroidered, just as GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> They made the plate, the sacred crown, of pure gold and engraved on it as on a seal: "Holy to GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> They attached a blue cord to it and fastened it to the turban, just as GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> That completed the work of The Dwelling, the Tent of Meeting. The People of Israel did what GOD had commanded Moses. They did it all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> They presented The Dwelling to Moses, the Tent and all its furnishings: fastening hooks frames crossbars posts bases</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> tenting of tanned ram skins tenting of dolphin skins veil of the screen</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Chest of The Testimony with its poles and Atonement-Cover</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Table with its utensils and the Bread of the Presence</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Lampstand of pure gold and its lamps all fitted out and all its utensils and the oil for the light</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Gold Altar anointing oil fragrant incense screen for the entrance to the Tent</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Bronze Altar with its bronze grate its poles and all its utensils Washbasin and its base</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> hangings for the Courtyard its posts and bases screen for the gate of the Courtyard its cords and its pegs utensils for ministry in The Dwelling, the Tent of Meeting</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> woven vestments for ministering in the Sanctuary sacred vestments for Aaron the priest, and his sons when serving as priests</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> The Israelites completed all the work, just as GOD had commanded.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Moses saw that they had done all the work and done it exactly as GOD had commanded. Moses blessed them.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="40">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "On the first day of the first month, set up The Dwelling, the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Place the Chest of The Testimony in it and screen the Chest with the curtain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Bring in the Table and set it, arranging its Lampstand and lamps.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Place the Gold Altar of Incense before the Chest of The Testimony and hang the curtain at the door of The Dwelling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Place the Altar of Whole-Burnt-Offering at the door of The Dwelling, the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Place the Washbasin between the Tent of Meeting and the Altar and fill it with water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Set up the Courtyard on all sides and hang the curtain at the entrance to the Courtyard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Then take the anointing oil and anoint The Dwelling and everything in it; consecrate it and all its furnishings so that it becomes holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Anoint the Altar of Whole-Burnt-Offering and all its utensils, consecrating the Altar so that it is completely holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Anoint the Washbasin and its base: consecrate it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Finally, bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting and wash them with water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Dress Aaron in the sacred vestments. Anoint him. Consecrate him to serve me as priest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Bring his sons and put tunics on them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Anoint them, just as you anointed their father, to serve me as priests. Their anointing will bring them into a perpetual priesthood, down through the generations."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Moses did everything GOD commanded. He did it all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> On the first day of the first month of the second year, The Dwelling was set up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Moses set it up: He laid its bases, erected the frames, placed the crossbars, set the posts,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> spread the tent over The Dwelling, and put the covering over the tent, just as GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He placed The Testimony in the Chest, inserted the poles for carrying the Chest, and placed the lid, the Atonement-Cover, on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He brought the Chest into The Dwelling and set up the curtain, screening off the Chest of The Testimony, just as GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> He placed the Table in the Tent of Meeting on the north side of The Dwelling, outside the curtain,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> and arranged the Bread there before GOD, just as GOD had commanded him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He placed the Lampstand in the Tent of Meeting opposite the Table on the south side of The Dwelling</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> and set up the lamps before GOD, just as GOD had commanded him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Moses placed the Gold Altar in the Tent of Meeting in front of the curtain</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> and burned fragrant incense on it, just as GOD had commanded him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> He placed the screen at the entrance to The Dwelling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> He set the Altar of Whole-Burnt-Offering at the door of The Dwelling, the Tent of Meeting, and offered up the Whole-Burnt-Offerings and the Grain-Offerings, just as GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> He placed the Washbasin between the Tent of Meeting and the Altar, and filled it with water for washing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Moses and Aaron and his sons washed their hands and feet there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> When they entered the Tent of Meeting and when they served at the Altar, they washed, just as GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Finally, he erected the Courtyard all around The Dwelling and the Altar, and put up the screen for the Courtyard entrance. Moses finished the work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The Cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the Glory of GOD filled The Dwelling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Moses couldn't enter the Tent of Meeting because the Cloud was upon it, and the Glory of GOD filled The Dwelling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Whenever the Cloud lifted from The Dwelling, the People of Israel set out on their travels,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> but if the Cloud did not lift, they wouldn't set out until it did lift.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> The Cloud of GOD was over The Dwelling during the day and the fire was in it at night, visible to all the Israelites in all their travels.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="3" bname="Leviticus">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD called Moses and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them, When anyone presents an offering to GOD, present an animal from either the herd or the flock.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "If the offering is a Whole-Burnt-Offering from the herd, present a male without a defect at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting that it may be accepted by GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Lay your hand on the head of the Whole-Burnt-Offering so that it may be accepted on your behalf to make atonement for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Slaughter the bull in GOD's presence. Aaron's sons, the priests, will make an offering of the blood by splashing it against all sides of the Altar that stands at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Next, skin the Whole-Burnt-Offering and cut it up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Aaron's sons, the priests, will prepare a fire on the Altar, carefully laying out the wood,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> and then arrange the body parts, including the head and the suet, on the wood prepared for the fire on the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Scrub the entrails and legs clean. The priest will burn it all on the Altar: a Whole-Burnt-Offering, a Fire-Gift, a pleasing fragrance to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "If the Whole-Burnt-Offering comes from the flock, whether sheep or goat, present a male without defect.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Slaughter it on the north side of the Altar in GOD's presence. The sons of Aaron, the priests, will throw the blood against all sides of the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Cut it up and the priest will arrange the pieces, including the head and the suet, on the wood prepared for burning on the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Scrub the entrails and legs clean. The priest will offer it all, burning it on the Altar: a Whole-Burnt-Offering, a Fire-Gift, a pleasing fragrance to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "If a bird is presented to GOD for the Whole-Burnt-Offering it can be either a dove or a pigeon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The priest will bring it to the Altar, wring off its head, and burn it on the Altar. But he will first drain the blood on the side of the Altar,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> remove the gizzard and its contents, and throw them on the east side of the Altar where the ashes are piled.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then rip it open by its wings but leave it in one piece and burn it on the Altar on the wood prepared for the fire: a Whole-Burnt-Offering, a Fire-Gift, a pleasing fragrance to GOD.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "When you present a Grain-Offering to GOD, use fine flour. Pour oil on it, put incense on it,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> and bring it to Aaron's sons, the priests. One of them will take a handful of the fine flour and oil, with all the incense, and burn it on the Altar for a memorial: a Fire-Gift, a pleasing fragrance to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The rest of the Grain-Offering is for Aaron and his sons--a most holy part of the Fire-Gifts to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "When you present a Grain-Offering of oven-baked loaves, use fine flour, mixed with oil but no yeast. Or present wafers made without yeast and spread with oil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "If you bring a Grain-Offering cooked on a griddle, use fine flour mixed with oil but without yeast.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Crumble it and pour oil on it--it's a Grain-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "If you bring a Grain-Offering deep-fried in a pan, make it of fine flour with oil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Bring the Grain-Offering you make from these ingredients and present it to the priest. He will bring it to the Altar,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> break off a memorial piece from the Grain-Offering, and burn it on the Altar: a Fire-Gift, a pleasing fragrance to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The rest of the Grain-Offering is for Aaron and his sons--a most holy part of the gifts to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "All the Grain-Offerings that you present to GOD must be made without yeast; you must never burn any yeast or honey as a Fire-Gift to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> You may offer them to GOD as an offering of firstfruits but not on the Altar as a pleasing fragrance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Season every presentation of your Grain-Offering with salt. Don't leave the salt of the covenant with your God out of your Grain-Offerings. Present all your offerings with salt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "If you present a Grain-Offering of firstfruits to GOD, bring crushed heads of the new grain roasted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Put oil and incense on it--it's a Grain-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The priest will burn some of the mixed grain and oil with all the incense as a memorial--a Fire-Gift to GOD.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "If your offering is a Peace-Offering and you present an animal from the herd, either male or female, it must be an animal without any defect.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Lay your hand on the head of your offering and slaughter it at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. Aaron's sons, the priests, will throw the blood on all sides of the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> As a Fire-Gift to GOD from the Peace-Offering, present all the fat that covers or is connected to the entrails,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> the two kidneys and the fat around them at the loins, and the lobe of the liver that is removed along with the kidneys.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Aaron and his sons will burn it on the Altar along with the Whole-Burnt-Offering that is on the wood prepared for the fire: a Fire-Gift, a pleasing fragrance to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "If your Peace-Offering to GOD comes from the flock, bring a male or female without defect.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> If you offer a lamb, offer it to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Lay your hand on the head of your offering and slaughter it at the Tent of Meeting. The sons of Aaron will throw its blood on all sides of the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> As a Fire-Gift to GOD from the Peace-Offering, present its fat, the entire fat tail cut off close to the backbone, all the fat on and connected to the entrails,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> the two kidneys and the fat around them on the loins, and the lobe of the liver which is removed along with the kidneys.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The priest will burn it on the Altar: a meal, a Fire-Gift to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "If the offering is a goat, bring it into the presence of GOD,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> lay your hand on its head, and slaughter it in front of the Tent of Meeting. Aaron's sons will throw the blood on all sides of the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> As a Fire-Gift to GOD present the fat that covers and is connected to the entrails,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> the two kidneys and the fat which is around them on the loins, and the lobe of the liver which is removed along with the kidneys.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The priest will burn them on the Altar: a meal, a Fire-Gift, a pleasing fragrance. "All the fat belongs to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> This is the fixed rule down through the generations, wherever you happen to live: Don't eat the fat; don't eat the blood. None of it."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Tell the Israelites: When a person sins unintentionally by straying from any of GOD's commands, breaking what must not be broken,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> if it's the anointed priest who sins and so brings guilt on the people, he is to bring a bull without defect to GOD as an Absolution-Offering for the sin he has committed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Have him bring the bull to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting in the presence of GOD, lay his hand on the bull's head, and slaughter the bull before GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He is then to take some of the bull's blood, bring it into the Tent of Meeting,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle some of it seven times before GOD, before the curtain of the Sanctuary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He is to smear some of the blood on the horns of the Altar of Fragrant Incense before GOD which is in the Tent of Meeting. He is to pour the rest of the bull's blood out at the base of the Altar of Whole-Burnt-Offering at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He is to remove all the fat from the bull of the Absolution-Offering, the fat which covers and is connected to the entrails,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> the two kidneys and the fat that is around them at the loins, and the lobe of the liver which he takes out along with the kidneys--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> the same procedure as when the fat is removed from the bull of the Peace-Offering. Finally, he is to burn all this on the Altar of Burnt Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Everything else--the bull's hide, meat, head, legs, organs, and guts--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> he is to take outside the camp to a clean place where the ashes are dumped and is to burn it on a wood fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "If the whole congregation sins unintentionally by straying from one of the commandments of GOD that must not be broken, they become guilty even though no one is aware of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> When they do become aware of the sin they've committed, the congregation must bring a bull as an Absolution-Offering and present it at the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The elders of the congregation will lay their hands on the bull's head in the presence of GOD and one of them will slaughter it before GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The anointed priest will then bring some of the blood into the Tent of Meeting,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle some of it seven times before GOD in front of the curtain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> He will smear some of the blood on the horns of the Altar which is before GOD in the Tent of Meeting and pour the rest of it at the base of the Altar of Whole-Burnt-Offering at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He will remove all the fat and burn it on the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He will follow the same procedure with this bull as with the bull for the Absolution-Offering. The priest makes atonement for them and they are forgiven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They then will take the bull outside the camp and burn it just as they burned the first bull. It's the Absolution-Offering for the congregation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "When a ruler sins unintentionally by straying from one of the commands of his GOD which must not be broken, he is guilty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> When he becomes aware of the sin he has committed, he must bring a goat for his offering, a male without any defect,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> lay his hand on the head of the goat, and slaughter it in the place where they slaughter the Whole-Burnt-Offering in the presence of GOD--it's an Absolution-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The priest will then take some of the blood of the Absolution-Offering with his finger, smear it on the horns of the Altar of Whole-Burnt-Offering, and pour the rest at the base of the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> He will burn all its fat on the Altar, the same as with the fat of the Peace-Offering. "The priest makes atonement for him on account of his sin and he's forgiven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "When an ordinary member of the congregation sins unintentionally, straying from one of the commandments of GOD which must not be broken, he is guilty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> When he is made aware of his sin, he shall bring a goat, a female without any defect, and offer it for his sin,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> lay his hand on the head of the Absolution-Offering, and slaughter it at the place of the Whole-Burnt-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The priest will take some of its blood with his finger, smear it on the horns of the Altar of Whole-Burnt-Offering, and pour the rest at the base of the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Finally, he'll take out all the fat, the same as with the Peace-Offerings, and burn it on the Altar for a pleasing fragrance to GOD. "In this way, the priest makes atonement for him and he's forgiven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "If he brings a lamb for an Absolution-Offering, he shall present a female without any defect,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> lay his hand on the head of the Absolution-Offering, and slaughter it at the same place they slaughter the Whole-Burnt-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The priest will take some of the blood of the Absolution-Offering with his finger, smear it on the horns of the Altar of Burnt-Offering, and pour the rest at the base of the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> He shall remove all the fat, the same as for the lamb of the Peace-Offering. Finally the priest will burn it on the Altar on top of the gifts to GOD. "In this way, the priest makes atonement for him on account of his sin and he's forgiven.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "If you sin by not stepping up and offering yourself as a witness to something you've heard or seen in cases of wrongdoing, you'll be held responsible.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Or if you touch anything ritually unclean, like the carcass of an unclean animal, wild or domestic, or a dead reptile, and you weren't aware of it at the time, but you're contaminated and you're guilty;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Or if you touch human uncleanness, any sort of ritually contaminating uncleanness, and you're not aware of it at the time, but later you realize it and you're guilty;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Or if you impulsively swear to do something, whether good or bad--some rash oath that just pops out--and you aren't aware of what you've done at the time, but later you come to realize it and you're guilty in any of these cases;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "When you are guilty, immediately confess the sin that you've committed</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> and bring as your penalty to GOD for the sin you have committed, a female lamb or goat from the flock for an Absolution-Offering. "In this way, the priest will make atonement for your sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "If you can't afford a lamb, bring as your penalty to GOD for the sin you have committed, two doves or two pigeons, one for the Absolution-Offering and the other for the Whole-Burnt-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Bring them to the priest who will first offer the one for the Absolution-Offering: He'll wring its neck but not sever it,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> splash some of the blood of the Absolution-Offering against the Altar, and squeeze the rest of it out at the base. It's an Absolution-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He'll then take the second bird and offer it as a Whole-Burnt-Offering, following the procedures step-by-step. "In this way, the priest will make atonement for your sin and you're forgiven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "If you cannot afford the two doves or pigeons, bring two quarts of fine flour for your Absolution-Offering. Don't put oil or incense on it--it's an Absolution-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Bring it to the priest; he'll take a handful from it as a memorial and burn it on the Altar with the gifts for GOD. It's an Absolution-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "The priest will make atonement for you and any of these sins you've committed and you're forgiven. The rest of the offering belongs to the priest, the same as with the Grain-Offering."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD spoke to Moses,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "When a person betrays his trust and unknowingly sins by straying against any of the holy things of GOD, he is to bring as his penalty to GOD a ram without any defect from the flock, the value of the ram assessed in shekels, according to the Sanctuary shekel for a Compensation-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He is to make additional compensation for the sin he has committed against any holy thing by adding twenty percent to the ram and giving it to the priest. "Thus the priest will make atonement for him with the ram of the Compensation-Offering and he's forgiven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "If anyone sins by breaking any of the commandments of GOD which must not be broken, but without being aware of it at the time, the moment he does realize his guilt he is held responsible.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> He is to bring to the priest a ram without any defect, assessed at the value of the Compensation-Offering. "Thus the priest will make atonement for him for his error that he was unaware of and he's forgiven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> It is a Compensation-Offering; he was surely guilty before God."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "When anyone sins by betraying trust with GOD by deceiving his neighbor regarding something entrusted to him, or by robbing or cheating or threatening him;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> or if he has found something lost and lies about it and swears falsely regarding any of these sins that people commonly commit--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> when he sins and is found guilty, he must return what he stole or extorted, restore what was entrusted to him, return the lost thing he found,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> or anything else about which he swore falsely. He must make full compensation, add twenty percent to it, and hand it over to the owner on the same day he brings his Compensation-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He must present to GOD as his Compensation-Offering a ram without any defect from the flock, assessed at the value of a Compensation-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Thus the priest will make atonement for him before GOD and he's forgiven of any of the things that one does that bring guilt."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD spoke to Moses,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Command Aaron and his sons. Tell them, These are the instructions for the Whole-Burnt-Offering. Leave the Whole-Burnt-Offering on the Altar hearth through the night until morning, with the fire kept burning on the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then dress in your linen clothes with linen underwear next to your body. Remove the ashes remaining from the Whole-Burnt-Offering and place them beside the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then change clothes and carry the ashes outside the camp to a clean place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Meanwhile keep the fire on the Altar burning; it must not go out. Replenish the wood for the fire every morning, arrange the Whole-Burnt-Offering on it, and burn the fat of the Peace-Offering on top of it all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Keep the fire burning on the Altar continuously. It must not go out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "These are the instructions for the Grain-Offering. Aaron's sons are to present it to GOD in front of the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The priest takes a handful of the fine flour of the Grain-Offering with its oil and all its incense and burns this as a memorial on the Altar, a pleasing fragrance to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Aaron and his sons eat the rest of it. It is unraised bread and so eaten in a holy place--in the Courtyard of the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> They must not bake it with yeast. I have designated it as their share of the gifts presented to me. It is very holy, like the Absolution-Offering and the Compensation-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Any male descendant among Aaron's sons may eat it. This is a fixed rule regarding GOD's gifts, stretching down the generations. Anyone who touches these offerings must be holy."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> GOD spoke to Moses,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "This is the offering which Aaron and his sons each are to present to GOD on the day he is anointed: two quarts of fine flour as a regular Grain-Offering, half in the morning and half in the evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Prepare it with oil on a griddle. Bring it well-mixed and then present it crumbled in pieces as a pleasing fragrance to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Aaron's son who is anointed to succeed him offers it to GOD--this is a fixed rule. The whole thing is burned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Every Grain-Offering of a priest is burned completely; it must not be eaten."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> GOD spoke to Moses,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "Tell Aaron and his sons: These are the instructions for the Absolution-Offering. Slaughter the Absolution-Offering in the place where the Whole-Burnt-Offering is slaughtered before GOD--the offering is most holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The priest in charge eats it in a holy place, the Courtyard of the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Anyone who touches any of the meat must be holy. A garment that gets blood spattered on it must be washed in a holy place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Break the clay pot in which the meat was cooked. If it was cooked in a bronze pot, scour it and rinse it with water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Any male among the priestly families may eat it; it is most holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> But any Absolution-Offering whose blood is brought into the Tent of Meeting to make atonement in the Sanctuary must not be eaten, it has to be burned.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "These are the instructions for the Compensation-Offering. It is most holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Slaughter the Compensation-Offering in the same place that the Whole-Burnt-Offering is slaughtered. Splash its blood against all sides of the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Offer up all the fat: the fat tail, the fat covering the entrails,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> the two kidneys and the fat encasing them at the loins, and the lobe of the liver that is removed with the kidneys.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The priest burns them on the Altar as a gift to GOD. It is a Compensation-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Any male from among the priests' families may eat it. But it must be eaten in a holy place; it is most holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "The Compensation-Offering is the same as the Absolution-Offering--the same rules apply to both. The offering belongs to the priest who makes atonement with it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The priest who presents a Whole-Burnt-Offering for someone gets the hide for himself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Every Grain-Offering baked in an oven or prepared in a pan or on a griddle belongs to the priest who presents it. It's his.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Every Grain-Offering, whether dry or mixed with oil, belongs equally to all the sons of Aaron.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "These are the instructions for the Peace-Offering which is presented to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> If you bring it to offer thanksgiving, then along with the Thanksgiving-Offering present unraised loaves of bread mixed with oil, unraised wafers spread with oil, and cakes of fine flour, well-kneaded and mixed with oil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Along with the Peace-Offering of thanksgiving, present loaves of yeast bread as an offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Bring one of each kind as an offering, a Contribution-Offering to GOD; it goes to the priest who throws the blood of the Peace-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Eat the meat from the Peace-Offering of thanksgiving the same day it is offered. Don't leave any of it overnight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "If the offering is a Votive-Offering or a Freewill-Offering, it may be eaten the same day it is sacrificed and whatever is left over on the next day may also be eaten.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But any meat from the sacrifice that is left to the third day must be burned up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> If any of the meat from the Peace-Offering is eaten on the third day, the person who has brought it will not be accepted. It won't benefit him a bit--it has become defiled meat. And whoever eats it must take responsibility for his iniquity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Don't eat meat that has touched anything ritually unclean; burn it up. Any other meat can be eaten by those who are ritually clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But if you're not ritually clean and eat meat from the Peace-Offering for GOD, you will be excluded from the congregation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And if you touch anything ritually unclean, whether human or animal uncleanness or an obscene object, and go ahead and eat from a Peace-Offering for GOD, you'll be excluded from the congregation."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> GOD spoke to Moses,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them, Don't eat any fat of cattle or sheep or goats.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The fat of an animal found dead or torn by wild animals can be put to some other purpose, but you may not eat it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> If you eat fat from an animal from which a gift has been presented to GOD, you'll be excluded from the congregation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> And don't eat blood, whether of birds or animals, no matter where you end up living.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> If you eat blood you'll be excluded from the congregation."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> GOD spoke to Moses,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them: When you present a Peace-Offering to GOD, bring some of your Peace-Offering as a special sacrifice to GOD,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> a gift to GOD in your own hands. Bring the fat with the breast and then wave the breast before GOD as a Wave-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The priest will burn the fat on the Altar; Aaron and his sons get the breast.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Give the right thigh from your Peace-Offerings as a Contribution-Offering to the priest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Give a portion of the right thigh to the son of Aaron who offers the blood and fat of the Peace-Offering as his portion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> From the Peace-Offerings of Israel, I'm giving the breast of the Wave-Offering and the thigh of the Contribution-Offering to Aaron the priest and his sons. This is their fixed compensation from the People of Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> From the day they are presented to serve as priests to GOD, Aaron and his sons can expect to receive these allotments from the gifts of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> This is what GOD commanded the People of Israel to give the priests from the day of their anointing. This is the fixed rule down through the generations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> These are the instructions for the Whole-Burnt-Offering, the Grain-Offering, the Absolution-Offering, the Compensation-Offering, the Ordination-Offering, and the Peace-Offering</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> which GOD gave Moses at Mount Sinai on the day he commanded the People of Israel to present their offerings to GOD in the wilderness of Sinai.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses. He said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Take Aaron and with him his sons, the garments, the anointing oil, the bull for the Absolution-Offering, the two rams, and the basket of unraised bread.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Gather the entire congregation at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Moses did just as GOD commanded him and the congregation gathered at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Moses addressed the congregation: "This is what GOD has commanded to be done."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Moses brought Aaron and his sons forward and washed them with water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He put the tunic on Aaron and tied it around him with a sash. Then he put the robe on him and placed the Ephod on him. He fastened the Ephod with a woven belt, making it snug.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He put the Breastpiece on him and put the Urim and Thummim in the pouch of the Breastpiece.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He placed the turban on his head with the gold plate fixed to the front of it, the holy crown, just as GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then Moses took the anointing oil and anointed The Dwelling and everything that was in it, consecrating them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He sprinkled some of the oil on the Altar seven times, anointing the Altar and all its utensils, the Washbasin and its stand, consecrating them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He poured some of the anointing oil on Aaron's head, anointing him and thus consecrating him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Moses brought Aaron's sons forward and put tunics on them, belted them with sashes, and put caps on them, just as GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Moses brought out the bull for the Absolution-Offering. Aaron and his sons placed their hands on its head.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Moses slaughtered the bull and purified the Altar by smearing the blood on each of the horns of the Altar with his finger. He poured out the rest of the blood at the base of the Altar. He consecrated it so atonement could be made on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Moses took all the fat on the entrails and the lobe of liver and the two kidneys with their fat and burned it all on the Altar</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> . The bull with its hide and meat and guts he burned outside the camp, just as GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Moses presented the ram for the Whole-Burnt-Offering. Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the ram.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Moses slaughtered it and splashed the blood against all sides of the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He cut the ram up into pieces and then burned the head, the pieces, and the fat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He washed the entrails and the legs with water and then burned the whole ram on the Altar. It was a Whole-Burnt-Offering, a pleasing fragrance--a gift to GOD, just as GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Moses then presented the second ram, the ram for the Ordination-Offering. Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the ram's head.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Moses slaughtered it and smeared some of its blood on the lobe of Aaron's right ear, on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Then Aaron's sons were brought forward and Moses smeared some of the blood on the lobes of their right ears, on the thumbs of their right hands, and on the big toes of their right feet. Moses threw the remaining blood against each side of the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> He took the fat, the fat tail, all the fat that was on the entrails, the lobe of the liver, the two kidneys with their fat, and the right thigh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> From the basket of unraised bread that was in the presence of GOD he took one loaf of the unraised bread made with oil and one wafer. He placed these on the fat portions and the right thigh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> He put all this in the hands of Aaron and his sons who waved them before GOD as a Wave-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Then Moses took it all back from their hands and burned them on the Altar on top of the Whole-Burnt-Offering. These were the Ordination-Offerings, a pleasing fragrance to GOD, a gift to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Then Moses took the breast and raised it up as a Wave-Offering before GOD; it was Moses' portion from the Ordination-Offering ram, just as GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Moses took some of the anointing oil and some of the blood from the Altar and sprinkled Aaron and his garments, and his sons and their garments, consecrating Aaron and his garments and his sons and their garments.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Moses spoke to Aaron and his sons: "Boil the meat at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting and eat it there with the bread from the basket of ordination, just as I commanded, saying, 'Aaron and his sons are to eat it.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Burn up the leftovers from the meat and bread.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Don't leave through the entrance of the Tent of Meeting for the seven days that will complete your ordination. Your ordination will last seven days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> GOD commanded what has been done this day in order to make atonement for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Stay at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting day and night for seven days. Be sure to do what GOD requires, lest you die. This is what I have been commanded."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Aaron and his sons did everything that GOD had commanded by Moses.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> On the eighth day, Moses called in Aaron and his sons and the leaders of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He spoke to Aaron: "Take a bull-calf for your Absolution-Offering and a ram for your Whole-Burnt-Offering, both without defect, and offer them to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Then tell the People of Israel, Take a male goat for an Absolution-Offering and a calf and a lamb, both yearlings without defect, for a Whole-Burnt-Offering</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> and a bull and a ram for a Peace-Offering, to be sacrificed before GOD with a Grain-Offering mixed with oil, because GOD will appear to you today."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They brought the things that Moses had ordered to the Tent of Meeting. The whole congregation came near and stood before GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Moses said, "This is what GOD commanded you to do so that the Shining Glory of GOD will appear to you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Moses instructed Aaron, "Approach the Altar and sacrifice your Absolution-Offering and your Whole-Burnt-Offering. Make atonement for yourself and for the people. Sacrifice the offering that is for the people and make atonement for them, just as GOD commanded."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Aaron approached the Altar and slaughtered the calf as an Absolution-Offering for himself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Aaron's sons brought the blood to him. He dipped his finger in the blood and smeared some of it on the horns of the Altar. He poured out the rest of the blood at the base of the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He burned the fat, the kidneys, and the lobe of the liver from the Absolution-Offering on the Altar, just as GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He burned the meat and the skin outside the camp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then he slaughtered the Whole-Burnt-Offering. Aaron's sons handed him the blood and he threw it against each side of the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They handed him the pieces and the head and he burned these on the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He washed the entrails and the legs and burned them on top of the Whole-Burnt-Offering on the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Next Aaron presented the offerings of the people. He took the male goat, the Absolution-Offering for the people, slaughtered it, and offered it as an Absolution-Offering just as he did with the first offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He presented the Whole-Burnt-Offering following the same procedures.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He presented the Grain-Offering by taking a handful of it and burning it on the Altar along with the morning Whole-Burnt-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> He slaughtered the bull and the ram, the people's Peace-Offerings. Aaron's sons handed him the blood and he threw it against each side of the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The fat pieces from the bull and the ram--the fat tail and the fat that covers the kidney and the lobe of the liver--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> they laid on the breasts and Aaron burned it on the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Aaron waved the breasts and the right thigh before GOD as a Wave-Offering, just as GOD commanded.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Aaron lifted his hands over the people and blessed them. Having completed the rituals of the Absolution-Offering, the Whole-Burnt-Offering, and the Peace-Offering, he came down from the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Moses and Aaron entered the Tent of Meeting. When they came out they blessed the people and the Glory of GOD appeared to all the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Fire blazed out from GOD and consumed the Whole-Burnt-Offering and the fat pieces on the Altar. When all the people saw it happen they cheered loudly and then fell down, bowing in reverence.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> That same day Nadab and Abihu, Aaron's sons, took their censers, put hot coals and incense in them, and offered "strange" fire to GOD--something GOD had not commanded.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Fire blazed out from GOD and consumed them--they died in GOD's presence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Moses said to Aaron, "This is what GOD meant when he said, To the one who comes near me, I will show myself holy; Before all the people, I will show my glory." Aaron was silent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Moses called for Mishael and Elzaphan, sons of Uzziel, Aaron's uncle. He said, "Come. Carry your dead cousins outside the camp, away from the Sanctuary."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They came and carried them off, outside the camp, just as Moses had directed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Moses then said to Aaron and his remaining sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, "No mourning rituals for you--unkempt hair, torn clothes--or you'll also die and GOD will be angry with the whole congregation. Your relatives--all the People of Israel, in fact--will do the mourning over those GOD has destroyed by fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And don't leave the entrance to the Tent of Meeting lest you die, because GOD's anointing oil is on you." They did just as Moses said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD instructed Aaron,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "When you enter the Tent of Meeting, don't drink wine or strong drink, neither you nor your sons, lest you die. This is a fixed rule down through the generations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Distinguish between the holy and the common, between the ritually clean and unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Teach the People of Israel all the decrees that GOD has spoken to them through Moses."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Moses spoke to Aaron and his surviving sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, "Take the leftovers of the Grain-Offering from the Fire-Gifts for GOD and eat beside the Altar that which has been prepared without yeast, for it is most holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Eat it in the Holy Place because it is your portion and the portion of your sons from the Fire-Gifts for GOD. This is what GOD commanded me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Also, you and your sons and daughters are to eat the breast of the Wave-Offering and the thigh of the Contribution-Offering in a clean place. They are provided as your portion and the portion of your children from the Peace-Offerings presented by the People of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Bring the thigh of the Contribution-Offering and the breast of the Wave-Offering and the fat pieces of the Fire-Gifts and lift them up as a Wave-Offering. This will be the regular share for you and your children as ordered by GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When Moses looked into the matter of the goat of the Absolution-Offering, he found that it had been burned up. He became angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron's remaining sons, and asked,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Why didn't you eat the Absolution-Offering in the Holy Place since it is most holy? The offering was given to you for taking away the guilt of the community by making atonement for them before GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Since its blood was not taken into the Holy Place, you should have eaten the goat in the Sanctuary as I commanded."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Aaron replied to Moses, "Look. They sacrificed their Absolution-Offering and Whole-Burnt-Offering before GOD today, and you see what has happened to me--I've lost two sons. Do you think GOD would have been pleased if I had gone ahead and eaten the Absolution-Offering today?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> When Moses heard this response, he accepted it.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses and Aaron:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them: Of all the animals on Earth, these are the animals that you may eat:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "You may eat any animal that has a split hoof, divided in two, and that chews the cud,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> but not an animal that only chews the cud or only has a split hoof. For instance, the camel chews the cud but doesn't have a split hoof, so it's unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The rock badger chews the cud but doesn't have a split hoof and so it's unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The rabbit chews the cud but doesn't have a split hoof so is unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The pig has a split hoof, divided in two, but doesn't chew the cud and so is unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You may not eat their meat nor touch their carcasses; they are unclean to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Among the creatures that live in the water of the seas and streams, you may eat any that have fins and scales.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But anything that doesn't have fins and scales, whether in seas or streams, whether small creatures in the shallows or huge creatures in the deeps, you are to detest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Yes, detest them. Don't eat their meat; detest their carcasses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Anything living in the water that doesn't have fins and scales is detestable to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "These are the birds you are to detest. Don't eat them. They are detestable: eagle, vulture, osprey,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> kite, all falcons,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> all ravens,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> ostrich, nighthawk, sea gull, all hawks,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> owl, cormorant, ibis,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> water hen, pelican, Egyptian vulture,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> stork, all herons, hoopoe, bat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "All flying insects that walk on all fours are detestable to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But you can eat some of these, namely, those that have jointed legs for hopping on the ground:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> all locusts, katydids, crickets, and grasshoppers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But all the other flying insects that have four legs you are to detest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "You will make yourselves ritually unclean until evening if you touch their carcasses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> If you pick up one of their carcasses you must wash your clothes and you'll be unclean until evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "Every animal that has a split hoof that's not completely divided, or that doesn't chew the cud is unclean for you; if you touch the carcass of any of them you become unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "Every four-footed animal that goes on its paws is unclean for you; if you touch its carcass you are unclean until evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> If you pick up its carcass you must wash your clothes and are unclean until evening. They are unclean for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "Among the creatures that crawl on the ground, the following are unclean for you: weasel, rat, all lizards,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> gecko, monitor lizard, wall lizard, skink, chameleon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Among the crawling creatures, these are unclean for you. If you touch them when they are dead, you are ritually unclean until evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> When one of them dies and falls on something, that becomes unclean no matter what it's used for, whether it's made of wood, cloth, hide, or sackcloth. Put it in the water--it's unclean until evening, and then it's clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> If one of these dead creatures falls into a clay pot, everything in the pot is unclean and you must break the pot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Any food that could be eaten but has water on it from such a pot is unclean, and any liquid that could be drunk from it is unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Anything that one of these carcasses falls on is unclean--an oven or cooking pot must be broken up; they're unclean and must be treated as unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> A spring, though, or a cistern for collecting water remains clean, but if you touch one of these carcasses you're ritually unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> If a carcass falls on any seeds that are to be planted, they remain clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> But if water has been put on the seed and a carcass falls on it, you must treat it as unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> "If an animal that you are permitted to eat dies, anyone who touches the carcass is ritually unclean until evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> If you eat some of the carcass you must wash your clothes and you are unclean until evening. If you pick up the carcass you must wash your clothes and are unclean until evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> "Creatures that crawl on the ground are detestable and not to be eaten.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Don't eat creatures that crawl on the ground, whether on their belly or on all fours or on many feet--they are detestable.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Don't make yourselves unclean or be defiled by them, because I am your GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> "Make yourselves holy for I am holy. Don't make yourselves ritually unclean by any creature that crawls on the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> I am GOD who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Be holy because I am holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> "These are the instructions on animals, birds, fish, and creatures that crawl on the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> You have to distinguish between the ritually unclean and the clean, between living creatures that can be eaten and those that cannot be eaten."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Tell the People of Israel: A woman who conceives and gives birth to a boy is ritually unclean for seven days, the same as during her menstruation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> On the eighth day circumcise the boy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The mother must stay home another thirty-three days for purification from her bleeding. She may not touch anything consecrated or enter the Sanctuary until the days of her purification are complete.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> If she gives birth to a girl, she is unclean for fourteen days, the same as during her menstruation. She must stay home for sixty-six days for purification from her bleeding.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "When the days for her purification for either a boy or a girl are complete, she will bring a yearling lamb for a Whole-Burnt-Offering and a pigeon or dove for an Absolution-Offering to the priest at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He will offer it to GOD and make atonement for her. She is then clean from her flow of blood. "These are the instructions for a woman who gives birth to either a boy or a girl.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "If she can't afford a lamb, she can bring two doves or two pigeons, one for the Whole-Burnt-Offering and one for the Absolution-Offering. The priest will make atonement for her and she will be clean."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses and Aaron,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "When someone has a swelling or a blister or a shiny spot on the skin that might signal a serious skin disease on the body, bring him to Aaron the priest or to one of his priest sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The priest will examine the sore on the skin. If the hair in the sore has turned white and the sore appears more than skin deep, it is a serious skin disease and infectious. After the priest has examined it, he will pronounce the person unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "If the shiny spot on the skin is white but appears to be only on the surface and the hair has not turned white, the priest will quarantine the person for seven days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> On the seventh day the priest will examine it again; if, in his judgment, the sore is the same and has not spread, the priest will keep him in quarantine for another seven days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> On the seventh day the priest will examine him a second time; if the sore has faded and hasn't spread, the priest will declare him clean--it is a harmless rash. The person can go home and wash his clothes; he is clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But if the sore spreads after he has shown himself to the priest and been declared clean, he must come back again to the priest</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> who will conduct another examination. If the sore has spread, the priest will pronounce him unclean--it is a serious skin disease and infectious.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Whenever someone has a serious and infectious skin disease, you must bring him to the priest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The priest will examine him; if there is a white swelling in the skin, the hair is turning white, and there is an open sore in the swelling,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> it is a chronic skin disease. The priest will pronounce him unclean. But he doesn't need to quarantine him because he's already given his diagnosis of unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> If a serious disease breaks out that covers all the skin from head to foot, wherever the priest looks,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> the priest will make a thorough examination; if the disease covers his entire body, he will pronounce the person with the sore clean--since it has turned all white, he is clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But if they are open, running sores, he is unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The priest will examine the open sores and pronounce him unclean. The open sores are unclean; they are evidence of a serious skin disease.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But if the open sores dry up and turn white, he is to come back to the priest</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> who will reexamine him; if the sores have turned white, the priest will pronounce the person with the sores clean. He is clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "When a person has a boil and it heals</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> and in place of the boil there is white swelling or a reddish-white shiny spot, the person must present himself to the priest</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> for an examination. If it looks like it has penetrated the skin and the hair in it has turned white, the priest will pronounce him unclean. It is a serious skin disease that has broken out in the boil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But if the examination shows that there is no white hair in it and it is only skin deep and has faded, the priest will put him in quarantine for seven days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> If it then spreads over the skin, the priest will diagnose him as unclean. It is infectious.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But if the shiny spot has not changed and hasn't spread, it's only a scar from the boil. The priest will pronounce him clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "When a person has a burn on his skin and the raw flesh turns into a reddish-white or white shiny spot,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> the priest is to examine it. If the hair has turned white in the shiny spot and it looks like it's more than skin deep, a serious skin disease has erupted in the area of the burn. The priest will pronounce him unclean; it is a serious skin disease and infectious.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> But if on examination there is no white hair in the shiny spot and it doesn't look to be more than skin deep but has faded, the priest will put him in quarantine for seven days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> On the seventh day the priest will reexamine him. If by then it has spread over the skin, the priest will diagnose him as unclean; it is a serious skin disease and infectious.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> If by that time the shiny spot has stayed the same and has not spread but has faded, it is only a swelling from the burn. The priest will pronounce him clean; it's only a scar from the burn.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "If a man or woman develops a sore on the head or chin,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> the priest will offer a diagnosis. If it looks as if it is under the skin and the hair in it is yellow and thin, he will pronounce the person ritually unclean. It is an itch, an infectious skin disease.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> But if when he examines the itch, he finds it is only skin deep and there is no black hair in it, he will put the person in quarantine for seven days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> On the seventh day he will reexamine the sore; if the itch has not spread, there is no yellow hair in it, and it looks as if the itch is only skin deep,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> the person must shave, except for the itch; the priest will send him back to quarantine for another seven days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> If the itch has not spread, and looks to be only skin deep, the priest will pronounce him clean. The person can go home and wash his clothes; he is clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> But if the itch spreads after being pronounced clean,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> the priest must reexamine it; if the itch has spread in the skin, he doesn't have to look any farther, for yellow hair, for instance; he is unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> But if he sees that the itch is unchanged and black hair has begun to grow in it, the itch is healed. The person is clean and the priest will pronounce him clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> "When a man or woman gets shiny or white shiny spots on the skin,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> the priest is to make an examination; if the shiny spots are dull white, it is only a rash that has broken out: The person is clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> "When a man loses his hair and goes bald, he is clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> If he loses his hair from his forehead, he is bald and he is clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> But if he has a reddish-white sore on scalp or forehead, it means a serious skin disease is breaking out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> The priest is to examine it; if the swollen sore on his scalp or forehead is reddish-white like the appearance of the sore of a serious skin disease,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> he has a serious skin disease and is unclean. The priest has to pronounce him unclean because of the sore on his head.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> "Any person with a serious skin disease must wear torn clothes, leave his hair loose and unbrushed, cover his upper lip, and cry out, 'Unclean! Unclean!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> As long as anyone has the sores, that one continues to be ritually unclean. That person must live alone; he or she must live outside the camp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> "If clothing--woolen or linen clothing,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> woven or knitted cloth of linen or wool, leather or leatherwork--is infected with a patch of serious fungus</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> and if the spot in the clothing or the leather or the woven or the knitted material or anything made of leather is greenish or rusty, that is a sign of serious fungus. Show it to the priest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> The priest will examine the spot and then confiscate the material for seven days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> On the seventh day he will reexamine the spot. If it has spread in the garment--the woven or knitted or leather material--it is the spot of a persistent serious fungus and the material is unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> He must burn the garment. Because of the persistent and contaminating fungus, the material must be burned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> But if when the priest examines it the spot has not spread in the garment,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> the priest will command the owner to wash the material that has the spot, and he will confiscate it for another seven days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> He'll then make another examination after it has been washed; if the spot hasn't changed in appearance, even though it hasn't spread, it is still unclean. Burn it up, whether the fungus has affected the back or the front.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> If, when the priest makes his examination, the spot has faded after it has been washed, he is to tear the spot from the garment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> But if it reappears, it is a fresh outbreak--throw whatever has the spot in the fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> If the garment is washed and the spot has gone away, then wash it a second time; it is clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="59"> "These are the instructions regarding a spot of serious fungus in clothing of wool or linen, woven or knitted material, or any article of leather, for pronouncing them clean or unclean."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "These are the instructions for the infected person at the time of his cleansing. First, bring him to the priest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The priest will take him outside the camp and make an examination; if the infected person has been healed of the serious skin disease,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> the priest will order two live, clean birds, some cedar wood, scarlet thread, and hyssop to be brought for the one to be cleansed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The priest will order him to kill one of the birds over fresh water in a clay pot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The priest will then take the live bird with the cedar wood, the scarlet thread, and the hyssop and dip them in the blood of the dead bird over fresh water</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> and then sprinkle the person being cleansed from the serious skin disease seven times and pronounce him clean. Finally, he will release the live bird in the open field.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The cleansed person, after washing his clothes, shaving off all his hair, and bathing with water, is clean. Afterwards he may again enter the camp, but he has to live outside his tent for seven days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> On the seventh day, he must shave off all his hair--from his head, beard, eyebrows, all of it. He then must wash his clothes and bathe all over with water. He will be clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "The next day, the eighth day, he will bring two lambs without defect and a yearling ewe without defect, along with roughly six quarts of fine flour mixed with oil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The priest who pronounces him clean will place him and the materials for his offerings in the presence of GOD at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The priest will take one of the lambs and present it and the pint of oil as a Compensation-Offering and lift them up as a Wave-Offering before GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He will slaughter the lamb in the place where the Absolution-Offering and the Whole-Burnt-Offering are slaughtered, in the Holy Place, because like the Absolution-Offering, the Compensation-Offering belongs to the priest; it is most holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The priest will now take some of the blood of the Compensation-Offering and put it on the right earlobe of the man being cleansed, on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Following that he will take some oil and pour it into the palm of his left hand</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> and then with the finger of his right hand sprinkle oil seven times before GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The priest will put some of the remaining oil on the right earlobe of the one being cleansed, on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot, placing it on top of the blood of the Compensation-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> He will put the rest of the oil on the head of the man being cleansed and make atonement for him before GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Finally the priest will sacrifice the Absolution-Offering and make atonement for the one to be cleansed from his uncleanness, slaughter the Whole-Burnt-Offering</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> and offer it with the Grain-Offering on the Altar. He has made atonement for him. He is clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "If he is poor and cannot afford these offerings, he will bring one male lamb as a Compensation-Offering to be offered as a Wave-Offering to make atonement for him, and with it a couple of quarts of fine flour mixed with oil for a Grain-Offering, a pint of oil,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> and two doves or pigeons which he can afford, one for an Absolution-Offering and the other for a Whole-Burnt-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "On the eighth day he will bring them to the priest at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting before the presence of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The priest will take the lamb for the Compensation-Offering together with the pint of oil and wave them before GOD as a Wave-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> He will slaughter the lamb for the Compensation-Offering, take some of its blood and put it on the lobe of the right ear of the one to be cleansed, on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The priest will pour some of the oil into the palm of his left hand,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> and with his right finger sprinkle some of the oil from his palm seven times before GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> He will put some of the oil that is in his palm on the same places he put the blood of the Compensation-Offering, on the lobe of the right ear of the one to be cleansed, on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The priest will take what is left of the oil in his palm and put it on the head of the one to be cleansed, making atonement for him before GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "At the last, he will sacrifice the doves or pigeons which are within his means,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> one as an Absolution-Offering and the other as a Whole-Burnt-Offering along with the Grain-Offering. Following this procedure the priest will make atonement for the one to be cleansed before GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> These are the instructions to be followed for anyone who has a serious skin disease and cannot afford the regular offerings for his cleansing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> GOD spoke to Moses and Aaron,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "When you enter the land of Canaan, which I'm giving to you as a possession, and I put a serious fungus in a house in the land of your possession,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> the householder is to go and tell the priest, 'I have some kind of fungus in my house.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> The priest is to order the house vacated until he can come to examine the fungus, so that nothing in the house is declared unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> When the priest comes and examines the house, if the fungus on the walls of the house has greenish or rusty swelling that appears to go deeper than the surface of the wall,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> the priest is to walk out the door and shut the house up for seven days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> On the seventh day he is to come back and conduct another examination; if the fungus has spread in the walls of the house,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> he is to order that the stones affected by the fungus be torn out and thrown in a garbage dump outside the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> He is to make sure the entire inside of the house is scraped and the plaster that is removed be taken away to the garbage dump outside the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Then he is to replace the stones and replaster the house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> "If the fungus breaks out again in the house after the stones have been torn out and the house has been scraped and plastered,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> the priest is to come and conduct an examination; if the fungus has spread, it is a malignant fungus. The house is unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> The house has to be demolished--its stones, wood, and plaster are to be removed to the garbage dump outside the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Anyone who enters the house while it is closed up is unclean until evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> Anyone who sleeps or eats in the house must wash his clothes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> "But if when the priest comes and conducts his examination, he finds that the fungus has not spread after the house has been replastered, the priest is to declare that the house is clean; the fungus is cured.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> He then is to purify the house by taking two birds, some cedar wood, scarlet thread, and hyssop.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> He will slaughter one bird over fresh water in a clay pot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> Then he will take the cedar wood, the hyssop, the scarlet thread, and the living bird, dip them in the blood of the killed bird and the fresh water and sprinkle the house seven times,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> cleansing the house with the blood of the bird, the fresh water, the living bird, the cedar wood, the hyssop, and the scarlet thread.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> Last of all, he will let the living bird loose outside the city in the open field. He has made atonement for the house; the house is clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> "These are the procedures to be followed for every kind of serious skin disease or itch,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> for mildew or fungus on clothing or in a house,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> and for a swelling or blister or shiny spot</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> in order to determine when it is unclean and when it is clean. These are the procedures regarding infectious skin diseases and mildew and fungus."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses and Aaron,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them: When a man has a discharge from his genitals, the discharge is unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Whether it comes from a seepage or an obstruction he is unclean. He is unclean all the days his body has a seepage or an obstruction.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Every bed on which he lies is ritually unclean, everything on which he sits is unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> If someone touches his bed or sits on anything he's sat on, or touches the man with the discharge, he has to wash his clothes and bathe in water; he remains unclean until evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> (SEE 5:5)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> (SEE 5:5)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "If the man with the discharge spits on someone who is clean, that person has to wash his clothes and bathe in water; he remains unclean until evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Every saddle on which the man with the discharge rides is unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Whoever touches anything that has been under him becomes unclean until evening. Anyone who carries such an object must wash his clothes and bathe with water; he remains unclean until evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> If the one with the discharge touches someone without first rinsing his hands with water, the one touched must wash his clothes and bathe with water; he remains unclean until evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "If a pottery container is touched by someone with a discharge, you must break it; a wooden article is to be rinsed in water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "When a person with a discharge is cleansed from it, he is to count off seven days for his cleansing, wash his clothes, and bathe in running water. Then he is clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> On the eighth day he is to take two doves or two pigeons and come before GOD at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting and give them to the priest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The priest then offers one as an Absolution-Offering and one as a Whole-Burnt-Offering and makes atonement for him in the presence of GOD because of his discharge.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "When a man has an emission of semen, he must bathe his entire body in water; he remains unclean until evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Every piece of clothing and everything made of leather which gets semen on it must be washed with water; it remains unclean until evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When a man sleeps with a woman and has an emission of semen, both are to wash in water; they remain unclean until evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "When a woman has a discharge of blood, the impurity of her menstrual period lasts seven days. Anyone who touches her is unclean until evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Everything on which she lies or sits during her period is unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Anyone who touches her bed or anything on which she sits must wash his clothes and bathe in water; he remains unclean until evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> (SEE 5:21)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> (SEE 5:21)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "If a man sleeps with her and her menstrual blood gets on him, he is unclean for seven days and every bed on which he lies becomes unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "If a woman has a discharge of blood for many days, but not at the time of her monthly period, or has a discharge that continues beyond the time of her period, she is unclean the same as during the time of her period.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Every bed on which she lies during the time of the discharge and everything on which she sits becomes unclean the same as in her monthly period.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Anyone who touches these things becomes unclean and must wash his clothes and bathe in water; he remains unclean until evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "When she is cleansed from her discharge, she is to count off seven days; then she is clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> On the eighth day she is to take two doves and two pigeons and bring them to the priest at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The priest will offer one for an Absolution-Offering and the other for a Whole-Burnt-Offering. The priest will make atonement for her in the presence of GOD because of the discharge that made her unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "You are responsible for keeping the People of Israel separate from that which makes them ritually unclean, lest they die in their unclean condition by defiling my Dwelling which is among them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "These are the procedures to follow for a man with a discharge or an emission of semen that makes him unclean,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> and for a woman in her menstrual period--any man or woman with a discharge and also for a man who sleeps with a woman who is unclean."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> After the death of Aaron's two sons--they died when they came before GOD with strange fire--GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Tell your brother Aaron not to enter into the Holy of Holies, barging inside the curtain that's before the Atonement-Cover on the Chest whenever he feels like it, lest he die, because I am present in the Cloud over the Atonement-Cover.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "This is the procedure for Aaron when he enters the Holy Place: He will bring a young bull for an Absolution-Offering and a ram for a Whole-Burnt-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> he will put on the holy linen tunic and the linen underwear, tie the linen sash around him, and put on the linen turban. These are the sacred vestments so he must bathe himself with water before he puts them on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then from the Israelite community he will bring two male goats for an Absolution-Offering and a Whole-Burnt-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Aaron will offer the bull for his own Absolution-Offering in order to make atonement for himself and his household.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Then he will set the two goats before GOD at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> and cast lots over the two goats, one lot for GOD and the other lot for Azazel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He will offer the goat on which the lot to GOD falls as an Absolution-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The goat on which the lot for Azazel falls will be sent out into the wilderness to Azazel to make atonement.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Aaron will present his bull for an Absolution-Offering to make atonement for himself and his household. He will slaughter his bull for the Absolution-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He will take a censer full of burning coals from the Altar before GOD and two handfuls of finely ground aromatic incense and bring them inside the curtain and</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> put the incense on the fire before GOD; the smoke of the incense will cover the Atonement-Cover which is over The Testimony so that he doesn't die.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He will take some of the bull's blood and sprinkle it with his finger on the front of the Atonement-Cover, then sprinkle the blood before the Atonement-Cover seven times.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Next he will slaughter the goat designated as the Absolution-Offering for the people and bring the blood inside the curtain. He will repeat what he does with the bull's blood, sprinkling it on and before the Atonement-Cover.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> In this way he will make atonement for the Holy of Holies because of the uncleannesses of the Israelites, their acts of rebellion, and all their other sins. He will do the same thing for the Tent of Meeting which dwells among the people in the midst of their uncleanness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> There is to be no one in the Tent of Meeting from the time Aaron goes in to make atonement in the Holy of Holies until he comes out, having made atonement for himself, his household, and the whole community of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Then he will come out to the Altar that is before GOD and make atonement for it. He will take some of the bull's blood and some of the goat's blood and smear it all around the four horns of the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> With his finger he will sprinkle some of the blood on it seven times to purify and consecrate it from the uncleannesses of the Israelites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "When Aaron finishes making atonement for the Holy of Holies, the Tent of Meeting, and the Altar, he will bring up the live goat,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> lay both hands on the live goat's head, and confess all the iniquities of the People of Israel, all their acts of rebellion, all their sins. He will put all the sins on the goat's head and send it off into the wilderness, led out by a man standing by and ready.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The goat will carry all their iniquities to an empty wasteland; the man will let him loose out there in the wilderness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "Finally, Aaron will come into the Tent of Meeting and take off the linen clothes in which he dressed to enter the Holy of Holies and leave them there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He will bathe in water in a Holy Place, put on his priestly vestments, offer the Whole-Burnt-Offering for himself and the Whole-Burnt-Offering for the people, making atonement for himself and the people,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> and burn the fat of the Absolution-Offering on the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "The man who takes the goat out to Azazel in the wilderness then will wash his clothes and bathe himself with water. After that he will be permitted to come back into the camp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The bull for the Absolution-Offering and the goat for the Absolution-Offering, whose blood has been taken into the Holy of Holies to make atonement, are to be taken outside the camp and burned--their hides, their meat, and their entrails.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The man assigned to burn them up will then wash his clothes and bathe himself in water. Then he is free to come back into the camp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "This is standard practice for you, a perpetual ordinance. On the tenth day of the seventh month, both the citizen and the foreigner living with you are to enter into a solemn fast and refrain from all work,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> because on this day atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you. In the presence of GOD you will be made clean of all your sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> It is a Sabbath of all Sabbaths. You must fast. It is a perpetual ordinance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "The priest who is anointed and ordained to succeed his father is to make the atonement: He puts on the sacred linen garments;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> He purges the Holy of Holies by making atonement; He purges the Tent of Meeting and the Altar by making atonement; He makes atonement for the priests and all the congregation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "This is a perpetual ordinance for you: Once a year atonement is to be made for all the sins of the People of Israel." And Aaron did it, just as GOD commanded Moses.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="17">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Speak to Aaron and his sons and all the Israelites. Tell them, This is what GOD commands:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Any and every man who slaughters an ox or lamb or goat inside or outside the camp</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> instead of bringing it to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting to offer it to GOD in front of The Dwelling of GOD--that man is considered guilty of bloodshed; he has shed blood and must be cut off from his people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> This is so the Israelites will bring to GOD the sacrifices that they're in the habit of sacrificing out in the open fields. They must bring them to GOD and the priest at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and sacrifice them as Peace-Offerings to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The priest will splash the blood on the Altar of GOD at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and burn the fat as a pleasing fragrance to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They must no longer offer their sacrifices to goat-demons--a kind of religious orgy. This is a perpetual decree down through the generations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Tell them: Any Israelite or foreigner living among them who offers a Whole-Burnt-Offering or Peace-Offering</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> but doesn't bring it to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting to sacrifice it to GOD, that person must be cut off from his people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "If any Israelite or foreigner living among them eats blood, I will disown that person and cut him off from his people,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> for the life of an animal is in the blood. I have provided the blood for you to make atonement for your lives on the Altar; it is the blood, the life, that makes atonement.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> That's why I tell the People of Israel, 'Don't eat blood.' The same goes for the foreigner who lives among you, 'Don't eat blood.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Any and every Israelite--this also goes for the foreigners--who hunts down an animal or bird that is edible, must bleed it and cover the blood with dirt,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> because the life of every animal is its blood--the blood is its life. That's why I tell the Israelites, 'Don't eat the blood of any animal because the life of every animal is its blood. Anyone who eats the blood must be cut off.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Anyone, whether native or foreigner, who eats from an animal that is found dead or mauled must wash his clothes and bathe in water; he remains unclean until evening and is then clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> If he doesn't wash or bathe his body, he'll be held responsible for his actions."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="18">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them: I am GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Don't live like the people of Egypt where you used to live, and don't live like the people of Canaan where I'm bringing you. Don't do what they do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Obey my laws and live by my decrees. I am your GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Keep my decrees and laws: The person who obeys them lives by them. I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Don't have sex with a close relative. I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Don't violate your father by having sex with your mother. She is your mother. Don't have sex with her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Don't have sex with your father's wife. That violates your father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Don't have sex with your sister, whether she's your father's daughter or your mother's, whether she was born in the same house or elsewhere.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Don't have sex with your son's daughter or your daughter's daughter. That would violate your own body.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Don't have sex with the daughter of your father's wife born to your father. She is your sister.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Don't have sex with your father's sister; she is your aunt, closely related to your father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Don't have sex with your mother's sister; she is your aunt, closely related to your mother.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Don't violate your father's brother, your uncle, by having sex with his wife. She is your aunt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Don't have sex with your daughter-in-law. She is your son's wife; don't have sex with her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Don't have sex with your brother's wife; that would violate your brother.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Don't have sex with both a woman and her daughter. And don't have sex with her granddaughters either. They are her close relatives. That is wicked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Don't marry your wife's sister as a rival wife and have sex with her while your wife is living.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Don't have sex with a woman during the time of her menstrual period when she is unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "Don't have sex with your neighbor's wife and violate yourself by her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Don't give any of your children to be burned in sacrifice to the god Molech--an act of sheer blasphemy of your God. I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Don't have sex with a man as one does with a woman. That is abhorrent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "Don't have sex with an animal and violate yourself by it. "A woman must not have sex with an animal. That is perverse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "Don't pollute yourself in any of these ways. This is how the nations became polluted, the ones that I am going to drive out of the land before you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Even the land itself became polluted and I punished it for its iniquities--the land vomited up its inhabitants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> You must keep my decrees and laws--natives and foreigners both. You must not do any of these abhorrent things.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The people who lived in this land before you arrived did all these things and polluted the land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> And if you pollute it, the land will vomit you up just as it vomited up the nations that preceded you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "Those who do any of these abhorrent things will be cut off from their people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Keep to what I tell you; don't engage in any of the abhorrent acts that were practiced before you came. Don't pollute yourselves with them. I am GOD, your God."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="19">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Speak to the congregation of Israel. Tell them: Be holy because I, GOD, your God, am holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Every one of you must respect his mother and father. "Keep my Sabbaths. I am GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Don't take up with no-god idols. Don't make gods of cast metal. I am GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "When you sacrifice a Peace-Offering to GOD, do it as you've been taught so it is acceptable.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Eat it on the day you sacrifice it and the day following. Whatever is left until the third day is to be burned up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> If it is eaten on the third day it is polluted meat and not acceptable.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Whoever eats it will be held responsible because he has violated what is holy to GOD. That person will be cut off from his people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "When you harvest your land, don't harvest right up to the edges of your field or gather the gleanings from the harvest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Don't strip your vineyard bare or go back and pick up the fallen grapes. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Don't steal. "Don't lie. "Don't deceive anyone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Don't swear falsely using my name, violating the name of your God. I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Don't exploit your friend or rob him. "Don't hold back the wages of a hired hand overnight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Don't curse the deaf; don't put a stumbling block in front of the blind; fear your God. I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Don't pervert justice. Don't show favoritism to either the poor or the great. Judge on the basis of what is right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Don't spread gossip and rumors. "Don't just stand by when your neighbor's life is in danger. I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Don't secretly hate your neighbor. If you have something against him, get it out into the open; otherwise you are an accomplice in his guilt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Don't seek revenge or carry a grudge against any of your people. "Love your neighbor as yourself. I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Keep my decrees. "Don't mate two different kinds of animals. "Don't plant your fields with two kinds of seed. "Don't wear clothes woven of two kinds of material.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "If a man has sex with a slave girl who is engaged to another man but has not yet been ransomed or given her freedom, there must be an investigation. But they aren't to be put to death because she wasn't free.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The man must bring a Compensation-Offering to GOD at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, a ram of compensation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The priest will perform the ritual of atonement for him before GOD with the ram of compensation for the sin he has committed. Then he will stand forgiven of the sin he committed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "When you enter the land and plant any kind of fruit tree, don't eat the fruit for three years; consider it inedible.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> By the fourth year its fruit is holy, an offering of praise to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Beginning in the fifth year you can eat its fruit; you'll have richer harvests this way. I am GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "Don't eat meat with blood in it. "Don't practice divination or sorcery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "Don't cut the hair on the sides of your head or trim your beard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "Don't gash your bodies on behalf of the dead. "Don't tattoo yourselves. I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "Don't violate your daughter by making her a whore--the whole country would soon become a brothel, filled with sordid sex.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "Keep my Sabbaths and revere my Sanctuary: I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "Don't dabble in the occult or traffic with mediums; you'll pollute your souls. I am GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "Show respect to the aged; honor the presence of an elder; fear your God. I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "When a foreigner lives with you in your land, don't take advantage of him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Treat the foreigner the same as a native. Love him like one of your own. Remember that you were once foreigners in Egypt. I am GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> "Don't cheat when measuring length, weight, or quantity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Use honest scales and weights and measures. I am GOD, your God. I brought you out of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> "Keep all my decrees and all my laws. Yes, do them. I am GOD."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="20">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Tell the Israelites, Each and every Israelite and foreigner in Israel who gives his child to the god Molech must be put to death. The community must kill him by stoning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I will resolutely reject that man and cut him off from his people. By giving his child to the god Molech he has polluted my Sanctuary and desecrated my holy name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> If the people of the land look the other way as if nothing had happened when that man gives his child to the god Molech and fail to kill him,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I will resolutely reject that man and his family, and him and all who join him in prostituting themselves in the rituals of the god Molech I will cut off from their people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "I will resolutely reject persons who dabble in the occult or traffic with mediums, prostituting themselves in their practices. I will cut them off from their people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Set yourselves apart for a holy life. Live a holy life, because I am GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Do what I tell you; live the way I tell you. I am the GOD who makes you holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Any and every person who curses his father or mother must be put to death. By cursing his father or mother he is responsible for his own death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "If a man commits adultery with another man's wife--the wife, say, of his neighbor--both the man and the woman, the adulterer and adulteress, must be put to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "If a man has sex with his father's wife, he has violated his father. Both the man and woman must be put to death; they are responsible for their own deaths.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "If a man has sex with his daughter-in-law, both of them must be put to death. What they have done is perverse. And they are responsible for their own deaths.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "If a man has sex with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is abhorrent. They must be put to death; they are responsible for their own deaths.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "If a man marries both a woman and her mother, that's wicked. All three of them must be burned at the stake, purging the wickedness from the community.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "If a man has sex with an animal, he must be put to death and you must kill the animal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "If a woman has sex with an animal, you must kill both the woman and the animal. They must be put to death. And they are responsible for their deaths.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "If a man marries his sister, the daughter of either his father or mother, and they have sex, that's a disgrace. They must be publicly cut off from their people. He has violated his sister and will be held responsible.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "If a man sleeps with a woman during her period and has sex with her, he has uncovered her 'fountain' and she has revealed her 'fountain'--both of them must be cut off from their people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Don't have sex with your aunt on either your mother's or father's side. That violates a close relative. Both of you are held responsible.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "If a man has sex with his aunt, he has dishonored his uncle. They will be held responsible and die childless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "If a man marries his brother's wife, it's a defilement. He has shamed his brother. They will be childless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Do what I tell you, all my decrees and laws; live by them so that the land where I'm bringing you won't vomit you out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> You simply must not live like the nations I'm driving out before you. They did all these things and I hated every minute of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "I've told you, remember, that you will possess their land that I'm giving to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey. I am GOD, your God, who has distinguished you from the nations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> So live like it: Distinguish between ritually clean and unclean animals and birds. Don't pollute yourselves with any animal or bird or crawling thing which I have marked out as unclean for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Live holy lives before me because I, GOD, am holy. I have distinguished you from the nations to be my very own.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "A man or woman who is a medium or sorcerer among you must be put to death. You must kill them by stoning. They're responsible for their own deaths."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="21">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses: "Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron. Tell them, A priest must not ritually contaminate himself by touching the dead,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> except for close relatives: mother, father, son, daughter, brother,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> or an unmarried sister who is dependent on him since she has no husband; for these he may make himself ritually unclean,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> but he must not contaminate himself with the dead who are only related to him by marriage and thus profane himself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Priests must not shave their heads or trim their beards or gash their bodies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They must be holy to their God and must not profane the name of their God. Because their job is to present the gifts of GOD, the food of their God, they are to be holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Because a priest is holy to his God he must not marry a woman who has been a harlot or a cult prostitute or a divorced woman.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Make sure he is holy because he serves the food of your God. Treat him as holy because I, GOD, who make you holy, am holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "If a priest's daughter defiles herself in prostitution, she disgraces her father. She must be burned at the stake.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "The high priest, the one among his brothers who has received the anointing oil poured on his head and been ordained to wear the priestly vestments, must not let his hair go wild and tangled nor wear ragged and torn clothes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He must not enter a room where there is a dead body. He must not ritually contaminate himself, even for his father or mother;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> and he must neither abandon nor desecrate the Sanctuary of his God because of the dedication of the anointing oil which is upon him. I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "He is to marry a young virgin,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> not a widow, not a divorcee, not a cult prostitute--he is only to marry a virgin from his own people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He must not defile his descendants among his people because I am GOD who makes him holy."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Tell Aaron, None of your descendants, in any generation to come, who has a defect of any kind may present as an offering the food of his God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> That means anyone who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> crippled in foot or hand,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> hunchbacked or dwarfed, who has anything wrong with his eyes, who has running sores or damaged testicles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any defect is to offer gifts to GOD; he has a defect and so must not offer the food of his God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> He may eat the food of his God, both the most holy and the holy,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> but because of his defect he must not go near the curtain or approach the Altar. It would desecrate my Sanctuary. I am GOD who makes them holy."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Moses delivered this message to Aaron, his sons, and to all the People of Israel.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="22">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Tell Aaron and his sons to treat the holy offerings that the Israelites consecrate to me with reverence so they won't desecrate my holy name. I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Tell them, From now on, if any of your descendants approaches in a state of ritual uncleanness the holy offerings that the Israelites consecrate to GOD, he will be cut off from my presence. I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Each and every one of Aaron's descendants who has an infectious skin disease or a discharge may not eat any of the holy offerings until he is clean. Also, if he touches anything defiled by a corpse, or has an emission of semen,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> or is contaminated by touching a crawling creature, or touches a person who is contaminated for whatever reason--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> a person who touches any such thing will be ritually unclean until evening and may not eat any of the holy offerings unless he has washed well with water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> After the sun goes down he is clean and may go ahead and eat the holy offerings; they are his food.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But he must not contaminate himself by eating anything found dead or torn by wild animals. I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "The priests must observe my instructions lest they become guilty and die by treating the offerings with irreverence. I am GOD who makes them holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "No layperson may eat anything set apart as holy. Nor may a priest's guest or his hired hand eat anything holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But if a priest buys a slave, the slave may eat of it; also the slaves born in his house may eat his food.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> If a priest's daughter marries a layperson, she may no longer eat from the holy contributions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But if the priest's daughter is widowed or divorced and without children and returns to her father's household as before, she may eat of her father's food. But no layperson may eat of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "If anyone eats from a holy offering accidentally, he must give back the holy offering to the priest and add twenty percent to it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "The priests must not treat with irreverence the holy offerings of the Israelites that they contribute to GOD</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> lest they desecrate themselves and make themselves guilty when they eat the holy offerings. I am GOD who makes them holy."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> GOD spoke to Moses,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Tell Aaron and his sons and all the People of Israel, Each and every one of you, whether native born or foreigner, who presents a Whole-Burnt-Offering to GOD to fulfill a vow or as a Freewill-Offering,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> must make sure that it is a male without defect from cattle, sheep, or goats for it to be acceptable.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Don't try slipping in some creature that has a defect--it won't be accepted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Whenever anyone brings an offering from cattle or sheep as a Peace-Offering to GOD to fulfill a vow or as a Freewill-Offering, it has to be perfect, without defect, to be acceptable.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Don't try giving GOD an animal that is blind, crippled, mutilated, an animal with running sores, a rash, or mange. Don't place any of these on the Altar as a gift to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> You may, though, offer an ox or sheep that is deformed or stunted as a Freewill-Offering, but it is not acceptable in fulfilling a vow</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> . Don't offer to GOD an animal with bruised, crushed, torn, or cut-off testicles. Don't do this in your own land</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> but don't accept them from foreigners and present them as food for your GOD either. Because of deformities and defects they will not be acceptable."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "When a calf or lamb or goat is born, it is to stay with its mother for seven days. After the eighth day, it is acceptable as an offering, a gift to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Don't slaughter both a cow or ewe and its young on the same day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> When you sacrifice a Thanksgiving-Offering to GOD, do it right so it will be acceptable.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Eat it on the same day; don't leave any leftovers until morning. I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "Do what I tell you; live what I tell you. I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "Don't desecrate my holy name. I insist on being treated with holy reverence among the People of Israel. I am GOD who makes you holy</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> and brought you out of Egypt to be your God. I am GOD."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="23">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Tell the People of Israel, These are my appointed feasts, the appointed feasts of GOD which you are to decree as sacred assemblies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Work six days. The seventh day is a Sabbath, a day of total and complete rest, a sacred assembly. Don't do any work. Wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "These are the appointed feasts of GOD, the sacred assemblies which you are to announce at the times set for them:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "GOD's Passover, beginning at sundown on the fourteenth day of the first month.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "GOD's Feast of Unraised Bread, on the fifteenth day of this same month. You are to eat unraised bread for seven days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Hold a sacred assembly on the first day; don't do any regular work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Offer Fire-Gifts to GOD for seven days. On the seventh day hold a sacred assembly; don't do any regular work."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Tell the People of Israel, When you arrive at the land that I am giving you and reap its harvest, bring to the priest a sheaf of the first grain that you harvest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He will wave the sheaf before GOD for acceptance on your behalf; on the morning after Sabbath, the priest will wave it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> On the same day that you wave the sheaf, offer a year-old male lamb without defect for a Whole-Burnt-Offering to GOD</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> and with it the Grain-Offering of four quarts of fine flour mixed with oil--a Fire-Gift to GOD, a pleasing fragrance--and also a Drink-Offering of a quart of wine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Don't eat any bread or roasted or fresh grain until you have presented this offering to your God. This is a perpetual decree for all your generations to come, wherever you live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Count seven full weeks from the morning after the Sabbath when you brought the sheaf as a Wave-Offering,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> fifty days until the morning of the seventh Sabbath. Then present a new Grain-Offering to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Bring from wherever you are living two loaves of bread made from four quarts of fine flour and baked with yeast as a Wave-Offering of the first ripe grain to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> In addition to the bread, offer seven yearling male lambs without defect, plus one bull and two rams. They will be a Whole-Burnt-Offering to GOD together with their Grain-Offerings and Drink-Offerings--offered as Fire-Gifts, a pleasing fragrance to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Offer one male goat for an Absolution-Offering and two yearling lambs for a Peace-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The priest will wave the two lambs before GOD as a Wave-Offering, together with the bread of the first ripe grain. They are sacred offerings to GOD for the priest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Proclaim the day as a sacred assembly. Don't do any ordinary work. It is a perpetual decree wherever you live down through your generations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "When you reap the harvest of your land, don't reap the corners of your field or gather the gleanings. Leave them for the poor and the foreigners. I am GOD, your God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> GOD said to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "Tell the People of Israel, On the first day of the seventh month, set aside a day of rest, a sacred assembly--mark it with loud blasts on the ram's horn.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Don't do any ordinary work. Offer a Fire-Gift to GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> GOD said to Moses,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "The tenth day of the seventh month is the Day of Atonement. Hold a sacred assembly, fast, and offer a Fire-Gift to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Don't work on that day because it is a day of atonement to make atonement for you before your GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Anyone who doesn't fast on that day must be cut off from his people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> I will destroy from among his people anyone who works on that day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Don't do any work that day--none. This is a perpetual decree for all the generations to come, wherever you happen to be living.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> It is a Sabbath of complete and total rest, a fast day. Observe your Sabbath from the evening of the ninth day of the month until the following evening."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> GOD said to Moses,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "Tell the People of Israel, GOD's Feast of Booths begins on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. It lasts seven days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> The first day is a sacred assembly; don't do any ordinary work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Offer Fire-Gifts to GOD for seven days. On the eighth day hold a sacred assembly and offer a gift to GOD. It is a solemn convocation. Don't do any ordinary work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> "These are the appointed feasts of GOD which you will decree as sacred assemblies for presenting Fire-Gifts to GOD: the Whole-Burnt-Offerings, Grain-Offerings, sacrifices, and Drink-Offerings assigned to each day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> These are in addition to offerings for GOD's Sabbaths and also in addition to other gifts connected with whatever you have vowed and all the Freewill-Offerings you give to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> "So, summing up: On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you have brought your crops in from your fields, celebrate the Feast of GOD for seven days. The first day is a complete rest and the eighth day is a complete rest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> On the first day, pick the best fruit from the best trees; take fronds of palm trees and branches of leafy trees and from willows by the brook and celebrate in the presence of your GOD for seven days--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> yes, for seven full days celebrate it as a festival to GOD. Every year from now on, celebrate it in the seventh month.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Live in booths for seven days--every son and daughter of Israel is to move into booths</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> so that your descendants will know that I made the People of Israel live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am GOD, your God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Moses posted the calendar for the annual appointed feasts of GOD which Israel was to celebrate.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="24">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Order the People of Israel to bring you virgin olive oil for light so that the lamps may be kept burning continually.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Aaron is in charge of keeping these lamps burning in front of the curtain that screens The Testimony in the Tent of Meeting from evening to morning continually before GOD. This is a perpetual decree down through the generations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Aaron is responsible for keeping the lamps burning continually on the Lampstand of pure gold before GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Take fine flour and bake twelve loaves of bread, using about four quarts of flour to a loaf.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Arrange them in two rows of six each on the Table of pure gold before GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Along each row spread pure incense, marking the bread as a memorial; it is a gift to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Regularly, every Sabbath, this bread is to be set before GOD, a perpetual covenantal response from Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The bread then goes to Aaron and his sons, who are to eat it in a Holy Place. It is their most holy share from the gifts to GOD. This is a perpetual decree."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> One day the son of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father went out among the Israelites. A fight broke out in the camp between him and an Israelite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the Name of GOD and cursed. They brought him to Moses. His mother's name was Shelomith, daughter of Dibri of the tribe of Dan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They put him in custody waiting for GOD's will to be revealed to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Take the blasphemer outside the camp. Have all those who heard him place their hands on his head; then have the entire congregation stone him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Then tell the Israelites, Anyone who curses God will be held accountable;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> anyone who blasphemes the Name of GOD must be put to death. The entire congregation must stone him. It makes no difference whether he is a foreigner or a native, if he blasphemes the Name, he will be put to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Anyone who hits and kills a fellow human must be put to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Anyone who kills someone's animal must make it good--a life for a life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Anyone who injures his neighbor will get back the same as he gave:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. What he did to hurt that person will be done to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Anyone who hits and kills an animal must make it good, but whoever hits and kills a fellow human will be put to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> And no double standards: the same rule goes for foreigners and natives. I am GOD, your God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Moses then spoke to the People of Israel. They brought the blasphemer outside the camp and stoned him. The People of Israel followed the orders GOD had given Moses.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="25">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them: When you enter the land which I am going to give you, the land will observe a Sabbath to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Sow your fields, prune your vineyards, and take in your harvests for six years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But the seventh year the land will take a Sabbath of complete and total rest, a Sabbath to GOD; you will not sow your fields or prune your vineyards.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Don't reap what grows of itself; don't harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land gets a year of complete and total rest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But you can eat from what the land volunteers during the Sabbath year--you and your men and women servants, your hired hands, and the foreigners who live in the country,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> and, of course, also your livestock and the wild animals in the land can eat from it. Whatever the land volunteers of itself can be eaten.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Count off seven Sabbaths of years--seven times seven years: Seven Sabbaths of years adds up to forty-nine years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then sound loud blasts on the ram's horn on the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement. Sound the ram's horn all over the land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Sanctify the fiftieth year; make it a holy year. Proclaim freedom all over the land to everyone who lives in it--a Jubilee for you: Each person will go back to his family's property and reunite with his extended family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The fiftieth year is your Jubilee year: Don't sow; don't reap what volunteers itself in the fields; don't harvest the untended vines</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> because it's the Jubilee and a holy year for you. You're permitted to eat from whatever volunteers itself in the fields.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "In this year of Jubilee everyone returns home to his family property.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "If you sell or buy property from one of your countrymen, don't cheat him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Calculate the purchase price on the basis of the number of years since the Jubilee. He is obliged to set the sale price on the basis of the number of harvests remaining until the next Jubilee.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The more years left, the more money; you can raise the price. But the fewer years left, the less money; decrease the price. What you are buying and selling in fact is the number of crops you're going to harvest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Don't cheat each other. Fear your God. I am GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Keep my decrees and observe my laws and you will live secure in the land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The land will yield its fruit; you will have all you can eat and will live safe and secure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Do I hear you ask, 'What are we going to eat in the seventh year if we don't plant or harvest?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I assure you, I will send such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> While you plant in the eighth year, you will eat from the old crop and continue until the harvest of the ninth year comes in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "The land cannot be sold permanently because the land is mine and you are foreigners--you're my tenants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> You must provide for the right of redemption for any of the land that you own.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "If one of your brothers becomes poor and has to sell any of his land, his nearest relative is to come and buy back what his brother sold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> If a man has no one to redeem it but he later prospers and earns enough for its redemption,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> he is to calculate the value since he sold it and refund the balance to the man to whom he sold it; he can then go back to his own land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> If he doesn't get together enough money to repay him, what he sold remains in the possession of the buyer until the year of Jubilee. In the Jubilee it will be returned and he can go back and live on his land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "If a man sells a house in a walled city, he retains the right to buy it back for a full year after the sale. At any time during that year he can redeem it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> But if it is not redeemed before the full year has passed, it becomes the permanent possession of the buyer and his descendants. It is not returned in the Jubilee.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> However, houses in unwalled villages are treated the same as fields. They can be redeemed and have to be returned at the Jubilee.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "As to the Levitical cities, houses in the cities owned by the Levites are always subject to redemption.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Levitical property is always redeemable if it is sold in a town that they hold and reverts to them in the Jubilee, because the houses in the towns of the Levites are their property among the People of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The pastures belonging to their cities may not be sold; they are their permanent possession.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> "If one of your brothers becomes indigent and cannot support himself, help him, the same as you would a foreigner or a guest so that he can continue to live in your neighborhood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Don't gouge him with interest charges; out of reverence for your God help your brother to continue to live with you in the neighborhood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Don't take advantage of his plight by running up big interest charges on his loans, and don't give him food for profit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> I am your GOD who brought you out of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> "If one of your brothers becomes indigent and has to sell himself to you, don't make him work as a slave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Treat him as a hired hand or a guest among you. He will work for you until the Jubilee,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> after which he and his children are set free to go back to his clan and his ancestral land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Because the People of Israel are my servants whom I brought out of Egypt, they must never be sold as slaves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Don't tyrannize them; fear your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> "The male and female slaves which you have are to come from the surrounding nations; you are permitted to buy slaves from them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> You may also buy the children of foreign workers who are living among you temporarily and from their clans which are living among you and have been born in your land. They become your property.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> You may will them to your children as property and make them slaves for life. But you must not tyrannize your brother Israelites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> "If a foreigner or temporary resident among you becomes rich and one of your brothers becomes poor and sells himself to the foreigner who lives among you or to a member of the foreigner's clan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> he still has the right of redemption after he has sold himself. One of his relatives may buy him back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> An uncle or cousin or any close relative of his extended family may redeem him. Or, if he gets the money together, he can redeem himself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> What happens then is that he and his owner count out the time from the year he sold himself to the year of Jubilee; the buy-back price is set according to the wages of a hired hand for that number of years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> If many years remain before the Jubilee, he must pay back a larger share of his purchase price,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> but if only a few years remain until the Jubilee, he is to calculate his redemption price accordingly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> He is to be treated as a man hired from year to year. You must make sure that his owner does not tyrannize him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> "If he is not redeemed in any of these ways, he goes free in the year of Jubilee, he and his children,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> because the People of Israel are my servants, my servants whom I brought out of Egypt. I am GOD, your God.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="26">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Don't make idols for yourselves; don't set up an image or a sacred pillar for yourselves, and don't place a carved stone in your land that you can bow down to in worship. I am GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Keep my Sabbaths; treat my Sanctuary with reverence. I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "If you live by my decrees and obediently keep my commandments,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I will send the rains in their seasons, the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You will thresh until the grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting time; you'll have more than enough to eat and will live safe and secure in your land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "I'll make the country a place of peace--you'll be able to go to sleep at night without fear; I'll get rid of the wild beasts; I'll eliminate war.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You'll chase out your enemies and defeat them:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand and do away with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'll give you my full attention: I'll make sure you prosper, make sure you grow in numbers, and keep my covenant with you in good working order.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You'll still be eating from last year's harvest when you have to clean out the barns to make room for the new crops.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "I'll set up my residence in your neighborhood; I won't avoid or shun you;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I'll stroll through your streets. I'll be your God; you'll be my people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I am GOD, your personal God who rescued you from Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians. I ripped off the harness of your slavery so that you can move about freely.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "But if you refuse to obey me and won't observe my commandments,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> despising my decrees and holding my laws in contempt by your disobedience, making a shambles of my covenant,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I'll step in and pour on the trouble: debilitating disease, high fevers, blindness, your life leaking out bit by bit. You'll plant seed but your enemies will eat the crops.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I'll turn my back on you and stand by while your enemies defeat you. People who hate you will govern you. You'll run scared even when there's no one chasing you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "And if none of this works in getting your attention, I'll discipline you seven times over for your sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I'll break your strong pride: I'll make the skies above you like a sheet of tin and the ground under you like cast iron.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> No matter how hard you work, nothing will come of it: No crops out of the ground, no fruit off the trees.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "If you defy me and refuse to listen, your punishment will be seven times more than your sins:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I'll set wild animals on you; they'll rob you of your children, kill your cattle, and decimate your numbers until you'll think you are living in a ghost town.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "And if even this doesn't work and you refuse my discipline and continue your defiance,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> then it will be my turn to defy you. I, yes I, will punish you for your sins seven times over:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> I'll let war loose on you, avenging your breaking of the covenant; when you huddle in your cities for protection, I'll send a deadly epidemic on you and you'll be helpless before your enemies;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> when I cut off your bread supply, ten women will bake bread in one oven and ration it out. You'll eat, but barely--no one will get enough.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "And if this--even this!--doesn't work and you still won't listen, still defy me,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> I'll have had enough and in hot anger will defy you, punishing you for your sins seven times over:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> famine will be so severe that you'll end up cooking and eating your sons in stews and your daughters in barbecues;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> I'll smash your sex-and-religion shrines and all the paraphernalia that goes with them, and then stack your corpses and the idol-corpses in the same piles--I'll abhor you;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> I'll turn your cities into rubble; I'll clean out your sanctuaries; I'll hold my nose at the "pleasing aroma" of your sacrifices.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> I'll turn your land into a lifeless moonscape--your enemies who come in to take over will be shocked at what they see.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> I'll scatter you all over the world and keep after you with the point of my sword in your backs. There'll be nothing left in your land, nothing going on in your cities.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> With you gone and dispersed in the countries of your enemies, the land, empty of you, will finally get a break and enjoy its Sabbath years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> All the time it's left there empty, the land will get rest, the Sabbaths it never got when you lived there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> "As for those among you still alive, I'll give them over to fearful timidity--even the rustle of a leaf will throw them into a panic. They'll run here and there, back and forth, as if running for their lives even though no one is after them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> tripping and falling over one another in total confusion. You won't stand a chance against an enemy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> You'll perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will eat you up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Any who are left will slowly rot away in the enemy lands. Rot. And all because of their sins, their sins compounded by their ancestors' sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> "On the other hand, if they confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors, their treacherous betrayal, the defiance</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> that set off my defiance that sent them off into enemy lands; if by some chance they soften their hard hearts and make amends for their sin,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> I'll remember my covenant with Jacob, I'll remember my covenant with Isaac, and, yes, I'll remember my covenant with Abraham. And I'll remember the land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> "The land will be empty of them and enjoy its Sabbaths while they're gone. They'll pay for their sins because they refused my laws and treated my decrees with contempt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> But in spite of their behavior, while they are among their enemies I won't reject or abhor or destroy them completely. I won't break my covenant with them: I am GOD, their God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> For their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I, with all the nations watching, brought out of Egypt in order to be their God. I am GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> These are the decrees, laws, and instructions that GOD established between himself and the People of Israel through Moses at Mount Sinai.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="27">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses. He said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them: If anyone wants to vow the value of a person to the service of GOD,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> set the value of a man between the ages of twenty and sixty at fifty shekels of silver, according to the Sanctuary shekel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> For a woman the valuation is thirty shekels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> If the person is between the ages of five and twenty, set the value at twenty shekels for a male and ten shekels for a female.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> If the person is between one month and five years, set the value at five shekels of silver for a boy and three shekels of silver for a girl.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> If the person is over sixty, set the value at fifteen shekels for a man and ten shekels for a woman.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> If anyone is too poor to pay the stated amount, he is to present the person to the priest, who will then set the value for him according to what the person making the vow can afford.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "If he vowed an animal that is acceptable as an offering to GOD, the animal is given to GOD and becomes the property of the Sanctuary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He must not exchange or substitute a good one for a bad one, or a bad one for a good one; if he should dishonestly substitute one animal for another, both the original and the substitute become property of the Sanctuary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> If what he vowed is a ritually unclean animal, one that is not acceptable as an offering to GOD, the animal must be shown to the priest,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> who will set its value, either high or low. Whatever the priest sets will be its value.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> If the owner changes his mind and wants to redeem it, he must add twenty percent to its value.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "If a man dedicates his house to GOD, into the possession of the Sanctuary, the priest assesses its value, setting it either high or low. Whatever value the priest sets, that's what it is.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> If the man wants to buy it back, he must add twenty percent to its price and then it's his again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "If a man dedicates to GOD part of his family land, its value is to be set according to the amount of seed that is needed for it at the rate of fifty shekels of silver to six bushels of barley seed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> If he dedicates his field during the year of Jubilee, the set value stays.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But if he dedicates it after the Jubilee, the priest will compute the value according to the years left until the next Jubilee, reducing the value proportionately.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> If the one dedicating it wants to buy it back, he must add twenty percent to its valuation, and then it's his again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But if he doesn't redeem it or sells the field to someone else, it can never be bought back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> When the field is released in the Jubilee, it becomes holy to GOD, the possession of the Sanctuary, GOD's field. It goes into the hands of the priests.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "If a man dedicates to GOD a field he has bought, a field which is not part of the family land,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> the priest will compute its proportionate value in relation to the next year of Jubilee. The man must pay its value on the spot as something that is now holy to GOD, belonging to the Sanctuary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> In the year of Jubilee it goes back to its original owner, the man from whom he bought it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The valuations will be reckoned by the Sanctuary shekel, at twenty gerahs to the shekel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "No one is allowed to dedicate the firstborn of an animal; the firstborn, as firstborn, already belongs to GOD. No matter if it's cattle or sheep, it already belongs to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> If it's one of the ritually unclean animals, he can buy it back at its assessed value by adding twenty percent to it. If he doesn't redeem it, it is to be sold at its assessed value.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "But nothing that a man irrevocably devotes to GOD from what belongs to him, whether human or animal or family land, may be either sold or bought back. Everything devoted is holy to the highest degree; it's GOD's inalienable property.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "No human who has been devoted to destruction can be redeemed. He must be put to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "A tenth of the land's produce, whether grain from the ground or fruit from the trees, is GOD's. It is holy to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> If a man buys back any of the tenth he has given, he must add twenty percent to it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> A tenth of the entire herd and flock, every tenth animal that passes under the shepherd's rod, is holy to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> He is not permitted to pick out the good from the bad or make a substitution. If he dishonestly makes a substitution, both animals, the original and the substitute, become the possession of the Sanctuary and cannot be redeemed."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> These are the commandments that GOD gave to Moses on Mount Sinai for the People of Israel.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="4" bname="Numbers">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai at the Tent of Meeting on the first day of the second month in the second year after they had left Egypt. He said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Number the congregation of the People of Israel by clans and families, writing down the names of every male.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You and Aaron are to register, company by company, every man who is twenty years and older who is able to fight in the army.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Pick one man from each tribe who is head of his family to help you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> These are the names of the men who will help you: from Reuben: Elizur son of Shedeur</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> from Simeon: Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> from Judah: Nahshon son of Amminadab</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> from Issachar: Nethanel son of Zuar</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> from Zebulun: Eliab son of Helon</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> from the sons of Joseph, from Ephraim: Elishama son of Ammihud from Manasseh: Gamaliel son of Pedahzur</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> from Benjamin: Abidan son of Gideoni</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> from Dan: Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> from Asher: Pagiel son of Ocran</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> from Gad: Eliasaph son of Deuel</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> from Naphtali: Ahira son of Enan."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> These were the men chosen from the congregation, leaders of their ancestral tribes, heads of Israel's military divisions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Moses and Aaron took these men who had been named to help</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> and gathered the whole congregation together on the first day of the second month. The people registered themselves in their tribes according to their ancestral families, putting down the names of those who were twenty years old and older,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> just as GOD commanded Moses. He numbered them in the Wilderness of Sinai.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The line of Reuben, Israel's firstborn: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by tribes according to their ancestral families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The tribe of Reuben numbered 46,500.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The line of Simeon: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The tribe of Simeon numbered 59,300.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The line of Gad: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The tribe of Gad numbered 45,650.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The line of Judah: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The tribe of Judah numbered 74,600.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The line of Issachar: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The tribe of Issachar numbered 54,400.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The line of Zebulun: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The tribe of Zebulun numbered 57,400.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The line of Joseph: From son Ephraim the men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> The tribe of Ephraim numbered 40,500.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> And from son Manasseh the men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> The tribe of Manasseh numbered 32,200.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> The line of Benjamin: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> The tribe of Benjamin numbered 35,400.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> The line of Dan: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> The tribe of Dan numbered 62,700.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> The line of Asher: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> The tribe of Asher numbered 41,500.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> The line of Naphtali: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> The tribe of Naphtali numbered 53,400.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> These are the numbers of those registered by Moses and Aaron, registered with the help of the leaders of Israel, twelve men, each representing his ancestral family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> The sum total of the People of Israel twenty years old and over who were able to fight in the army, counted by ancestral family, was 603,550.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> (SEE 1:45)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> The Levites, however, were not counted by their ancestral family along with the others.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> GOD had told Moses,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> "The tribe of Levi is an exception: Don't register them. Don't count the tribe of Levi; don't include them in the general census of the People of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Instead, appoint the Levites to be in charge of The Dwelling of The Testimony--over all its furnishings and everything connected with it. Their job is to carry The Dwelling and all its furnishings, maintain it, and camp around it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> When it's time to move The Dwelling, the Levites will take it down, and when it's time to set it up, the Levites will do it. Anyone else who even goes near it will be put to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> "The rest of the People of Israel will set up their tents in companies, every man in his own camp under its own flag.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> But the Levites will set up camp around The Dwelling of The Testimony so that wrath will not fall on the community of Israel. The Levites are responsible for the security of The Dwelling of The Testimony."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> The People of Israel did everything that God commanded Moses. They did it all.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses and Aaron. He said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "The People of Israel are to set up camp circling the Tent of Meeting and facing it. Each company is to camp under its distinctive tribal flag."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> To the east toward the sunrise are the companies of the camp of Judah under its flag, led by Nahshon son of Amminadab.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> His troops number 74,600.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The tribe of Issachar will camp next to them, led by Nethanel son of Zuar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> His troops number 54,400.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And the tribe of Zebulun is next to them, led by Eliab son of Helon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> His troops number 57,400.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The total number of men assigned to Judah, troop by troop, is 186,400. They will lead the march.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> To the south are the companies of the camp of Reuben under its flag, led by Elizur son of Shedeur.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> His troops number 46,500.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The tribe of Simeon will camp next to them, led by Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> His troops number 59,300.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And the tribe of Gad is next to them, led by Eliasaph son of Deuel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> His troops number 45,650.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The total number of men assigned to Reuben, troop by troop, is 151,450. They are second in the order of the march.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The Tent of Meeting with the camp of the Levites takes its place in the middle of the march. Each tribe will march in the same order in which they camped, each under its own flag.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> To the west are the companies of the camp of Ephraim under its flag, led by Elishama son of Ammihud.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> His troops number 40,500.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The tribe of Manasseh will set up camp next to them, led by Gamaliel son of Pedahzur.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> His troops number 32,200.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> And next to him is the camp of Benjamin, led by Abidan son of Gideoni.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> His troops number 35,400.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The total number of men assigned to the camp of Ephraim, troop by troop, is 108,100. They are third in the order of the march.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> To the north are the companies of the camp of Dan under its flag, led by Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> His troops number 62,700.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The tribe of Asher will camp next to them, led by Pagiel son of Ocran.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> His troops number 41,500.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> And next to them is the tribe of Naphtali, led by Ahira son of Enan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> His troops number 53,400.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The total number of men assigned to the camp of Dan number 157,600. They will set out, under their flags, last in the line of the march.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> These are the People of Israel, counted according to their ancestral families. The total number in the camps, counted troop by troop, comes to 603,550.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Following GOD's command to Moses, the Levites were not counted in with the rest of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The People of Israel did everything the way GOD commanded Moses: They camped under their respective flags; they marched by tribe with their ancestral families.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> This is the family tree of Aaron and Moses at the time GOD spoke with Moses on Mount Sinai.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The names of the sons of Aaron: Nadab the firstborn, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> anointed priests ordained to serve as priests.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But Nadab and Abihu fell dead in the presence of GOD when they offered unauthorized sacrifice to him in the Wilderness of Sinai. They left no sons, and so only Eleazar and Ithamar served as priests during the lifetime of their father, Aaron.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD spoke to Moses. He said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Bring forward the tribe of Levi and present them to Aaron so they can help him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They shall work for him and the whole congregation at the Tent of Meeting by doing the work of The Dwelling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Their job is to be responsible for all the furnishings of The Dwelling, ministering to the affairs of The Dwelling as the People of Israel come to perform their duties.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Turn the Levites over to Aaron and his sons; they are the ones assigned to work full time for him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Appoint Aaron and his sons to minister as priests; anyone else who tries to elbow his way in will be put to death."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "I have taken the Levites from among the People of Israel as a stand-in for every Israelite mother's firstborn son. The Levites belong to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> All the firstborn are mine--when I killed all the firstborn in Egypt, I consecrated for my own use every firstborn in Israel, whether human or animal. They belong to me. I am GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Count the Levites by their ancestral families and clans. Count every male a month old and older."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Moses counted them just as he was instructed by the mouth of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> These are the names of the sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> These are the names of the Gershonite clans: Libni and Shimei.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The sons of Kohath by clan: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The sons of Merari by clan: Mahli and Mushi. These are the clans of Levi, family by family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Gershon was ancestor to the clans of the Libnites and Shimeites, known as the Gershonite clans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> All the males who were one month and older numbered 7,500.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The Gershonite clans camped on the west, behind The Dwelling,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> led by Eliasaph son of Lael.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> At the Tent of Meeting the Gershonites were in charge of maintaining The Dwelling and its tent, its coverings, the screen at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> the hangings of the Courtyard, the screen at the entrance to the Courtyard that surrounded The Dwelling and Altar, and the cords--in short, everything having to do with these things.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Kohath was ancestor to the clans of the Amramites, Izharites, Hebronites, and Uzzielites. These were known as the Kohathite clans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> All the males who were one month and older numbered 8,600. The Kohathites were in charge of the Sanctuary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The Kohathite clans camped on the south side of The Dwelling,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> led by Elizaphan son of Uzziel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> They were in charge of caring for the Chest, the Table, the Lampstand, the Altars, the articles of the Sanctuary used in worship, and the screen--everything having to do with these things.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, supervised the leaders of the Levites and those in charge of the Sanctuary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Merari was ancestor to the clans of the Mahlites and the Mushites, known as the Merarite clans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The males who were one month and older numbered 6,200.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> They were led by Zuriel son of Abihail and camped on the north side of The Dwelling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> The Merarites were in charge of the frames of The Dwelling, its crossbars, posts, bases, and all its equipment--everything having to do with these things,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> as well as the posts of the surrounding Courtyard with their bases, tent pegs, and cords.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Moses and Aaron and his sons camped to the east of The Dwelling, toward the rising sun, in front of the Tent of Meeting. They were in charge of maintaining the Sanctuary for the People of Israel and the rituals of worship. Anyone else who tried to perform these duties was to be put to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> The sum total of Levites counted at GOD's command by Moses and Aaron, clan by clan, all the males one month and older, numbered 22,000.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> GOD spoke to Moses: "Count all the firstborn males of the People of Israel who are one month and older. List their names.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Then set apart for me the Levites--remember, I am GOD--in place of all the firstborn among the People of Israel, also the livestock of the Levites in place of their livestock. I am GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> So, just as GOD commanded him, Moses counted all the firstborn of the People of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> The total of firstborn males one month and older, listed by name, numbered 22,273.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Again GOD spoke to Moses. He said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> "Take the Levites in place of all the firstborn of Israel and the livestock of the Levites in place of their livestock. The Levites are mine, I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Redeem the 273 firstborn Israelites who exceed the number of Levites</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> by collecting five shekels for each one, using the Sanctuary shekel (the shekel weighing twenty gerahs).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> Give that money to Aaron and his sons for the redemption of the excess number of Israelites."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> So Moses collected the redemption money from those who exceeded the number redeemed by the Levites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> From the 273 firstborn Israelites he collected silver weighing 1,365 shekels according to the Sanctuary shekel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> Moses turned over the redemption money to Aaron and his sons, as he was commanded by the word of GOD.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses and Aaron. He said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Number the Kohathite line of Levites by clan and family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Count all the men from thirty to fifty years of age, all who enter the ministry to work in the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "This is the assigned work of the Kohathites in the Tent of Meeting: care of the most holy things.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "When the camp is ready to set out, Aaron and his sons are to go in and take down the covering curtain and cover the Chest of The Testimony with it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then they are to cover this with a dolphin skin, spread a solid blue cloth on top, and insert the poles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Then they are to spread a blue cloth on the Table of the Presence and set the Table with plates, incense dishes, bowls, and jugs for drink offerings. The bread that is always there stays on the Table.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They are to cover these with a scarlet cloth, and on top of that spread the dolphin skin, and insert the poles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "They are to use a blue cloth to cover the light-giving Lampstand and the lamps, snuffers, trays, and the oil jars that go with it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then they are to wrap it all in a covering of dolphin skin and place it on a carrying frame.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "They are to spread a blue cloth over the Gold Altar and cover it with dolphin skins and place it on a carrying frame.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "They are to take all the articles used in ministering in the Sanctuary, wrap them in a blue cloth, cover them with dolphin skins, and place them on a carrying frame.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "They are to remove the ashes from the Altar and spread a purple cloth over it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They are to place on it all the articles used in ministering at the Altar--firepans, forks, shovels, bowls; everything used at the Altar--place them on the Altar, cover it with the dolphin skins, and insert the poles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "When Aaron and his sons have finished covering the holy furnishings and all the holy articles, and the camp is ready to set out, the Kohathites are to come and do the carrying. But they must not touch the holy things or they will die. The Kohathites are in charge of carrying all the things that are in the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Eleazar son of Aaron the priest, is to be in charge of the oil for the light, the fragrant incense, the regular Grain-Offering, and the anointing oil. He is to be in charge of the entire Dwelling and everything in it, including its holy furnishings and articles."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> GOD spoke to Moses and Aaron,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Don't let the tribal families of the Kohathites be destroyed from among the Levites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Protect them so they will live and not die when they come near the most holy things. To protect them, Aaron and his sons are to precede them into the Sanctuary and assign each man his task and what he is to carry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But the Kohathites themselves must not go in to look at the holy things, not even a glance at them, or they will die."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Number the Gershonites by tribes according to their ancestral families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Count all the men from thirty to fifty years of age who enter the ministry of work in the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "The Gershonites by family and clan will serve by carrying heavy loads:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> the curtains of the Sanctuary and the Tent of Meeting; the covering of the Tent and the outer covering of dolphin skins; the screens for the entrance to the Tent;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> the cords; and all the equipment used in its ministries. The Gershonites have the job of doing the work connected with these things.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> All their work of lifting and carrying and moving is to be done under the supervision of Aaron and his sons. Assign them specifically what they are to carry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> This is the work of the Gershonite clans at the Tent of Meeting. Ithamar son of Aaron the priest is to supervise their work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "Number the Merarites by their ancestral families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Count all the men from thirty to fifty years of age who enter the ministry of work at the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "This is their assigned duty as they go to work at the Tent of Meeting: to carry the frames of The Dwelling, its crossbars, posts, and bases,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> as well as the posts of the surrounding Courtyard with their bases, tent pegs, cords, and all the equipment related to their use. Assign to each man exactly what he is to carry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> This is the ministry of the Merarite clans as they work at the Tent of Meeting under the supervision of Ithamar son of Aaron the priest."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Moses, Aaron, and the leaders of the congregation counted the Kohathites by clan and family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> All the men from thirty to fifty years of age who came to serve in the work in the Tent of Meeting,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> counted by clans, were 2,750.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> This was the total from the Kohathite clans who served in the Tent of Meeting. Moses and Aaron counted them just as GOD had commanded through Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> The Gershonites were counted by clan and family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> All the men from thirty to fifty years of age who came to serve in the work in the Tent of Meeting,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> counted by clan and family, were 2,630.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> This was the total from the Gershonite clans who served in the Tent of Meeting. Moses and Aaron counted them just as GOD had commanded.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> The Merarites were counted by clan and family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> All the men from thirty to fifty years of age who came to serve in the work in the Tent of Meeting,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> counted by clan, were 3,200.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> This was the total from the Merarite clans. Moses and Aaron counted them just as GOD had commanded through Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> So Moses and Aaron and the leaders of Israel counted all the Levites by clan and family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> All the men from thirty to fifty years of age who came to do the work of serving and carrying the Tent of Meeting</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> numbered 8,580.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> At GOD's command through Moses, each man was assigned his work and told what to carry. And that's the story of their numbering, as GOD commanded Moses.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Command the People of Israel to ban from the camp anyone who has an infectious skin disease, anyone who has a discharge, and anyone who is ritually unclean from contact with a dead body.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Ban male and female alike; send them outside the camp so that they won't defile their camp, the place I live among them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The People of Israel did this, banning them from the camp. They did exactly what GOD had commanded through Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Tell the People of Israel, When a man or woman commits any sin, the person has broken trust with GOD, is guilty,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> and must confess the sin. Full compensation plus twenty percent must be made to whoever was wronged.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> If the wronged person has no close relative who can receive the compensation, the compensation belongs to GOD and must be given to the priest, along with the ram by which atonement is made.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> All the sacred offerings that the People of Israel bring to a priest belong to the priest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Each person's sacred offerings are his own, but what one gives to the priest stays with the priest."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Tell the People of Israel, Say a man's wife goes off and has an affair, is unfaithful to him</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> by sleeping with another man, but her husband knows nothing about it even though she has defiled herself. And then, even though there was no witness and she wasn't caught in the act,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> feelings of jealousy come over the husband and he suspects that his wife is impure. Even if she is innocent and his jealousy and suspicions are groundless,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> he is to take his wife to the priest. He must also take an offering of two quarts of barley flour for her. He is to pour no oil on it or mix incense with it because it is a Grain-Offering for jealousy, a Grain-Offering for bringing the guilt out into the open.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "The priest then is to take her and have her stand in the presence of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He is to take some holy water in a pottery jar and put some dust from the floor of The Dwelling in the water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> After the priest has her stand in the presence of GOD he is to uncover her hair and place the exposure-offering in her hands, the Grain-Offering for jealousy, while he holds the bitter water that delivers a curse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Then the priest will put the woman under oath and say, 'If no man has slept with you and you have not had an adulterous affair and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that delivers a curse not harm you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But if you have had an affair while married to your husband and have defiled yourself by sleeping with a man other than your husband'--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> here the priest puts the woman under this curse--'may GOD cause your people to curse and revile you when he makes your womb shrivel and your belly swell.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Let this water that delivers a curse enter your body so that your belly swells and your womb shrivels.' "Then the woman shall say, 'Amen. Amen.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and then wash the words off into the bitter water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He then is to give the woman the bitter water that delivers a curse. This water will enter her body and cause acute pain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The priest then is to take from her hands a handful of the Grain-Offering for jealousy, wave it before GOD, and bring it to the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The priest then is to take a handful of the Grain-Offering, using it as an exposure-offering, and burn it on the Altar; after this he is to make her drink the water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> If she has defiled herself in being unfaithful to her husband, when she drinks the water that delivers a curse, it will enter her body and cause acute pain; her belly will swell and her womb shrivel. She will be cursed among her people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> But if she has not defiled herself and is innocent of impurity, her name will be cleared and she will be able to have children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "This is the law of jealousy in a case where a woman goes off and has an affair and defiles herself while married to her husband,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> or a husband is tormented with feelings of jealousy because he suspects his wife. The priest is to have her stand in the presence of GOD and go through this entire procedure with her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The husband will be cleared of wrong, but the woman will pay for her wrong."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Speak to the People of Israel; tell them, If any of you, man or woman, wants to make a special Nazirite vow, consecrating yourself totally to GOD,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> you must not drink any wine or beer, no intoxicating drink of any kind, not even the juice of grapes--in fact, you must not even eat grapes or raisins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> For the duration of the consecration, nothing from the grapevine--not even the seeds, not even the skin--may be eaten.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Also, for the duration of the consecration you must not have your hair cut. Your long hair will be a continuing sign of holy separation to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Also, for the duration of the consecration to GOD, you must not go near a corpse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Even if it's the body of your father or mother, brother or sister, you must not ritually defile yourself because the sign of consecration to God is on your head.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "For the entire duration of your consecration you are holy to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "If someone should die suddenly in your presence, so that your consecrated head is ritually defiled, you must shave your head on the day of your purifying, that is, the seventh day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then on the eighth day bring two doves or two pigeons to the priest at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The priest will offer one for the Absolution-Offering and one for the Whole-Burnt-Offering, purifying you from the ritual contamination of the corpse. You resanctify your hair on that day</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> and reconsecrate your Nazirite consecration to GOD by bringing a yearling lamb for a Compensation-Offering. You start over; the previous days don't count because your consecration was ritually defiled.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "These are the instructions for the time set when your special consecration to GOD is up. First, you are to be brought to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Then you will present your offerings to GOD: a healthy yearling lamb for the Whole-Burnt-Offering, a healthy yearling ewe for an Absolution-Offering, a healthy ram for a Peace-Offering,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> a basket of unraised bread made of fine flour, loaves mixed with oil, and crackers spread with oil, along with your Grain-Offerings and Drink-Offerings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The priest will approach GOD and offer up your Absolution-Offering and Whole-Burnt-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He will sacrifice the ram as a Peace-Offering to GOD with the basket of unraised bread, and, last of all, the Grain-Offering and Drink-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "At the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, shave off the hair you consecrated and put it in the fire that is burning under the Peace-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "After you have shaved the hair of your consecration, the priest will take a shoulder from the ram, boiled, and a piece of unraised bread and a cracker from the basket and place them in your hands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The priest will then wave them before GOD, a Wave-Offering. They are holy and belong to the priest, along with the breast that was waved and the thigh that was offered. "Now you are free to drink wine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "These are the instructions for Nazirites as they bring offerings to GOD in their vow of consecration, beyond their other offerings. They must carry out the vow they have vowed following the instructions for the Nazirite."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "Tell Aaron and his sons, This is how you are to bless the People of Israel. Say to them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> GOD bless you and keep you,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> GOD smile on you and gift you,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> GOD look you full in the face and make you prosper.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> In so doing, they will place my name on the People of Israel-- I will confirm it by blessing them."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When Moses finished setting up The Dwelling, he anointed it and consecrated it along with all that went with it. At the same time he anointed and consecrated the Altar and its accessories.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The leaders of Israel, the heads of the ancestral tribes who had carried out the census, brought offerings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They presented before GOD six covered wagons and twelve oxen, a wagon from each pair of leaders and an ox from each leader.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> ''Receive these so that they can be used to transport the Tent of Meeting. Give them to the Levites according to what they need for their work."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Moses took the wagons and oxen and gave them to the Levites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He gave two wagons and four oxen to the Gershonites for their work</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> and four wagons and eight oxen to the Merarites for their work. They were all under the direction of Ithamar son of Aaron the priest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Moses didn't give any to the Kohathites because they had to carry the holy things for which they were responsible on their shoulders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When the Altar was anointed, the leaders brought their offerings for its dedication and presented them before the Altar</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> because GOD had instructed Moses, "Each day one leader is to present his offering for the dedication of the Altar."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> On the first day, Nahshon son of Amminadab, of the tribe of Judah, brought his offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> His offering was: a silver plate weighing three and a quarter pounds and a silver bowl weighing one and three-quarter pounds (according to the standard Sanctuary weights), each filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a Grain-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> a gold vessel weighing four ounces, filled with incense;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> a young bull, a ram, and a yearling lamb for a Whole-Burnt-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> a he-goat for an Absolution-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> two oxen, five rams, five he-goats, and five yearling lambs to be sacrificed as a Peace-Offering. This was the offering of Nahshon son of Amminadab.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> On the second day, Nethanel son of Zuar, the leader of Issachar, brought his offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> His offering was: a silver plate weighing three and a quarter pounds and a silver bowl weighing one and three-quarter pounds (according to the standard Sanctuary weights), each filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a Grain-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> a gold vessel weighing four ounces, filled with incense;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> a young bull, a ram, and a yearling lamb for a Whole-Burnt-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> a he-goat for an Absolution-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> two oxen, five rams, five he-goats, and five yearling lambs to be sacrificed as a Peace-Offering. This was the offering of Nethanel son of Zuar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> On the third day, Eliab son of Helon, the leader of the people of Zebulun, brought his offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> His offering was: a silver plate weighing three and a quarter pounds and a silver bowl weighing one and three-quarter pounds (according to the standard Sanctuary weights), each filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a Grain-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> a gold vessel weighing four ounces, filled with incense;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> a young bull, a ram, and a yearling lamb for a Whole-Burnt-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> a he-goat for an Absolution-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> two oxen, five rams, five he-goats, and five yearling lambs to be sacrificed as a Peace-Offering. This was the offering of Eliab son of Helon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> On the fourth day, Elizur son of Shedeur, the leader of the people of Reuben, brought his offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> His offering was: a silver plate weighing three and a quarter pounds and a silver bowl weighing one and three-quarter pounds (according to the standard Sanctuary weights), each filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a Grain-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> a gold vessel weighing four ounces, filled with incense;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> a young bull, a ram, and a yearling lamb for a Whole-Burnt-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> a he-goat for an Absolution-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> two oxen, five rams, five he-goats, and five yearling lambs to be sacrificed as a Peace-Offering. This was the offering of Elizur son of Shedeur.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> On the fifth day, Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai, the leader of the people of Simeon, brought his offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> His offering was: a silver plate weighing three and a quarter pounds and a silver bowl weighing one and three-quarter pounds (according to the standard Sanctuary weights), each filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a Grain-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> a gold vessel weighing four ounces, filled with incense;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> a young bull, a ram, and a yearling lamb for a Whole-Burnt-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> a he-goat for an Absolution-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> two oxen, five rams, five he-goats, and five yearling lambs to be sacrificed as a Peace-Offering. This was the offering of Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> On the sixth day, Eliasaph son of Deuel, the leader of the people of Gad, brought his offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> His offering was: a silver plate weighing three and a quarter pounds and a silver bowl weighing one and three-quarter pounds (according to the standard Sanctuary weights), each filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a Grain-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> a gold vessel weighing four ounces, filled with incense;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> a young bull, a ram, and a yearling lamb for a Whole-Burnt-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> a he-goat for an Absolution-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> two oxen, five rams, five he-goats, and five yearling lambs to be sacrificed as a Peace-Offering. This was the offering of Eliasaph son of Deuel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> On the seventh day, Elishama son of Ammihud, the leader of the people of Ephraim, brought his offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> His offering was: a silver plate weighing three and a quarter pounds and a silver bowl weighing one and three-quarter pounds (according to the standard Sanctuary weights), each filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a Grain-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> a gold vessel weighing four ounces, filled with incense;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> a young bull, a ram, and a yearling lamb for a Whole-Burnt-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> a he-goat for an Absolution-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> two oxen, five rams, five he-goats, and five yearling lambs to be sacrificed as a Peace-Offering. This was the offering of Elishama son of Ammihud.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> On the eighth day, Gamaliel son of Pedahzur, the leader of the people of Manasseh, brought his offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> His offering was: a silver plate weighing three and a quarter pounds and a silver bowl weighing one and three-quarter pounds (according to the standard Sanctuary weights), each filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a Grain-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> a gold vessel weighing four ounces, filled with incense;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> a young bull, a ram, and a yearling lamb for a Whole-Burnt-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> a he-goat for an Absolution-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="59"> two oxen, five rams, five he-goats, and five yearling lambs to be sacrificed as a Peace-Offering. This was the offering of Gamaliel son of Pedahzur.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="60"> On the ninth day, Abidan son of Gideoni, the leader of the people of Benjamin, brought his offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="61"> His offering was: a silver plate weighing three and a quarter pounds and a silver bowl weighing one and three-quarter pounds (according to the standard Sanctuary weights), each filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a Grain-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="62"> a gold vessel weighing four ounces, filled with incense;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="63"> a young bull, a ram, and a yearling lamb for a Whole-Burnt-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="64"> a he-goat for an Absolution-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="65"> two oxen, five rams, five he-goats, and five yearling lambs to be sacrificed as a Peace-Offering. This was the offering of Abidan son of Gideoni.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="66"> On the tenth day, Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai, the leader of the people of Dan, brought his offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="67"> His offering was: a silver plate weighing three and a quarter pounds and a silver bowl weighing one and three-quarter pounds (according to the standard Sanctuary weights), each filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a Grain-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="68"> a gold vessel weighing four ounces, filled with incense;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="69"> a young bull, a ram, and a yearling lamb for a Whole-Burnt-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="70"> a he-goat for an Absolution-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="71"> two oxen, five rams, five he-goats, and five yearling lambs to be sacrificed as a Peace-Offering. This was the offering of Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="72"> On the eleventh day, Pagiel son of Ocran, the leader of the people of Asher, brought his offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="73"> His offering was: a silver plate weighing three and a quarter pounds and a silver bowl weighing one and three-quarter pounds (according to the standard Sanctuary weights), each filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a Grain-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="74"> a gold vessel weighing four ounces, filled with incense;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="75"> a young bull, a ram, and a yearling lamb for a Whole-Burnt-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="76"> a he-goat for an Absolution-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="77"> two oxen, five rams, five he-goats, and five yearling lambs to be sacrificed as a Peace-Offering. This was the offering of Pagiel son of Ocran.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="78"> On the twelfth day, Ahira son of Enan, the leader of the people of Naphtali, brought his offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="79"> His offering was: a silver plate weighing three and a quarter pounds and a silver bowl weighing one and three-quarter pounds (according to the standard Sanctuary weights), each filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a Grain-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="80"> a gold vessel weighing four ounces, filled with incense;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="81"> a young bull, a ram, and a yearling lamb for a Whole-Burnt-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="82"> a he-goat for an Absolution-Offering;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="83"> two oxen, five rams, five he-goats, and five yearling lambs to be sacrificed as a Peace-Offering. This was the offering of Ahira son of Enan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="84"> These were the dedication offerings of the leaders of Israel for the anointing of the Altar: twelve silver plates, twelve silver bowls, twelve gold vessels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="85"> Each plate weighed three and a quarter pounds and each bowl one and three-quarter pounds. All the plates and bowls together weighed about sixty pounds (using the official Sanctuary weight).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="86"> The twelve gold vessels filled with incense weighed four ounces each (using the official Sanctuary weight). Altogether the gold vessels weighed about three pounds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="87"> The sum total of animals used for the Whole-Burnt-Offering together with the Grain-Offering: twelve bulls, twelve rams, twelve yearling lambs. For the Absolution-Offering: twelve he-goats.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="88"> The sum total of animals used for the sacrifice of the Peace-Offering: twenty-four bulls, sixty rams, sixty he-goats, sixty yearling lambs. These were the offerings for the dedication of the Altar after it was anointed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="89"> When Moses entered the Tent of Meeting to speak with GOD, he heard the Voice speaking to him from between the two angel-cherubim above the Atonement-Cover on the Chest of The Testimony. He spoke with him.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Tell Aaron, Install the seven lamps so they will throw light in front of the Lampstand."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Aaron did just that. He installed the lamps so they threw light in front of the Lampstand, as GOD had instructed Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The Lampstand was made of hammered gold from its stem to its petals. It was made precisely to the design GOD had shown Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Take the Levites from the midst of the People of Israel and purify them for doing GOD's work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> This is the way you will do it: Sprinkle water of absolution on them; have them shave their entire bodies; have them scrub their clothes. Then they will have purified themselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Have them take a young bull with its accompanying Grain-Offering of fine flour mixed with oil, plus a second young bull for an Absolution-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Bring the Levites to the front of the Tent of Meeting and gather the entire community of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Present the Levites before GOD as the People of Israel lay their hands on them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Aaron will present the Levites before GOD as a Wave-Offering from the People of Israel so that they will be ready to do GOD's work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Have the Levites place their hands on the heads of the bulls, selecting one for the Absolution-Offering and another for the Whole-Burnt-Offering to GOD to make atonement for the Levites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then have the Levites stand in front of Aaron and his sons and present them as a Wave-Offering to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> This is the procedure for setting apart the Levites from the rest of the People of Israel; the Levites are exclusively for my use.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "After you have purified the Levites and presented them as a Wave-Offering to GOD, they can go to work in the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The Levites have been selected out of the People of Israel for my exclusive use; they function in place of every firstborn male born to an Israelite woman.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Every firstborn male in Israel, animal or human, is set apart for my use. When I struck down all the firstborn of Egypt, I consecrated them for my holy uses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But now I take the Levites as stand-ins in place of every firstborn son in Israel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> selected out of the People of Israel, and I have given the Levites to Aaron and his sons to do all the work involved in the Tent of Meeting on behalf of all the People of Israel and to make atonement for them so that nothing bad will happen to them when they approach the Sanctuary."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Moses, Aaron, and the entire community of the People of Israel carried out these procedures with the Levites, just as GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The Levites purified themselves and scrubbed their clothes. Then Aaron presented them as a Wave-Offering before GOD and made atonement for them to purify them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Only then did the Levites go to work at the Tent of Meeting. Aaron and his sons supervised them following the directions GOD had given.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "These are your instructions regarding the Levites: At the age of twenty-five they will join the work force in the Tent of Meeting;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> at the age of fifty they must retire from the work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> They can assist their brothers in the tasks in the Tent of Meeting, but they are not permitted to do the actual work themselves. These are the ground rules for the work of the Levites."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai in the first month of the second year after leaving Egypt:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Have the People of Israel celebrate Passover at the set time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Celebrate it on schedule, on the evening of the fourteenth day of this month, following all the rules and procedures."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Moses told the People of Israel to celebrate the Passover</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> and they did--in the Wilderness of Sinai at evening of the fourteenth day of the first month. The People of Israel did it all just as GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But some of them couldn't celebrate the Passover on the assigned day because they were ritually unclean on account of a corpse. So they presented themselves before Moses and Aaron on Passover</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> and told Moses, "We have become ritually unclean because of a corpse, but why should we be barred from bringing GOD's offering along with other Israelites on the day set for Passover?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Moses said, "Give me some time; I'll find out what GOD says in your circumstances."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Tell the People of Israel, If one or another of you is ritually unclean because of a corpse, or you happen to be off on a long trip, you may still celebrate GOD's Passover.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But celebrate it on the fourteenth day of the second month at evening. Eat the lamb together with unraised bread and bitter herbs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Don't leave any of it until morning. Don't break any of its bones. Follow all the procedures.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "But a man who is ritually clean and is not off on a trip and still fails to celebrate the Passover must be cut off from his people because he did not present GOD's offering at the set time. That man will pay for his sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Any foreigner living among you who wants to celebrate GOD's Passover is welcome to do it, but he must follow all the rules and procedures. The same procedures go for both foreigner and native-born."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The day The Dwelling was set up, the Cloud covered The Dwelling of the Tent of Testimony. From sunset until daybreak it was over The Dwelling. It looked like fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> It was like that all the time, the Cloud over The Dwelling and at night looking like fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When the Cloud lifted above the Tent, the People of Israel marched out; and when the Cloud descended the people camped.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The People of Israel marched at GOD's command and they camped at his command. As long as the Cloud was over The Dwelling, they camped.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Even when the Cloud hovered over The Dwelling for many days, they honored GOD's command and wouldn't march.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> They stayed in camp, obedient to GOD's command, as long as the Cloud was over The Dwelling, but the moment GOD issued orders they marched.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> If the Cloud stayed only from sunset to daybreak and then lifted at daybreak, they marched. Night or day, it made no difference--when the Cloud lifted, they marched.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> It made no difference whether the Cloud hovered over The Dwelling for two days or a month or a year, as long as the Cloud was there, they were there. And when the Cloud went up, they got up and marched.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They camped at GOD's command and they marched at GOD's command. They lived obediently by GOD's orders as delivered by Moses.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Make two bugles of hammered silver. Use them to call the congregation together and give marching orders to the camps.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When you blow them, the whole community will meet you at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "When a bugle gives a single, short blast, that's the signal for the leaders, the heads of the clans, to assemble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When it gives a long blast, that's the signal to march. At the first blast the tribes who were camped on the east set out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> At the second blast the camps on the south set out. The long blasts are the signals to march.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The bugle call that gathers the assembly is different from the signal to march.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "The sons of Aaron, the priests, are in charge of blowing the bugles; it's their assigned duty down through the generations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When you go to war against an aggressor, blow a long blast on the bugle so that GOD will notice you and deliver you from your enemies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Also at times of celebration, at the appointed feasts and New Moon festivals, blow the bugles over your Whole-Burnt-Offerings and Peace-Offerings: they will keep your attention on God. I am GOD, your God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> In the second year, on the twentieth day of the second month, the Cloud went up from over The Dwelling of The Testimony.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> At that the People of Israel set out on their travels from the Wilderness of Sinai until the Cloud finally settled in the Wilderness of Paran.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They began their march at the command of GOD through Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The flag of the camp of Judah led the way, rank after rank under the command of Nahshon son of Amminadab.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Nethanel son of Zuar commanded the forces of the tribe of Issachar,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> and Eliab son of Helon commanded the forces of the tribe of Zebulun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> As soon as The Dwelling was taken down, the Gershonites and the Merarites set out, carrying The Dwelling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The flag of the camp of Reuben was next with Elizur son of Shedeur in command.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai commanded the forces of the tribe of Simeon;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Eliasaph son of Deuel commanded the forces of the tribe of Gad.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then the Kohathites left, carrying the holy things. By the time they arrived The Dwelling would be set up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The flag of the tribe of Ephraim moved out next, commanded by Elishama son of Ammihud.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Gamaliel son of Pedahzur commanded the forces of the tribe of Manasseh;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Abidan son of Gideoni commanded the forces of the tribe of Benjamin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Finally, under the flag of the tribe of Dan, the rear guard of all the camps marched out with Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai in command.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Pagiel son of Ocran commanded the forces of the tribe of Asher;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Ahira son of Enan commanded the forces of the tribe of Naphtali.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> These were the marching units of the People of Israel. They were on their way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Moses said to his brother-in-law Hobab son of Reuel the Midianite, Moses' father-in-law, "We're marching to the place about which GOD promised, 'I'll give it to you.' Come with us; we'll treat you well. GOD has promised good things for Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> But Hobab said, "I'm not coming; I'm going back home to my own country, to my own family."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Moses countered, "Don't leave us. You know all the best places to camp in the wilderness. We need your eyes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> If you come with us, we'll make sure that you share in all the good things GOD will do for us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> And so off they marched. From the Mountain of GOD they marched three days with the Chest of the Covenant of GOD in the lead to scout out a campsite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The Cloud of GOD was above them by day when they marched from the camp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> With the Chest leading the way, Moses would say, Get up, GOD! Put down your enemies! Chase those who hate you to the hills!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> And when the Chest was set down, he would say, Rest with us, GOD, Stay with the many, Many thousands of Israel.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The people fell to grumbling over their hard life. GOD heard. When he heard his anger flared; then fire blazed up and burned the outer boundaries of the camp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The people cried out for help to Moses; Moses prayed to GOD and the fire died down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They named the place Taberah (Blaze) because fire from GOD had blazed up against them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The riff-raff among the people had a craving and soon they had the People of Israel whining, "Why can't we have meat?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> We ate fish in Egypt--and got it free!--to say nothing of the cucumbers and melons, the leeks and onions and garlic.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But nothing tastes good out here; all we get is manna, manna, manna."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Manna was a seedlike substance with a shiny appearance like resin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The people went around collecting it and ground it between stones or pounded it fine in a mortar. Then they boiled it in a pot and shaped it into cakes. It tasted like a delicacy cooked in olive oil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When the dew fell on the camp at night, the manna was right there with it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Moses heard the whining, all those families whining in front of their tents. GOD's anger blazed up. Moses saw that things were in a bad way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Moses said to GOD, "Why are you treating me this way? What did I ever do to you to deserve this? Did I conceive them? Was I their mother? So why dump the responsibility of this people on me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Why tell me to carry them around like a nursing mother, carry them all the way to the land you promised to their ancestors?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Where am I supposed to get meat for all these people who are whining to me, 'Give us meat; we want meat.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I can't do this by myself--it's too much, all these people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> If this is how you intend to treat me, do me a favor and kill me. I've seen enough; I've had enough. Let me out of here."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> GOD said to Moses, "Gather together seventy men from among the leaders of Israel, men whom you know to be respected and responsible. Take them to the Tent of Meeting. I'll meet you there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I'll come down and speak with you. I'll take some of the Spirit that is on you and place it on them; they'll then be able to take some of the load of this people--you won't have to carry the whole thing alone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Tell the people, Consecrate yourselves. Get ready for tomorrow when you're going to eat meat. You've been whining to GOD, 'We want meat; give us meat. We had a better life in Egypt.' GOD has heard your whining and he's going to give you meat. You're going to eat meat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And it's not just for a day that you'll eat meat, and not two days, or five or ten or twenty,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> but for a whole month. You're going to eat meat until its coming out your nostrils. You're going to be so sick of meat that you'll throw up at the mere mention of it. And here's why: Because you have rejected GOD who is right here among you, whining to his face, 'Oh, why did we ever have to leave Egypt?'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Moses said, "I'm standing here surrounded by 600,000 men on foot and you say, 'I'll give them meat, meat every day for a month.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> So where's it coming from? Even if all the flocks and herds were butchered, would that be enough? Even if all the fish in the sea were caught, would that be enough?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> GOD answered Moses, "So, do you think I can't take care of you? You'll see soon enough whether what I say happens for you or not."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> So Moses went out and told the people what GOD had said. He called together seventy of the leaders and had them stand around the Tent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> GOD came down in a cloud and spoke to Moses and took some of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy leaders. When the Spirit rested on them they prophesied. But they didn't continue; it was a onetime event.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Meanwhile two men, Eldad and Medad, had stayed in the camp. They were listed as leaders but they didn't leave camp to go to the Tent. Still, the Spirit also rested on them and they prophesied in the camp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> A young man ran and told Moses, "Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Joshua son of Nun, who had been Moses' right-hand man since his youth, said, "Moses, master! Stop them!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> But Moses said, "Are you jealous for me? Would that all GOD's people were prophets. Would that GOD would put his Spirit on all of them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Then Moses and the leaders of Israel went back to the camp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> A wind set in motion by GOD swept quails in from the sea. They piled up to a depth of about three feet in the camp and as far out as a day's walk in every direction.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> All that day and night and into the next day the people were out gathering the quail--huge amounts of quail; even the slowest person among them gathered at least sixty bushels. They spread them out all over the camp for drying.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> But while they were still chewing the quail and had hardly swallowed the first bites, GOD's anger blazed out against the people. He hit them with a terrible plague.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> They ended up calling the place Kibroth Hattaavah (Graves-of-the-Craving). There they buried the people who craved meat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> From Kibroth Hattaavah they marched on to Hazeroth. They remained at Hazeroth.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Miriam and Aaron talked against Moses behind his back because of his Cushite wife (he had married a Cushite woman).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They said, "Is it only through Moses that GOD speaks? Doesn't he also speak through us?" GOD overheard their talk.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Now the man Moses was a quietly humble man, more so than anyone living on Earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD broke in suddenly on Moses and Aaron and Miriam saying, "Come out, you three, to the Tent of Meeting." The three went out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD descended in a Pillar of Cloud and stood at the entrance to the Tent. He called Aaron and Miriam to him. When they stepped out,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> he said, Listen carefully to what I'm telling you. If there is a prophet of GOD among you, I make myself known to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But I don't do it that way with my servant Moses; he has the run of my entire house;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I speak to him intimately, in person, in plain talk without riddles: He ponders the very form of GOD. So why did you show no reverence or respect in speaking against my servant, against Moses?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The anger of GOD blazed out against them. And then he left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When the Cloud moved off from the Tent, oh! Miriam had turned leprous, her skin like snow. Aaron took one look at Miriam--a leper!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He said to Moses, "Please, my master, please don't come down so hard on us for this foolish and thoughtless sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Please don't make her like a stillborn baby coming out of its mother's womb with half its body decomposed."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And Moses prayed to GOD: Please, God, heal her, please heal her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD answered Moses, "If her father had spat in her face, wouldn't she be ostracized for seven days? Quarantine her outside the camp for seven days. Then she can be readmitted to the camp."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So Miriam was in quarantine outside the camp for seven days. The people didn't march on until she was readmitted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Only then did the people march from Hazeroth and set up camp in the Wilderness of Paran.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Send men to scout out the country of Canaan that I am giving to the People of Israel. Send one man from each ancestral tribe, each one a tried-and-true leader in the tribe."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> So Moses sent them off from the Wilderness of Paran at the command of GOD. All of them were leaders in Israel, one from each tribe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> These were their names: from Reuben: Shammua son of Zaccur</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> from Simeon: Shaphat son of Hori</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> from Judah: Caleb son of Jephunneh</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> from Issachar: Igal son of Joseph</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> from Ephraim: Hoshea son of Nun</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> from Benjamin: Palti son of Raphu</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> from Zebulun: Gaddiel son of Sodi</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> from Manasseh (a Joseph tribe): Gaddi son of Susi</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> from Dan: Ammiel son of Gemalli</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> from Asher: Sethur son of Michael</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> from Naphtali: Nahbi son of Vophsi</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> from Gad: Geuel son of Maki</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> These are the names of the men Moses sent to scout out the land. Moses gave Hoshea (Salvation) son of Nun a new name--Joshua (GOD-Saves).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When Moses sent them off to scout out Canaan, he said, "Go up through the Negev and then into the hill country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Look the land over, see what it is like. Assess the people: Are they strong or weak? Are there few or many?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Observe the land: Is it pleasant or harsh? Describe the towns where they live: Are they open camps or fortified with walls?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And the soil: Is it fertile or barren? Are there forests? And try to bring back a sample of the produce that grows there--this is the season for the first ripe grapes."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> With that they were on their way. They scouted out the land from the Wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob toward Lebo Hamath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Their route went through the Negev Desert to the town of Hebron. Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, descendants of the giant Anak, lived there. Hebron had been built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> When they arrived at the Eshcol Valley they cut off a branch with a single cluster of grapes--it took two men to carry it--slung on a pole. They also picked some pomegranates and figs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> They named the place Eshcol Valley (Grape-Cluster-Valley) because of the huge cluster of grapes they had cut down there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> After forty days of scouting out the land, they returned home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> They presented themselves before Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation of the People of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. They reported to the whole congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Then they told the story of their trip: "We went to the land to which you sent us and, oh! It does flow with milk and honey! Just look at this fruit!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The only thing is that the people who live there are fierce, their cities are huge and well fortified. Worse yet, we saw descendants of the giant Anak.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Amalekites are spread out in the Negev; Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites hold the hill country; and the Canaanites are established on the Mediterranean Sea and along the Jordan."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Caleb interrupted, called for silence before Moses and said, "Let's go up and take the land--now. We can do it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> But the others said, "We can't attack those people; they're way stronger than we are."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> They spread scary rumors among the People of Israel. They said, "We scouted out the land from one end to the other--it's a land that swallows people whole. Everybody we saw was huge.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Why, we even saw the Nephilim giants (the Anak giants come from the Nephilim). Alongside them we felt like grasshoppers. And they looked down on us as if we were grasshoppers."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The whole community was in an uproar, wailing all night long.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> All the People of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The entire community was in on it: "Why didn't we die in Egypt? Or in this wilderness?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Why has GOD brought us to this country to kill us? Our wives and children are about to become plunder. Why don't we just head back to Egypt? And right now!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Soon they were all saying it to one another: "Let's pick a new leader; let's head back to Egypt."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Moses and Aaron fell on their faces in front of the entire community, gathered in emergency session.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, members of the scouting party, ripped their clothes</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> and addressed the assembled People of Israel: "The land we walked through and scouted out is a very good land--very good indeed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> If GOD is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land that flows, as they say, with milk and honey. And he'll give it to us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Just don't rebel against GOD! And don't be afraid of those people. Why, we'll have them for lunch! They have no protection and GOD is on our side. Don't be afraid of them!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But, up in arms now, the entire community was talking of hurling stones at them. Just then the bright Glory of GOD appeared at the Tent of Meeting. Every Israelite saw it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD said to Moses, "How long will these people treat me like dirt? How long refuse to trust me? And with all these signs I've done among them!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I've had enough--I'm going to hit them with a plague and kill them. But I'll make you into a nation bigger and stronger than they ever were."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But Moses said to GOD, "The Egyptians are going to hear about this! You delivered this people from Egypt with a great show of strength, and now this?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The Egyptians will tell everyone. They've already heard that you are GOD, that you are on the side of this people, that you are present among them, that they see you with their own eyes in your Cloud that hovers over them, in the Pillar of Cloud that leads them by day and the Pillar of Fire at night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> If you kill this entire people in one stroke, all the nations that have heard what has been going on will say,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> 'Since GOD couldn't get these people into the land which he had promised to give them, he slaughtered them out in the wilderness.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Now, please, let the power of the Master expand, enlarge itself greatly, along the lines you have laid out earlier when you said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> GOD, slow to get angry and huge in loyal love, forgiving iniquity and rebellion and sin; Still, never just whitewashing sin. But extending the fallout of parents' sins to children into the third, even the fourth generation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Please forgive the wrongdoing of this people out of the extravagance of your loyal love just as all along, from the time they left Egypt, you have been forgiving this people."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> GOD said, "I forgive them, honoring your words.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But as I live and as the Glory of GOD fills the whole Earth--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> not a single person of those who saw my Glory, saw the miracle signs I did in Egypt and the wilderness, and who have tested me over and over and over again, turning a deaf ear to me--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> not one of them will set eyes on the land I so solemnly promised to their ancestors. No one who has treated me with such repeated contempt will see it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "But my servant Caleb--this is a different story. He has a different spirit; he follows me passionately. I'll bring him into the land that he scouted and his children will inherit it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "Since the Amalekites and Canaanites are so well established in the valleys, for right now change course and head back into the wilderness following the route to the Red Sea."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> GOD spoke to Moses and Aaron:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "How long is this going to go on, all this grumbling against me by this evil-infested community? I've had my fill of complaints from these grumbling Israelites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Tell them, As I live--GOD's decree--here's what I'm going to do:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Your corpses are going to litter the wilderness--every one of you twenty years and older who was counted in the census, this whole generation of grumblers and grousers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Not one of you will enter the land and make your home there, the firmly and solemnly promised land, except for Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "Your children, the very ones that you said would be taken for plunder, I'll bring in to enjoy the land you rejected</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> while your corpses will be rotting in the wilderness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> These children of yours will live as shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, living with the fallout of your whoring unfaithfulness until the last of your generation lies a corpse in the wilderness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> You scouted out the land for forty days; your punishment will be a year for each day, a forty-year sentence to serve for your sins--a long schooling in my displeasure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> "I, GOD, have spoken. I will most certainly carry out these things against this entire evil-infested community which has banded together against me. In this wilderness they will come to their end. There they will die."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> So it happened that the men Moses sent to scout out the land returned to circulate false rumors about the land causing the entire community to grumble against Moses--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> all these men died. Having spread false rumors of the land, they died in a plague, confronted by GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh were left alive of the men who went to scout out the land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> When Moses told all of this to the People of Israel, they mourned long and hard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> But early the next morning they started out for the high hill country, saying, "We're here; we're ready--let's go up and attack the land that GOD promised us. We sinned, but now we're ready."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> But Moses said, "Why are you crossing GOD's command yet again? This won't work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Don't attack. GOD isn't with you in this--you'll be beaten badly by your enemies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> The Amalekites and Canaanites are ready for you and they'll kill you. Because you have left off obediently following GOD, GOD is not going to be with you in this."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> But they went anyway; recklessly and arrogantly they climbed to the high hill country. But the Chest of the Covenant and Moses didn't budge from the camp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> The Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in the hill country came out of the hills and attacked and beat them, a rout all the way down to Hormah.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them, When you enter your homeland that I am giving to you</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> and sacrifice a Fire-Gift to GOD, a Whole-Burnt-Offering or any sacrifice from the herd or flock for a Vow-Offering or Freewill-Offering at one of the appointed feasts, as a pleasing fragrance for GOD,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> the one bringing the offering shall present to GOD a Grain-Offering of two quarts of fine flour mixed with a quart of oil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> With each lamb for the Whole-Burnt-Offering or other sacrifice, prepare a quart of oil and a quart of wine as a Drink-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "For a ram prepare a Grain-Offering of four quarts of fine flour mixed with one and a quarter quarts of oil</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> and one and a quarter quarts of wine as a Drink-Offering. Present it as a pleasing fragrance to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "When you prepare a young bull as a Whole-Burnt-Offering or sacrifice for a special vow or a Peace-Offering to GOD,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> bring with the bull a Grain-Offering of six quarts of fine flour and two quarts of oil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Also bring two quarts of wine as a Drink-Offering. It will be a Fire-Gift, a pleasing fragrance to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Each bull or ram, each lamb or young goat, is to be prepared in this same way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Carry out this procedure for each one, no matter how many you have to prepare.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Every native-born Israelite is to follow this procedure when he brings a Fire-Gift as a pleasing fragrance to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> In future generations, when a foreigner or visitor living at length among you presents a Fire-Gift as a pleasing fragrance to GOD, the same procedures must be followed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The community has the same rules for you and the foreigner living among you. This is the regular rule for future generations. You and the foreigner are the same before GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The same laws and regulations apply to both you and the foreigner who lives with you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them, When you enter the land into which I'm bringing you,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> and you eat the food of that country, set some aside as an offering for GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> From the first batch of bread dough make a round loaf for an offering--an offering from the threshing floor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Down through the future generations make this offering to GOD from each first batch of dough.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "But if you should get off the beaten track and not keep the commands which GOD spoke to Moses,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> any of the things that GOD commanded you under the authority of Moses from the time that GOD first commanded you right up to this present time,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> and if it happened more or less by mistake, with the congregation unaware of it, then the whole congregation is to sacrifice one young bull as a Whole-Burnt-Offering, a pleasing fragrance to GOD, accompanied by its Grain-Offering and Drink-Offering as stipulated in the rules, and a he-goat as an Absolution-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The priest is to atone for the entire community of the People of Israel and they will stand forgiven. The sin was not deliberate, and they offered to GOD the Fire-Gift and Absolution-Offering for their inadvertence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The whole community of Israel including the foreigners living there will be absolved, because everyone was involved in the error.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "But if it's just one person who sins by mistake, not realizing what he's doing, he is to bring a yearling she-goat as an Absolution-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The priest then is to atone for the person who accidentally sinned, to make atonement before GOD so that it won't be held against him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "The same standard holds for everyone who sins by mistake; the native-born Israelites and the foreigners go by the same rules.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "But the person, native or foreigner, who sins defiantly, deliberately blaspheming GOD, must be cut off from his people:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> He has despised GOD's word, he has violated GOD's command; that person must be kicked out of the community, ostracized, left alone in his wrongdoing."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Once, during those wilderness years of the People of Israel, a man was caught gathering wood on the Sabbath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> The ones who caught him hauled him before Moses and Aaron and the entire congregation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> They put him in custody until it became clear what to do with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Then GOD spoke to Moses: "Give the man the death penalty. Yes, kill him, the whole community hurling stones at him outside the camp."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> So the whole community took him outside the camp and threw stones at him, an execution commanded by GOD and given through Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> "Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them that from now on they are to make tassels on the corners of their garments and to mark each corner tassel with a blue thread.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> When you look at these tassels you'll remember and keep all the commandments of GOD, and not get distracted by everything you feel or see that seduces you into infidelities.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> The tassels will signal remembrance and observance of all my commandments, to live a holy life to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> I am your GOD who rescued you from the land of Egypt to be your personal God. Yes, I am GOD, your God."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Getting on his high horse one day, Korah son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, along with a few Reubenites--Dathan and Abiram sons of Eliab, and On son of Peleth--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> rebelled against Moses. He had with him 250 leaders of the congregation of Israel, prominent men with positions in the Council.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They came as a group and confronted Moses and Aaron, saying, "You've overstepped yourself. This entire community is holy and GOD is in their midst. So why do you act like you're running the whole show?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> On hearing this, Moses threw himself facedown on the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then he addressed Korah and his gang: "In the morning GOD will make clear who is on his side, who is holy. GOD will take his stand with the one he chooses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Now, Korah, here's what I want you, you and your gang, to do: Tomorrow, take censers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> In the presence of GOD, put fire in them and then incense. Then we'll see who is holy, see whom GOD chooses. Sons of Levi, you've overstepped yourselves!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Moses continued with Korah, "Listen well now, sons of Levi.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Isn't it enough for you that the God of Israel has selected you out of the congregation of Israel to bring you near him to serve in the ministries of The Dwelling of GOD, and to stand before the congregation to minister to them?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He has brought you and all your brother Levites into his inner circle, and now you're grasping for the priesthood too.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> It's GOD you've ganged up against, not us. What do you have against Aaron that you're bad-mouthing him?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Moses then ordered Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab, to appear, but they said, "We're not coming.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Isn't it enough that you yanked us out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness? And now you keep trying to boss us around!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Face it, you haven't produced: You haven't brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey, you haven't given us the promised inheritance of fields and vineyards. You'd have to poke our eyes out to keep us from seeing what's going on. Forget it, we're not coming."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Moses' temper blazed white-hot. He said to GOD, "Don't accept their Grain-Offering. I haven't taken so much as a single donkey from them; I haven't hurt a single hair of their heads."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Moses said to Korah, "Bring your people before GOD tomorrow. Appear there with them and Aaron.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Have each man bring his censer filled with incense and present it to GOD--all 250 censers. And you and Aaron do the same, bring your censers."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> So they all did it. They brought their censers filled with fire and incense and stood at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. Moses and Aaron did the same.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> It was Korah and his gang against Moses and Aaron at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. The entire community could see the Glory of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> GOD said to Moses and Aaron,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Separate yourselves from this congregation so that I can finish them off and be done with them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> They threw themselves on their faces and said, "O God, God of everything living, when one man sins are you going to take it out on the whole community?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "Speak to the community. Tell them, Back off from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Moses got up and went to Dathan and Abiram. The leaders of Israel followed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> He then spoke to the community: "Back off from the tents of these bad men; don't touch a thing that belongs to them lest you be carried off on the flood of their sins."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> So they all backed away from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Dathan and Abiram by now had come out and were standing at the entrance to their tents with their wives, children, and babies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Moses continued to address the community: "This is how you'll know that it was GOD who sent me to do all these things and that it wasn't anything I cooked up on my own.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> If these men die a natural death like all the rest of us, you'll know that it wasn't GOD who sent me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> But if GOD does something unprecedented--if the ground opens up and swallows the lot of them and they are pitched alive into Sheol--then you'll know that these men have been insolent with GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The words were hardly out of his mouth when the Earth split open.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Earth opened its mouth and in one gulp swallowed them down, the men and their families, all the human beings connected with Korah, along with everything they owned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> And that was the end of them, pitched alive into Sheol. The Earth closed up over them and that was the last the community heard of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> At the sound of their cries everyone around ran for dear life, shouting, "We're about to be swallowed up alive!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Then GOD sent lightning. The fire cremated the 250 men who were offering the incense.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> "Tell Eleazar son of Aaron the priest, Gather up the censers from the smoldering cinders and scatter the coals a distance away for these censers have become holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Take the censers of the men who have sinned and are now dead and hammer them into thin sheets for covering the Altar. They have been offered to GOD and are holy to GOD. Let them serve as a sign to Israel, evidence of what happened this day."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> So Eleazar gathered all the bronze censers that belonged to those who had been burned up and had them hammered flat and used to overlay the Altar,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> just as GOD had instructed him by Moses. This was to serve as a sign to Israel that only descendants of Aaron were allowed to burn incense before GOD; anyone else trying it would end up like Korah and his gang.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Grumbling broke out the next day in the community of Israel, grumbling against Moses and Aaron: "You have killed GOD's people!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> But it so happened that when the community got together against Moses and Aaron, they looked over at the Tent of Meeting and there was the Cloud--the Glory of GOD for all to see.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Moses and Aaron stood at the front of the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> "Back away from this congregation so that I can do away with them this very minute." They threw themselves facedown on the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Moses said to Aaron, "Take your censer and fill it with incense, along with fire from the Altar. Get to the congregation as fast as you can: make atonement for them. Anger is pouring out from GOD--the plague has started!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> Aaron grabbed the censer, as directed by Moses, and ran into the midst of the congregation. The plague had already begun. He put burning incense into the censer and atoned for the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> He stood there between the living and the dead and stopped the plague.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> Fourteen thousand seven hundred people died from the plague, not counting those who died in the affair of Korah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Aaron then went back to join Moses at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. The plague was stopped.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="17">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Speak to the People of Israel. Get staffs from them--twelve staffs in all, one from the leader of each of their ancestral tribes. Write each man's name on his staff.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Start with Aaron; write Aaron's name on the staff of Levi and then proceed with the rest, a staff for the leader of each ancestral tribe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Now lay them out in the Tent of Meeting in front of The Testimony where I keep appointments with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> What will happen next is this: The staff of the man I choose will sprout. I'm going to put a stop to this endless grumbling by the People of Israel against you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Moses spoke to the People of Israel. Their leaders handed over twelve staffs, one for the leader of each tribe. And Aaron's staff was one of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Moses laid out the staffs before GOD in the Tent of Testimony.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Moses walked into the Tent of Testimony the next day and saw that Aaron's staff, the staff of the tribe of Levi, had in fact sprouted--buds, blossoms, and even ripe almonds!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Moses brought out all the staffs from GOD's presence and presented them to the People of Israel. They took a good look. Each leader took the staff with his name on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> GOD said to Moses, "Return Aaron's staff to the front of The Testimony. Keep it there as a sign to rebels. This will put a stop to the grumbling against me and save their lives."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Moses did just as GOD commanded him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The People of Israel said to Moses, "We're as good as dead. This is our death sentence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Anyone who even gets close to The Dwelling of GOD is as good as dead. Are we all doomed?"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="18">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD said to Aaron, "You and your sons, along with your father's family, are responsible for taking care of sins having to do with the Sanctuary; you and your sons are also responsible for sins involving the priesthood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> So enlist your brothers of the tribe of Levi to join you and assist you and your sons in your duties in the Tent of Testimony.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They will report to you as they go about their duties related to the Tent, but they must not have anything to do with the holy things of the Altar under penalty of death--both they and you will die!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They are to work with you in taking care of the Tent of Meeting, whatever work is involved in the Tent. Outsiders are not allowed to help you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Your job is to take care of the Sanctuary and the Altar so that there will be no more outbreaks of anger on the People of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I personally have picked your brothers, the Levites, from Israel as a whole. I'm giving them to you as a gift, a gift of GOD, to help with the work of the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But only you and your sons may serve as priests, working around the Altar and inside the curtain. The work of the priesthood is my exclusive gift to you; it cannot be delegated--anyone else who invades the Sanctuary will be executed."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD spoke to Aaron, "I am personally putting you in charge of my contributions, all the holy gifts I get from the People of Israel. I am turning them over to you and your children for your personal use. This is the standing rule.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You and your sons get what's left from the offerings, whatever hasn't been totally burned up on the Altar--the leftovers from Grain-Offerings, Absolution-Offerings, and Compensation-Offerings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Eat it reverently; it is most holy; every male may eat it. Treat it as holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "You also get the Wave-Offerings from the People of Israel. I present them to you and your sons and daughters as a gift. This is the standing rule. Anyone in your household who is ritually clean may eat it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I also give you all the best olive oil, the best new wine, and the grain that is offered to GOD as the firstfruits of their harvest--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> all the firstfruits they offer to GOD are yours. Anyone in your household who is ritually clean may eat it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "You get every Totally-Devoted gift.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Every firstborn that is offered to GOD, whether animal or person, is yours. Except you don't get the firstborn itself, but its redemption price; firstborn humans and ritually clean animals are bought back and you get the redemption price.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When the firstborn is a month old it must be redeemed at the redemption price of five shekels of silver, using the standard of the Sanctuary shekel, which weighs twenty gerahs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "On the other hand, you don't redeem a firstborn ox, sheep, or goat--they are holy. Instead splash their blood on the Altar and burn their fat as a Fire-Gift, a pleasing fragrance to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But you get the meat, just as you get the breast from the Wave-Offering and the right thigh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> All the holy offerings that the People of Israel set aside for GOD, I'm turning over to you and your children. That's the standard rule and includes both you and your children--a Covenant-of-Salt, eternal and unchangeable before GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> GOD said to Aaron, "You won't get any inheritance in land, not so much as a small plot of ground: I am your plot of ground, I am your inheritance among the People of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "I'm giving the Levites all the tithes of Israel as their pay for the work they do in the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Starting now, the rest of the People of Israel cannot wander in and out of the Tent of Meeting; they'll be penalized for their sin and the penalty is death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> It's the Levites and only the Levites who are to work in the Tent of Meeting and they are responsible for anything that goes wrong. This is the regular rule for all time. They get no inheritance among the People of Israel;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> instead I turn over to them the tithes that the People of Israel present as an offering to GOD. That's why I give the ruling: They are to receive no land-inheritance among the People of Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "Speak to the Levites. Tell them, When you get the tithe from the People of Israel, the inheritance that I have assigned to you, you must tithe that tithe and present it as an offering to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Your offerings will be treated the same as other people's gifts of grain from the threshing floor or wine from the wine vat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> This is your procedure for making offerings to GOD from all the tithes you get from the People of Israel: give GOD's portion from these tithes to Aaron the priest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Make sure that GOD's portion is the best and holiest of everything you get.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "Tell the Levites, When you offer the best part, the rest will be treated the same as grain from the threshing floor or wine from the wine vat that others give.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> You and your households are free to eat the rest of it anytime and anyplace--it's your wages for your work at the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> By offering the best part, you'll avoid guilt, you won't desecrate the holy offerings of the People of Israel, and you won't die."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="19">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses and Aaron:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "This is the rule from the Revelation that GOD commands: Tell the People of Israel to get a red cow, a healthy specimen, ritually clean, that has never been in harness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Present it to Eleazar the priest, then take it outside the camp and butcher it while he looks on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Eleazar will take some of the blood on his finger and splash it seven times in the direction of the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Then under Eleazar's supervision burn the cow, the whole thing--hide, meat, blood, even its dung.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The priest then will take a stick of cedar, some sprigs of hyssop, and a piece of scarlet material and throw them on the burning cow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Afterwards the priest must wash his clothes and bathe well with water. He can then come into the camp but he remains ritually unclean until evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The man who burns the cow must also wash his clothes and bathe with water. He also is unclean until evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Then a man who is ritually clean will gather the ashes of the cow and place them in a ritually clean place outside the camp. The congregation of Israel will keep them to use in the Water-of-Cleansing, an Absolution-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "The man who gathered up the ashes must scrub his clothes; he is ritually unclean until evening. This is to be a standing rule for both native-born Israelites and foreigners living among them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Anyone who touches a dead body is ritually unclean for seven days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He must purify himself with the Water-of-Cleansing on the third day; on the seventh day he will be clean. But if he doesn't follow the procedures for the third and seventh days, he won't be clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Anyone who touches the dead body of anyone and doesn't get cleansed desecrates GOD's Dwelling and is to be excommunicated. For as long as the Water-of-Cleansing has not been sprinkled on him, he remains ritually unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "This is the rule for someone who dies in his tent: Anyone who enters the tent or is already in the tent is ritually unclean for seven days,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> and every open container without a lid is unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Anyone out in the open field who touches a corpse, whether dead from violent or natural causes, or a human bone or a grave is unclean for seven days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> For this unclean person, take some ashes from the burned Absolution-Offering and add some fresh water to it in a bowl.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Find a ritually clean man to dip a sprig of hyssop into the water and sprinkle the tent and all its furnishings, the persons who were in the tent, the one who touched the bones of the person who was killed or died a natural death, and whoever may have touched a grave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Then he is to sprinkle the unclean person on the third and seventh days. On the seventh day he is considered cleansed. The cleansed person must then scrub his clothes and take a bath; by evening he is clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But if an unclean person does not go through these cleansing procedures, he must be excommunicated from the community; he has desecrated the Sanctuary of GOD. The Water-of-Cleansing has not been sprinkled on him and he is ritually unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> This is the standing rule for these cases. "The man who sprinkles the Water-of-Cleansing has to scrub his clothes; anyone else who touched the Water-of-Cleansing is also ritually unclean until evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Anything the ritually unclean man touches becomes unclean, and the person who touches what he touched is unclean until evening."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="20">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the first month, the entire company of the People of Israel arrived in the Wilderness of Zin. The people stayed in Kadesh. Miriam died there, and she was buried.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> There was no water there for the community, so they ganged up on Moses and Aaron.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They attacked Moses: "We wish we'd died when the rest of our brothers died before GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Why did you haul this congregation of GOD out here into this wilderness to die, people and cattle alike?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And why did you take us out of Egypt in the first place, dragging us into this miserable country? No grain, no figs, no grapevines, no pomegranates--and now not even any water!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Moses and Aaron walked from the assembled congregation to the Tent of Meeting and threw themselves facedown on the ground. And they saw the Glory of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Take the staff. Assemble the community, you and your brother Aaron. Speak to that rock that's right in front of them and it will give water. You will bring water out of the rock for them; congregation and cattle will both drink."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Moses took the staff away from GOD's presence, as commanded.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He and Aaron rounded up the whole congregation in front of the rock. Moses spoke: "Listen, rebels! Do we have to bring water out of this rock for you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> With that Moses raised his arm and slammed his staff against the rock--once, twice. Water poured out. Congregation and cattle drank.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> GOD said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you didn't trust me, didn't treat me with holy reverence in front of the People of Israel, you two aren't going to lead this company into the land that I am giving them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> These were the Waters of Meribah (Bickering) where the People of Israel bickered with GOD, and he revealed himself as holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Moses sent emissaries from Kadesh to the king of Edom with this message: "A message from your brother Israel: You are familiar with all the trouble we've run into.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Our ancestors went down to Egypt and lived there a long time. The Egyptians viciously abused both us and our ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But when we cried out for help to GOD, he heard our cry. He sent an angel and got us out of Egypt. And now here we are at Kadesh, a town at the border of your land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Will you give us permission to cut across your land? We won't trespass through your fields or orchards and we won't drink out of your wells; we'll keep to the main road, the King's Road, straying neither right nor left until we've crossed your border."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The king of Edom answered, "Not on your life. If you so much as set a foot on my land, I'll kill you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The People of Israel said, "Look, we'll stay on the main road. If we or our animals drink any water, we'll pay you for it. We're harmless--just a company of footsore travelers."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He answered again: "No. You may not come through." And Edom came out and blocked the way with a crowd of people brandishing weapons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Edom refused to let them cross through his land. So Israel had to detour around him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The People of Israel, the entire company, set out from Kadesh and traveled to Mount Hor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> GOD said to Moses and Aaron at Mount Hor at the border of Edom,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "It's time for Aaron to be gathered into the company of his ancestors. He will not enter the land I am giving to the People of Israel because you both rebelled against my orders at the Waters of Meribah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> So take Aaron and his son Eleazar and lead them up Mount Hor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Remove Aaron's clothes from him and put them on his son Eleazar. Aaron will be gathered there; Aaron will die."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Moses obeyed GOD's command. They climbed Mount Hor as the whole congregation watched.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Moses took off Aaron's clothes and put them on his son Eleazar. Aaron died on top of the mountain. Then Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The whole congregation, getting the news that Aaron had died, went into thirty days of mourning for him.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="21">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Canaanite king of Arad, ruling in the Negev, heard that Israel was advancing up the road to Atharim. He attacked Israel and took prisoners of war.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Israel vowed a vow to GOD: "If you will give this people into our power, we'll destroy their towns and present the ruins to you as a holy destruction."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> GOD listened to Israel's prayer and gave them the Canaanites. They destroyed both them and their towns, a holy destruction. They named the place Hormah (Holy Destruction).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They set out from Mount Hor along the Red Sea Road, a detour around the land of Edom. The people became irritable and cross as they traveled.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They spoke out against God and Moses: "Why did you drag us out of Egypt to die in this godforsaken country? No decent food; no water--we can't stomach this stuff any longer."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So GOD sent poisonous snakes among the people; they bit them and many in Israel died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke out against GOD and you. Pray to GOD; ask him to take these snakes from us." Moses prayed for the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it on a flagpole: Whoever is bitten and looks at it will live."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So Moses made a snake of fiery copper and put it on top of a flagpole. Anyone bitten by a snake who then looked at the copper snake lived.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The People of Israel set out and camped at Oboth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They left Oboth and camped at Iye Abarim in the wilderness that faces Moab on the east.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They went from there and pitched camp in the Zered Valley.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Their next camp was alongside the Arnon River, which marks the border between Amorite country and Moab.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The Book of the Wars of GOD refers to this place: Waheb in Suphah, the canyons of Arnon;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Along the canyon ravines that lead to the village Ar And lean hard against the border of Moab.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They went on to Beer (The Well), where GOD said to Moses, "Gather the people; I'll give them water."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> That's where Israel sang this song: Erupt, Well! Sing the Song of the Well,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> the well sunk by princes, Dug out by the peoples' leaders digging with their scepters and staffs. From the wilderness their route went from Mattanah</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> to Nahaliel to Bamoth (The Heights)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> to the valley that opens into the fields of Moab from where Pisgah (The Summit) rises and overlooks Jeshimon (Wasteland).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Israel sent emissaries to Sihon, king of the Amorites, saying,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Let us cross your land. We won't trespass into your fields or drink water in your vineyards. We'll keep to the main road, the King's Road, until we're through your land."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But Sihon wouldn't let Israel go through. Instead he got his army together and marched into the wilderness to fight Israel. At Jahaz he attacked Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> But Israel fought hard, beat him soundly, and took possession of his land from the Arnon all the way to the Jabbok right up to the Ammonite border. They stopped there because the Ammonite border was fortified.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Israel took and occupied all the Amorite cities, including Heshbon and all its surrounding villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Heshbon was the capital city of Sihon king of the Amorites. He had attacked the former king of Moab and captured all his land as far north as the river Arnon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> That is why the folk singers sing, Come to Heshbon to rebuild the city, restore Sihon's town.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Fire once poured out of Heshbon, flames from the city of Sihon; Burning up Ar of Moab, the natives of Arnon's heights.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Doom, Moab! The people of Chemosh, done for! Sons turned out as fugitives, daughters abandoned as captives to the king of the Amorites, to Sihon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Oh, but we finished them off: Nothing left of Heshbon as far as Dibon; Devastation as far off as Nophah, scorched earth all the way to Medeba.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Israel moved in and lived in Amorite country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Moses sent men to scout out Jazer. They captured its villages and drove away the Amorites who lived there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Then they turned north on the road to Bashan. Og king of Bashan marched out with his entire army to meet Moses in battle at Edrei.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> GOD said to Moses, "Don't be afraid of him. I'm making a present of him to you, him and all his people and his land. Treat him the same as Sihon king of the Amorites who ruled in Heshbon."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> So they attacked him, his sons, and all the people--there was not a single survivor. Israel took the land.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="22">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The People of Israel marched on and camped on the Plains of Moab at Jordan-Jericho.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Balak son of Zippor learned of all that Israel had done to the Amorites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The people of Moab were in a total panic because of Israel. There were so many of them! They were terrorized.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Moab spoke to the leaders of Midian: "Look, this mob is going to clean us out--a bunch of crows picking a carcass clean." Balak son of Zippor, who was king of Moab at that time,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> sent emissaries to get Balaam son of Beor, who lived at Pethor on the banks of the Euphrates River, his homeland. Balak's emissaries said, "Look. A people has come up out of Egypt, and they're all over the place! And they're pressing hard on me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Come and curse them for me--they're too much for me. Maybe then I can beat them; we'll attack and drive them out of the country. You have a reputation: Those you bless stay blessed; those you curse stay cursed."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The leaders of Moab and Midian were soon on their way, with the fee for the cursing tucked safely in their wallets. When they got to Balaam, they gave him Balak's message.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Stay here for the night," Balaam said. "In the morning I'll deliver the answer that GOD gives me." The Moabite nobles stayed with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then God came to Balaam. He asked, "So who are these men here with you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Balaam answered, "Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab, sent them with a message:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> 'Look, the people that came up out of Egypt are all over the place! Come and curse them for me. Maybe then I'll be able to attack and drive them out of the country.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> God said to Balaam, "Don't go with them. And don't curse the others--they are a blessed people."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The next morning Balaam got up and told Balak's nobles, "Go back home; GOD refuses to give me permission to go with you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> So the Moabite nobles left, came back to Balak, and said, "Balaam wouldn't come with us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Balak sent another group of nobles, higher ranking and more distinguished.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They came to Balaam and said, "Balak son of Zippor says, 'Please, don't refuse to come to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I will honor and reward you lavishly--anything you tell me to do, I'll do; I'll pay anything--only come and curse this people.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Balaam answered Balak's servants: "Even if Balak gave me his house stuffed with silver and gold, I wouldn't be able to defy the orders of my GOD to do anything, whether big or little.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But come along and stay with me tonight as the others did; I'll see what GOD will say to me this time."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> God came to Balaam that night and said, "Since these men have come all this way to see you, go ahead and go with them. But make sure you do absolutely nothing other than what I tell you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Balaam got up in the morning, saddled his donkey, and went off with the noblemen from Moab.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> As he was going, though, God's anger flared. The angel of GOD stood in the road to block his way. Balaam was riding his donkey, accompanied by his two servants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> When the donkey saw the angel blocking the road and brandishing a sword, she veered off the road into the ditch. Balaam beat the donkey and got her back on the road.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> But as they were going through a vineyard, with a fence on either side,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> the donkey again saw GOD's angel blocking the way and veered into the fence, crushing Balaam's foot against the fence. Balaam hit her again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> GOD's angel blocked the way yet again--a very narrow passage this time; there was no getting through on the right or left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Seeing the angel, Balaam's donkey sat down under him. Balaam lost his temper; he beat the donkey with his stick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Then GOD gave speech to the donkey. She said to Balaam: "What have I ever done to you that you have beat me these three times?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Balaam said, "Because you've been playing games with me! If I had a sword I would have killed you by now."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The donkey said to Balaam, "Am I not your trusty donkey on whom you've ridden for years right up until now? Have I ever done anything like this to you before? Have I?" He said, "No."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Then GOD helped Balaam see what was going on: He saw GOD's angel blocking the way, brandishing a sword. Balaam fell to the ground, his face in the dirt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> GOD's angel said to him: "Why have you beaten your poor donkey these three times? I have come here to block your way because you're getting way ahead of yourself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> The donkey saw me and turned away from me these three times. If she hadn't, I would have killed you by this time, but not the donkey. I would have let her off."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Balaam said to GOD's angel, "I have sinned. I had no idea you were standing in the road blocking my way. If you don't like what I'm doing, I'll head back."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> But GOD's angel said to Balaam, "Go ahead and go with them. But only say what I tell you to say--absolutely no other word." And so Balaam continued to go with Balak's nobles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> When Balak heard that Balaam was coming, he went out to meet him in the Moabite town that was on the banks of the Arnon, right on the boundary of his land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Balak said to Balaam, "Didn't I send an urgent message for help? Why didn't you come when I called? Do you think I can't pay you enough?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Balaam said to Balak, "Well, I'm here now. But I can't tell you just anything. I can speak only words that God gives me--no others."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Balaam then accompanied Balak to Kiriath Huzoth (Street-Town).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Balak slaughtered cattle and sheep for sacrifices and presented them to Balaam and the nobles who were with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> At daybreak Balak took Balaam up to Bamoth Baal (The Heights of Baal) so that he could get a good view of some of the people.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="23">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Balaam said, "Build me seven altars here, and then prepare seven bulls and seven rams."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Balak did it. Then Balaam and Balak sacrificed a bull and a ram on each of the altars.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Balaam instructed Balak: "Stand watch here beside your Whole-Burnt-Offering while I go off by myself. Maybe GOD will come and meet with me. Whatever he shows or tells me, I'll report to you." Then he went off by himself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> God did meet with Balaam. Balaam said, "I've set up seven altars and offered a bull and a ram on each altar."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then GOD gave Balaam a message: "Return to Balak and give him this message."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He went back and found him stationed beside his Whole-Burnt-Offering and with him all the nobles of Moab.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Then Balaam spoke his message-oracle: Balak led me here from Aram, the king of Moab all the way from the eastern mountains. "Go, curse Jacob for me; go, damn Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> How can I curse whom God has not cursed? How can I damn whom GOD has not damned?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> From rock pinnacles I see them, from hilltops I survey them: Look! a people camping off by themselves, thinking themselves outsiders among nations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But who could ever count the dust of Jacob or take a census of cloud-of-dust Israel? I want to die like these right-living people! I want an end just like theirs!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Balak said to Balaam, "What's this? I brought you here to curse my enemies, and all you've done is bless them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Balaam answered, "Don't I have to be careful to say what GOD gives me to say?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Balak said to him, "Go with me to another place from which you can only see the outskirts of their camp--you won't be able to see the whole camp. From there, curse them for my sake."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> So he took him to Watchmen's Meadow at the top of Pisgah. He built seven altars there and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Balaam said to Balak, "Take up your station here beside your Whole-Burnt-Offering while I meet with him over there."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> GOD met with Balaam and gave him a message. He said, "Return to Balak and give him the message."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Balaam returned and found him stationed beside his Whole-Burnt-Offering and the nobles of Moab with him. Balak said to him, "What did GOD say?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Then Balaam spoke his message-oracle: On your feet, Balak. Listen, listen carefully son of Zippor:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> God is not man, one given to lies, and not a son of man changing his mind. Does he speak and not do what he says? Does he promise and not come through?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> I was brought here to bless; and now he's blessed--how can I change that?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He has no bone to pick with Jacob, he sees nothing wrong with Israel. GOD is with them, and they're with him, shouting praises to their King.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> God brought them out of Egypt, rampaging like a wild ox.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> No magic spells can bind Jacob, no incantations can hold back Israel. People will look at Jacob and Israel and say, "What a great thing has God done!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Look, a people rising to its feet, stretching like a lion, a king-of-the-beasts, aroused, Unsleeping, unresting until its hunt is over and it's eaten and drunk its fill.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Balak said to Balaam, "Well, if you can't curse them, at least don't bless them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Balaam replied to Balak, "Didn't I tell you earlier: 'All God speaks, and only what he speaks, I speak'?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Balak said to Balaam, "Please, let me take you to another place; maybe we can find the right place in God's eyes where you'll be able to curse them for me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> So Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, with a vista over the Jeshimon (Wasteland).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Balaam said to Balak, "Build seven altars for me here and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for sacrifice."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Balak did it and presented an offering of a bull and a ram on each of the altars.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="24">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> By now Balaam realized that GOD wanted to bless Israel. So he didn't work in any sorcery as he had done earlier. He turned and looked out over the wilderness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> As Balaam looked, he saw Israel camped tribe by tribe. The Spirit of God came on him,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> and he spoke his oracle-message: Decree of Balaam son of Beor, yes, decree of a man with 20/20 vision;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Decree of a man who hears God speak, who sees what The Strong God shows him, Who falls on his face in worship, who sees what's really going on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> What beautiful tents, Jacob, oh, your homes, Israel!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Like valleys stretching out in the distance, like gardens planted by rivers, Like sweet herbs planted by the gardener GOD, like red cedars by pools and springs,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Their buckets will brim with water, their seed will spread life everywhere. Their king will tower over Agag and his ilk, their kingdom surpassingly majestic.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> God brought them out of Egypt, rampaging like a wild ox, Gulping enemies like morsels of meat, crushing their bones, snapping their arrows.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Israel crouches like a lion and naps, king-of-the-beasts--who dares disturb him? Whoever blesses you is blessed, whoever curses you is cursed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Balak lost his temper with Balaam. He shook his fist. He said to Balaam: "I got you in here to curse my enemies and what have you done? Blessed them! Blessed them three times!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Get out of here! Go home! I told you I would pay you well, but you're getting nothing. You can blame GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Balaam said to Balak, "Didn't I tell you up front when you sent your emissaries,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> 'Even if Balak gave me his palace stuffed with silver and gold, I couldn't do anything on my own, whether good or bad, that went against GOD's command'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'm leaving for home and my people, but I warn you of what this people will do to your people in the days to come."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Then he spoke his oracle-message: Decree of Balaam son of Beor, decree of the man with 20/20 vision,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Decree of the man who hears godly speech, who knows what's going on with the High God, Who sees what The Strong God reveals, who bows in worship and sees what's real.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I see him, but not right now, I perceive him, but not right here; A star rises from Jacob a scepter from Israel, Crushing the heads of Moab, the skulls of all the noisy windbags;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I see Edom sold off at auction, enemy Seir marked down at the flea market, while Israel walks off with the trophies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> A ruler is coming from Jacob who'll destroy what's left in the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Then Balaam spotted Amalek and delivered an oracle-message. He said, Amalek, you're in first place among nations right now, but you're going to come in last, ruined.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He saw the Kenites and delivered his oracle-message to them: Your home is in a nice secure place, like a nest high on the face of a cliff.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Still, you Kenites will look stupid when Asshur takes you prisoner.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Balaam spoke his final oracle-message: Doom! Who stands a chance when God starts in?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Sea-Peoples, raiders from across the sea, will harass Asshur and Eber, But they'll also come to nothing, just like all the rest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Balaam got up and went home. Balak also went on his way.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="25">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> While Israel was camped at Shittim (Acacia Grove), the men began to have sex with the Moabite women.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> It started when the women invited the men to their sex-and-religion worship. They ate together and then worshiped their gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Israel ended up joining in the worship of the Baal of Peor. GOD was furious, his anger blazing out against Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD said to Moses, "Take all the leaders of Israel and kill them by hanging, leaving them publicly exposed in order to turn GOD's anger away from Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Moses issued orders to the judges of Israel: "Each of you must execute the men under your jurisdiction who joined in the worship of Baal Peor."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Just then, while everyone was weeping in penitence at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, an Israelite man, flaunting his behavior in front of Moses and the whole assembly, paraded a Midianite woman into his family tent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw what he was doing, grabbed his spear,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> and followed them into the tent. With one thrust he drove the spear through the two of them, the man of Israel and the woman, right through their private parts. That stopped the plague from continuing among the People of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But 24,000 had already died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has stopped my anger against the People of Israel. Because he was as zealous for my honor as I myself am, I didn't kill all the People of Israel in my zeal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> So tell him that I am making a Covenant-of-Peace with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He and his descendants are joined in a covenant of eternal priesthood, because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the People of Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The name of the man of Israel who was killed with the Midianite woman was Zimri son of Salu, the head of the Simeonite family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And the name of the Midianite woman who was killed was Cozbi daughter of Zur, a tribal chief of a Midianite family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "From here on make the Midianites your enemies. Fight them tooth and nail.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They turned out to be your enemies when they seduced you in the business of Peor and that woman Cozbi, daughter of a Midianite leader, the woman who was killed at the time of the plague in the matter of Peor."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="26">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> After the plague GOD said to Moses and Eleazar son of Aaron the priest,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Number the entire community of Israel by families--count every person who is twenty years and older who is able to serve in the army of Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Obeying GOD's command, Moses and Eleazar the priest addressed them on the Plains of Moab at Jordan-Jericho:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Count off from age twenty and older." The People of Israel who came out of the land of Egypt:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Reuben, Israel's firstborn. The sons of Reuben were: Hanoch and the Hanochite clan, Pallu and the Palluite clan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Hezron and the Hezronite clan, Carmi and the Carmite clan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> These made up the Reubenite clans. They numbered 43,730.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The son of Pallu: Eliab.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The sons of Eliab: Nemuel, Dathan, and Abiram. (These were the same Dathan and Abiram, community leaders from Korah's gang, who rebelled against Moses and Aaron in the Korah Rebellion against GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The Earth opened its jaws and swallowed them along with Korah's gang who died when the fire ate them up, all 250 of them. After all these years, they're still a warning sign.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But the line of Korah did not die out.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The sons of Simeon by clans: Nemuel and the Nemuelite clan, Jamin and the Jaminite clan, Jakin and the Jakinite clan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Zerah and the Zerahite clan, Shaul and the Shaulite clan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> These were the clans of Simeon. They numbered 22,200 men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The sons of Gad by clans: Zephon and the Zephonite clan, Haggi and the Haggite clan, Shuni and the Shunite clan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Ozni and the Oznite clan, Eri and the Erite clan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Arodi and the Arodite clan, Areli and the Arelite clan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> These were the clans of Gad. They numbered 40,500 men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Er and Onan were sons of Judah who died early on in Canaan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The sons of Judah by clans: Shelah and the Shelanite clan, Perez and the Perezite clan, Zerah and the Zerahite clan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The sons of Perez: Hezron and the Hezronite clan, Hamul and the Hamulite clan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> These were the clans of Judah. They numbered 76,500.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The sons of Issachar by clans: Tola and the Tolaite clan, Puah and the Puite clan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Jashub and the Jashubite clan, Shimron and the Shimronite clan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> These were the clans of Issachar. They numbered 64,300.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The sons of Zebulun by clans: Sered and the Seredite clan, Elon and the Elonite clan, Jahleel and the Jahleelite clan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> These were the clans of Zebulun. They numbered 60,500.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The sons of Joseph by clans through Manasseh and Ephraim. Through Manasseh:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Makir and the Makirite clan (now Makir was the father of Gilead), Gilead and the Gileadite clan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The sons of Gilead: Iezer and the Iezerite clan, Helek and the Helekite clan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Asriel and the Asrielite clan, Shechem and the Shechemite clan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Shemida and the Shemidaite clan, Hepher and the Hepherite clan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Zelophehad son of Hepher had no sons, only daughters. Their names were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> These were the clans of Manasseh. They numbered 52,700.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> The sons of Ephraim by clans: Shuthelah and the Shuthelahite clan, Beker and the Bekerite clan, Tahan and the Tahanite clan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> The sons of Shuthelah: Eran and the Eranite clan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> These were the clans of Ephraim. They numbered 32,500. These are all the sons of Joseph by their clans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> The sons of Benjamin by clans: Bela and the Belaite clan, Ashbel and the Ashbelite clan, Ahiram and the Ahiramite clan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Shupham and the Shuphamite clan, Hupham and the Huphamite clan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> The sons of Bela through Ard and Naaman: Ard and the Ardite clan, Naaman and the Naamite clan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> These were the clans of Benjamin. They numbered 45,600.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> The sons of Dan by clan: Shuham and the Shuhamite clan. These are the clans of Dan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> all Shuhamite clans. They numbered 64,400.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> The sons of Asher by clan: Imnah and the Imnite clan, Ishvi and the Ishvite clan, Beriah and the Beriite clan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> The sons of Beriah: Heber and the Heberite clan, Malkiel and the Malkielite clan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Asher also had a daughter, Serah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> These were the clans of Asher. They numbered 53,400.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> The sons of Naphtali by clans: Jahzeel and the Jahzeelite clan, Guni and the Gunite clan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> Jezer and the Jezerite clan, Shillem and the Shillemite clan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> These were the clans of Naphtali. They numbered 45,400.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> The total number of the People of Israel: 601,730.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> "Divide up the inheritance of the land based on population.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> A larger group gets a larger inheritance; a smaller group gets a smaller inheritance--each gets its inheritance based on the population count.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> "Make sure that the land is assigned by lot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> "Each group's inheritance is based on population, the number of names listed in its ancestral tribe, divided among the many and the few by lot."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> These are the numberings of the Levites by clan: Gershon and the Gershonite clan, Kohath and the Kohathite clan, Merari and the Merarite clan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> The Levite clans also included: the Libnite clan, the Hebronite clan, the Mahlite clan, the Mushite clan, the Korahite clan. Kohath was the father of Amram.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="59"> Amram's wife was Jochebed, a descendant of Levi, born into the Levite family during the Egyptian years. Jochebed bore Aaron, Moses, and their sister Miriam to Amram.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="60"> Aaron was the father of Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="61"> however, Nadab and Abihu died when they offered unauthorized sacrifice in the presence of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="62"> The numbering of Levite males one month and older came to 23,000. They hadn't been counted in with the rest of the People of Israel because they didn't inherit any land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="63"> These are the ones numbered by Moses and Eleazar the priest, the People of Israel counted in the Plains of Moab at Jordan-Jericho.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="64"> Not one of them had been among those counted by Moses and Aaron the priest in the census of the People of Israel taken in the Wilderness of Sinai.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="65"> For GOD had said of them, "They'll die, die in the wilderness--not one of them will be left except for Caleb son of Jephunneh, and Joshua son of Nun."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="27">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The daughters of Zelophehad showed up. Their father was the son of Hepher son of Gilead son of Makir son of Manasseh, belonging to the clans of Manasseh son of Joseph. The daughters were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They came to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. They stood before Moses and Eleazar the priest and before the leaders and the congregation and said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Our father died in the wilderness. He wasn't part of Korah's rebel anti-GOD gang. He died for his own sins. And he left no sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But why should our father's name die out from his clan just because he had no sons? So give us an inheritance among our father's relatives."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Moses brought their case to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD ruled:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Zelophehad's daughters are right. Give them land as an inheritance among their father's relatives. Give them their father's inheritance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Then tell the People of Israel, If a man dies and leaves no son, give his inheritance to his daughter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> If he has no daughter, give it to his brothers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> If he has no brothers, give it to his father's brothers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> If his father had no brothers, give it to the nearest relative so that the inheritance stays in the family. This is the standard procedure for the People of Israel, as commanded by GOD through Moses."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> GOD said to Moses, "Climb up into the Abarim Mountains and look over at the land that I am giving to the People of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> When you've had a good look you'll be joined to your ancestors in the grave--yes, you also along with Aaron your brother.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> This goes back to the day when the congregation quarreled in the Wilderness of Zin and you didn't honor me in holy reverence before them in the matter of the waters, the Waters of Meribah (Quarreling) at Kadesh in the Wilderness of Zin."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Moses responded to GOD:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Let GOD, the God of the spirits of everyone living, set a man over this community</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> to lead them, to show the way ahead and bring them back home so GOD's community will not be like sheep without a shepherd."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> GOD said to Moses, "Take Joshua the son of Nun--the Spirit is in him!--and place your hand on him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Stand him before Eleazar the priest in front of the entire congregation and commission him with everyone watching.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Pass your magisterial authority over to him so that the whole congregation of the People of Israel will listen obediently to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He is to consult with Eleazar the priest who, using the oracle-Urim, will prayerfully advise him in the presence of GOD. He will command the People of Israel, the entire community, in all their comings and goings."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Moses followed GOD's orders. He took Joshua and stood him before Eleazar the priest in front of the entire community.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> He laid his hands on him and commissioned him, following the procedures GOD had given Moses.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="28">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Command the People of Israel. Tell them, You're in charge of presenting my food, my Fire-Gifts of pleasing fragrance, at the set times.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Tell them, This is the Fire-Gift that you are to present to GOD: two healthy yearling lambs each day as a regular Whole-Burnt-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Sacrifice one lamb in the morning, the other in the evening,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> together with two quarts of fine flour mixed with a quart of olive oil for a Grain-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> This is the standard Whole-Burnt-Offering instituted at Mount Sinai as a pleasing fragrance, a Fire-Gift to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The Drink-Offering that goes with it is a quart of strong beer with each lamb. Pour out the Drink-Offering before GOD in the Sanctuary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Sacrifice the second lamb in the evening with the Grain-Offering and Drink-Offering the same as in the morning--a Fire-Gift of pleasing fragrance for GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "On the Sabbath, sacrifice two healthy yearling lambs, together with the Drink-Offering and the Grain-Offering of four quarts of fine flour mixed with oil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> This is the regular Sabbath Whole-Burnt-Offering, in addition to the regular Whole-Burnt-Offering and its Drink-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "On the first of the month offer a Whole-Burnt-Offering to GOD: two young bulls, one ram, and seven male yearling lambs--all healthy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "A Grain-Offering of six quarts of fine flour mixed with oil goes with each bull, four quarts of fine flour mixed with oil with the ram,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> and two quarts of fine flour mixed with oil with each lamb. This is for a Whole-Burnt-Offering, a pleasing fragrance, a Fire-Gift to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Also, Drink-Offerings of two quarts of wine for each bull, one and a quarter quarts of wine for the ram, and a quart of wine for each lamb are to be poured out. "This is the first of the month Whole-Burnt-Offering to be made throughout the year.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> In addition to the regular Whole-Burnt-Offering with its accompanying Drink-Offering, a he-goat is to be offered to GOD as an Absolution-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "GOD's Passover is to be held on the fourteenth day of the first month.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> On the fifteenth day of this month hold a festival. "For seven days, eat only unraised bread:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Begin the first day in holy worship; don't do any regular work that day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Bring a Fire-Gift to GOD, a Whole-Burnt-Offering: two young bulls, one ram, and seven male yearling lambs--all healthy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Prepare a Grain-Offering of six quarts of fine flour mixed with oil for each bull, four quarts for the ram,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> and two quarts for each lamb,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> plus a goat as an Absolution-Offering to atone for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "Sacrifice these in addition to the regular morning Whole-Burnt-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Prepare the food this way for the Fire-Gift, a pleasing fragrance to GOD, every day for seven days. Prepare it in addition to the regular Whole-Burnt-Offering and Drink-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "Conclude the seventh day in holy worship; don't do any regular work on that day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "On the Day of Firstfruits when you bring an offering of new grain to GOD on your Feast-of-Weeks, gather in holy worship and don't do any regular work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Bring a Whole-Burnt-Offering of two young bulls, one ram, and seven male yearling lambs as a pleasing fragrance to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Prepare a Grain-Offering of six quarts of fine flour mixed with oil for each bull, four quarts for the ram,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> and two quarts for each lamb,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> plus a he-goat as an Absolution-Offering to atone for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "These are all over and above the daily Whole-Burnt-Offering and its Grain-Offering and the Drink-Offering. Remember, the animals must be healthy.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="29">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "On the first day of the seventh month, gather in holy worship and do no regular work. This is your Day-of-Trumpet-Blasts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Sacrifice a Whole-Burnt-Offering: one young bull, one ram, and seven male yearling lambs--all healthy--as a pleasing fragrance to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Prepare a Grain-Offering of six quarts of fine flour mixed with oil for the bull, four quarts for the ram,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> and two quarts for each lamb,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> plus a he-goat as an Absolution-Offering to atone for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "These are all over and above the monthly and daily Whole-Burnt-Offerings with their Grain-Offerings and Drink-Offerings as prescribed, a pleasing fragrance, a Fire-Gift to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "On the tenth day of this seventh month, gather in holy worship, humble yourselves, and do no work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Bring a Whole-Burnt-Offering to GOD as a pleasing fragrance: one young bull, one ram, and seven yearling male lambs--all healthy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Prepare a Grain-Offering of six quarts of fine flour mixed with oil for the bull, four quarts for the ram,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> and two quarts for each of the seven lambs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Also bring a he-goat as an Absolution-Offering to atone for you in addition to the regular Whole-Burnt-Offering with its Grain-Offering and Drink-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Gather in holy worship on the fifteenth day of the seventh month; do no regular work. Celebrate a Festival to GOD for seven days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Bring a Whole-Burnt-Offering, a Fire-Gift of pleasing fragrance to GOD: thirteen young bulls, two rams, and fourteen yearling male lambs--all healthy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Prepare a Grain-Offering of six quarts of fine flour mixed with oil for each of the bulls, four quarts for each ram,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> and two quarts for each of the fourteen lambs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Also bring a he-goat as an Absolution-Offering in addition to the regular Whole-Burnt-Offering with its Grain-Offering and Drink-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "On the second day: twelve young bulls, two rams, and fourteen yearling male lambs--all healthy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Prepare Grain-Offerings and Drink-Offerings to go with the bulls, rams, and lambs following the prescribed recipes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And bring a he-goat as an Absolution-Offering in addition to the regular Whole-Burnt-Offering with its Grain-Offering and Drink-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "On the third day: eleven bulls, two rams, and fourteen male yearling lambs--all healthy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Prepare Grain-Offerings and Drink-Offerings to go with the bulls, rams, and lambs following the prescribed recipes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> And bring a he-goat as an Absolution-Offering in addition to the regular Whole-Burnt-Offering with its Grain-Offering and Drink-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "On the fourth day: ten bulls, two rams, and fourteen male yearling lambs--all healthy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Prepare Grain-Offerings and Drink-Offerings to go with the bulls, rams, and lambs following the prescribed recipes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> And bring a he-goat as an Absolution-Offering in addition to the regular Whole-Burnt-Offering with its Grain-Offering and Drink-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "On the fifth day: nine bulls, two rams, and fourteen male yearling lambs--all healthy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Prepare Grain-Offerings and Drink-Offerings to go with the bulls, rams, and lambs following the prescribed recipes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> And bring a he-goat as an Absolution-Offering in addition to the regular Whole-Burnt-Offering with its Grain-Offering and Drink-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "On the sixth day: eight bulls, two rams, and fourteen male yearling lambs--all healthy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Prepare Grain-Offerings and Drink-Offerings to go with the bulls, rams, and lambs following the prescribed recipes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> And bring a he-goat as an Absolution-Offering in addition to the regular Whole-Burnt-Offering with its Grain-Offering and Drink-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "On the seventh day: seven bulls, two rams, and fourteen male yearling lambs--all healthy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Prepare Grain-Offerings and Drink-Offerings to go with the bulls, rams, and lambs following the prescribed recipes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> And bring a he-goat as an Absolution-Offering in addition to the regular Whole-Burnt-Offering with its Grain-Offering and Drink-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> "On the eighth day: Gather in holy worship; do no regular work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Bring a Fire-Gift of pleasing fragrance to GOD, a Whole-Burnt-Offering: one bull, one ram, and seven male yearling lambs--all healthy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Prepare Grain-Offerings and Drink-Offerings to go with the bulls, rams, and lambs following the prescribed recipes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> And bring a he-goat as an Absolution-Offering in addition to the regular Whole-Burnt-Offering with its Grain-Offering and Drink-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> "Sacrifice these to GOD as a congregation at your set feasts: your Whole-Burnt-Offerings, Grain-Offerings, Drink-Offerings, and Peace-Offerings. These are all over and above your personal Vow-Offerings and Freewill-Offerings."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Moses instructed the People of Israel in all that GOD commanded him.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="30">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes of the People of Israel: "This is what GOD commands:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> When a man makes a vow to GOD or binds himself by an oath to do something, he must not break his word; he must do exactly what he has said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "When a woman makes a vow to GOD and binds herself by a pledge as a young girl still living in her father's house,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> and her father hears of her vow or pledge but says nothing to her, then she has to make good on all her vows and pledges.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But if her father holds her back when he hears of what she has done, none of her vows and pledges are valid. GOD will release her since her father held her back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "If she marries after she makes a vow or has made some rash promise or pledge,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> and her husband hears of it but says nothing to her, then she has to make good on whatever she vowed or pledged.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But if her husband intervenes when he hears of it, he cancels the vow or rash promise that binds her. And GOD will release her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Any vow or pledge taken by a widow or divorced woman is binding on her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "When a woman who is living with her husband makes a vow or takes a pledge under oath</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> and her husband hears about it but says nothing and doesn't say she can't do it, then all her vows and pledges are valid.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But if her husband cancels them when he hears about them, then none of the vows and pledges that she made are binding. Her husband has canceled them and GOD will release her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Any vow and pledge that she makes that may be to her detriment can be either affirmed or annulled by her husband.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But if her husband is silent and doesn't speak up day after day, he confirms her vows and pledges--she has to make good on them. By saying nothing to her when he hears of them, he binds her to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> If, however, he cancels them sometime after he hears of them, he takes her guilt on himself."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> These are the rules that GOD gave Moses regarding conduct between a man and his wife and between a father and his young daughter who is still living at home.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="31">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Avenge the People of Israel on the Midianites. Afterward you will go to be with your dead ancestors."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Moses addressed the people: "Recruit men for a campaign against Midian, to exact GOD's vengeance on Midian,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> a thousand from each tribe of Israel to go to war."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> A fighting force of a thousand from each tribe of Israel--twelve thousand in all--was recruited.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Moses sent them off to war, a thousand from each tribe, and also Phinehas son of Eleazar, who went as priest to the army, in charge of holy vessels and the signaling bugles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They attacked Midian, just as GOD had commanded Moses, and killed every last man.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Among the fallen were Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba--the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The People of Israel took the Midianite women and children captive and took all their animals and herds and goods as plunder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They burned to the ground all the towns in which Midianites lived and also their tent camps.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They looted and plundered everything and everyone--stuff and people and animals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They took it all--captives and booty and plunder--back to Moses and Eleazar the priest and the company of Israel where they were camped on the Plains of Moab, at Jordan-Jericho.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Moses, Eleazar, and all the leaders of the congregation went to meet the returning army outside the camp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Moses was furious with the army officers--the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds--as they came back from the battlefield:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "What's this! You've let these women live!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They're the ones who, under Balaam's direction, seduced the People of Israel away from GOD in that mess at Peor, causing the plague that hit GOD's people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Finish your job: kill all the boys. Kill every woman who has slept with a man.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The younger women who are virgins you can keep alive for yourselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Now here's what you are to do: Pitch tents outside the camp. All who have killed anyone or touched a corpse must stay outside the camp for seven days. Purify yourselves and your captives on the third and seventh days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Purify every piece of clothing and every utensil--everything made of leather, goat hair, or wood."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Eleazar the priest then spoke to the soldiers who had fought in the battle: "This is the ruling from the Revelation that GOD gave Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, and lead--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> and anything else that can survive fire--must be passed through the fire; then it will be ritually purified. It must also be ritually washed in the Water-of-Cleansing. Further, whatever cannot survive fire must be put through that water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> On the seventh day scrub your clothes; you will be ritually clean. Then you can return to camp."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> GOD said to Moses,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "I want you and Eleazar the priest and the family leaders in the community to count the captives, people and animals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Split the plunder between the soldiers who fought the battle and the rest of the congregation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "Then tax the booty that goes to the soldiers at the rate of one life out of five hundred, whether humans, cattle, donkeys, or sheep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> It's a GOD-tax taken from their half-share to be turned over to Eleazar the priest on behalf of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Tax the congregation's half-share at the rate of one life out of fifty, whether persons, cattle, donkeys, sheep, goats, or other animals. Give this to the Levites who are in charge of the care of GOD's Dwelling."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Moses and Eleazar followed through with what GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The rest of the plunder taken by the army: 675,000 sheep</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> 72,000 cattle</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> 61,000 donkeys</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> 32,000 women who were virgins</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> The half-share for those who had fought in the war: 337,500 sheep,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> with a tax of 675 for GOD</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> 36,000 cattle, with a tax of 72 for GOD</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> 30,500 donkeys, with a tax of 61 for GOD</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> 16,000 people, with a tax of 32 for GOD</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Moses turned the tax over to Eleazar the priest as GOD's part, following GOD's instructions to Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> The other half-share for the Israelite community that Moses set apart from what was given to the men who fought the war was:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> 337,500 sheep</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> 36,000 cattle</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> 30,500 donkeys</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> 16,000 people</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> From the half-share going to the People of Israel, Moses, just as GOD had instructed him, picked one out of every fifty persons and animals and gave them to the Levites, who were in charge of maintaining GOD's Dwelling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> The military officers--commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds--came to Moses</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> and said, "We have counted the soldiers under our command and not a man is missing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> We've brought offerings to GOD from the gold jewelry we got--armlets, bracelets, rings, earrings, ornaments--to make atonement for our lives before GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> Moses and Eleazar the priest received the gold from them, all that fine-crafted jewelry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> In total, the gold from the commanders of thousands and hundreds that Moses and Eleazar offered as a gift to GOD weighed about six hundred pounds,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> all donated by the soldiers who had taken the booty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> Moses and Eleazar took the gold from the commanders of thousands and hundreds and brought it to the Tent of Meeting, to serve as a reminder for the People of Israel before GOD.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="32">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The families of Reuben and Gad had huge herds of livestock. They saw that the country of Jazer and Gilead was just the place for grazing livestock.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> And so they came, the families of Gad and of Reuben, and spoke to Moses and Eleazar the priest and the leaders of the congregation, saying,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Elealeh, Sebam, Nebo, and Beon--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> the country that GOD laid low before the community of Israel--is a country just right for livestock, and we have livestock."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They continued, "If you think we've done a good job so far, give us this country for our inheritance. Don't make us go across the Jordan."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Moses answered the families of Gad and Reuben: "Do you mean that you are going to leave the fighting that's ahead to your brothers while you settle down here?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Why would you even think of letting the People of Israel down, demoralizing them just as they're about to move into the land GOD gave them?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> That's exactly what your ancestors did when I sent them from Kadesh Barnea to survey the country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They went as far as the Valley of Eshcol, took one look and quit. They completely demoralized the People of Israel from entering the land GOD had given them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And GOD got angry--oh, did he get angry! He swore:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> 'They'll never get to see it; none of those who came up out of Egypt who are twenty years and older will ever get to see the land that I promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They weren't interested in following me--their hearts weren't in it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> None, except for Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite, and Joshua son of Nun; they followed me--their hearts were in it.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "GOD's anger smoked against Israel. He made them wander in the wilderness for forty years, until that entire generation that acted out evil in his sight had died out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "And now here you are, just one more mob of sinners stepping up to replace your ancestors, throwing fuel on the already blazing anger of GOD against Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> If you won't follow him, he'll do it again. He'll dump them in the desert and the disaster will be all your fault."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They came close to him and said, "All we want to do is build corrals for our livestock and towns for our families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then we'll take up arms and take the front lines, leading the People of Israel to their place. We'll be able to leave our families behind, secure in fortified towns, safe from those who live in the land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But we won't go back home until every Israelite is in full possession of his inheritance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> We won't expect any inheritance west of the Jordan; we are claiming all our inheritance east of the Jordan."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Moses said, "If you do what you say, take up arms before GOD for battle</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> and together go across the Jordan ready, before GOD, to fight until GOD has cleaned his enemies out of the land,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> then when the land is secure you will have fulfilled your duty to GOD and Israel. Then this land will be yours to keep before GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "But if you don't do what you say, you will be sinning against GOD; you can be sure that your sin will track you down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> So, go ahead. Build towns for your families and corrals for you livestock. Do what you said you'd do."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The families of Gad and Reuben told Moses: "We will do as our master commands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Our children and wives, our flocks and herds will stay behind here in the towns of Gilead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> But we, every one of us fully armed, will cross the river to fight for GOD, just as our master has said."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> So Moses issued orders for them to Eleazar the priest, Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the ancestral tribes of the People of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Moses said, "If the families of Gad and Reuben cross the Jordan River with you and before GOD, all armed and ready to fight, then after the land is secure, you may give them the land of Gilead as their inheritance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> But if they don't cross over with you, they'll have to settle up with you in Canaan."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The families of Gad and Reuben responded: "We will do what GOD has said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> We will cross the Jordan before GOD, ready and willing to fight. But the land we inherit will be here, to the east of the Jordan."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Moses gave the families of Gad, Reuben, and the half-tribe of Manasseh son of Joseph the kingdom of Sihon, king of the Amorites, and the kingdom of Og, king of Bashan--the land, its towns, and all the territories connected with them--the works.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The Gadites rebuilt Dibon, Ataroth, Aroer,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Atroth Shophan, Jazer, Jogbehah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Beth Nimrah, and Beth Haran as fortified cities; they also built corrals for their animals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> The Reubenites rebuilt Heshbon, Elealeh, and Kiriathaim,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> also Nebo and Baal Meon and Sibmah. They renamed the cities that they rebuilt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> The family of Makir son of Manasseh went to Gilead, captured it, and drove out the Amorites who lived there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Moses then gave Gilead to the Makirites, the descendants of Manasseh. They moved in and settled there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Jair, another son of Manasseh, captured some villages and named them Havvoth Jair (Jair's Tent-Camps).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Nobah captured Kenath and its surrounding camps. He renamed it after himself, Nobah.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="33">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> These are the camping sites in the journey of the People of Israel after they left Egypt, deployed militarily under the command of Moses and Aaron.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Under GOD's instruction Moses kept a log of every time they moved, camp by camp:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They marched out of Rameses the day after the Passover. It was the fifteenth day of the first month. They marched out heads high and confident.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The Egyptians, busy burying their firstborn whom GOD had killed, watched them go. GOD had exposed the nonsense of their gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The People of Israel: left Rameses and camped at Succoth;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> left Succoth and camped at Etham at the edge of the wilderness;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> left Etham, circled back to Pi Hahiroth east of Baal Zephon, and camped near Migdol;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> left Pi Hahiroth and crossed through the Sea into the wilderness; three days into the Wilderness of Etham they camped at Marah;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> left Marah and came to Elim where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees; they camped there;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> left Elim and camped by the Red Sea;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> left the Red Sea and camped in the Wilderness of Sin;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> left the Wilderness of Sin and camped at Dophkah;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> left Dophkah and camped at Alush;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> left Alush and camped at Rephidim where there was no water for the people to drink;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> left Rephidim and camped in the Wilderness of Sinai;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> left the Wilderness of Sinai and camped at Kibroth Hattaavah;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> left Kibroth Hattaavah and camped at Hazeroth;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> left Hazeroth and camped at Rithmah;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> left Rithmah and camped at Rimmon Perez;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> left Rimmon Perez and camped at Libnah;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> left Libnah and camped at Rissah;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> left Rissah and camped at Kehelathah;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> left Kehelathah and camped at Mount Shepher;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> left Mount Shepher and camped at Haradah;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> left Haradah and camped at Makheloth;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> left Makheloth and camped at Tahath;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> left Tahath and camped at Terah;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> left Terah and camped at Mithcah;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> left Mithcah and camped at Hashmonah;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> left Hashmonah and camped at Moseroth;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> left Moseroth and camped at Bene Jaakan;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> left Bene Jaakan and camped at Hor Haggidgad;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> left Hor Haggidgad and camped at Jotbathah;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> left Jotbathah and camped at Abronah;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> left Abronah and camped at Ezion Geber;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> left Ezion Geber and camped at Kadesh in the Wilderness of Zin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> After they left Kadesh and camped at Mount Hor at the border of Edom,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Aaron the priest climbed Mount Hor at GOD's command and died there. It was the first day of the fifth month in the fortieth year after the People of Israel had left Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Aaron was 123 years old when he died on Mount Hor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> The Canaanite king of Arad--he ruled in the Negev of Canaan--heard that the People of Israel had arrived.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> They left Mount Hor and camped at Zalmonah;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> left Zalmonah and camped at Punon;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> left Punon and camped at Oboth;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> left Oboth and camped at Iye Abarim on the border of Moab;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> left Iyim and camped at Dibon Gad;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> left Dibon Gad and camped at Almon Diblathaim;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> left Almon Diblathaim and camped in the mountains of Abarim (Across-the-River), within sight of Nebo.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> After they left the mountains of Abarim they camped on the Plains of Moab at Jordan-Jericho.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> On the Plains of Moab their camp stretched along the banks of the Jordan from Beth Jeshimoth to Abel Shittim (Acacia Meadow).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> GOD spoke to Moses on the Plains of Moab at Jordan-Jericho:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> "Tell the People of Israel, When you cross the Jordan into the country of Canaan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> drive out the native population before you, destroy their carved idols, destroy their cast images, level their worship-mounds</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> so that you take over the land and make yourself at home in it; I've given it to you. It's yours.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> "Divide up the land by lot according to the size of your clans: Large clans will get large tracts of land, small clans will get smaller tracts of land. However the lot falls, that's it. Divide it up according to your ancestral tribes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> "But if you don't drive out the native population, everyone you let stay there will become a cinder in your eye and a splinter in your foot. They'll give you endless trouble right in your own backyards.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> And I'll start treating you the way I planned to treat them."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="34">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Command the People of Israel. Tell them: When you enter Canaan, these are the borders of the land you are getting as an inheritance:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Your southern border will take in some of the Wilderness of Zin where it touches Edom. It starts in the east at the Dead Sea,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> curves south of Scorpion Pass and on to Zin, continues south of Kadesh Barnea, then to Hazar Addar and on to Azmon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> where it takes a turn to the northwest to the Brook of Egypt and on to the Mediterranean Sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Your western border will be the Mediterranean Sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Your northern border runs on a line from the Mediterranean Sea to Mount Hor,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> and from Mount Hor to Lebo Hamath, connects to Zedad,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> continues to Ziphron, and ends at Hazar Enan. This is your northern border.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Your eastern border runs on a line from Hazar Enan to Shepham.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The border goes south from Shepham to Riblah to the east of Ain, and continues along the slopes east of the Sea of Galilee.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The border then follows the Jordan River and ends at the Dead Sea. "This is your land with its four borders."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Moses then commanded the People of Israel: "This is the land: Divide up the inheritance by lot. GOD has ordered it to be given to the nine and a half tribes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The tribe of Reuben, the tribe of Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh have already received their inheritance;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> the two tribes and the half-tribe got their inheritance east of Jordan-Jericho, facing the sunrise."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "These are the men who will be in charge of distributing the inheritance of the land: Eleazar the priest and Joshua son of Nun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Assign one leader from each tribe to help them in distributing the land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Assign these: Caleb son of Jephunneh from the tribe of Judah;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Shemuel son of Ammihud from the tribe of Simeon;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Elidad son of Kislon from the tribe of Benjamin;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Bukki son of Jogli, leader from the tribe of Dan;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Hanniel son of Ephod, leader from the tribe of Manasseh son of Joseph;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Kemuel son of Shiphtan, leader from the tribe of Ephraim son of Joseph;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Elizaphan son of Parnach, leader from the tribe of Zebulun;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Paltiel son of Azzan, leader from the tribe of Issachar;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Ahihud son of Shelomi, leader from the tribe of Asher;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Pedahel son of Ammihud, leader from the tribe of Naphtali."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> These are the men GOD commanded to hand out the assignments of land-inheritance to the People of Israel in the country of Canaan.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="35">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then GOD spoke to Moses on the Plains of Moab at Jordan-Jericho:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Command the People of Israel to give the Levites as their part of the total inheritance towns to live in. Make sure there is plenty of pasture around the towns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then they will be well taken care of with towns to live in and pastures for their cattle, flocks, and other livestock.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "The pasture surrounding the Levites' towns is to extend 1,500 feet in each direction from the city wall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The outside borders of the pasture are to measure three thousand feet on each of the four sides--east, south, west, and north--with the town at the center. Each city will be supplied with pasture.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Six of these towns that you give the Levites will be asylum-cities to which anyone who accidentally kills another person may flee for asylum. In addition, you will give them forty-two other towns--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> forty-eight towns in all, together with their pastures.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The towns that you give the Levites from the common inheritance of the People of Israel are to be taken in proportion to the size of each tribe--many towns from a tribe that has many, few from a tribe that has few."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them, When you cross the River Jordan into the country of Canaan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> designate your asylum-cities, towns to which a person who accidentally kills someone can flee for asylum.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They will be places of refuge from the avenger so that the alleged murderer won't be killed until he can appear before the community in court.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Provide six asylum-cities.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Designate three of the towns to the east side of the Jordan, the other three in Canaan proper--asylum-cities</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> for the People of Israel, for the foreigner, and for any occasional visitors or guests--six asylum-cities to run to for anyone who accidentally kills another.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "But if the killer has used an iron object, that's just plain murder; he's obviously a murderer and must be put to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Or if he has a rock in his hand big enough to kill and the man dies, that's murder; he's a murderer and must be put to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Or if he's carrying a wooden club heavy enough to kill and the man dies, that's murder; he's a murderer and must be put to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "In such cases the avenger has a right to kill the murderer when he meets him--he can kill him on the spot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "And if out of sheer hatred a man pushes another or from ambush throws something at him and he dies,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> or angrily hits him with his fist and kills him, that's murder--he must be put to death. The avenger has a right to kill him when he gets him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "If, however, he impulsively pushes someone and there is no history of hard feelings, or he impetuously picks up something and throws it,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> or he accidentally drops a stone tool--a maul or hammer, say--and it hits and kills someone he didn't even know was there, and there's no suspicion that there was bad blood between them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> the community is to judge between the killer and the avenger following these guidelines.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> It's the task of the community to save the killer from the hand of the avenger--the community is to return him to his asylum-city to which he fled. He must stay there until the death of the High Priest who was anointed with the holy oil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> But if the murderer leaves the asylum-city to which he has fled,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> and the avenger finds him outside the borders of his asylum-city, the avenger has a right to kill the murderer. And he's not considered guilty of murder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "So it's important that he stay in his asylum-city until the death of the High Priest. After the death of the High Priest he is free to return to his own place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "These are the procedures for making judgments from now on, wherever you live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "Anyone who kills another may be executed only on the testimony of eyewitnesses. But no one can be executed on the testimony of only one witness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "Don't accept bribe money in exchange for the life of a murderer. He's guilty and deserves the death penalty. Put him to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "And don't accept bribe money for anyone who has fled to an asylum-city so as to permit him to go back and live in his own place before the death of the High Priest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "Don't pollute the land in which you live. Murder pollutes the land. The land can't be cleaned up of the blood of murder except through the blood of the murderer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "Don't desecrate the land in which you live. I live here too--I, GOD, live in the same neighborhood with the People of Israel."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="36">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The heads of the ancestral clan of Gilead son of Makir, the son of Manasseh--they were from the clans of the descendants of Joseph--approached Moses and the leaders who were heads of the families in the People of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They said, "When GOD commanded my master to hand over the inheritance-lands by lot to the People of Israel, my master was also commanded by GOD to hand over the inheritance-land of Zelophehad our brother to his daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But what happens if they marry into another tribe in the People of Israel? Their inheritance-land will be taken out of our ancestral tribe and get added into the tribe into which they married.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> And then when the Year of Jubilee comes for the People of Israel their inheritance will be lumped in with the inheritance of the tribe into which they married--their land will be removed from our ancestors' inheritance!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Moses, at GOD's command, issued this order to the People of Israel: "What the tribe of the sons of Joseph says is right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> This is GOD's command to Zelophehad's daughters: They are free to marry anyone they choose as long as they marry within their ancestral clan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The inheritance-land of the People of Israel must not get passed around from tribe to tribe. No, keep the tribal inheritance-land in the family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Every daughter who inherits land, regardless of the tribe she is in, must marry a man from within her father's tribal clan. Every Israelite is responsible for making sure the inheritance stays within the ancestral tribe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> No inheritance-land may be passed from tribe to tribe; each tribe of the People of Israel must hold tight to its own land."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Zelophehad's daughters did just as GOD commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, Zelophehad's daughters, all married their cousins on their father's side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They married within the families of Manasseh son of Joseph and their inheritance-lands stayed in their father's family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> These are the commands and regulations that GOD commanded through the authority of Moses to the People of Israel on the Plains of Moab at Jordan-Jericho.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="5" bname="Deuteronomy">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> These are the sermons Moses preached to all Israel when they were east of the Jordan River in the Arabah Wilderness, opposite Suph, in the vicinity of Paran, Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> It takes eleven days to travel from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea following the Mount Seir route.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> It was on the first day of the eleventh month of the fortieth year when Moses addressed the People of Israel, telling them everything GOD had commanded him concerning them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> This came after he had defeated Sihon king of the Amorites, who ruled from Heshbon, and Og king of Bashan, who ruled from Ashtaroth in Edrei.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> It was east of the Jordan in the land of Moab that Moses set out to explain this Revelation. He said:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Back at Horeb, GOD, our God, spoke to us: "You've stayed long enough at this mountain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> On your way now. Get moving. Head for the Amorite hills, wherever people are living in the Arabah, the mountains, the foothills, the Negev, the seashore--the Canaanite country and the Lebanon all the way to the big river, the Euphrates.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Look, I've given you this land. Now go in and take it. It's the land GOD promised to give your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their children after them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> At the time I told you, "I can't do this, can't carry you all by myself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> GOD, your God, has multiplied your numbers. Why, look at you--you rival the stars in the sky!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And may GOD, the God-of-Your-Fathers, keep it up and multiply you another thousand times, bless you just as he promised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But how can I carry, all by myself, your troubles and burdens and quarrels?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> So select some wise, understanding, and seasoned men from your tribes, and I will commission them as your leaders."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> You answered me, "Good! A good solution."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So I went ahead and took the top men of your tribes, wise and seasoned, and made them your leaders--leaders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens, officials adequate for each of your tribes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> At the same time I gave orders to your judges: "Listen carefully to complaints and accusations between your fellow Israelites. Judge fairly between each person and his fellow or foreigner.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Don't play favorites; treat the little and the big alike; listen carefully to each. Don't be impressed by big names. This is God's judgment you're dealing with. Hard cases you can bring to me; I'll deal with them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I issued orders to you at that time regarding everything you would have to deal with.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Then we set out from Horeb and headed for the Amorite hill country, going through that huge and frightening wilderness that you've had more than an eyeful of by now--all under the command of GOD, our God--and finally arrived at Kadesh Barnea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> There I told you, "You've made it to the Amorite hill country that GOD, our God, is giving us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Look, GOD, your God, has placed this land as a gift before you. Go ahead and take it now. GOD, the God-of-Your-Fathers, promised it to you. Don't be afraid. Don't lose heart."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But then you all came to me and said, "Let's send some men on ahead to scout out the land for us and bring back a report on the best route to take and the kinds of towns we can expect to find."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> That seemed like a good idea to me, so I picked twelve men, one from each tribe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> They set out, climbing through the hills. They came to the Eshcol Valley and looked it over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> They took samples of the produce of the land and brought them back to us, saying, "It's a good land that GOD, our God, is giving us!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> But then you weren't willing to go up. You rebelled against GOD, your God's plain word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> You complained in your tents: "GOD hates us. He hauled us out of Egypt in order to dump us among the Amorites--a death sentence for sure!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> How can we go up? We're trapped in a dead end. Our brothers took all the wind out of our sails, telling us, 'The people are bigger and stronger than we are; their cities are huge, their defenses massive--we even saw Anakite giants there!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> I tried to relieve your fears: "Don't be terrified of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> GOD, your God, is leading the way; he's fighting for you. You saw with your own eyes what he did for you in Egypt;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> you saw what he did in the wilderness, how GOD, your God, carried you as a father carries his child, carried you the whole way until you arrived here.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> But now that you're here, you won't trust GOD, your God--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> this same GOD who goes ahead of you in your travels to scout out a place to pitch camp, a fire by night and a cloud by day to show you the way to go."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> When GOD heard what you said, he exploded in anger. He swore,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> "Not a single person of this evil generation is going to get so much as a look at the good land that I promised to give to your parents. Not one--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> except for Caleb son of Jephunneh. He'll see it. I'll give him and his descendants the land he walked on because he was all for following GOD, heart and soul."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> But I also got it. Because of you GOD's anger spilled over onto me. He said, "You aren't getting in either.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Your assistant, Joshua son of Nun, will go in. Build up his courage. He's the one who will claim the inheritance for Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> And your babies of whom you said, 'They'll be grabbed for plunder,' and all these little kids who right now don't even know right from wrong--they'll get in. I'll give it to them. Yes, they'll be the new owners.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> But not you. Turn around and head back into the wilderness following the route to the Red Sea."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> You spoke up, "We've sinned against GOD. We'll go up and fight, following all the orders that GOD, our God, has commanded." You took your weapons and dressed for battle--you thought it would be so easy going into those hills!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> But GOD told me, "Tell them, 'Don't do it; don't go up to fight--I'm not with you in this. Your enemies will waste you.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> I told you but you wouldn't listen. You rebelled at the plain word of GOD. You threw out your chests and strutted into the hills.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> And those Amorites, who had lived in those hills all their lives, swarmed all over you like a hive of bees, chasing you from Seir all the way to Hormah, a stinging defeat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> You came back and wept in the presence of GOD, but he didn't pay a bit of attention to you; GOD didn't give you the time of day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> You stayed there in Kadesh a long time, about as long as you had stayed there earlier.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then we turned around and went back into the wilderness following the route to the Red Sea, as GOD had instructed me. We worked our way in and around the hills of Seir for a long, long time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Then GOD said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "You've been going around in circles in these hills long enough; go north.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Command the people, You're about to cut through the land belonging to your relatives, the People of Esau who settled in Seir. They are terrified of you, but restrain yourselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Don't try and start a fight. I am not giving you so much as a square inch of their land. I've already given all the hill country of Seir to Esau--he owns it all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Pay them up front for any food or water you get from them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD, your God, has blessed you in everything you have done. He has guarded you in your travels through this immense wilderness. For forty years now, GOD, your God, has been right here with you. You haven't lacked one thing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> So we detoured around our brothers, the People of Esau who live in Seir, avoiding the Arabah Road that comes up from Elath and Ezion Geber; instead we used the road through the Wilderness of Moab.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD told me, "And don't try to pick a fight with the Moabites. I am not giving you any of their land. I've given ownership of Ar to the People of Lot."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The Emites (Monsters) used to live there--mobs of hulking giants, like Anakites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Along with the Anakites they were lumped in with the Rephaites (Ghosts) but in Moab they were called Emites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Horites also used to live in Seir, but the descendants of Esau took over and destroyed them, the same as Israel did in the land GOD gave them to possess.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> GOD said, "It's time now to cross the Brook Zered." So we crossed the Brook Zered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> It took us thirty-eight years to get from Kadesh Barnea to the Brook Zered. That's how long it took for the entire generation of soldiers from the camp to die off, as GOD had sworn they would.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> GOD was relentless against them until the last one was gone from the camp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When the last of these soldiers had died,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> GOD said to me,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "This is the day you cut across the territory of Moab, at Ar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> When you approach the People of Ammon, don't try and pick a fight with them because I'm not giving you any of the land of the People of Ammon for yourselves--I've already given it to the People of Lot."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> It is also considered to have once been the land of the Rephaites. Rephaites lived there long ago--the Ammonites called them Zamzummites (Barbarians)--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> huge mobs of them, giants like the Anakites. GOD destroyed them and the Ammonites moved in and took over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> It was the same with the People of Esau who live in Seir--GOD got rid of the Horites who lived there earlier and they moved in and took over, as you can see.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Regarding the Avvites who lived in villages as far as Gaza, the Caphtorites who came from Caphtor (Crete) wiped them out and moved in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "On your feet now. Get started. Cross the Brook Arnon. Look: Here's Sihon the Amorite king of Heshbon and his land. I'm handing it over to you--it's all yours. Go ahead take it. Go to war with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Before the day is out, I'll make sure that all the people around here are thoroughly terrified. Rumors of you are going to spread like wildfire; they'll totally panic."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> From the Wilderness of Kedemoth, I sent messengers to Sihon, king of Heshbon. They carried a friendly message:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "Let me cross through your land on the highway. I'll stay right on the highway; I won't trespass right or left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> I'll pay you for any food or water we might need. Let me walk through.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "The People of Esau who live in Seir and the Moabites who live in Ar did this, helping me on my way until I can cross the Jordan and enter the land that GOD, our God, is giving us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> But Sihon king of Heshbon wouldn't let us cross his land. GOD, your God, turned his spirit mean and his heart hard so he could hand him over to you, as you can see that he has done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Then GOD said to me, "Look, I've got the ball rolling--Sihon and his land are soon yours. Go ahead. Take it. It's practically yours!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> So Sihon and his entire army confronted us in battle at Jahaz.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> GOD handed him, his sons, and his entire army over to us and we utterly crushed them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> While we were at it we captured all his towns and totally destroyed them, a holy destruction--men, women, and children. No survivors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> We took the livestock and the plunder from the towns we had captured and carried them off for ourselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> From Aroer on the edge of the Brook Arnon and the town in the gorge, as far as Gilead, not a single town proved too much for us; GOD, our God, gave every last one of them to us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> The only land you didn't take, obeying GOD's command, was the land of the People of Ammon, the land along the Jabbok and around the cities in the hills.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then we turned north and took the road to Bashan. Og king of Bashan, he and all his people, came out to meet us in battle at Edrei.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD said to me, "Don't be afraid of him; I'm turning him over to you, along with his whole army and his land. Treat him the way you treated Sihon king of the Amorites who ruled from Heshbon."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> So GOD, our God, also handed Og king of Bashan over to us--Og and all his people--and we utterly crushed them. Again, no survivors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> At the same time we took all his cities. There wasn't one of the sixty cities that we didn't take--the whole region of Argob, Og's kingdom in Bashan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> All these cities were fortress cities with high walls and barred gates. There were also numerous unwalled villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> We totally destroyed them--a holy destruction. It was the same treatment we gave to Sihon king of Heshbon, a holy destruction of every city, man, woman, and child.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But all the livestock and plunder from the cities we took for ourselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Throughout that time we took the land from under the control of the two kings of the Amorites who ruled the country east of the Jordan, all the way from the Brook Arnon to Mount Hermon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> (Sirion is the name given Hermon by the Sidonians; the Amorites call it Senir.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> We took all the towns of the plateau, everything in Gilead, everything in Bashan, as far as Salecah and Edrei, the border towns of Bashan, Og's kingdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Og king of Bashan was the last remaining Rephaite. His bed, made of iron, was over thirteen feet long and six wide. You can still see it on display in Rabbah of the People of Ammon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Of the land that we possessed at that time, I gave the Reubenites and the Gadites the territory north of Aroer along the Brook Arnon and half the hill country of Gilead with its towns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I gave the half-tribe of Manasseh the rest of Gilead and all of Bashan, Og's kingdom--all the region of Argob, which takes in all of Bashan. This used to be known as the Land of the Rephaites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Jair, a son of Manasseh, got the region of Argob to the borders of the Geshurites and Maacathites. He named the Bashan villages after himself, Havvoth Jair (Jair's Tent-Villages). They're still called that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I gave Gilead to Makir.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I gave the Reubenites and Gadites the land from Gilead down to the Brook Arnon, whose middle was the boundary, and as far as the Jabbok River, the boundary line of the People of Ammon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The western boundary was the Jordan River in the Arabah all the way from the Kinnereth (the Sea of Galilee) to the Sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea or Dead Sea) at the base of the slopes of Mount Pisgah on the east.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I commanded you at that time, "GOD, your God, has given you this land to possess. Your men, fit and armed for the fight, are to cross the river in advance of their brothers, the People of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Only your wives, children, and livestock (I know you have much livestock) may go ahead and settle down in the towns I have already given you</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> until GOD secures living space for your brothers as he has for you and they have taken possession of the country west of the Jordan that GOD, your God, is giving them. After that, each man may return to the land I've given you here."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I commanded Joshua at that time, "You've seen with your own two eyes everything GOD, your God, has done to these two kings. GOD is going to do the same thing to all the kingdoms over there across the river where you're headed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Don't be afraid of them. GOD, your God, --he's fighting for you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> At that same time, I begged GOD:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "GOD, my Master, you let me in on the beginnings, you let me see your greatness, you let me see your might--what god in Heaven or Earth can do anything like what you've done!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Please, let me in also on the endings, let me cross the river and see the good land over the Jordan, the lush hills, the Lebanon mountains."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> But GOD was still angry with me because of you. He wouldn't listen. He said, "Enough of that. Not another word from you on this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Climb to the top of Mount Pisgah and look around: look west, north, south, east. Take in the land with your own eyes. Take a good look because you're not going to cross this Jordan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "Then command Joshua: Give him courage. Give him strength. Single-handed he will lead this people across the river. Single-handed he'll cause them to inherit the land at which you can only look."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> That's why we have stayed in this valley near Beth Peor.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Now listen, Israel, listen carefully to the rules and regulations that I am teaching you to follow so that you may live and enter and take possession of the land that GOD, the God-of-Your-Fathers, is giving to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Don't add a word to what I command you, and don't remove a word from it. Keep the commands of GOD, your God, that I am commanding you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You saw with your own eyes what GOD did at Baal Peor, how GOD destroyed from among you every man who joined in the Baal Peor orgies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But you, the ones who held tight to GOD, your God, are alive and well, every one of you, today.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Pay attention: I'm teaching you the rules and regulations that GOD commanded me, so that you may live by them in the land you are entering to take up ownership.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Keep them. Practice them. You'll become wise and understanding. When people hear and see what's going on, they'll say, "What a great nation! So wise, so understanding! We've never seen anything like it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Yes. What other great nation has gods that are intimate with them the way GOD, our God, is with us, always ready to listen to us?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And what other great nation has rules and regulations as good and fair as this Revelation that I'm setting before you today?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Just make sure you stay alert. Keep close watch over yourselves. Don't forget anything of what you've seen. Don't let your heart wander off. Stay vigilant as long as you live. Teach what you've seen and heard to your children and grandchildren.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> That day when you stood before GOD, your God, at Horeb, GOD said to me, "Assemble the people in my presence to listen to my words so that they will learn to fear me in holy fear for as long as they live on the land, and then they will teach these same words to their children."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> You gathered. You stood in the shadow of the mountain. The mountain was ablaze with fire, blazing high into the very heart of Heaven. You stood in deep darkness and thick clouds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> GOD spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but you saw nothing--no form, only a voice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He announced his covenant, the Ten Words, by which he commanded you to live. Then he wrote them down on two slabs of stone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And GOD commanded me at that time to teach you the rules and regulations that you are to live by in the land which you are crossing over the Jordan to possess.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> You saw no form on the day GOD spoke to you at Horeb from out of the fire. Remember that. Carefully guard yourselves</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> so that you don't turn corrupt and make a form, carving a figure</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> that looks male or female, or looks like a prowling animal or a flying bird</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> or a slithering snake or a fish in a stream.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And also carefully guard yourselves so that you don't look up into the skies and see the sun and moon and stars, all the constellations of the skies, and be seduced into worshiping and serving them. GOD set them out for everybody's benefit, everywhere.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But you--GOD took you right out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to become the people of his inheritance--and that's what you are this very day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But GOD was angry with me because of you and the things you said. He swore that I'd never cross the Jordan, never get to enter the good land that GOD, your God, is giving you as an inheritance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> This means that I am going to die here. I'm not crossing the Jordan. But you will cross; you'll possess the good land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> So stay alert. Don't for a minute forget the covenant which GOD, your God, made with you. And don't take up with any carved images, no forms of any kind--GOD, your God, issued clear commands on that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> GOD, your God, is not to be trifled with--he's a consuming fire, a jealous God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> When the time comes that you have children and grandchildren, put on years, and start taking things for granted, if you then become corrupt and make any carved images, no matter what their form, by doing what is sheer evil in GOD's eyes and provoking his anger--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> I can tell you right now, with Heaven and Earth as witnesses, that it will be all over for you. You'll be kicked off the land that you're about to cross over the Jordan to possess. Believe me, you'll have a very short stay there. You'll be ruined, completely ruined.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> GOD will scatter you far and wide; a few of you will survive here and there in the nations where GOD will drive you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> There you can worship your homemade gods to your hearts' content, your wonderful gods of wood and stone that can't see or hear or eat or smell.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> But even there, if you seek GOD, your God, you'll be able to find him if you're serious, looking for him with your whole heart and soul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> When troubles come and all these awful things happen to you, in future days you will come back to GOD, your God, and listen obediently to what he says.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> GOD, your God, is above all a compassionate God. In the end he will not abandon you, he won't bring you to ruin, he won't forget the covenant with your ancestors which he swore to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Ask questions. Find out what has been going on all these years before you were born. From the day God created man and woman on this Earth, and from the horizon in the east to the horizon in the west--as far back as you can imagine and as far away as you can imagine--has as great a thing as this ever happened? Has anyone ever heard of such a thing?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Has a people ever heard, as you did, a god speaking out of the middle of the fire and lived to tell the story?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Or has a god ever tried to select for himself a nation from within a nation using trials, miracles, and war, putting his strong hand in, reaching his long arm out, a spectacle awesome and staggering, the way GOD, your God, did it for you in Egypt while you stood right there and watched?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> You were shown all this so that you would know that GOD is, well, God. He's the only God there is. He's it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> He made it possible for you to hear his voice out of Heaven to discipline you. Down on Earth, he showed you the big fire and again you heard his words, this time out of the fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> He loved your ancestors and chose to work with their children. He personally and powerfully brought you out of Egypt</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> in order to displace bigger and stronger and older nations with you, bringing you out and turning their land over to you as an inheritance. And now it's happening. This very day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Know this well, then. Take it to heart right now: GOD is in Heaven above; GOD is on Earth below. He's the only God there is.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Obediently live by his rules and commands which I'm giving you today so that you'll live well and your children after you--oh, you'll live a long time in the land that GOD, your God, is giving you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Then Moses set aside three towns in the country on the east side of the Jordan</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> to which someone who had unintentionally killed a person could flee and find refuge. If the murder was unintentional and there was no history of bad blood, the murderer could flee to one of these cities and save his life:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Bezer in the wilderness on the tableland for the Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> This is the Revelation that Moses presented to the People of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> These are the testimonies, the rules and regulations Moses spoke to the People of Israel after their exodus from Egypt</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> and arrival on the east side of the Jordan in the valley near Beth Peor. It was the country of Sihon king of the Amorites who ruled from Heshbon. Moses and the People of Israel fought and beat him after they left Egypt</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> and took his land. They also took the land of Og king of Bashan. The two Amorite kings held the country on the east of the Jordan</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> from Aroer on the bank of the Brook Arnon as far north as Mount Siyon, that is, Mount Hermon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> all the Arabah plain east of the Jordan, and as far south as the Sea of the Arabah (the Dead Sea) beneath the slopes of Mount Pisgah.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Moses called all Israel together. He said to them, Attention, Israel. Listen obediently to the rules and regulations I am delivering to your listening ears today. Learn them. Live them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD, our God, made a covenant with us at Horeb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> GOD didn't just make this covenant with our parents; he made it also with us, with all of us who are alive right now.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD spoke to you personally out of the fire on the mountain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> At the time I stood between GOD and you, to tell you what GOD said. You were afraid, remember, of the fire and wouldn't climb the mountain. He said:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I am GOD, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of a house of slaves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> No other gods, only me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> No carved gods of any size, shape, or form of anything whatever, whether of things that fly or walk or swim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Don't bow down to them and don't serve them because I am GOD, your God, and I'm a most jealous God. I hold parents responsible for any sins they pass on to their children to the third, and yes, even to the fourth generation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But I'm lovingly loyal to the thousands who love me and keep my commandments.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> No using the name of GOD, your God, in curses or silly banter; GOD won't put up with the irreverent use of his name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> No working on the Sabbath; keep it holy just as GOD, your God, commanded you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Work six days, doing everything you have to do,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> but the seventh day is a Sabbath, a Rest Day--no work: not you, your son, your daughter, your servant, your maid, your ox, your donkey (or any of your animals), and not even the foreigner visiting your town. That way your servants and maids will get the same rest as you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Don't ever forget that you were slaves in Egypt and GOD, your God, got you out of there in a powerful show of strength. That's why GOD, your God, commands you to observe the day of Sabbath rest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Respect your father and mother--GOD, your God, commands it! You'll have a long life; the land that God is giving you will treat you well.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> No murder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> No adultery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> No stealing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> No lies about your neighbor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> No coveting your neighbor's wife. And no lusting for his house, field, servant, maid, ox, or donkey either--nothing that belongs to your neighbor!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> These are the words that GOD spoke to the whole congregation at the mountain. He spoke in a tremendous voice from the fire and cloud and dark mist. And that was it. No more words. Then he wrote them on two slabs of stone and gave them to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> As it turned out, when you heard the Voice out of that dark cloud and saw the mountain on fire, you approached me, all the heads of your tribes and your leaders,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> and said, "Our GOD has revealed to us his glory and greatness. We've heard him speak from the fire today! We've seen that God can speak to humans and they can still live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> But why risk it further? This huge fire will devour us if we stay around any longer. If we hear GOD's voice anymore, we'll die for sure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Has anyone ever known of anyone who has heard the Voice of GOD the way we have and lived to tell the story?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "From now on, you go and listen to what GOD, our God, says and then tell us what GOD tells you. We'll listen and we'll do it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> GOD heard what you said to me and told me, "I've heard what the people said to you. They're right--good and true words.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> What I wouldn't give if they'd always feel this way, continuing to revere me and always keep all my commands; they'd have a good life forever, they and their children!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "Go ahead and tell them to go home to their tents.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> But you, you stay here with me so I can tell you every commandment and all the rules and regulations that you must teach them so they'll know how to live in the land that I'm giving them as their own."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> So be very careful to act exactly as GOD commands you. Don't veer off to the right or the left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Walk straight down the road GOD commands so that you'll have a good life and live a long time in the land that you're about to possess.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> This is the commandment, the rules and regulations, that GOD, your God, commanded me to teach you to live out in the land you're about to cross into to possess.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> This is so that you'll live in deep reverence before GOD lifelong, observing all his rules and regulations that I'm commanding you, you and your children and your grandchildren, living good long lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Listen obediently, Israel. Do what you're told so that you'll have a good life, a life of abundance and bounty, just as GOD promised, in a land abounding in milk and honey.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Attention, Israel! GOD, our God! GOD the one and only!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Love GOD, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that's in you, love him with all you've got!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Write these commandments that I've given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When GOD, your God, ushers you into the land he promised through your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give you, you're going to walk into large, bustling cities you didn't build,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> well-furnished houses you didn't buy, come upon wells you didn't dig, vineyards and olive orchards you didn't plant. When you take it all in and settle down, pleased and content,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> make sure you don't forget how you got there--GOD brought you out of slavery in Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Deeply respect GOD, your God. Serve and worship him exclusively. Back up your promises with his name only.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Don't fool around with other gods, the gods of your neighbors,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> because GOD, your God, who is alive among you is a jealous God. Don't provoke him, igniting his hot anger that would burn you right off the face of the Earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Don't push GOD, your God, to the wall as you did that day at Massah, the Testing-Place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Carefully keep the commands of GOD, your God, all the requirements and regulations he gave you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Do what is right; do what is good in GOD's sight so you'll live a good life and be able to march in and take this pleasant land that GOD so solemnly promised through your ancestors,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> throwing out your enemies left and right--exactly as GOD said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The next time your child asks you, "What do these requirements and regulations and rules that GOD, our God, has commanded mean?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> tell your child, "We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and GOD powerfully intervened and got us out of that country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> We stood there and watched as GOD delivered miracle-signs, great wonders, and evil-visitations on Egypt, on Pharaoh and his household.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> He pulled us out of there so he could bring us here and give us the land he so solemnly promised to our ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> That's why GOD commanded us to follow all these rules, so that we would live reverently before GOD, our God, as he gives us this good life, keeping us alive for a long time to come.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "It will be a set-right and put-together life for us if we make sure that we do this entire commandment in the Presence of GOD, our God, just as he commanded us to do."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When GOD, your God, brings you into the country that you are about to enter and take over, he will clear out the superpowers that were there before you: the Hittite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Those seven nations are all bigger and stronger than you are.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD, your God, will turn them over to you and you will conquer them. You must completely destroy them, offering them up as a holy destruction to GOD. Don't make a treaty with them. Don't let them off in any way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Don't marry them: Don't give your daughters to their sons and don't take their daughters for your sons--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> before you know it they'd involve you in worshiping their gods, and GOD would explode in anger, putting a quick end to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Here's what you are to do: Tear apart their altars stone by stone, smash their phallic pillars, chop down their sex-and-religion Asherah groves, set fire to their carved god-images.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Do this because you are a people set apart as holy to GOD, your God. GOD, your God, chose you out of all the people on Earth for himself as a cherished, personal treasure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD wasn't attracted to you and didn't choose you because you were big and important--the fact is, there was almost nothing to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He did it out of sheer love, keeping the promise he made to your ancestors. GOD stepped in and mightily bought you back out of that world of slavery, freed you from the iron grip of Pharaoh king of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Know this: GOD, your God, is God indeed, a God you can depend upon. He keeps his covenant of loyal love with those who love him and observe his commandments for a thousand generations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But he also pays back those who hate him, pays them the wages of death; he isn't slow to pay them off--those who hate him, he pays right on time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> So keep the command and the rules and regulations that I command you today. Do them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And this is what will happen: When you, on your part, will obey these directives, keeping and following them, GOD, on his part, will keep the covenant of loyal love that he made with your ancestors:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He will love you, he will bless you, he will increase you. He will bless the babies from your womb and the harvest of grain, new wine, and oil from your fields; he'll bless the calves from your herds and lambs from your flocks in the country he promised your ancestors that he'd give you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> You'll be blessed beyond all other peoples: no sterility or barrenness in you or your animals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> GOD will get rid of all sickness. And all the evil afflictions you experienced in Egypt he'll put not on you but on those who hate you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> You'll make mincemeat of all the peoples that GOD, your God, hands over to you. Don't feel sorry for them. And don't worship their gods--they'll trap you for sure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> You're going to think to yourselves, "Oh! We're outnumbered ten to one by these nations! We'll never even make a dent in them!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But I'm telling you, Don't be afraid. Remember, yes, remember in detail what GOD, your God, did to Pharaoh and all Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Remember the great contests to which you were eyewitnesses: the miracle-signs, the wonders, GOD's mighty hand as he stretched out his arm and took you out of there. GOD, your God, is going to do the same thing to these people you're now so afraid of.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And to top it off, the Hornet. GOD will unleash the Hornet on them until every survivor-in-hiding is dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> So don't be intimidated by them. GOD, your God, is among you--GOD majestic, GOD awesome.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> GOD, your God, will get rid of these nations, bit by bit. You won't be permitted to wipe them out all at once lest the wild animals take over and overwhelm you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But GOD, your God, will move them out of your way--he'll throw them into a huge panic until there's nothing left of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He'll turn their kings over to you and you'll remove all trace of them under Heaven. Not one person will be able to stand up to you; you'll put an end to them all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Make sure you set fire to their carved gods. Don't get greedy for the veneer of silver and gold on them and take it for yourselves--you'll get trapped by it for sure. GOD hates it; it's an abomination to GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> And don't dare bring one of these abominations home or you'll end up just like it, burned up as a holy destruction. No: It is forbidden! Hate it. Abominate it. Destroy it and preserve GOD's holiness.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Keep and live out the entire commandment that I'm commanding you today so that you'll live and prosper and enter and own the land that GOD promised to your ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Remember every road that GOD led you on for those forty years in the wilderness, pushing you to your limits, testing you so that he would know what you were made of, whether you would keep his commandments or not.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He put you through hard times. He made you go hungry. Then he fed you with manna, something neither you nor your parents knew anything about, so you would learn that men and women don't live by bread only; we live by every word that comes from GOD's mouth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Your clothes didn't wear out and your feet didn't blister those forty years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You learned deep in your heart that GOD disciplines you in the same ways a father disciplines his child.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So it's paramount that you keep the commandments of GOD, your God, walk down the roads he shows you and reverently respect him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD is about to bring you into a good land, a land with brooks and rivers, springs and lakes, streams out of the hills and through the valleys.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> It's a land of wheat and barley, of vines and figs and pomegranates, of olives, oil, and honey.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> It's land where you'll never go hungry--always food on the table and a roof over your head. It's a land where you'll get iron out of rocks and mine copper from the hills.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> After a meal, satisfied, bless GOD, your God, for the good land he has given you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Make sure you don't forget GOD, your God, by not keeping his commandments, his rules and regulations that I command you today</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Make sure that when you eat and are satisfied, build pleasant houses and settle in,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> see your herds and flocks flourish and more and more money come in, watch your standard of living going up and up--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> make sure you don't become so full of yourself and your things that you forget GOD, your God, the God who delivered you from Egyptian slavery;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> the God who led you through that huge and fearsome wilderness, those desolate, arid badlands crawling with fiery snakes and scorpions; the God who gave you water gushing from hard rock;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> the God who gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, some- -thing your ancestors had never heard of, in order to give you a taste of the hard life, to test you so that you would be prepared to live well in the days ahead of you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> If you start thinking to yourselves, "I did all this. And all by myself. I'm rich. It's all mine!"--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> well, think again. Remember that GOD, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that he promised to your ancestors--as it is today.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> If you forget, forget GOD, your God, and start taking up with other gods, serving and worshiping them, I'm on record right now as giving you firm warning: that will be the end of you; I mean it--destruction.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> You'll go to your doom--the same as the nations GOD is destroying before you; doom because you wouldn't obey the Voice of GOD, your God.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Attention, Israel! This very day you are crossing the Jordan to enter the land and dispossess nations that are much bigger and stronger than you are. You're going to find huge cities with sky-high fortress-walls and</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> gigantic people, descendants of the Anakites--you've heard all about them; you've heard the saying, "No one can stand up to an Anakite."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Today know this: GOD, your God, is crossing the river ahead of you--he's a consuming fire. He will destroy the nations, he will put them under your power. You will dispossess them and very quickly wipe them out, just as GOD promised you would.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But when GOD pushes them out ahead of you, don't start thinking to yourselves, "It's because of all the good I've done that GOD has brought me in here to dispossess these nations." Actually it's because of all the evil these nations have done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> No, it's nothing good that you've done, no record for decency that you've built up, that got you here; it's because of the vile wickedness of these nations that GOD, your God, is dispossessing them before you so that he can keep his promised word to your ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Know this and don't ever forget it: It's not because of any good that you've done that GOD is giving you this good land to own. Anything but! You're stubborn as mules.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Keep in mind and don't ever forget how angry you made GOD, your God, in the wilderness. You've kicked and screamed against GOD from the day you left Egypt until you got to this place, rebels all the way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You made GOD angry at Horeb, made him so angry that he wanted to destroy you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When I climbed the mountain to receive the slabs of stone, the tablets of the covenant that GOD made with you, I stayed there on the mountain forty days and nights: I ate no food; I drank no water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then GOD gave me the two slabs of stone, engraved with the finger of God. They contained word for word everything that GOD spoke to you on the mountain out of the fire, on the day of the assembly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> It was at the end of the forty days and nights that GOD gave me the two slabs of stone, the tablets of the covenant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> GOD said to me, "Get going, and quickly. Get down there, because your people whom you led out of Egypt have ruined everything. In almost no time at all they have left the road that I laid out for them and gone off and made for themselves a cast god."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> GOD said, "I look at this people and all I see are hardheaded, hardhearted rebels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Get out of my way now so I can destroy them. I'm going to wipe them off the face of the map. Then I'll start over with you to make a nation far better and bigger than they could ever be."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I turned around and started down the mountain--by now the mountain was blazing with fire--carrying the two tablets of the covenant in my two arms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> That's when I saw it: There you were, sinning against GOD, your God--you had made yourselves a cast god in the shape of a calf! So soon you had left the road that GOD had commanded you to walk on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I held the two stone slabs high and threw them down, smashing them to bits as you watched.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Then I prostrated myself before GOD, just as I had at the beginning of the forty days and nights. I ate no food; I drank no water. I did this because of you, all your sins, sinning against GOD, doing what is evil in GOD's eyes and making him angry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I was terrified of GOD's furious anger, his blazing anger. I was sure he would destroy you. But once again GOD listened to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And Aaron! How furious he was with Aaron--ready to destroy him. But I prayed also for Aaron at that same time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But that sin-thing that you made, that calf-god, I took and burned in the fire, pounded and ground it until it was crushed into a fine powder, then threw it into the stream that comes down the mountain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> And then there was Camp Taberah (Blaze), Massah (Testing-Place), and Camp Kibroth Hattaavah (Graves-of-the-Craving)--more occasions when you made God furious with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The most recent was when GOD sent you out from Kadesh Barnea, ordering you: "Go. Possess the land that I'm giving you." And what did you do? You rebelled. Rebelled against the clear orders of GOD, your God. Refused to trust him. Wouldn't obey him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> You've been rebels against GOD from the first day I knew you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> When I was on my face, prostrate before GOD those forty days and nights after GOD said he would destroy you,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> I prayed to GOD for you, "My Master, GOD, don't destroy your people, your inheritance whom, in your immense generosity, you redeemed, using your enormous strength to get them out of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; don't make too much of the stubbornness of this people, their evil and their sin,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> lest the Egyptians from whom you rescued them say, 'GOD couldn't do it; he got tired and wasn't able to take them to the land he promised them. He ended up hating them and dumped them in the wilderness to die.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "They are your people still, your inheritance whom you powerfully and sovereignly rescued."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD responded. He said, "Shape two slabs of stone similar to the first ones. Climb the mountain and meet me. Also make yourself a wooden chest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I will engrave the stone slabs with the words that were on the first ones, the ones you smashed. Then you will put them in the Chest."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> So I made a chest out of acacia wood, shaped two slabs of stone, just like the first ones, and climbed the mountain with the two slabs in my arms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He engraved the stone slabs the same as he had the first ones, the Ten Words that he addressed to you on the mountain out of the fire on the day of the assembly. Then GOD gave them to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I turned around and came down the mountain. I put the stone slabs in the Chest that I made and they've been there ever since, just as GOD commanded me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The People of Israel went from the wells of the Jaakanites to Moserah. Aaron died there and was buried. His son Eleazar succeeded him as priest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> From there they went to Gudgodah, and then to Jotbathah, a land of streams of water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> That's when GOD set apart the tribe of Levi to carry GOD's Covenant Chest, to be on duty in the Presence of GOD, to serve him, and to bless in his name, as they continue to do today.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And that's why Levites don't have a piece of inherited land as their kinsmen do. GOD is their inheritance, as GOD, your God, promised them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I stayed there on the mountain forty days and nights, just as I did the first time. And GOD listened to me, just as he did the first time: GOD decided not to destroy you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD told me, "Now get going. Lead your people as they resume the journey to take possession of the land that I promised their ancestors that I'd give to them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> So now Israel, what do you think GOD expects from you? Just this: Live in his presence in holy reverence, follow the road he sets out for you, love him, serve GOD, your God, with everything you have in you,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> obey the commandments and regulations of GOD that I'm commanding you today--live a good life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Look around you: Everything you see is GOD's--the heavens above and beyond, the Earth, and everything on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But it was your ancestors that GOD fell in love with; he picked their children--that's you!--out of all the other peoples. That's where we are right now.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So cut away the thick calluses from your heart and stop being so willfully hardheaded.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> GOD, your God, is the God of all gods, he's the Master of all masters, a God immense and powerful and awesome. He doesn't play favorites, takes no bribes,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> makes sure orphans and widows are treated fairly, takes loving care of foreigners by seeing that they get food and clothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> You must treat foreigners with the same loving care-- remember, you were once foreigners in Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Reverently respect GOD, your God, serve him, hold tight to him, back up your promises with the authority of his name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He's your praise! He's your God! He did all these tremendous, these staggering things that you saw with your own eyes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> When your ancestors entered Egypt, they numbered a mere seventy souls. And now look at you--you look more like the stars in the night skies in number. And your GOD did it.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> So love GOD, your God; guard well his rules and regulations; obey his commandments for the rest of time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Today it's very clear that it isn't your children who are front and center here: They weren't in on what GOD did, didn't see the acts, didn't experience the discipline, didn't marvel at his greatness, the way he displayed his power in the miracle-signs and deeds</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> that he let loose in Egypt on Pharaoh king of Egypt and all his land,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> the way he took care of the Egyptian army, its horses and chariots, burying them in the waters of the Red Sea as they pursued you. GOD drowned them. And you're standing here today alive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Nor was it your children who saw how GOD took care of you in the wilderness up until the time you arrived here,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab son of Reuben, how the Earth opened its jaws and swallowed them with their families--their tents, and everything around them--right out of the middle of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Yes, it was you--your eyes--that saw every great thing that GOD did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> So it's you who are in charge of keeping the entire commandment that I command you today so that you'll have the strength to invade and possess the land that you are crossing the river to make your own.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Your obedience will give you a long life on the soil that GOD promised to give your ancestors and their children, a land flowing with milk and honey.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The land you are entering to take up ownership isn't like Egypt, the land you left, where you had to plant your own seed and water it yourselves as in a vegetable garden.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But the land you are about to cross the river and take for your own is a land of mountains and valleys; it drinks water that rains from the sky.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> It's a land that GOD, your God, personally tends--he's the gardener--he alone keeps his eye on it all year long.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> From now on if you listen obediently to the commandments that I am commanding you today, love GOD, your God, and serve him with everything you have within you,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> he'll take charge of sending the rain at the right time, both autumn and spring rains, so that you'll be able to harvest your grain, your grapes, your olives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He'll make sure there's plenty of grass for your animals. You'll have plenty to eat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But be vigilant, lest you be seduced away and end up serving and worshiping other gods</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> and GOD erupts in anger and shuts down Heaven so there's no rain and nothing grows in the fields, and in no time at all you're starved out--not a trace of you left on the good land that GOD is giving you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Place these words on your hearts. Get them deep inside you. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Teach them to your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning until you fall into bed at night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Inscribe them on the doorposts and gates of your cities</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> so that you'll live a long time, and your children with you, on the soil that GOD promised to give your ancestors for as long as there is a sky over the Earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> That's right. If you diligently keep all this commandment that I command you to obey--love GOD, your God, do what he tells you, stick close to him--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> GOD on his part will drive out all these nations that stand in your way. Yes, he'll drive out nations much bigger and stronger than you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Every square inch on which you place your foot will be yours. Your borders will stretch from the wilderness to the mountains of Lebanon, from the Euphrates River to the Mediterranean Sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> No one will be able to stand in your way. Everywhere you go, GOD-sent fear and trembling will precede you, just as he promised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> I've brought you today to the crossroads of Blessing and Curse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The Blessing: if you listen obediently to the commandments of GOD, your God, which I command you today.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The Curse: if you don't pay attention to the commandments of GOD, your God, but leave the road that I command you today, following other gods of which you know nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Here's what comes next: When GOD, your God, brings you into the land you are going into to make your own, you are to give out the Blessing from Mount Gerizim and the Curse from Mount Ebal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> After you cross the Jordan River, follow the road to the west through Canaanite settlements in the valley near Gilgal and the Oaks of Moreh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> You are crossing the Jordan River to invade and take the land that GOD, your God, is giving you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Be vigilant. Observe all the regulations and rules I am setting before you today.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> These are the rules and regulations that you must diligently observe for as long as you live in this country that GOD, the God-of-Your-Fathers, has given you to possess.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Ruthlessly demolish all the sacred shrines where the nations that you're driving out worship their gods--wherever you find them, on hills and mountains or in groves of green trees.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Tear apart their altars. Smash their phallic pillars. Burn their sex-and-religion Asherah shrines. Break up their carved gods. Obliterate the names of those god sites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Stay clear of those places--don't let what went on there contaminate the worship of GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Instead find the site that GOD, your God, will choose and mark it with his name as a common center for all the tribes of Israel. Assemble there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Bring to that place your Absolution-Offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and Tribute-Offerings, your Vow-Offerings, your Freewill-Offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Feast there in the Presence of GOD, your God. Celebrate everything that you and your families have accomplished under the blessing of GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Don't continue doing things the way we're doing them at present, each of us doing as we wish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Until now you haven't arrived at the goal, the resting place, the inheritance that GOD, your God, is giving you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But the minute you cross the Jordan River and settle into the land GOD, your God, is enabling you to inherit, he'll give you rest from all your surrounding enemies. You'll be able to settle down and live in safety.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> From then on, at the place that GOD, your God, chooses to mark with his name as the place where you can meet him, bring everything that I command you: your Absolution-Offerings and sacrifices, tithes and Tribute-Offerings, and the best of your Vow-Offerings that you vow to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Celebrate there in the Presence of GOD, your God, you and your sons and daughters, your servants and maids, including the Levite living in your neighborhood because he has no place of his own in your inheritance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Be extra careful: Don't offer your Absolution-Offerings just any place that strikes your fancy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Offer your Absolution-Offerings only in the place that GOD chooses in one of your tribal regions. There and only there are you to bring all that I command you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> It's permissible to slaughter your nonsacrificial animals like gazelle and deer in your towns and eat all you want from them with the blessing of GOD, your God. Both the ritually clean and unclean may eat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But you may not eat the blood. Pour the blood out on the ground like water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Nor may you eat there the tithe of your grain, new wine, or olive oil; nor the firstborn of your herds and flocks; nor any of the Vow-Offerings that you vow; nor your Freewill-Offerings and Tribute-Offerings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> All these you must eat in the Presence of GOD, your God, in the place GOD, your God, chooses--you, your son and daughter, your servant and maid, and the Levite who lives in your neighborhood. You are to celebrate in the Presence of GOD, your God, all the things you've been able to accomplish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And make sure that for as long as you live on your land you never, never neglect the Levite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> When GOD, your God, expands your territory as he promised he would do, and you say, "I'm hungry for meat," because you happen to be craving meat at the time, go ahead and eat as much meat as you want.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> If you're too far away from the place that GOD, your God, has marked with his name, it's all right to slaughter animals from your herds and flocks that GOD has given you, as I've commanded you. In your own towns you may eat as much of them as you want.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Just as the nonsacrificial animals like the gazelle and deer are eaten, you may eat them; the ritually unclean and clean may eat them at the same table.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Only this: Absolutely no blood. Don't eat the blood. Blood is life; don't eat the life with the meat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Don't eat it; pour it out on the ground like water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Don't eat it; then you'll have a good life, you and your children after you. By all means, do the right thing in GOD's eyes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> And this: Lift high your Holy-Offerings and your Vow-Offerings and bring them to the place GOD designates.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Sacrifice your Absolution-Offerings, the meat and blood, on the Altar of GOD, your God; pour out the blood of the Absolution-Offering on the Altar of GOD, your God; then you can go ahead and eat the meat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Be vigilant, listen obediently to these words that I command you so that you'll have a good life, you and your children, for a long, long time, doing what is good and right in the eyes of GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> When GOD, your God, cuts off the nations whose land you are invading, shoves them out of your way so that you displace them and settle in their land,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> be careful that you don't get curious about them after they've been destroyed before you. Don't get fascinated with their gods, thinking, "I wonder what it was like for them, worshiping their gods. I'd like to try that myself."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Don't do this to GOD, your God. They commit every imaginable abomination with their gods. GOD hates it all with a passion. Why, they even set their children on fire as offerings to their gods!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Diligently do everything I command you, the way I command you: don't add to it; don't subtract from it.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When a prophet or visionary gets up in your community and gives out a miracle-sign or wonder,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> and the miracle-sign or wonder that he gave out happens and he says, "Let's follow other gods" (these are gods you know nothing about), "let's worship them,"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> don't pay any attention to what that prophet or visionary says. GOD, your God, is testing you to find out if you totally love him with everything you have in you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You are to follow only GOD, your God, hold him in deep reverence, keep his commandments, listen obediently to what he says, serve him--hold on to him for dear life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And that prophet or visionary must be put to death. He has urged mutiny against GOD, your God, who rescued you from Egypt, who redeemed you from a world of slavery and put you on the road on which GOD, your God, has commanded you to walk. Purge the evil from your company.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And when your brother or son or daughter, or even your dear wife or lifelong friend, comes to you in secret and whispers, "Let's go and worship some other gods" (gods that you know nothing about, neither you nor your ancestors,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> the gods of the peoples around you near and far, from one end of the Earth to the other),</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> don't go along with him; shut your ears. Don't feel sorry for him and don't make excuses for him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Kill him. That's right, kill him. You throw the first stone. Take action at once and swiftly with everybody in the community getting in on it at the end.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Stone him with stones so that he dies. He tried to turn you traitor against GOD, your God, the one who got you out of Egypt and the world of slavery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Every man, woman, and child in Israel will hear what's been done and be in awe. No one will dare to do an evil thing like this again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When word comes in from one of your cities that GOD, your God, is giving you to live in,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> reporting that evil men have gotten together with some of the citizens of the city and have broken away, saying, "Let's go and worship other gods" (gods you know nothing about),</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> then you must conduct a careful examination. Ask questions, investigate. If it turns out that the report is true and this abomination did in fact take place in your community,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> you must execute the citizens of that town. Kill them, setting that city apart for holy destruction: the city and everything in it including its animals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Gather the plunder in the middle of the town square and burn it all--town and plunder together up in smoke, a holy sacrifice to GOD, your God. Leave it there, ashes and ruins. Don't build on that site again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And don't let any of the plunder devoted to holy destruction stick to your fingers. Get rid of it so that GOD may turn from anger to compassion, generously making you prosper, just as he promised your ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Yes. Obediently listen to GOD, your God. Keep all his commands that I am giving you today. Do the right thing in the eyes of GOD, your God.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> You are children of GOD, your God, so don't mutilate your bodies or shave your heads in funeral rites for the dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> You only are a people holy to GOD, your God; GOD chose you out of all the people on Earth as his cherished personal treasure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Don't eat anything abominable.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> These are the animals you may eat: ox, sheep, goat,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> deer, gazelle, roebuck, wild goat, ibex, antelope, mountain sheep--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> any animal that has a cloven hoof and chews the cud.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But you may not eat camels, rabbits, and rock badgers because they chew the cud but they don't have a cloven hoof--that makes them ritually unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And pigs: Don't eat pigs--they have a cloven hoof but don't chew the cud, which makes them ritually unclean. Don't even touch a pig's carcass.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> This is what you may eat from the water: anything that has fins and scales.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But if it doesn't have fins or scales, you may not eat it. It's ritually unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> You may eat any ritually clean bird.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> These are the exceptions, so don't eat these: eagle, vulture, black vulture,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> kite, falcon, the buzzard family,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> the raven family,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> ostrich, nighthawk, the hawk family,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> little owl, great owl, white owl,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> pelican, osprey, cormorant,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> stork, the heron family, hoopoe, bat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Winged insects are ritually unclean; don't eat them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But ritually clean winged creatures are permitted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Because you are a people holy to GOD, your God, don't eat anything that you find dead. You can, though, give it to a foreigner in your neighborhood for a meal or sell it to a foreigner. Don't boil a kid in its mother's milk.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Make an offering of ten percent, a tithe, of all the produce which grows in your fields year after year.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Bring this into the Presence of GOD, your God, at the place he designates for worship and there eat the tithe from your grain, wine, and oil and the firstborn from your herds and flocks. In this way you will learn to live in deep reverence before GOD, your God, as long as you live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> But if the place GOD, your God, designates for worship is too far away and you can't carry your tithe that far, GOD, your God, will still bless you:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> exchange your tithe for money and take the money to the place GOD, your God, has chosen to be worshiped.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Use the money to buy anything you want: cattle, sheep, wine, or beer--anything that looks good to you. You and your family can then feast in the Presence of GOD, your God, and have a good time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Meanwhile, don't forget to take good care of the Levites who live in your towns; they won't get any property or inheritance of their own as you will.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> At the end of every third year, gather the tithe from all your produce of that year and put it aside in storage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Keep it in reserve for the Levite who won't get any property or inheritance as you will, and for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow who live in your neighborhood. That way they'll have plenty to eat and GOD, your God, will bless you in all your work.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> At the end of every seventh year, cancel all debts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> This is the procedure: Everyone who has lent money to a neighbor writes it off. You must not press your neighbor or his brother for payment: All-Debts-Are-Canceled--GOD says so.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You may collect payment from foreigners, but whatever you have lent to your fellow Israelite you must write off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> There must be no poor people among you because GOD is going to bless you lavishly in this land that GOD, your God, is giving you as an inheritance, your very own land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But only if you listen obediently to the Voice of GOD, your God, diligently observing every commandment that I command you today.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Oh yes--GOD, your God, will bless you just as he promised. You will lend to many nations but won't borrow from any; you'll rule over many nations but none will rule over you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When you happen on someone who's in trouble or needs help among your people with whom you live in this land that GOD, your God, is giving you, don't look the other way pretending you don't see him. Don't keep a tight grip on your purse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> No. Look at him, open your purse, lend whatever and as much as he needs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Don't count the cost. Don't listen to that selfish voice saying, "It's almost the seventh year, the year of All-Debts-Are-Canceled," and turn aside and leave your needy neighbor in the lurch, refusing to help him. He'll call GOD's attention to you and your blatant sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Give freely and spontaneously. Don't have a stingy heart. The way you handle matters like this triggers GOD, your God's, blessing in everything you do, all your work and ventures.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> There are always going to be poor and needy people among you. So I command you: Always be generous, open purse and hands, give to your neighbors in trouble, your poor and hurting neighbors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> If a Hebrew man or Hebrew woman was sold to you and has served you for six years, in the seventh year you must set him or her free, released into a free life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And when you set them free don't send them off empty-handed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Provide them with some animals, plenty of bread and wine and oil. Load them with provisions from all the blessings with which GOD, your God, has blessed you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Don't for a minute forget that you were once slaves in Egypt and GOD, your God, redeemed you from that slave world. For that reason, this day I command you to do this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But if your slave, because he loves you and your family and has a good life with you, says, "I don't want to leave you,"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> then take an awl and pierce through his earlobe into the doorpost, marking him as your slave forever. Do the same with your women slaves who want to stay with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Don't consider this an unreasonable hardship, this setting your slave free. After all, he's worked six years for you at half the cost of a hired hand. Believe me, GOD, your God, will bless you in everything you do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Consecrate to GOD, your God, all the firstborn males in your herds and flocks. Don't use the firstborn from your herds as work animals; don't shear the firstborn from your flocks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> These are for you to eat every year, you and your family, in the Presence of GOD, your God, at the place that GOD designates for worship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> If the animal is defective, lame, say, or blind--anything wrong with it--don't slaughter it as a sacrifice to GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Stay at home and eat it there. Both the ritually clean and unclean may eat it, the same as with a gazelle or a deer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Only you must not eat its blood. Pour the blood out on the ground like water.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Observe the month of Abib by celebrating the Passover to GOD, your God. It was in the month of Abib that GOD, your God, delivered you by night from Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Offer the Passover-Sacrifice to GOD, your God, at the place GOD chooses to be worshiped by establishing his name there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Don't eat yeast bread with it; for seven days eat it with unraised bread, hard-times bread, because you left Egypt in a hurry--that bread will keep the memory fresh of how you left Egypt for as long as you live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> There is to be no sign of yeast anywhere for seven days. And don't let any of the meat that you sacrifice in the evening be left over until morning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Don't sacrifice the Passover in any of the towns that GOD, your God, gives you</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> other than the one GOD, your God, designates for worship; there and there only you will offer the Passover-Sacrifice at evening as the sun goes down, marking the time that you left Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Boil and eat it at the place designated by GOD, your God. Then, at daybreak, turn around and go home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Eat unraised bread for six days. Set aside the seventh day as a holiday; don't do any work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Starting from the day you put the sickle to the ripe grain, count out seven weeks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Celebrate the Feast-of-Weeks to GOD, your God, by bringing your Freewill-Offering--give as generously as GOD, your God, has blessed you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Rejoice in the Presence of GOD, your God: you, your son, your daughter, your servant, your maid, the Levite who lives in your neighborhood, the foreigner, the orphan and widow among you; rejoice at the place GOD, your God, will set aside to be worshiped.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Don't forget that you were once a slave in Egypt. So be diligent in observing these regulations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Observe the Feast-of-Booths for seven days when you gather the harvest from your threshing-floor and your wine-vat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Rejoice at your festival: you, your son, your daughter, your servant, your maid, the Levite, the foreigner, and the orphans and widows who live in your neighborhood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Celebrate the Feast to GOD, your God, for seven days at the place GOD designates. GOD, your God, has been blessing you in your harvest and in all your work, so make a day of it--really celebrate!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> All your men must appear before GOD, your God, three times each year at the place he designates: at the Feast-of-Unraised-Bread (Passover), at the Feast-of-Weeks, and at the Feast-of-Booths. No one is to show up in the Presence of GOD empty-handed;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> each man must bring as much as he can manage, giving generously in response to the blessings of GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Appoint judges and officers, organized by tribes, in all the towns that GOD, your God, is giving you. They are to judge the people fairly and honestly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Don't twist the law. Don't play favorites. Don't take a bribe--a bribe blinds even a wise person; it undermines the intentions of the best of people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The right! The right! Pursue only what's right! It's the only way you can really live and possess the land that GOD, your God, is giving you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Don't plant fertility Asherah trees alongside the Altar of GOD, your God, that you build.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Don't set up phallic sex pillars--GOD, your God, hates them.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="17">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> And don't sacrifice to GOD, your God, an ox or sheep that is defective or has anything at all wrong with it. That's an abomination, an insult to GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> If you find anyone within the towns that GOD, your God, is giving you doing what is wrong in GOD's eyes, breaking his covenant</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> by going off to worship other gods, bowing down to them--the sun, say, or the moon, or any rebel sky-gods--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> look at the evidence and investigate carefully. If you find that it is true, that, in fact, an abomination has been committed in Israel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> then you are to take the man or woman who did this evil thing outside your city gates and stone the man or the woman. Hurl stones at the person until dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But only on the testimony of two or three witnesses may a person be put to death. No one may be put to death on the testimony of one witness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The witnesses must throw the first stones in the execution, then the rest of the community joins in. You have to purge the evil from your community.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> When matters of justice come up that are too much for you--hard cases regarding homicides, legal disputes, fights--take them up to the central place of worship that GOD, your God, has designated.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Bring them to the Levitical priests and the judge who is in office at the time. Consult them and they will hand down the decision for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then carry out their verdict at the place designated by GOD, your God. Do what they tell you, in exactly the way they tell you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Follow their instructions precisely: Don't leave out anything; don't add anything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Anyone who presumes to override or twist the decision handed down by the priest or judge who was acting in the Presence of GOD, your God, is as good as dead--root him out, rid Israel of the evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Everyone will take notice and be impressed. That will put an end to presumptuous behavior.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> When you enter the land that GOD, your God, is giving you and take it over and settle down, and then say, "I'm going to get me a king, a king like all the nations around me,"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> make sure you get yourself a king whom GOD, your God, chooses. Choose your king from among your kinsmen; don't take a foreigner--only a kinsman.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> And make sure he doesn't build up a war machine, amassing military horses and chariots. He must not send people to Egypt to get more horses, because GOD told you, "You'll never go back there again!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And make sure he doesn't build up a harem, collecting wives who will divert him from the straight and narrow. And make sure he doesn't pile up a lot of silver and gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> This is what must be done: When he sits down on the throne of his kingdom, the first thing he must do is make himself a copy of this Revelation on a scroll, copied under the supervision of the Levitical priests.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> That scroll is to remain at his side at all times; he is to study it every day so that he may learn what it means to fear his GOD, living in reverent obedience before these rules and regulations by following them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He must not become proud and arrogant, changing the commands at whim to suit himself or making up his own versions. If he reads and learns, he will have a long reign as king in Israel, he and his sons.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="18">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Levitical priests--that's the entire tribe of Levi--don't get any land-inheritance with the rest of Israel. They get the Fire-Gift-Offerings of GOD--they will live on that inheritance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> But they don't get land-inheritance like the rest of their kinsmen. GOD is their inheritance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> This is what the priests get from the people from any offering of an ox or a sheep: the shoulder, the two cheeks, and the stomach.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You must also give them the firstfruits of your grain, wine, and oil and the first fleece of your sheep,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> because GOD, your God, has chosen only them and their children out of all your tribes to be present and serve always in the name of GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> If a Levite moves from any town in Israel--and he is quite free to move wherever he desires--and comes to the place GOD designates for worship,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> he may serve there in the name of GOD along with all his brother Levites who are present and serving in the Presence of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And he will get an equal share to eat, even though he has money from the sale of his parents' possessions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When you enter the land that GOD, your God, is giving you, don't take on the abominable ways of life of the nations there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Don't you dare sacrifice your son or daughter in the fire. Don't practice divination, sorcery, fortunetelling, witchery,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> casting spells, holding s�ances, or channeling with the dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> People who do these things are an abomination to GOD. It's because of just such abominable practices that GOD, your God, is driving these nations out before you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Be completely loyal to GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> These nations that you're about to run out of the country consort with sorcerers and witches. But not you. GOD, your God, forbids it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> GOD, your God, is going to raise up a prophet for you. GOD will raise him up from among your kinsmen, a prophet like me. Listen obediently to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> This is what you asked GOD, your God, for at Horeb on the day you were all gathered at the mountain and said, "We can't hear any more from GOD, our God; we can't stand seeing any more fire. We'll die!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And GOD said to me, "They're right; they've spoken the truth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I'll raise up for them a prophet like you from their kinsmen. I'll tell him what to say and he will pass on to them everything I command him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And anyone who won't listen to my words spoken by him, I will personally hold responsible.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "But any prophet who fakes it, who claims to speak in my name something I haven't commanded him to say, or speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> You may be wondering among yourselves, "How can we tell the difference, whether it was GOD who spoke or not?" Here's how:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> If what the prophet spoke in GOD's name doesn't happen, then obviously GOD wasn't behind it; the prophet made it up. Forget about him.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="19">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When GOD, your God, throws the nations out of the country that GOD, your God, is giving you and you settle down in their cities and houses,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> you are to set aside three easily accessible cities in the land that GOD, your God, is giving you as your very own.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Divide your land into thirds, this land that GOD, your God, is giving you to possess, and build roads to the towns so that anyone who accidentally kills another can flee there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> This is the guideline for the murderer who flees there to take refuge: He has to have killed his neighbor without premeditation and with no history of bad blood between them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> For instance, a man goes with his neighbor into the woods to cut a tree; he swings the ax, the head slips off the handle and hits his neighbor, killing him. He may then flee to one of these cities and save his life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> If the city is too far away, the avenger of blood racing in hot-blooded pursuit might catch him since it's such a long distance, and kill him even though he didn't deserve it. It wasn't his fault. There was no history of hatred between them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Therefore I command you: Set aside the three cities for yourselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> When GOD, your God, enlarges your land, extending its borders as he solemnly promised your ancestors, by giving you the whole land he promised them</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> because you are diligently living the way I'm commanding you today, namely, to love GOD, your God, and do what he tells you all your life; and when that happens, then add three more to these three cities</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> so that there is no chance of innocent blood being spilled in your land. GOD, your God, is giving you this land as an inheritance--you don't want to pollute it with innocent blood and bring bloodguilt upon yourselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> On the other hand, if a man with a history of hatred toward his neighbor waits in ambush, then jumps him, mauls and kills him, and then runs to one of these cities, that's a different story.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The elders of his own city are to send for him and have him brought back. They are to hand him over to the avenger of blood for execution.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Don't feel sorry for him. Clean out the pollution of wrongful murder from Israel so that you'll be able to live well and breathe clean air.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Don't move your neighbor's boundary markers, the longstanding landmarks set up by your pioneer ancestors defining their property.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> You cannot convict anyone of a crime or sin on the word of one witness. You need two or three witnesses to make a case.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> If a hostile witness stands to accuse someone of a wrong,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> then both parties involved in the quarrel must stand in the Presence of GOD before the priests and judges who are in office at that time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The judges must conduct a careful investigation; if the witness turns out to be a false witness and has lied against his fellow Israelite,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> give him the same medicine he intended for the other party. Clean the polluting evil from your company.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> People will hear of what you've done and be impressed; that will put a stop to this kind of evil among you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Don't feel sorry for the person: It's life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="20">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When you go to war against your enemy and see horses and chariots and soldiers far outnumbering you, do not recoil in fear of them; GOD, your God, who brought you up out of Egypt is with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> When the battle is about to begin, let the priest come forward and speak to the troops.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He'll say, "Attention, Israel. In a few minutes you're going to do battle with your enemies. Don't waver in resolve. Don't fear. Don't hesitate. Don't panic.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD, your God, is right there with you, fighting with you against your enemies, fighting to win."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then let the officers step up and speak to the troops: "Is there a man here who has built a new house but hasn't yet dedicated it? Let him go home right now lest he die in battle and another man dedicate it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And is there a man here who has planted a vineyard but hasn't yet enjoyed the grapes? Let him go home right now lest he die in battle and another man enjoy the grapes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Is there a man here engaged to marry who hasn't yet taken his wife? Let him go home right now lest he die in battle and another man take her."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The officers will then continue, "And is there a man here who is wavering in resolve and afraid? Let him go home right now so that he doesn't infect his fellows with his timidity and cowardly spirit."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When the officers have finished speaking to the troops, let them appoint commanders of the troops who shall muster them by units.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When you come up against a city to attack it, call out, "Peace?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> If they answer, "Yes, peace!" and open the city to you, then everyone found there will be conscripted as forced laborers and work for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But if they don't settle for peace and insist on war, then go ahead and attack.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> GOD, your God, will give them to you. Kill all the men with your swords.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But don't kill the women and children and animals. Everything inside the town you can take as plunder for you to use and eat--GOD, your God, gives it to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> This is the way you deal with the distant towns, the towns that don't belong to the nations at hand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But with the towns of the people that GOD, your God, is giving you as an inheritance, it's different: don't leave anyone alive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Consign them to holy destruction: the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, obeying the command of GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> This is so there won't be any of them left to teach you to practice the abominations that they engage in with their gods and you end up sinning against GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> When you mount an attack on a town and the siege goes on a long time, don't start cutting down the trees, swinging your axes against them. Those trees are your future food; don't cut them down. Are trees soldiers who come against you with weapons?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The exception can be those trees which don't produce food; you can chop them down and use the timbers to build siege engines against the town that is resisting you until it falls.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="21">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> If a dead body is found on the ground, this ground that GOD, your God, has given you, lying out in the open, and no one knows who killed him,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> your leaders and judges are to go out and measure the distance from the body to the nearest cities.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The leaders and judges of the city that is nearest the corpse will then take a heifer that has never been used for work, never had a yoke on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The leaders will take the heifer to a valley with a stream, a valley that has never been plowed or planted, and there break the neck of the heifer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The Levitical priests will then step up. GOD has chosen them to serve him in these matters by settling legal disputes and violent crimes and by pronouncing blessings in GOD's name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Finally, all the leaders of that town that is nearest the body will wash their hands over the heifer that had its neck broken at the stream</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> and say, "We didn't kill this man and we didn't see who did it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Purify your people Israel whom you redeemed, O GOD. Clear your people Israel from any guilt in this murder." That will clear them from any responsibility in the murder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> By following these procedures you will have absolved yourselves of any part in the murder because you will have done what is right in GOD's sight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When you go to war against your enemies and GOD, your God, gives you victory and you take prisoners,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> and then you notice among the prisoners of war a good-looking woman whom you find attractive and would like to marry,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> this is what you do: Take her home; have her trim her hair, cut her nails,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> and discard the clothes she was wearing when captured. She is then to stay in your home for a full month, mourning her father and mother. Then you may go to bed with her as husband and wife.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> If it turns out you don't like her, you must let her go and live wherever she wishes. But you can't sell her or use her as a slave since you've humiliated her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> When a man has two wives, one loved and the other hated, and they both give him sons, but the firstborn is from the hated wife,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> at the time he divides the inheritance with his sons he must not treat the son of the loved wife as the firstborn, cutting out the son of the hated wife, who is the actual firstborn.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> No, he must acknowledge the inheritance rights of the real firstborn, the son of the hated wife, by giving him a double share of the inheritance: that son is the first proof of his virility; the rights of the firstborn belong to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When a man has a stubborn son, a real rebel who won't do a thing his mother and father tell him, and even though they discipline him he still won't obey,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> his father and mother shall forcibly bring him before the leaders at the city gate</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> and say to the city fathers, "This son of ours is a stubborn rebel; he won't listen to a thing we say. He's a glutton and a drunk."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then all the men of the town are to throw rocks at him until he's dead. You will have purged the evil pollution from among you. All Israel will hear what's happened and be in awe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> When a man has committed a capital crime, been given the death sentence, executed and hung from a tree,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> don't leave his dead body hanging overnight from the tree. Give him a decent burial that same day so that you don't desecrate your GOD-given land--a hanged man is an insult to God.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="22">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> If you see your kinsman's ox or sheep wandering off loose, don't look the other way as if you didn't see it. Return it promptly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> If your fellow Israelite is not close by or you don't know whose it is, take the animal home with you and take care of it until your fellow asks about it. Then return it to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Do the same if it's his donkey or a piece of clothing or anything else your fellow Israelite loses. Don't look the other way as if you didn't see it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> If you see your fellow's donkey or ox injured along the road, don't look the other way. Help him get it up and on its way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> A woman must not wear a man's clothing, nor a man wear women's clothing. This kind of thing is an abomination to GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When you come across a bird's nest alongside the road, whether in a tree or on the ground, and the mother is sitting on the young or on the eggs, don't take the mother with the young.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You may take the babies, but let the mother go so that you will live a good and long life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof to make it safe so that someone doesn't fall off and die and your family become responsible for the death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Don't plant two kinds of seed in your vineyard. If you do, you will forfeit what you've sown, the total production of the vineyard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Don't plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Don't wear clothes of mixed fabrics, wool and linen together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Make tassels on the four corners of the cloak you use to cover yourself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> If a man marries a woman, sleeps with her, and then turns on her,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> calling her a slut, giving her a bad name, saying, "I married this woman, but when I slept with her I discovered she wasn't a virgin,"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> then the father and mother of the girl are to take her with the proof of her virginity to the town leaders at the gate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The father is to tell the leaders, "I gave my daughter to this man as wife and he turned on her, rejecting her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And now he has slanderously accused her, claiming that she wasn't a virgin. But look at this, here is the proof of my daughter's virginity." And then he is to spread out her blood-stained wedding garment before the leaders for their examination.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The town leaders then are to take the husband, whip him,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> fine him a hundred pieces of silver, and give it to the father of the girl. The man gave a virgin girl of Israel a bad name. He has to keep her as his wife and can never divorce her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But if it turns out that the accusation is true and there is no evidence of the girl's virginity,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> the men of the town are to take her to the door of her father's house and stone her to death. She acted disgracefully in Israel. She lived like a whore while still in her parents' home. Purge the evil from among you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> If a man is found sleeping with another man's wife, both must die. Purge that evil from Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> If a man comes upon a virgin in town, a girl who is engaged to another man, and sleeps with her,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> take both of them to the town gate and stone them until they die--the girl because she didn't yell out for help in the town and the man because he raped her, violating the fianc�e of his neighbor. You must purge the evil from among you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> But if it was out in the country that the man found the engaged girl and grabbed and raped her, only the man is to die, the man who raped her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Don't do anything to the girl; she did nothing wrong. This is similar to the case of a man who comes across his neighbor out in the country and murders him;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> when the engaged girl yelled out for help, there was no one around to hear or help her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> When a man comes upon a virgin who has never been engaged and grabs and rapes her and they are found out,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> the man who raped her has to give her father fifty pieces of silver. He has to marry her because he took advantage of her. And he can never divorce her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> A man may not marry his father's ex-wife--that would violate his father's rights.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="23">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> No eunuch is to enter the congregation of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> No bastard is to enter the congregation of GOD, even to the tenth generation, nor any of his children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> No Ammonite or Moabite is to enter the congregation of GOD, even to the tenth generation, nor any of his children, ever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Those nations didn't treat you with hospitality on your travels out of Egypt, and on top of that they also hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Mesopotamia to curse you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD, your God, refused to listen to Balaam but turned the curse into a blessing--how GOD, your God, loves you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Don't even try to get along with them or do anything for them, ever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But don't spurn an Edomite; he's your kin. And don't spurn an Egyptian; you were a foreigner in his land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Children born to Edomites and Egyptians may enter the congregation of GOD in the third generation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When you are camped out, at war with your enemies, be careful to keep yourself from anything ritually defiling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> If one of your men has become ritually unclean because of a nocturnal emission, he must go outside the camp and stay there</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> until evening when he can wash himself, returning to the camp at sunset.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Mark out an area outside the camp where you can go to relieve yourselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Along with your weapons have a stick with you. After you relieve yourself, dig a hole with the stick and cover your excrement.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD, your God, strolls through your camp; he's present to deliver you and give you victory over your enemies. Keep your camp holy; don't permit anything indecent or offensive in GOD's eyes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Don't return a runaway slave to his master; he's come to you for refuge.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Let him live wherever he wishes within the protective gates of your city. Don't take advantage of him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> No daughter of Israel is to become a sacred prostitute; and no son of Israel is to become a sacred prostitute.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And don't bring the fee of a sacred whore or the earnings of a priest-pimp to the house of GOD, your God, to pay for any vow--they are both an abomination to GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Don't charge interest to your kinsmen on any loan: not for money or food or clothing or anything else that could earn interest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> You may charge foreigners interest, but you may not charge your brothers interest; that way GOD, your God, will bless all the work that you take up and the land that you are entering to possess.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> When you make a vow to GOD, your God, don't put off keeping it; GOD, your God, expects you to keep it and if you don't you're guilty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But if you don't make a vow in the first place, there's no sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> If you say you're going to do something, do it. Keep the vow you willingly vowed to GOD, your God. You promised it, so do it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> When you enter your neighbor's vineyard, you may eat all the grapes you want until you're full, but you may not put any in your bucket or bag.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> And when you walk through the ripe grain of your neighbor, you may pick the heads of grain, but you may not swing your sickle there.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="24">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> If a man marries a woman and then it happens that he no longer likes her because he has found something wrong with her, he may give her divorce papers, put them in her hand, and send her off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> After she leaves, if she becomes another man's wife</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> and he also comes to hate her and this second husband also gives her divorce papers, puts them in her hand, and sends her off, or if he should die,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> then the first husband who divorced her can't marry her again. She has made herself ritually unclean, and her remarriage would be an abomination in the Presence of GOD and defile the land with sin, this land that GOD, your God, is giving you as an inheritance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When a man takes a new wife, he is not to go out with the army or be given any business or work duties. He gets one year off simply to be at home making his wife happy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Don't seize a handmill or an upper millstone as collateral for a loan. You'd be seizing someone's very life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> If a man is caught kidnapping one of his kinsmen, someone of the People of Israel, to enslave or sell him, the kidnapper must die. Purge that evil from among you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Warning! If a serious skin disease breaks out, follow exactly the rules set down by the Levitical priests. Follow them precisely as I commanded them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Don't forget what GOD, your God, did to Miriam on your way out of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When you make a loan of any kind to your neighbor, don't enter his house to claim his pledge.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Wait outside. Let the man to whom you made the pledge bring the pledge to you outside.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And if he is destitute, don't use his cloak as a bedroll;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> return it to him at nightfall so that he can sleep in his cloak and bless you. In the sight of GOD, your God, that will be viewed as a righteous act.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Don't abuse a laborer who is destitute and needy, whether he is a fellow Israelite living in your land and in your city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Pay him at the end of each workday; he's living from hand to mouth and needs it now. If you hold back his pay, he'll protest to GOD and you'll have sin on your books.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Parents shall not be put to death for their children, nor children for their parents. Each person shall be put to death for his own sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Make sure foreigners and orphans get their just rights. Don't take the cloak of a widow as security for a loan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Don't ever forget that you were once slaves in Egypt and GOD, your God, got you out of there. I command you: Do what I'm telling you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> When you harvest your grain and forget a sheaf back in the field, don't go back and get it; leave it for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow so that GOD, your God, will bless you in all your work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> When you shake the olives off your trees, don't go back over the branches and strip them bare--what's left is for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And when you cut the grapes in your vineyard, don't take every last grape--leave a few for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Don't ever forget that you were a slave in Egypt. I command you: Do what I'm telling you.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="25">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When men have a legal dispute, let them go to court; the judges will decide between them, declaring one innocent and the other guilty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> If the guilty one deserves punishment, the judge will have him prostrate himself before him and lashed as many times as his crime deserves,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> but not more than forty. If you hit him more than forty times, you will degrade him to something less than human.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Don't muzzle an ox while it is threshing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When brothers are living together and one of them dies without having had a son, the widow of the dead brother shall not marry a stranger from outside the family; her husband's brother is to come to her and marry her and do the brother-in-law's duty by her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The first son that she bears shall be named after her dead husband so his name won't die out in Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But if the brother doesn't want to marry his sister-in-law, she is to go to the leaders at the city gate and say, "My brother-in-law refuses to keep his brother's name alive in Israel; he won't agree to do the brother-in-law's duty by me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then the leaders will call for the brother and confront him. If he stands there defiant and says, "I don't want her,"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> his sister-in-law is to pull his sandal off his foot, spit in his face, and say, "This is what happens to the man who refuses to build up the family of his brother--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> his name in Israel will be Family-No-Sandal."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> When two men are in a fight and the wife of the one man, trying to rescue her husband, grabs the genitals of the man hitting him,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> you are to cut off her hand. Show no pity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Don't carry around with you two weights, one heavy and the other light,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> and don't keep two measures at hand, one large and the other small.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Use only one weight, a true and honest weight, and one measure, a true and honest measure, so that you will live a long time on the land that GOD, your God, is giving you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Dishonest weights and measures are an abomination to GOD, your God--all this corruption in business deals!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Don't forget what Amalek did to you on the road after you left Egypt,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> how he attacked you when you were tired, barely able to put one foot in front of another, mercilessly cut off your stragglers, and had no regard for God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> When GOD, your God, gives you rest from all the enemies that surround you in the inheritance-land GOD, your God, is giving you to possess, you are to wipe the name of Amalek from off the Earth. Don't forget!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="26">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Once you enter the land that GOD, your God, is giving you as an inheritance and take it over and settle down,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> you are to take some of all the firstfruits of what you grow in the land that GOD, your God, is giving you, put them in a basket and go to the place GOD, your God, sets apart for you to worship him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> At that time, go to the priest who is there and say, "I announce to GOD, your God, today that I have entered the land that GOD promised our ancestors that he'd give to us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The priest will take the basket from you and place it on the Altar of GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And there in the Presence of GOD, your God, you will recite, A wandering Aramean was my father, he went down to Egypt and sojourned there, he and just a handful of his brothers at first, but soon they became a great nation, mighty and many.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The Egyptians abused and battered us, in a cruel and savage slavery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> We cried out to GOD, the God-of-Our-Fathers: He listened to our voice, he saw our destitution, our trouble, our cruel plight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And GOD took us out of Egypt with his strong hand and long arm, terrible and great, with signs and miracle-wonders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And he brought us to this place, gave us this land flowing with milk and honey.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So here I am. I've brought the firstfruits of what I've grown on this ground you gave me, O GOD. Then place it in the Presence of GOD, your God. Prostrate yourselves in the Presence of GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And rejoice! Celebrate all the good things that GOD, your God, has given you and your family; you and the Levite and the foreigner who lives with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Every third year, the year of the tithe, give a tenth of your produce to the Levite, the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow so that they may eat their fill in your cities.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And then, in the Presence of GOD, your God, say this: I have brought the sacred share, I've given it to the Levite, foreigner, orphan, and widow. What you commanded, I've done. I haven't detoured around your commands, I haven't forgotten a single one.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I haven't eaten from the sacred share while mourning, I haven't removed any of it while ritually unclean, I haven't used it in funeral feasts. I have listened obediently to the Voice of GOD, my God, I have lived the way you commanded me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Look down from your holy house in Heaven! Bless your people Israel and the ground you gave us, just as you promised our ancestors you would, this land flowing with milk and honey.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> This very day GOD, your God, commands you to follow these rules and regulations, to live them out with everything you have in you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> You've renewed your vows today that GOD is your God, that you'll live the way he shows you; do what he tells you in the rules, regulations, and commandments; and listen obediently to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And today GOD has reaffirmed that you are dearly held treasure just as he promised, a people entrusted with keeping his commandments,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> a people set high above all other nations that he's made, high in praise, fame, and honor: you're a people holy to GOD, your God. That's what he has promised.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="27">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Moses commanded the leaders of Israel and charged the people: Keep every commandment that I command you today.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> On the day you cross the Jordan into the land that GOD, your God, is giving you, erect large stones and coat them with plaster.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> As soon as you cross over the river, write on the stones all the words of this Revelation so that you'll enter the land that GOD, your God, is giving you, that land flowing with milk and honey that GOD, the God-of-Your-Fathers, promised you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> So when you've crossed the Jordan, erect these stones on Mount Ebal. Then coat them with plaster.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Build an Altar of stones for GOD, your God, there on the mountain. Don't use an iron tool on the stones;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> build the Altar to GOD, your God, with uncut stones and offer your Whole-Burnt-Offerings on it to GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When you sacrifice your Peace-Offerings you will also eat them there, rejoicing in the Presence of GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Write all the words of this Revelation on the stones. Incise them sharply.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Moses and the Levitical priests addressed all Israel: Quiet. Listen obediently, Israel. This very day you have become the people of GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Listen to the Voice of GOD, your God. Keep his commandments and regulations that I'm commanding you today.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> That day Moses commanded:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> After you've crossed the Jordan, these tribes will stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And these will stand on Mount Ebal for the curse: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The Levites, acting as spokesmen and speaking loudly, will address Israel:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> GOD's curse on anyone who carves or casts a god-image--an abomination to GOD made by a craftsman--and sets it up in secret. All respond: Yes. Absolutely.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> GOD's curse on anyone who demeans a parent. All respond: Yes. Absolutely.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> GOD's curse on anyone who moves his neighbor's boundary marker. All respond: Yes. Absolutely.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> GOD's curse on anyone who misdirects a blind man on the road. All respond: Yes. Absolutely.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> GOD's curse on anyone who interferes with justice due the foreigner, orphan, or widow. All respond: Yes. Absolutely.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> GOD's curse on anyone who has sex with his father's wife; he has violated the woman who belongs to his father. All respond: Yes. Absolutely.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> GOD's curse on anyone who has sex with an animal. All respond: Yes. Absolutely.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> GOD's curse on anyone who has sex with his sister, the daughter of his father or mother. All respond: Yes. Absolutely.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> GOD's curse on anyone who has sex with his mother-in-law. All respond: Yes. Absolutely.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> GOD's curse on anyone who kills his neighbor in secret. All respond: Yes. Absolutely.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> GOD's curse on anyone who takes a bribe to kill an innocent person. All respond: Yes. Absolutely.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> GOD's curse on whoever does not give substance to the words of this Revelation by living them. All respond: Yes. Absolutely.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="28">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> If you listen obediently to the Voice of GOD, your God, and heartily obey all his commandments that I command you today, GOD, your God, will place you on high, high above all the nations of the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> All these blessings will come down on you and spread out beyond you because you have responded to the Voice of GOD, your God:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> GOD's blessing inside the city, GOD's blessing in the country;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD's blessing on your children, the crops of your land, the young of your livestock, the calves of your herds, the lambs of your flocks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD's blessing on your basket and bread bowl;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD's blessing in your coming in, GOD's blessing in your going out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD will defeat your enemies who attack you. They'll come at you on one road and run away on seven roads.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD will order a blessing on your barns and workplaces; he'll bless you in the land that GOD, your God, is giving you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD will form you as a people holy to him, just as he promised you, if you keep the commandments of GOD, your God, and live the way he has shown you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> All the peoples on Earth will see you living under the Name of GOD and hold you in respectful awe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD will lavish you with good things: children from your womb, offspring from your animals, and crops from your land, the land that GOD promised your ancestors that he would give you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> GOD will throw open the doors of his sky vaults and pour rain on your land on schedule and bless the work you take in hand. You will lend to many nations but you yourself won't have to take out a loan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> GOD will make you the head, not the tail; you'll always be the top dog, never the bottom dog, as you obediently listen to and diligently keep the commands of GOD, your God, that I am commanding you today.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Don't swerve an inch to the right or left from the words that I command you today by going off following and worshiping other gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Here's what will happen if you don't obediently listen to the Voice of GOD, your God, and diligently keep all the commandments and guidelines that I'm commanding you today. All these curses will come down hard on you:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> GOD's curse in the city, GOD's curse in the country;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> GOD's curse on your basket and bread bowl;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> GOD's curse on your children, the crops of your land, the young of your livestock, the calves of your herds, the lambs of your flocks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> GOD's curse in your coming in, GOD's curse in your going out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> GOD will send The Curse, The Confusion, The Contrariness down on everything you try to do until you've been destroyed and there's nothing left of you--all because of your evil pursuits that led you to abandon me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> GOD will infect you with The Disease, wiping you right off the land that you're going in to possess.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> GOD will set consumption and fever and rash and seizures and dehydration and blight and jaundice on you. They'll hunt you down until they kill you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The sky over your head will become an iron roof, the ground under your feet, a slab of concrete.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> From out of the skies GOD will rain ash and dust down on you until you suffocate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> GOD will defeat you by enemy attack. You'll come at your enemies on one road and run away on seven roads. All the kingdoms of Earth will see you as a horror.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Carrion birds and animals will boldly feast on your dead body with no one to chase them away.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> GOD will hit you hard with the boils of Egypt, hemorrhoids, scabs, and an incurable itch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> He'll make you go crazy and blind and senile.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> You'll grope around in the middle of the day like a blind person feeling his way through a lifetime of darkness; you'll never get to where you're going. Not a day will go by that you're not abused and robbed. And no one is going to help you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> You'll get engaged to a woman and another man will take her for his mistress; you'll build a house and never live in it; you'll plant a garden and never eat so much as a carrot;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> you'll watch your ox get butchered and not get a single steak from it; your donkey will be stolen from in front of you and you'll never see it again; your sheep will be sent off to your enemies and no one will lift a hand to help you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Your sons and daughters will be shipped off to foreigners; you'll wear your eyes out looking vainly for them, helpless to do a thing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Your crops and everything you work for will be eaten and used by foreigners; you'll spend the rest of your lives abused and knocked around.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> What you see will drive you crazy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> GOD will hit you with painful boils on your knees and legs and no healing or relief from head to foot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> GOD will lead you and the king you set over you to a country neither you nor your ancestors have heard of; there you'll worship other gods, no-gods of wood and stone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Among all the peoples where GOD will take you, you'll be treated as a lesson or a proverb--a horror!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> You'll plant sacks and sacks of seed in the field but get almost nothing--the grasshoppers will devour it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> You'll plant and hoe and prune vineyards but won't drink or put up any wine--the worms will devour them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> You'll have groves of olive trees everywhere, but you'll have no oil to rub on your face or hands--the olives will have fallen off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> You'll have sons and daughters but they won't be yours for long--they'll go off to captivity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Locusts will take over all your trees and crops.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> The foreigner who lives among you will climb the ladder, higher and higher, while you go deeper and deeper into the hole.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> He'll lend to you; you won't lend to him. He'll be the head; you'll be the tail.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> All these curses are going to come on you. They're going to hunt you down and get you until there's nothing left of you because you didn't obediently listen to the Voice of GOD, your God, and diligently keep his commandments and guidelines that I commanded you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> The curses will serve as signposts, warnings to your children ever after.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> Because you didn't serve GOD, your God, out of the joy and goodness of your heart in the great abundance,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> you'll have to serve your enemies whom GOD will send against you. Life will be famine and drought, rags and wretchedness; then he'll put an iron yoke on your neck until he's destroyed you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> Yes, GOD will raise up a faraway nation against you, swooping down on you like an eagle, a nation whose language you can't understand,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> a mean-faced people, cruel to grandmothers and babies alike.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> They'll ravage the young of your animals and the crops from your fields until you're destroyed. They'll leave nothing behind: no grain, no wine, no oil, no calves, no lambs--and finally, no you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> They'll lay siege to you while you're huddled behind your town gates. They'll knock those high, proud walls flat, those walls behind which you felt so safe. They'll lay siege to your fortified cities all over the country, this country that GOD, your God, has given you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> And you'll end up cannibalizing your own sons and daughters that GOD, your God, has given you. When the suffering from the siege gets extreme, you're going to eat your own babies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> The most gentle and caring man among you will turn hard, his eye evil, against his own brother, his cherished wife, and even the rest of his children who are still alive,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> refusing to share with them a scrap of meat from the cannibal child-stew he is eating. He's lost everything, even his humanity, in the suffering of the siege that your enemy mounts against your fortified towns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> And the most gentle and caring woman among you, a woman who wouldn't step on a wildflower, will turn hard, her eye evil, against her cherished husband, against her son, against her daughter,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> against even the afterbirth of her newborn infants; she plans to eat them in secret--she does eat them!--because she has lost everything, even her humanity, in the suffering of the siege that your enemy mounts against your fortified towns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> If you don't diligently keep all the words of this Revelation written in this book, living in holy awe before This Name glorious and terrible, GOD, your God,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="59"> then GOD will pound you with catastrophes, you and your children, huge interminable catastrophes, hideous interminable illnesses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="60"> He'll bring back and stick you with every old Egyptian malady that once terrorized you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="61"> And yes, every disease and catastrophe imaginable--things not even written in the Book of this Revelation--GOD will bring on you until you're destroyed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="62"> Because you didn't listen obediently to the Voice of GOD, your God, you'll be left with a few pitiful stragglers in place of the dazzling stars-in-the-heavens multitude you had become.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="63"> And this is how things will end up: Just as GOD once enjoyed you, took pleasure in making life good for you, giving you many children, so GOD will enjoy getting rid of you, clearing you off the Earth. He'll weed you out of the very soil that you are entering in to possess.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="64"> He'll scatter you to the four winds, from one end of the Earth to the other. You'll worship all kinds of other gods, gods neither you nor your parents ever heard of, wood and stone no-gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="65"> But you won't find a home there, you'll not be able to settle down. GOD will give you a restless heart, longing eyes, a homesick soul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="66"> You will live in constant jeopardy, terrified of every shadow, never knowing what you'll meet around the next corner.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="67"> In the morning you'll say, "I wish it were evening." In the evening you'll say, "I wish it were morning." Afraid, terrorized at what's coming next, afraid of the unknown, because of the sights you've witnessed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="68"> GOD will ship you back to Egypt by a road I promised you'd never see again. There you'll offer yourselves for sale, both men and women, as slaves to your enemies. And not a buyer to be found.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="29">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> These are the terms of the Covenant that GOD commanded Moses to make with the People of Israel in the land of Moab, renewing the Covenant he made with them at Horeb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Moses called all Israel together and said, You've seen with your own eyes everything that GOD did in Egypt to Pharaoh and his servants, and to the land itself--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> the massive trials to which you were eyewitnesses, the great signs and miracle-wonders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But GOD didn't give you an understanding heart or perceptive eyes or attentive ears until right now, this very day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I took you through the wilderness for forty years and through all that time the clothes on your backs didn't wear out, the sandals on your feet didn't wear out,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> and you lived well without bread and wine and beer, proving to you that I am in fact GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When you arrived here in this place, Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan met us primed for war but we beat them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> We took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Diligently keep the words of this Covenant. Do what they say so that you will live well and wisely in every detail.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You are all standing here today in the Presence of GOD, your God--the heads of your tribes, your leaders, your officials, all Israel:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> your babies, your wives, the resident foreigners in your camps who fetch your firewood and water--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> ready to cross over into the solemnly sworn Covenant that GOD, your God, is making with you today,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> the Covenant that this day confirms that you are his people and he is GOD, your God, just as he promised you and your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'm not making this Covenant and its oath with you alone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I am making it with you who are standing here today in the Presence of GOD, our God, yes, but also with those who are not here today.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> You know the conditions in which we lived in Egypt and how we crisscrossed through nations in our travels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> You got an eyeful of their obscenities, their wood and stone, silver and gold junk-gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Don't let down your guard lest even now, today, someone--man or woman, clan or tribe--gets sidetracked from GOD, our God, and gets involved with the no-gods of the nations; lest some poisonous weed sprout and spread among you,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> a person who hears the words of the Covenant-oath but exempts himself, thinking, "I'll live just the way I please, thank you," and ends up ruining life for everybody.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> GOD won't let him off the hook. GOD's anger and jealousy will erupt like a volcano against that person. The curses written in this book will bury him. GOD will delete his name from the records.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> GOD will separate him out from all the tribes of Israel for special punishment, according to all the curses of the Covenant written in this Book of Revelation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The next generation, your children who come after you and the foreigner who comes from a far country, will be appalled when they see the widespread devastation, how GOD made the whole land sick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They'll see a fire-blackened wasteland of brimstone and salt flats, nothing planted, nothing growing, not so much as a blade of grass anywhere--like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which GOD overthrew in fiery rage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> All the nations will ask, "Why did GOD do this to this country? What on earth could have made him this angry?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Your children will answer, "Because they abandoned the Covenant of the GOD of their ancestors that he made with them after he got them out of Egypt;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> they went off and worshiped other gods, submitted to gods they'd never heard of before, gods they had no business dealing with.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> So GOD's anger erupted against that land and all the curses written in this book came down on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> GOD, furiously angry, pulled them, roots and all, out of their land and dumped them in another country, as you can see."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> GOD, our God, will take care of the hidden things but the revealed things are our business. It's up to us and our children to attend to all the terms in this Revelation.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="30">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Here's what will happen. While you're out among the nations where GOD has dispersed you and the blessings and curses come in just the way I have set them before you, and you and your children take them seriously</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> and come back to GOD, your God, and obey him with your whole heart and soul according to everything that I command you today,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> GOD, your God, will restore everything you lost; he'll have compassion on you; he'll come back and pick up the pieces from all the places where you were scattered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> No matter how far away you end up, GOD, your God, will get you out of there</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> and bring you back to the land your ancestors once possessed. It will be yours again. He will give you a good life and make you more numerous than your ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD, your God, will cut away the thick calluses on your heart and your children's hearts, freeing you to love GOD, your God, with your whole heart and soul and live, really live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD, your God, will put all these curses on your enemies who hated you and were out to get you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And you will make a new start, listening obediently to GOD, keeping all his commandments that I'm commanding you today.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD, your God, will outdo himself in making things go well for you: you'll have babies, get calves, grow crops, and enjoy an all-around good life. Yes, GOD will start enjoying you again, making things go well for you just as he enjoyed doing it for your ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But only if you listen obediently to GOD, your God, and keep the commandments and regulations written in this Book of Revelation. Nothing halfhearted here; you must return to GOD, your God, totally, heart and soul, holding nothing back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> This commandment that I'm commanding you today isn't too much for you, it's not out of your reach.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> It's not on a high mountain--you don't have to get mountaineers to climb the peak and bring it down to your level and explain it before you can live it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And it's not across the ocean--you don't have to send sailors out to get it, bring it back, and then explain it before you can live it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> No. The word is right here and now--as near as the tongue in your mouth, as near as the heart in your chest. Just do it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Look at what I've done for you today: I've placed in front of you Life and Good, Death and Evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> And I command you today: Love GOD, your God. Walk in his ways. Keep his commandments, regulations, and rules so that you will live, really live, live exuberantly, blessed by GOD, your God, in the land you are about to enter and possess.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But I warn you: If you have a change of heart, refuse to listen obediently, and willfully go off to serve and worship other gods,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> you will most certainly die. You won't last long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you today: I place before you Life and Death, Blessing and Curse. Choose life so that you and your children will live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And love GOD, your God, listening obediently to him, firmly embracing him. Oh yes, he is life itself, a long life settled on the soil that GOD, your God, promised to give your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="31">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Moses went on and addressed these words to all Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He said, "I'm 120 years old today. I can't get about as I used to. And GOD told me, 'You're not going to cross this Jordan River.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "GOD, your God, will cross the river ahead of you and destroy the nations in your path so that you may dispossess them. (And Joshua will cross the river before you, as GOD said he would.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD will give the nations the same treatment he gave the kings of the Amorites, Sihon and Og, and their land; he'll destroy them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD will hand the nations over to you, and you'll treat them exactly as I have commanded you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Be strong. Take courage. Don't be intimidated. Don't give them a second thought because GOD, your God, is striding ahead of you. He's right there with you. He won't let you down; he won't leave you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Then Moses summoned Joshua. He said to him with all Israel watching, "Be strong. Take courage. You will enter the land with this people, this land that GOD promised their ancestors that he'd give them. You will make them the proud possessors of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD is striding ahead of you. He's right there with you. He won't let you down; he won't leave you. Don't be intimidated. Don't worry."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Moses wrote out this Revelation and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the Chest of the Covenant of GOD, and to all the leaders of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And he gave these orders: "At the end of every seven years, the Year-All-Debts-Are-Canceled, during the pilgrim Festival of Booths</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> when everyone in Israel comes to appear in the Presence of GOD, your God, at the place he designates, read out this Revelation to all Israel, with everyone listening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Gather the people together--men, women, children, and the foreigners living among you--so they can listen well, so they may learn to live in holy awe before GOD, your God, and diligently keep everything in this Revelation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And do this so that their children, who don't yet know all this, will also listen and learn to live in holy awe before GOD, your God, for as long as you live on the land that you are crossing over the Jordan to possess."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD spoke to Moses: "You are about to die. So call Joshua. Meet me in the Tent of Meeting so that I can commission him." So Moses and Joshua went and stationed themselves in the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> GOD appeared in the Tent in a Pillar of Cloud. The Cloud was near the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> GOD spoke to Moses: "You're about to die and be buried with your ancestors. You'll no sooner be in the grave than this people will be up and whoring after the foreign gods of this country that they are entering. They will abandon me and violate my Covenant that I've made with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I'll get angry, oh so angry! I'll walk off and leave them on their own, won't so much as look back at them. Then many calamities and disasters will devastate them because they are defenseless. They'll say, 'Isn't it because our God wasn't here that all this evil has come upon us?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But I'll stay out of their lives, keep looking the other way because of all their evil: they took up with other gods!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "But for right now, copy down this song and teach the People of Israel to sing it by heart. They'll have it then as my witness against them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> When I bring them into the land that I promised to their ancestors, a land flowing with milk and honey, and they eat and become full and get fat and then begin fooling around with other gods and worshiping them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> and then things start falling apart, many terrible things happening, this song will be there with them as a witness to who they are and what went wrong. Their children won't forget this song; they'll be singing it. Don't think I don't know what they are already scheming to do, and they're not even in the land yet, this land I promised them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> So Moses wrote down this song that very day and taught it to the People of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Then GOD commanded Joshua son of Nun saying, "Be strong. Take courage. You will lead the People of Israel into the land I promised to give them. And I'll be right there with you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> After Moses had finished writing down the words of this Revelation in a book, right down to the last word,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> he ordered the Levites who were responsible for carrying the Chest of the Covenant of GOD, saying,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "Take this Book of Revelation and place it alongside the Chest of the Covenant of GOD, your God. Keep it there as a witness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "I know what rebels you are, how stubborn and willful you can be. Even today, while I'm still alive and present with you, you're rebellious against GOD. How much worse when I've died!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> So gather the leaders of the tribes and the officials here. I have something I need to say directly to them with Heaven and Earth as witnesses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> I know that after I die you're going to make a mess of things, abandoning the way I commanded, inviting all kinds of evil consequences in the days ahead. You're determined to do evil in defiance of GOD--I know you are--deliberately provoking his anger by what you do."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> So with everyone in Israel gathered and listening, Moses taught them the words of this song, from start to finish.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="32">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Listen, Heavens, I have something to tell you. Attention, Earth, I've got a mouth full of words.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> My teaching, let it fall like a gentle rain, my words arrive like morning dew, Like a sprinkling rain on new grass, like spring showers on the garden.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> For it's GOD's Name I'm preaching-- respond to the greatness of our God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The Rock: His works are perfect, and the way he works is fair and just; A God you can depend upon, no exceptions, a straight-arrow God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> His messed-up, mixed-up children, his non-children, throw mud at him but none of it sticks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Don't you realize it is GOD you are treating like this? This is crazy; don't you have any sense of reverence? Isn't this your father who created you, who made you and gave you a place on Earth?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Read up on what happened before you were born; dig into the past, understand your roots. Ask your parents what it was like before you were born; ask the old-ones, they'll tell you a thing or two.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> When the High God gave the nations their stake, gave them their place on Earth, He put each of the peoples within boundaries under the care of divine guardians.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But GOD himself took charge of his people, took Jacob on as his personal concern.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He found him out in the wilderness, in an empty, windswept wasteland. He threw his arms around him, lavished attention on him, guarding him as the apple of his eye.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He was like an eagle hovering over its nest, overshadowing its young, Then spreading its wings, lifting them into the air, teaching them to fly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> GOD alone led him; there was not a foreign god in sight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> GOD lifted him on to the hilltops, so he could feast on the crops in the fields. He fed him honey from the rock, oil from granite crags,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Curds of cattle and the milk of sheep, the choice cuts of lambs and goats, Fine Bashan rams, high-quality wheat, and the blood of grapes: you drank good wine!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Jeshurun put on weight and bucked; you got fat, became obese, a tub of lard. He abandoned the God who made him, he mocked the Rock of his salvation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They made him jealous with their foreign newfangled gods, and with obscenities they vexed him no end.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> They sacrificed to no-god demons, gods they knew nothing about, The latest in gods, fresh from the market, gods your ancestors would never call "gods."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> You walked out on the Rock who gave you your life, forgot the birth-God who brought you into the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> GOD saw it and turned on his heel, angered and hurt by his sons and daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He said, "From now on I'm looking the other way. Wait and see what happens to them. Oh, they're a turned-around, upside-down generation! Who knows what they'll do from one moment to the next?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They've goaded me with their no-gods, infuriated me with their hot-air gods; I'm going to goad them with a no-people, with a hollow nation incense them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> My anger started a fire, a wildfire burning deep down in Sheol, Then shooting up and devouring the Earth and its crops, setting all the mountains, from bottom to top, on fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> I'll pile catastrophes on them, I'll shoot my arrows at them:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Starvation, blistering heat, killing disease; I'll send snarling wild animals to attack from the forest and venomous creatures to strike from the dust.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Killing in the streets, terror in the houses, Young men and virgins alike struck down, and yes, breast-feeding babies and gray-haired old men."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> I could have said, "I'll hack them to pieces, wipe out all trace of them from the Earth,"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Except that I feared the enemy would grab the chance to take credit for all of it, Crowing, "Look what we did! GOD had nothing to do with this."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> They are a nation of ninnies, they don't know enough to come in out of the rain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> If they had any sense at all, they'd know this; they would see what's coming down the road.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> How could one soldier chase a thousand enemies off, or two men run off two thousand, Unless their Rock had sold them, unless GOD had given them away?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> For their rock is nothing compared to our Rock; even our enemies say that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> They're a vine that comes right out of Sodom, who they are is rooted in Gomorrah; Their grapes are poison grapes, their grape-clusters bitter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Their wine is rattlesnake venom, mixed with lethal cobra poison.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Don't you realize that I have my shelves well stocked, locked behind iron doors?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> I'm in charge of vengeance and payback, just waiting for them to slip up; And the day of their doom is just around the corner, sudden and swift and sure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Yes, GOD will judge his people, but oh how compassionately he'll do it. When he sees their weakened plight and there is no one left, slave or free,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> He'll say, "So where are their gods, the rock in which they sought refuge,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> The gods who feasted on the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink-offerings? Let them show their stuff and help you, let them give you a hand!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> "Do you see it now? Do you see that I'm the one? Do you see that there's no other god beside me? I bring death and I give life, I wound and I heal-- there is no getting away from or around me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> I raise my hand in solemn oath; I say, 'I'm always around. By that very life I promise:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> When I sharpen my lightning sword and execute judgment, I take vengeance on my enemies and pay back those who hate me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> I'll make my arrows drunk with blood, my sword will gorge itself on flesh, Feasting on slain and captive alike, the proud and vain enemy corpses.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Celebrate, nations, join the praise of his people. He avenges the deaths of his servants, Pays back his enemies with vengeance, and cleanses his land for his people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Moses came and recited all the words of this song in the hearing of the people, he and Joshua son of Nun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> When Moses had finished saying all these words to all Israel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> he said, "Take to heart all these words to which I give witness today and urgently command your children to put them into practice, every single word of this Revelation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> Yes. This is no small matter for you; it's your life. In keeping this word you'll have a good and long life in this land that you're crossing the Jordan to possess."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> That same day GOD spoke to Moses:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> "Climb the Abarim Mountains to Mount Nebo in the land of Moab, overlooking Jericho, and view the land of Canaan that I'm giving the People of Israel to have and hold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Die on the mountain that you climb and join your people in the ground, just as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and joined his people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> "This is because you broke faith with me in the company of the People of Israel at the Waters of Meribah Kadesh in the Wilderness of Zin--you didn't honor my Holy Presence in the company of the People of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> You'll look at the land spread out before you but you won't enter it, this land that I am giving to the People of Israel."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="33">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Moses, man of God, blessed the People of Israel with this blessing before his death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He said, GOD came down from Sinai, he dawned from Seir upon them; He radiated light from Mount Paran, coming with ten thousand holy angels And tongues of fire streaming from his right hand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Oh, how you love the people, all his holy ones are palmed in your left hand. They sit at your feet, honoring your teaching,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The Revelation commanded by Moses, as the assembly of Jacob's inheritance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Thus GOD became king in Jeshurun as the leaders and tribes of Israel gathered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Reuben: "Let Reuben live and not die, but just barely, in diminishing numbers."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Judah: "Listen, GOD, to the Voice of Judah, bring him to his people; Strengthen his grip, be his helper against his foes."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Levi: "Let your Thummim and Urim belong to your loyal saint; The one you tested at Massah, whom you fought with at the Waters of Meribah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Who said of his father and mother, 'I no longer recognize them.' He turned his back on his brothers and neglected his children, Because he was guarding your sayings and watching over your Covenant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Let him teach your rules to Jacob and your Revelation to Israel, Let him keep the incense rising to your nostrils and the Whole-Burnt-Offerings on your Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD bless his commitment, stamp your seal of approval on what he does; Disable the loins of those who defy him, make sure we've heard the last from those who hate him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Benjamin: "GOD's beloved; GOD's permanent residence. Encircled by GOD all day long, within whom GOD is at home."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Joseph: "Blessed by GOD be his land: The best fresh dew from high heaven, and fountains springing from the depths;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The best radiance streaming from the sun and the best the moon has to offer;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Beauty pouring off the tops of the mountains and the best from the everlasting hills;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The best of Earth's exuberant gifts, the smile of the Burning-Bush Dweller. All this on the head of Joseph, on the brow of the consecrated one among his brothers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> In splendor he's like a firstborn bull, his horns the horns of a wild ox; He'll gore the nations with those horns, push them all to the ends of the Earth. Ephraim by the ten thousands will do this, Manasseh by the thousands will do this."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Zebulun and Issachar: "Celebrate, Zebulun, as you go out, and Issachar, as you stay home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They'll invite people to the Mountain and offer sacrifices of right worship, For they will have hauled riches in from the sea and gleaned treasures from the beaches."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Gad: "Blessed is he who makes Gad large. Gad roams like a lion, tears off an arm, rips open a skull.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He took one look and grabbed the best place for himself, the portion just made for someone in charge. He took his place at the head, carried out GOD's right ways and his rules for life in Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Dan: "Dan is a lion's cub leaping out of Bashan."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Naphtali: "Naphtali brims with blessings, spills over with GOD's blessings As he takes possession of the sea and southland."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Asher: "Asher, best blessed of the sons! May he be the favorite of his brothers, his feet massaged in oil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Safe behind iron-clad doors and gates, your strength like iron as long as you live."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> There is none like God, Jeshurun, riding to your rescue through the skies, his dignity haloed by clouds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The ancient God is home on a foundation of everlasting arms. He drove out the enemy before you and commanded, "Destroy!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Israel lived securely, the fountain of Jacob undisturbed In grain and wine country and, oh yes, his heavens drip dew.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Lucky Israel! Who has it as good as you? A people saved by GOD! The Shield who defends you, the Sword who brings triumph. Your enemies will come crawling on their bellies and you'll march on their backs.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="34">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Moses climbed from the Plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, the peak of Pisgah facing Jericho. GOD showed him all the land from Gilead to Dan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> all Naphtali, Ephraim, and Manasseh; all Judah reaching to the Mediterranean Sea;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> the Negev and the plains which encircle Jericho, City of Palms, as far south as Zoar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then and there GOD said to him, "This is the land I promised to your ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with the words 'I will give it to your descendants.' I've let you see it with your own eyes. There it is. But you're not going to go in."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Moses died there in the land of Moab, Moses the servant of GOD, just as GOD said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> God buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth Peor. No one knows his burial site to this very day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eyesight was sharp; he still walked with a spring in his step.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The People of Israel wept for Moses in the Plains of Moab thirty days. Then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses came to an end.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him. The People of Israel listened obediently to him and did the same as when GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> No prophet has risen since in Israel like Moses, whom GOD knew face-to-face.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Never since has there been anything like the signs and miracle-wonders that GOD sent him to do in Egypt, to Pharaoh, to all his servants, and to all his land--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> nothing to compare with that all-powerful hand of his and all the great and terrible things Moses did as every eye in Israel watched.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="6" bname="Joshua">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> After the death of Moses the servant of GOD, GOD spoke to Joshua, Moses' assistant:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Moses my servant is dead. Get going. Cross this Jordan River, you and all the people. Cross to the country I'm giving to the People of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I'm giving you every square inch of the land you set your foot on--just as I promised Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> From the wilderness and this Lebanon east to the Great River, the Euphrates River--all the Hittite country--and then west to the Great Sea. It's all yours.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> All your life, no one will be able to hold out against you. In the same way I was with Moses, I'll be with you. I won't give up on you; I won't leave you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Strength! Courage! You are going to lead this people to inherit the land that I promised to give their ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Give it everything you have, heart and soul. Make sure you carry out The Revelation that Moses commanded you, every bit of it. Don't get off track, either left or right, so as to make sure you get to where you're going.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And don't for a minute let this Book of The Revelation be out of mind. Ponder and meditate on it day and night, making sure you practice everything written in it. Then you'll get where you're going; then you'll succeed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Haven't I commanded you? Strength! Courage! Don't be timid; don't get discouraged. GOD, your God, is with you every step you take."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then Joshua gave orders to the people's leaders:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Go through the camp and give this order to the people: 'Pack your bags. In three days you will cross this Jordan River to enter and take the land GOD, your God, is giving you to possess.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then Joshua addressed the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. He said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Remember what Moses the servant of GOD commanded you: GOD, your God, gives you rest and he gives you this land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Your wives, your children, and your livestock can stay here east of the Jordan, the country Moses gave you; but you, tough soldiers all, must cross the River in battle formation, leading your brothers, helping them</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> until GOD, your God, gives your brothers a place of rest just as he has done for you. They also will take possession of the land that GOD, your God, is giving them. Then you will be free to return to your possession, given to you by Moses the servant of GOD, across the Jordan to the east."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They answered Joshua: "Everything you commanded us, we'll do. Wherever you send us, we'll go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> We obeyed Moses to the letter; we'll also obey you--we just pray that GOD, your God, will be with you as he was with Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Anyone who questions what you say and refuses to obey whatever you command him will be put to death. Strength! Courage!"^</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Joshua son of Nun secretly sent out from Shittim two men as spies: "Go. Look over the land. Check out Jericho." They left and arrived at the house of a harlot named Rahab and stayed there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The king of Jericho was told, "We've just learned that men arrived tonight to spy out the land. They're from the People of Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The king of Jericho sent word to Rahab: "Bring out the men who came to you to stay the night in your house. They're spies; they've come to spy out the whole country."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, "Yes, two men did come to me, but I didn't know where they'd come from.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> At dark, when the gate was about to be shut, the men left. But I have no idea where they went. Hurry up! Chase them--you can still catch them!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> (She had actually taken them up on the roof and hidden them under the stalks of flax that were spread out for her on the roof.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So the men set chase down the Jordan road toward the fords. As soon as they were gone, the gate was shut.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Before the spies were down for the night, the woman came up to them on the roof</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> and said, "I know that GOD has given you the land. We're all afraid. Everyone in the country feels hopeless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> We heard how GOD dried up the waters of the Red Sea before you when you left Egypt, and what he did to the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you put under a holy curse and destroyed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> We heard it and our hearts sank. We all had the wind knocked out of us. And all because of you, you and GOD, your God, God of the heavens above and God of the earth below.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Now promise me by GOD. I showed you mercy; now show my family mercy. And give me some tangible proof, a guarantee</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> of life for my father and mother, my brothers and sisters--everyone connected with my family. Save our souls from death!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Our lives for yours!" said the men. "But don't tell anyone our business. When GOD turns this land over to us, we'll do right by you in loyal mercy."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> She lowered them down out a window with a rope because her house was on the city wall to the outside.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> She told them, "Run for the hills so your pursuers won't find you. Hide out for three days and give your pursuers time to return. Then get on your way."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The men told her, "In order to keep this oath you made us swear,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> here is what you must do: Hang this red rope out the window through which you let us down and gather your entire family with you in your house--father, mother, brothers, and sisters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Anyone who goes out the doors of your house into the street and is killed, it's his own fault--we aren't responsible. But for everyone within the house we take full responsibility. If anyone lays a hand on one of them, it's our fault.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But if you tell anyone of our business here, the oath you made us swear is canceled--we're no longer responsible."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> She said, "If that's what you say, that's the way it is," and sent them off. They left and she hung the red rope out the window.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> They headed for the hills and stayed there for three days until the pursuers had returned. The pursuers had looked high and low but found nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The men headed back. They came down out of the hills, crossed the river, and returned to Joshua son of Nun and reported all their experiences.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> They told Joshua, "Yes! GOD has given the whole country to us. Everybody there is in a state of panic because of us."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Joshua was up early and on his way from Shittim with all the People of Israel with him. He arrived at the Jordan and camped before crossing over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> After three days, leaders went through the camp</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> and gave out orders to the people: "When you see the Covenant-Chest of GOD, your God, carried by the Levitical priests, start moving. Follow it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Make sure you keep a proper distance between you and it, about half a mile--be sure now to keep your distance!--and you'll see clearly the route to take. You've never been on this road before."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then Joshua addressed the people: "Sanctify yourselves. Tomorrow GOD will work miracle-wonders among you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Joshua instructed the priests, "Take up the Chest of the Covenant and step out before the people." So they took it up and processed before the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD said to Joshua, "This very day I will begin to make you great in the eyes of all Israel. They'll see for themselves that I'm with you in the same way that I was with Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You will command the priests who are carrying the Chest of the Covenant: 'When you come to the edge of the Jordan's waters, stand there on the river bank.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then Joshua addressed the People of Israel: "Attention! Listen to what GOD, your God, has to say.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> This is how you'll know that God is alive among you--he will completely dispossess before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Look at what's before you: the Chest of the Covenant. Think of it--the Master of the entire earth is crossing the Jordan as you watch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Now take twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one man from each tribe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> When the soles of the feet of the priests carrying the Chest of GOD, Master of all the earth, touch the Jordan's water, the flow of water will be stopped--the water coming from upstream will pile up in a heap."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And that's what happened. The people left their tents to cross the Jordan, led by the priests carrying the Chest of the Covenant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> When the priests got to the Jordan and their feet touched the water at the edge (the Jordan overflows its banks throughout the harvest),</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> the flow of water stopped. It piled up in a heap--a long way off--at Adam, which is near Zarethan. The river went dry all the way down to the Arabah Sea (the Salt Sea). And the people crossed, facing Jericho.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And there they stood; those priests carrying the Chest of the Covenant stood firmly planted on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan while all Israel crossed on dry ground. Finally the whole nation was across the Jordan, and not one wet foot.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When the whole nation was finally across, GOD spoke to Joshua:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Select twelve men from the people, a man from each tribe,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> and tell them, 'From right here, the middle of the Jordan where the feet of the priests are standing firm, take twelve stones. Carry them across with you and set them down in the place where you camp tonight.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Joshua called out the twelve men whom he selected from the People of Israel, one man from each tribe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Joshua directed them, "Cross to the middle of the Jordan and take your place in front of the Chest of GOD, your God. Each of you heft a stone to your shoulder, a stone for each of the tribes of the People of Israel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> so you'll have something later to mark the occasion. When your children ask you, 'What are these stones to you?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> you'll say, 'The flow of the Jordan was stopped in front of the Chest of the Covenant of GOD as it crossed the Jordan--stopped in its tracks. These stones are a permanent memorial for the People of Israel.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The People of Israel did exactly as Joshua commanded: They took twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan--a stone for each of the twelve tribes, just as GOD had instructed Joshua--carried them across with them to the camp, and set them down there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Joshua set up the twelve stones taken from the middle of the Jordan that had marked the place where the priests who carried the Chest of the Covenant had stood. They are still there today.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The priests carrying the Chest continued standing in the middle of the Jordan until everything GOD had instructed Joshua to tell the people to do was done (confirming what Moses had instructed Joshua). The people crossed; no one dawdled.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> When the crossing of all the people was complete, they watched as the Chest of the Covenant and the priests crossed over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The Reubenites, Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh had crossed over in battle formation in front of the People of Israel, obedient to Moses' instructions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> All told, about 40,000 armed soldiers crossed over before GOD to the plains of Jericho, ready for battle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD made Joshua great that day in the sight of all Israel. They were in awe of him just as they had been in awe of Moses all his life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> GOD told Joshua,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Command the priests carrying the Chest of the Testimony to come up from the Jordan."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Joshua commanded the priests, "Come up out of the Jordan."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They did it. The priests carrying GOD's Chest of the Covenant came up from the middle of the Jordan. As soon as the soles of the priests' feet touched dry land, the Jordan's waters resumed their flow within the banks, just as before.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month. They set up camp at The Gilgal (The Circle) to the east of Jericho.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Joshua erected a monument at The Gilgal, using the twelve stones that they had taken from the Jordan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And then he told the People of Israel, "In the days to come, when your children ask their fathers, 'What are these stones doing here?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> tell your children this: 'Israel crossed over this Jordan on dry ground.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "Yes, GOD, your God, dried up the Jordan's waters for you until you had crossed, just as GOD, your God, did at the Red Sea, which had dried up before us until we had crossed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> This was so that everybody on earth would recognize how strong GOD's rescuing hand is and so that you would hold GOD in solemn reverence always."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and the Canaanite kings along the seacoast heard how GOD had stopped the Jordan River before the People of Israel until they had crossed over, their hearts sank; the courage drained out of them just thinking about the People of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> At that time GOD said to Joshua, "Make stone knives and circumcise the People of Israel a second time."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> So Joshua made stone knives and circumcised the People of Israel at Foreskins Hill.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> This is why Joshua conducted the circumcision. All the males who had left Egypt, the soldiers, had died in the wilderness on the journey out of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> All the people who had come out of Egypt, of course, had been circumcised, but all those born in the wilderness along the way since leaving Egypt had not been.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The fact is that the People of Israel had walked through that wilderness for forty years until the entire nation died out, all the men of military age who had come out of Egypt but had disobeyed the call of GOD. GOD vowed that these would never lay eyes on the land GOD had solemnly promised their ancestors to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But their children had replaced them. These are the ones Joshua circumcised. They had never been circumcised; no one had circumcised them along the way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> When they had completed the circumcising of the whole nation, they stayed where they were in camp until they were healed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD said to Joshua, "Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt." That's why the place is called The Gilgal. It's still called that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The People of Israel continued to camp at The Gilgal. They celebrated the Passover on the evening of the fourteenth day of the month on the plains of Jericho.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Right away, the day after the Passover, they started eating the produce of that country, unraised bread and roasted grain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And then no more manna; the manna stopped. As soon as they started eating food grown in the land, there was no more manna for the People of Israel. That year they ate from the crops of Canaan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And then this, while Joshua was there near Jericho: He looked up and saw right in front of him a man standing, holding his drawn sword. Joshua stepped up to him and said, "Whose side are you on--ours or our enemies'?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He said, "Neither. I'm commander of GOD's army. I've just arrived." Joshua fell, face to the ground, and worshiped. He asked, "What orders does my Master have for his servant?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> GOD's army commander ordered Joshua, "Take your sandals off your feet. The place you are standing is holy." Joshua did it.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Jericho was shut up tight as a drum because of the People of Israel: no one going in, no one coming out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD spoke to Joshua, "Look sharp now. I've already given Jericho to you, along with its king and its crack troops.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Here's what you are to do: March around the city, all your soldiers. Circle the city once. Repeat this for six days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Have seven priests carry seven ram's horn trumpets in front of the Chest. On the seventh day march around the city seven times, the priests blowing away on the trumpets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And then, a long blast on the ram's horn--when you hear that, all the people are to shout at the top of their lungs. The city wall will collapse at once. All the people are to enter, every man straight on in."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So Joshua son of Nun called the priests and told them, "Take up the Chest of the Covenant. Seven priests are to carry seven ram's horn trumpets leading GOD's Chest."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Then he told the people, "Set out! March around the city. Have the armed guard march before the Chest of GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And it happened. Joshua spoke, the people moved: Seven priests with their seven ram's horn trumpets set out before GOD. They blew the trumpets, leading GOD's Chest of the Covenant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The armed guard marched ahead of the trumpet-blowing priests; the rear guard was marching after the Chest, marching and blowing their trumpets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Joshua had given orders to the people, "Don't shout. In fact, don't even speak--not so much as a whisper until you hear me say, 'Shout!'--then shout away!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He sent the Chest of GOD on its way around the city. It circled once, came back to camp, and stayed for the night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Joshua was up early the next morning and the priests took up the Chest of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The seven priests carrying the seven ram's horn trumpets marched before the Chest of GOD, marching and blowing the trumpets, with the armed guard marching before and the rear guard marching after. Marching and blowing of trumpets!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> On the second day they again circled the city once and returned to camp. They did this six days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> When the seventh day came, they got up early and marched around the city this same way but seven times--yes, this day they circled the city seven times.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> On the seventh time around the priests blew the trumpets and Joshua signaled the people, "Shout!--GOD has given you the city!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The city and everything in it is under a holy curse and offered up to GOD. "Except for Rahab the harlot--she is to live, she and everyone in her house with her, because she hid the agents we sent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "As for you, watch yourselves in the city under holy curse. Be careful that you don't covet anything in it and take something that's cursed, endangering the camp of Israel with the curse and making trouble for everyone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> All silver and gold, all vessels of bronze and iron are holy to GOD. Put them in GOD's treasury."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The priests blew the trumpets. When the people heard the blast of the trumpets, they gave a thunderclap shout. The wall fell at once. The people rushed straight into the city and took it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They put everything in the city under the holy curse, killing man and woman, young and old, ox and sheep and donkey.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Joshua ordered the two men who had spied out the land, "Enter the house of the harlot and rescue the woman and everyone connected with her, just as you promised her."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> So the young spies went in and brought out Rahab, her father, mother, and brothers--everyone connected with her. They got the whole family out and gave them a place outside the camp of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> But they burned down the city and everything in it, except for the gold and silver and the bronze and iron vessels--all that they put in the treasury of GOD's house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> But Joshua let Rahab the harlot live--Rahab and her father's household and everyone connected to her. She is still alive and well in Israel because she hid the agents whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Joshua swore a solemn oath at that time: Cursed before GOD is the man who sets out to rebuild this city Jericho. He'll pay for the foundation with his firstborn son, he'll pay for the gates with his youngest son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> GOD was with Joshua. He became famous all over the land.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then the People of Israel violated the holy curse. Achan son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah, took some of the cursed things. GOD became angry with the People of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai (The Ruin), which is near Beth Aven just east of Bethel. He instructed them, "Go up and spy out the land." The men went up and spied out Ai.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They returned to Joshua and reported, "Don't bother sending a lot of people--two or three thousand men are enough to defeat Ai. Don't wear out the whole army; there aren't that many people there."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> So three thousand men went up--and then fled in defeat before the men of Ai!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The men of Ai killed thirty-six--chased them from the city gate as far as The Quarries, killing them at the descent. The heart of the people sank, all spirit knocked out of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Joshua ripped his clothes and fell on his face to the ground before the Chest of GOD, he and the leaders throwing dirt on their heads, prostrate until evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Joshua said, "Oh, oh, oh . . . Master, GOD. Why did you insist on bringing this people across the Jordan? To make us victims of the Amorites? To wipe us out? Why didn't we just settle down on the east side of the Jordan?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Oh, Master, what can I say after this, after Israel has been run off by its enemies?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When the Canaanites and all the others living here get wind of this, they'll gang up on us and make short work of us--and then how will you keep up your reputation?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> GOD said to Joshua, "Get up. Why are you groveling?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Israel has sinned: They've broken the covenant I commanded them; they've taken forbidden plunder--stolen and then covered up the theft, squirreling it away with their own stuff.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The People of Israel can no longer look their enemies in the eye--they themselves are plunder. I can't continue with you if you don't rid yourselves of the cursed things.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "So get started. Purify the people. Tell them: Get ready for tomorrow by purifying yourselves. For this is what GOD, the God of Israel, says: There are cursed things in the camp. You won't be able to face your enemies until you have gotten rid of these cursed things.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "First thing in the morning you will be called up by tribes. The tribe GOD names will come up clan by clan; the clan GOD names will come up family by family; and the family GOD names will come up man by man.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The person found with the cursed things will be burned, he and everything he has, because he broke GOD's covenant and did this despicable thing in Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Joshua was up at the crack of dawn and called Israel up tribe by tribe. The tribe of Judah was singled out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then he called up the clans and singled out the Zerahites. He called up the Zerahite families and singled out the Zabdi family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> He called up the family members one by one and singled out Achan son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Joshua spoke to Achan, "My son, give glory to GOD, the God of Israel. Make your confession to him. Tell me what you did. Don't keep back anything from me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Achan answered Joshua, "It's true. I sinned against GOD, the God of Israel. This is how I did it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> In the plunder I spotted a beautiful Shinar robe, two hundred shekels of silver, and a fifty-shekel bar of gold, and I coveted and took them. They are buried in my tent with the silver at the bottom."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Joshua sent off messengers. They ran to the tent. And there it was, buried in the tent with the silver at the bottom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They took the stuff from the tent and brought it to Joshua and to all the People of Israel and spread it out before GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Joshua took Achan son of Zerah, took the silver, the robe, the gold bar, his sons and daughters, his ox, donkey, sheep, and tent--everything connected with him. All Israel was there. They led them off to the Valley of Achor (Trouble Valley).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Joshua said, "Why have you troubled us? GOD will now trouble you. Today!" And all Israel stoned him--burned him with fire and stoned him with stones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> They piled a huge pile of stones over him. It's still there. Only then did GOD turn from his hot anger. That's how the place came to be called Trouble Valley right up to the present time.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD said to Joshua, "Don't be timid and don't so much as hesitate. Take all your soldiers with you and go back to Ai. I have turned the king of Ai over to you--his people, his city, and his land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Do to Ai and its king what you did to Jericho and its king. Only this time you may plunder its stuff and cattle to your heart's content. Set an ambush behind the city."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Joshua and all his soldiers got ready to march on Ai. Joshua chose thirty thousand men, tough, seasoned fighters, and sent them off at night</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> with these orders: "Look sharp now. Lie in ambush behind the city. Get as close as you can. Stay alert.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I and the troops with me will approach the city head-on. When they come out to meet us just as before, we'll turn and run.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They'll come after us, leaving the city. As we are off and running, they'll say, 'They're running away just like the first time.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> That's your signal to spring from your ambush and take the city. GOD, your God, will hand it to you on a platter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Once you have the city, burn it down. GOD says it, you do it. Go to it. I've given you your orders."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Joshua sent them off. They set their ambush and waited between Bethel and Ai, just west of Ai. Joshua spent the night with the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Joshua was up early in the morning and mustered his army. He and the leaders of Israel led the troops to Ai.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The whole army, fighting men all, marched right up within sight of the city and set camp on the north side of Ai. There was a valley between them and Ai.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He had taken about five thousand men and put them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, west of the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They were all deployed, the main army to the north of the city and the ambush to the west. Joshua spent the night in the valley.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> So it happened that when the king of Ai saw all this, the men of the city lost no time; they were out of there at the crack of dawn to join Israel in battle, the king and his troops, at a field en route to the Arabah. The king didn't know of the ambush set against him behind the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Joshua and all Israel let themselves be chased; they ran toward the wilderness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Everybody in the city was called to the chase. They pursued Joshua and were led away from the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> There wasn't a soul left in Ai or Bethel who wasn't out there chasing after Israel. The city was left empty and undefended as they were chasing Israel down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Then GOD spoke to Joshua: "Stretch out the javelin in your hand toward Ai--I'm giving it to you." Joshua stretched out the javelin in his hand toward Ai.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> At the signal the men in ambush sprang to their feet, ran to the city, took it, and quickly had it up in flames.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The men of Ai looked back and, oh! saw the city going up in smoke. They found themselves trapped with nowhere to run.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The army on the run toward the wilderness did an about-face--Joshua and all Israel, seeing that the ambush had taken the city, saw it going up in smoke, turned and attacked the men of Ai.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Then the men in the ambush poured out of the city. The men of Ai were caught in the middle with Israelites on both sides--a real massacre. And not a single survivor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Except for the king of Ai; they took him alive and brought him to Joshua.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> When it was all over, Israel had killed everyone in Ai, whether in the fields or in the wilderness where they had chased them. When the killing was complete, the Israelites returned to Ai and completed the devastation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The death toll that day came to 12,000 men and women--everyone in Ai.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Joshua didn't lower his outstretched javelin until the sacred destruction of Ai and all its people was completed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Israel did get to take the livestock and loot left in the city; GOD's instructions to Joshua allowed for that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Joshua burned Ai to the ground. A "heap" of nothing forever, a "no-place"--go see for yourself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> He hanged the king of Ai from a tree. At evening, with the sun going down, Joshua ordered the corpse cut down. They dumped it at the entrance to the city and piled it high with stones--you can go see that also.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Then Joshua built an altar to the GOD of Israel on Mount Ebal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> He built it following the instructions of Moses the servant of GOD to the People of Israel and written in the Book of The Revelation of Moses, an altar of whole stones that hadn't been chiseled or shaped by an iron tool. On it they offered to GOD Whole-Burnt-Offerings and sacrificed Peace-Offerings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> He also wrote out a copy of The Revelation of Moses on the stones. He wrote it with the People of Israel looking on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> All Israel was there, foreigners and citizens alike, with their elders, officers, and judges, standing on opposite sides of the Chest, facing the Levitical priests who carry GOD's Covenant Chest. Half of the people stood with their backs to Mount Gerizim and half with their backs to Mount Ebal to bless the People of Israel, just as Moses the servant of GOD had instructed earlier.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> After that, he read out everything written in The Revelation, the Blessing and the Curse, everything in the Book of The Revelation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> There wasn't a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua didn't read to the entire congregation--men, women, children, and foreigners who had been with them on the journey.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> All the kings west of the Jordan in the hills and foothills and along the Mediterranean seacoast north toward Lebanon--the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, Girgashites, and Jebusites--got the news.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They came together in a coalition to fight against Joshua and Israel under a single command.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The people of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> and cooked up a ruse. They posed as travelers: their donkeys loaded with patched sacks and mended wineskins,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> threadbare sandals on their feet, tattered clothes on their bodies, nothing but dry crusts and crumbs for food.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They came to Joshua at Gilgal and spoke to the men of Israel, "We've come from a far-off country; make a covenant with us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The men of Israel said to these Hivites, "How do we know you aren't local people? How could we then make a covenant with you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They said to Joshua, "We'll be your servants." Joshua said, "Who are you now? Where did you come from?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They said, "From a far-off country, very far away. Your servants came because we'd heard such great things about GOD, your God--all those things he did in Egypt!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And the two Amorite kings across the Jordan, King Sihon of Heshbon and King Og of Bashan, who ruled in Ashtaroth!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Our leaders and everybody else in our country told us, 'Pack up some food for the road and go meet them. Tell them, We're your servants; make a covenant with us.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "This bread was warm from the oven when we packed it and left to come and see you. Now look at it--crusts and crumbs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And our cracked and mended wineskins, good as new when we filled them. And our clothes and sandals, in tatters from the long, hard traveling."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The men of Israel looked them over and accepted the evidence. But they didn't ask GOD about it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So Joshua made peace with them and formalized it with a covenant to guarantee their lives. The leaders of the congregation swore to it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> And then, three days after making this covenant, they learned that they were next-door neighbors who had been living there all along!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The People of Israel broke camp and set out; three days later they reached their towns--Gibeon, Kephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriath Jearim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But the People of Israel didn't attack them; the leaders of the congregation had given their word before the GOD of Israel. But the congregation was up in arms over their leaders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The leaders were united in their response to the congregation: "We promised them in the presence of the GOD of Israel. We can't lay a hand on them now.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But we can do this: We will let them live so we don't get blamed for breaking our promise."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then the leaders continued, "We'll let them live, but they will be woodcutters and water carriers for the entire congregation." And that's what happened; the leaders' promise was kept.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But Joshua called the Gibeonites together and said, "Why did you lie to us, telling us, 'We live far, far away from you,' when you're our next-door neighbors?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> For that you are cursed. From now on it's menial labor for you--woodcutters and water carriers for the house of my God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> They answered Joshua, "We got the message loud and clear that GOD, your God, commanded through his servant Moses: to give you the whole country and destroy everyone living in it. We were terrified because of you; that's why we did this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> That's it. We're at your mercy. Whatever you decide is right for us, do it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> And that's what they did. Joshua delivered them from the power of the People of Israel so they didn't kill them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> But he made them woodcutters and water carriers for the congregation and for the Altar of GOD at the place GOD chooses. They still are.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> It wasn't long before My-Master-Zedek king of Jerusalem heard that Joshua had taken Ai and destroyed it and its king under a holy curse, just as he had done to Jericho and its king. He also learned that the people of Gibeon had come to terms with Israel and were living as neighbors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He and his people were alarmed: Gibeon was a big city--as big as any with a king and bigger than Ai--and all its men were seasoned fighters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Adoni-Zedek king of Jerusalem sent word to Hoham king of Hebron, Piram king of Jarmuth, Japhia king of Lachish, and Debir king of Eglon:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Come and help me. Let's attack Gibeon; they've joined up with Joshua and the People of Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> So the five Amorite (Western) kings--the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon--combined their armies and set out to attack Gibeon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The men of Gibeon sent word to Joshua camped at Gilgal, "Don't let us down now! Come up here quickly! Save us! Help us! All the Amorite kings who live up in the hills have ganged up on us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So Joshua set out from Gilgal, his whole army with him--all those tough soldiers!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD told him, "Don't give them a second thought. I've put them under your thumb--not one of them will stand up to you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Joshua marched all night from Gilgal and took them by total surprise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> GOD threw them into total confusion before Israel, a major victory at Gibeon. Israel chased them along the ridge to Beth Horon and fought them all the way down to Azekah and Makkedah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> As they ran from the People of Israel, down from the Beth Horon ridge and all the way to Azekah, GOD pitched huge stones on them out of the sky and many died. More died from the hailstones than the People of Israel killed with the sword.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The day GOD gave the Amorites up to Israel, Joshua spoke to GOD, with all Israel listening: "Stop, Sun, over Gibeon; Halt, Moon, over Aijalon Valley."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And Sun stopped, Moon stood stock still Until he defeated his enemies. (You can find this written in the Book of Jashar.) The sun stopped in its tracks in mid sky; just sat there all day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> There's never been a day like that before or since--GOD took orders from a human voice! Truly, GOD fought for Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Then Joshua returned, all Israel with him, to the camp at Gilgal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Meanwhile the five kings had hidden in the cave at Makkedah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Joshua was told, "The five kings have been found, hidden in the cave at Makkedah."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Joshua said, "Roll big stones against the mouth of the cave and post guards to keep watch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But don't you hang around--go after your enemies. Cut off their retreat. Don't let them back into their cities. GOD has given them to you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Joshua and the People of Israel then finished them off, total devastation. Only a few got away to the fortified towns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The whole army then returned intact to the camp and to Joshua at Makkedah. There was no criticism that day from the People of Israel!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Then Joshua said, "Open the mouth of the cave and bring me those five kings."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They did it. They brought him the five kings from the cave: the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> When they had them all there in front of Joshua, he called up the army and told the field commanders who had been with him, "Come here. Put your feet on the necks of these kings." They stepped up and put their feet on their necks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Joshua told them, "Don't hold back. Don't be timid. Be strong! Be confident! This is what GOD will do to all your enemies when you fight them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Then Joshua struck and killed the kings. He hung them on five trees where they remained until evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> At sunset Joshua gave the command. They took them down from the trees and threw them into the cave where they had hidden. They put large stones at the mouth of the cave. The kings are still in there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> That same day Joshua captured Makkedah, a massacre that included the king. He carried out the holy curse. No survivors. Makkedah's king got the same treatment as Jericho's king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Joshua, all Israel with him, moved on from Makkedah to Libnah and fought against Libnah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> GOD gave Libnah to Israel. They captured city and king and massacred the lot. No survivors. Libnah's king got the same treatment as Jericho's king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Joshua, all Israel with him, moved on from Libnah to Lachish. He set up camp nearby and attacked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> GOD gave Lachish to Israel. Israel took it in two days and killed everyone. He carried out the holy curse, the same as with Libnah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Horam, king of Gezer, arrived to help Lachish. Joshua attacked him and his army until there was nothing left of them. No survivors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Joshua, all Israel with him, moved on from Lachish to Eglon. They set up camp and attacked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> They captured it and killed everyone, carrying out the holy curse, the same as they had done with Lachish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Joshua, all Israel with him, went up from Eglon to Hebron. He attacked</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> and captured it. They killed everyone, including its king, its villages, and their people. No survivors, the same as with Eglon. They carried out the holy curse on city and people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Then Joshua, all Israel with him, turned toward Debir and attacked it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> He captured it, its king, and its villages. They killed everyone. They put everyone and everything under the holy curse. No survivors. Debir and its king got the same treatment as Hebron and its king, and Libnah and its king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Joshua took the whole country: hills, desert, foothills, and mountain slopes, including all kings. He left no survivors. He carried out the holy curse on everything that breathed, just as GOD, the God of Israel, had commanded.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Joshua's conquest stretched from Kadesh Barnea to Gaza and from the entire region of Goshen to Gibeon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Joshua took all these kings and their lands in a single campaign because GOD, the God of Israel, fought for Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Then Joshua, all Israel with him, went back to the camp at Gilgal.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When Jabin king of Hazor heard of all this, he sent word to Jobab king of Madon; to the king of Shimron; to the king of Acshaph;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> to all the kings in the northern mountains; to the kings in the valley south of Kinnereth; to the kings in the western foothills and Naphoth Dor;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> to the Canaanites both east and west; to the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, and Jebusites in the hill country; and to the Hivites below Hermon in the region of Mizpah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They came out in full force, all their troops massed together--a huge army, in number like sand on an ocean beach--to say nothing of all the horses and chariots.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> All these kings met and set up camp together at the Waters of Merom, ready to fight against Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD said to Joshua: "Don't worry about them. This time tomorrow I'll hand them over to Israel, all dead. You'll hamstring their horses. You'll set fire to their chariots."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Joshua, his entire army with him, took them by surprise, falling on them at the Waters of Merom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD gave them to Israel, who struck and chased them all the way to Greater Sidon, to Misrephoth Maim, and then to the Valley of Mizpah on the east. No survivors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Joshua treated them following GOD's instructions: he hamstrung their horses; he burned up their chariots.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then Joshua came back and took Hazor, killing its king. Early on Hazor had been head of all these kingdoms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They killed every person there, carrying out the holy curse--not a breath of life left anywhere. Then he burned down Hazor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Joshua captured and massacred all the royal towns with their kings, the holy curse commanded by Moses the servant of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But Israel didn't burn the cities that were built on mounds, except for Hazor--Joshua did burn down Hazor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The People of Israel plundered all the loot, including the cattle, from these towns for themselves. But they killed the people--total destruction. They left nothing human that breathed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Just as GOD commanded his servant Moses, so Moses commanded Joshua, and Joshua did it. He didn't leave incomplete one thing that GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Joshua took the whole country: the mountains, the southern desert, all of Goshen, the foothills, the valley (the Arabah), and the Israel mountains with their foothills,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> from Mount Halak, which towers over the region of Seir, all the way to Baal Gad in the Valley of Lebanon in the shadows of Mount Hermon. He captured their kings and then killed them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Joshua fought against these kings for a long time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Not one town made peace with the People of Israel, with the one exception of the Hivites who lived in Gibeon. Israel fought and took all the rest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> It was GOD's idea that they all would stubbornly fight the Israelites so he could put them under the holy curse without mercy. That way he could destroy them just as GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Joshua came out at that time also to root out the Anakim from the hills, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, from the mountains of Judah, from the mountains of Israel. Joshua carried out the holy curse on them and their cities.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> No Anakim were left in the land of the People of Israel, except in Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod--there were a few left there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Joshua took the whole region. He did everything that GOD had told Moses. Then he parceled it out as an inheritance to Israel according to their tribes. And Israel had rest from war.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> These are the kings that the People of Israel defeated and whose land they took on the east of the Jordan, from the Arnon Gorge to Mount Hermon, with the whole eastern side of the Arabah Valley.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned from Heshbon: His rule extended from Aroer, which sits at the edge of the Arnon Gorge, from the middle of the gorge and over half of Gilead to the Gorge of the Jabbok River, which is the border of the Ammonites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> His rule included the eastern Arabah Valley from the Sea of Kinnereth to the Arabah Sea (the Salt Sea), eastward toward Beth Jeshimoth and southward to the slopes of Pisgah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> And Og king of Bashan, one of the last of the Rephaim who reigned from Ashtaroth and Edrei:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> His rule extended from Mount Hermon and Salecah over the whole of Bashan to the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites (the other half of Gilead) to the border of Sihon king of Heshbon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Moses the servant of GOD and the People of Israel defeated them. And Moses the servant of GOD gave this land as an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and half of the tribe of Manasseh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And these are the kings of the land that Joshua and the People of Israel defeated in the country west of the Jordan, from Baal Gad in the Valley of Lebanon south to Mount Halak, which towers over Seir. Joshua gave this land to the tribes of Israel as a possession, according to their divisions:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> lands in the mountains, the western foothills, and the Arabah Valley, on the slopes, and in the wilderness and the Negev desert (lands on which Hittites, Amorites and Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites had lived). The kings were:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The king of Jericho, one; The king of Ai (near Bethel), one;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The king of Jerusalem, one; The king of Hebron, one;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The king of Jarmuth, one; The king of Lachish, one;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The king of Eglon, one; The king of Gezer, one;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The king of Debir, one; The king of Geder, one;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The king of Hormah, one; The king of Arad, one;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The king of Libnah, one; The king of Adullam, one;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The king of Makkedah, one; The king of Bethel, one;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The king of Tappuah, one; The king of Hepher, one;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The king of Aphek, one; The king of Lasharon, one;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The king of Madon, one; The king of Hazor, one;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The king of Shimron Meron, one; The king of Acshaph, one;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The king of Taanach, one; The king of Megiddo, one;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The king of Kedesh, one; The king of Jokneam in Carmel, one;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The king of Dor (Naphoth Dor), one; The king of Goyim in Gilgal, one;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The king of Tirzah, one: A total of thirty-one kings.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When Joshua had reached a venerable age, GOD said to him, "You've had a good, long life, but there is a lot of land still to be taken.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> This is the land that remains: all the districts of the Philistines and Geshurites;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> the land from the Shihor River east of Egypt to the border of Ekron up north, Canaanite country (there were five Philistine tyrants--in Gaza, in Ashdod, in Ashkelon, in Gath, in Ekron); also the Avvim</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> from the south; all the Canaanite land from Arah (belonging to the Sidonians) to Aphek at the Amorite border;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> the country of the Gebalites; all Lebanon eastward from Baal Gad in the shadow of Mount Hermon to the Entrance of Hamath;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> all who live in the mountains, from Lebanon to Misrephoth Maim; all the Sidonians. "I myself will drive them out before the People of Israel. All you have to do is allot this land to Israel as an inheritance, as I have instructed you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Do it now: Allot this land as an inheritance to the nine tribes and the half-tribe of Manasseh."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The other half-tribe of Manasseh, with the Reubenites and Gadites, had been given their inheritance by Moses on the other side of the Jordan eastward. Moses the servant of GOD gave it to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> This land extended from Aroer at the edge of the Arnon Gorge and the city in the middle of the valley, taking in the entire tableland of Medeba as far as Dibon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> and all the towns of Sihon king of the Amorites, who ruled from Heshbon, and out to the border of the Ammonites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> It also included Gilead, the country of the people of Geshur and Maacah, all of Mount Hermon, and all Bashan as far as Salecah--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> the whole kingdom of Og in Bashan, who reigned in Ashtaroth and Edrei. He was one of the last survivors of the Rephaim. Moses had defeated them and taken their land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The People of Israel never did drive out the Geshurites and the Maacathites--they're still there, living in Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Levi was the only tribe that did not receive an inheritance. The Fire-Gift offerings to GOD, the God of Israel, are their inheritance, just as he told them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> To the tribe of Reuben, clan by clan, Moses gave:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> the land from Aroer at the edge of the Arnon Gorge and the town in the middle of the valley, including the tableland around Medeba;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Heshbon on the tableland with all its towns (Dibon, Bamoth Baal, Beth Baal Meon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Jahaz, Kedemoth, Mephaath,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Kiriathaim, Sibmah, Zereth Shahar on Valley Mountain,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Beth Peor, the slopes of Pisgah, Beth Jeshimoth);</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> and all the cities of the tableland, the whole kingdom of Sihon king of the Amorites, who ruled at Heshbon, whom Moses put to death along with the princes of Midian: Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba, who lived in that country, all puppets of Sihon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> (In addition to those killed in battle, Balaam son of Beor, the soothsayer, was put to death by the People of Israel.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The boundary for the Reubenites was the bank of the Jordan River. This was the inheritance of the Reubenites, their villages and cities, according to their clans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> To the tribe of Gad, clan by clan, Moses gave:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> the territory of Jazer and all the towns of Gilead and half the Ammonite country as far as Aroer near Rabbah;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> the land from Heshbon to Ramath Mizpah and Betonim, and from Mahanaim to the region of Debir;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> in the valley: Beth Haram, Beth Nimrah, Succoth, and Zaphon, with the rest of the kingdom of Sihon king of Heshbon (the east side of the Jordan, north to the end of the Sea of Kinnereth).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> This was the inheritance of the Gadites, their cities and villages, clan by clan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> To the half-tribe of Manasseh, clan by clan, Moses gave:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> the land stretching out from Mahanaim; all of Bashan, which is the entire kingdom of Og king of Bashan, and all the settlements of Jair in Bashan--sixty towns in all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Half of Gilead with Ashtaroth and Edrei, the royal cities of Og in Bashan, belong to the descendants of Makir, a son of Manasseh (in other words, the half-tribe of the children of Makir) for their clans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> This is the inheritance that Moses gave out when he was on the plains of Moab across the Jordan east of Jericho.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> But Moses gave no inheritance to the tribe of Levi. GOD, the God of Israel, is their inheritance, just as he told them.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Here are the inheritance allotments that the People of Israel received in the land of Canaan. Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun, and the heads of the family clans made the allotments.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Each inheritance was assigned by lot to the nine and a half tribes, just as GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Moses had given the two and a half tribes their inheritance east of the Jordan, but hadn't given an inheritance to the Levites, as he had to the others.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Because the sons of Joseph had become two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim, they gave no allotment to the Levites; but they did give them cities to live in with pasture rights for their flocks and herds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The People of Israel followed through exactly as GOD had commanded Moses. They apportioned the land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The people of Judah came to Joshua at Gilgal. Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite spoke: "You'll remember what GOD said to Moses the man of God concerning you and me back at Kadesh Barnea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I was forty years old when Moses the servant of GOD sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land. And I brought back an honest and accurate report.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> My companions who went with me discouraged the people, but I stuck to my guns, totally with GOD, my God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> That was the day that Moses solemnly promised, 'The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance, you and your children's, forever. Yes, you have lived totally for GOD.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Now look at me: GOD has kept me alive, as he promised. It is now forty-five years since GOD spoke this word to Moses, years in which Israel wandered in the wilderness. And here I am today, eighty-five years old!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I'm as strong as I was the day Moses sent me out. I'm as strong as ever in battle, whether coming or going.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> So give me this hill country that GOD promised me. You yourself heard the report, that the Anakim were there with their great fortress cities. If GOD goes with me, I will drive them out, just as GOD said."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Joshua blessed him. He gave Hebron to Caleb son of Jephunneh as an inheritance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Hebron belongs to Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite still today, because he gave himself totally to GOD, the God of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The name of Hebron used to be Kiriath Arba, named after Arba, the greatest man among the Anakim. And the land had rest from war.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The lot for the people of Judah, their clans, extended south to the border of Edom, to the wilderness of Zin in the extreme south.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The southern border ran from the tip of the Salt Sea south of The Tongue;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> it ran southward from Scorpions Pass, went around Zin and just south of Kadesh Barnea; then it ran past Hezron, ascended to Addar, and curved around to Karka;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> from there it passed along to Azmon, came out at the Brook of Egypt, ending at the Sea. This is the southern boundary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The eastern boundary: the Salt Sea up to the mouth of the Jordan. The northern boundary started at the shallows of the Sea at the mouth of the Jordan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> went up to Beth Hoglah and around to the north of Beth Arabah and to the Stone of Bohan son of Reuben.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The border then ascended to Debir from Trouble Valley and turned north toward Gilgal, which lies opposite Red Pass, just south of the gorge. The border then followed the Waters of En Shemesh and ended at En Rogel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The border followed the Valley of Ben Hinnom along the southern slope of the Jebusite ridge (that is, Jerusalem). It ascended to the top of the mountain opposite Hinnom Valley on the west, at the northern end of Rephaim Valley;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> the border then took a turn at the top of the mountain to the spring, the Waters of Nephtoah, and followed the valley out to Mount Ephron, turned toward Baalah (that is, Kiriath Jearim),</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> took another turn west of Baalah to Mount Seir, curved around to the northern shoulder of Mount Jearim (that is, Kesalon), descended to Beth Shemesh, and crossed to Timnah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The border then went north to the ridge of Ekron, turned toward Shikkeron, passed along to Mount Baalah, and came out at Jabneel. The border ended at the Sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The western border: the coastline of the Great Sea. This is the boundary around the people of Judah for their clans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Joshua gave Caleb son of Jephunneh a section among the people of Judah, according to GOD's command. He gave him Kiriath Arba, that is, Hebron. Arba was the ancestor of Anak.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Caleb drove out three Anakim from Hebron: Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai, all descendants of Anak.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He marched up from there against the people of Debir. Debir used to be called Kiriath Sepher.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Caleb said, "Whoever attacks Kiriath Sepher and takes it, I'll give my daughter Acsah to him as his wife."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb's brother, took it; so Caleb gave him his daughter Acsah as his wife.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When she arrived she got him to ask for farm land from her father. As she dismounted from her donkey Caleb asked her, "What would you like?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> She said, "Give me a marriage gift. You've given me desert land; Now give me pools of water!" And he gave her the upper and the lower pools.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> This is the inheritance of the tribe of the people of Judah, clan by clan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The southern towns of the tribe of Judah in the Negev were near the boundary of Edom: Kabzeel, Eder, Jagur,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Kinah, Dimonah, Adadah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Kedesh, Hazor, Ithnan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Ziph, Telem, Bealoth,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Hazor Hadattah, Kerioth Hezron (that is, Hazor),</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Amam, Shema, Moladah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Hazar Gaddah, Heshmon, Beth Pelet,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Hazar Shual, Beersheba, Biziothiah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Baalah, Iim, Ezem,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Eltolad, Kesil, Hormah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Ziklag, Madmannah, Sansannah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Lebaoth, Shilhim, Ain, and Rimmon-- a total of twenty-nine towns and their villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> In the Shephelah (the western foothills) there were: Eshtaol, Zorah, Ashnah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Zanoah, En Gannim, Tappuah, Enam,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Jarmuth, Adullam, Socoh, Azekah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Shaaraim, Adithaim, and Gederah (or Gederothaim)-- fourteen towns and their villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Zenan, Hadashah, Migdal Gad,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Dilean, Mizpah, Joktheel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Lachish, Bozkath, Eglon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Cabbon, Lahmas, Kitlish,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Gederoth, Beth Dagon, Naamah, and Makkedah-- sixteen towns and their villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Libnah, Ether, Ashan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Iphtah, Ashnah, Nezib,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Keilah, Aczib, and Mareshah-- nine towns and their villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> Ekron with its towns and villages;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> From Ekron, west to the sea, all that bordered Ashdod with its villages;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> Ashdod with its towns and villages; Gaza with its towns and villages all the way to the Brook of Egypt. The Great Sea is the western border.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> In the hill country: Shamir, Jattir, Socoh,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> Dannah, Kiriath Sannah (that is, Debir),</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Anab, Eshtemoh, Anim,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> Goshen, Holon, and Giloh-- eleven towns and their villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> Arab, Dumah, Eshan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> Janim, Beth Tappuah, Aphekah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> Humtah, Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron), and Zior-- nine towns and their villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> Maon, Carmel, Ziph, Juttah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> Jezreel, Jokdeam, Zanoah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> Kain, Gibeah, and Timnah-- ten towns and their villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> Halhul, Beth Zur, Gedor,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="59"> Maarath, Beth Anoth, and Eltekon-- six towns and their villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="60"> Kiriath Baal (that is, Kiriath Jearim) and Rabbah-- two towns and their villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="61"> In the wilderness: Beth Arabah, Middin, Secacah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="62"> Nibshan, the City of Salt, and En Gedi-- six towns and their villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="63"> The people of Judah couldn't get rid of the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem. The Jebusites stayed put, living alongside the people of Judah. They are still living there in Jerusalem.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The lot for the people of Joseph went from the Jordan near Jericho, east of the spring of Jericho, north through the desert mountains to Bethel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> It went on from Bethel (that is, Luz) to the territory of the Arkites in Ataroth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> It then descended westward to the territory of the Japhletites to the region of Lower Beth Horon and on to Gezer, ending at the Sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> This is the region from which the people of Joseph--Manasseh and Ephraim--got their inheritance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Ephraim's territory by clans: The boundary of their inheritance went from Ataroth Addar in the east to Upper Beth Horon</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> and then west to the Sea. From Micmethath on the north it turned eastward to Taanath Shiloh and passed along, still eastward, to Janoah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The border then descended from Janoah to Ataroth and Naarah; it touched Jericho and came out at the Jordan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> From Tappuah the border went westward to the Brook Kanah and ended at the Sea. This was the inheritance of the tribe of Ephraim by clans,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> including the cities set aside for Ephraim within the inheritance of Manasseh--all those towns and their villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But they didn't get rid of the Canaanites who were living in Gezer. Canaanites are still living among the people of Ephraim, but they are made to do forced labor.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="17">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> This is the lot that fell to the people of Manasseh, Joseph's firstborn. (Gilead and Bashan had already been given to Makir, Manasseh's firstborn and father of Gilead, because he was an outstanding fighter.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> So the lot that follows went to the rest of the people of Manasseh and their clans, the clans of Abiezer, Helek, Asriel, Shechem, Hepher, and Shemida. These are the male descendants of Manasseh son of Joseph by their clans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Zelophehad son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Makir, the son of Manasseh, had no sons, only daughters. Their names were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They went to Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun, and the leaders and said, "GOD commanded Moses to give us an inheritance among our kinsmen." And Joshua did it; he gave them, as GOD commanded, an inheritance amid their father's brothers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Manasseh's lot came to ten portions, in addition to the land of Gilead and Bashan on the other side of the Jordan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> because Manasseh's daughters got an inheritance along with his sons. The land of Gilead belonged to the rest of the people of Manasseh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The boundary of Manasseh went from Asher all the way to Micmethath, just opposite Shechem, then ran southward to the people living at En Tappuah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> (The land of Tappuah belonged to Manasseh, but Tappuah itself on the border of Manasseh belonged to the Ephraimites.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The boundary continued south to the Brook Kanah. (The cities there belonged to Ephraim although they lay among the cities of Manasseh.) The boundary of Manasseh ran north of the brook and ended at the Sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The land to the south belonged to Ephraim; the land to the north to Manasseh, with the Sea as their western border; they meet Asher on the north and Issachar on the east.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Within Issachar and Asher, Manasseh also held Beth Shan, Ibleam, and the people of Dor, Endor, Taanach, and Megiddo, together with their villages, and the third in the list is Naphoth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The people of Manasseh never were able to take over these towns--the Canaanites wouldn't budge.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But later, when the Israelites got stronger, they put the Canaanites to forced labor. But they never did get rid of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The people of Joseph spoke to Joshua: "Why did you give us just one allotment, one solitary share? There are a lot of us, and growing--GOD has extravagantly blessed us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Joshua responded, "Since there are so many of you, and you find the hill country of Ephraim too confining, climb into the forest and clear ground there for yourselves in the land of the Perizzites and the Rephaim."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But the people of Joseph said, "There's not enough hill country for us; and the Canaanites who live down in the plain, both those in Beth Shan and its villages and in the Valley of Jezreel, have iron chariots."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Joshua said to the family of Joseph (to Ephraim and Manasseh): "Yes, there are a lot of you, and you are very strong. One lot is not enough for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> You also get the hill country. It's nothing but trees now, but you will clear the land and make it your own from one end to the other. The powerful Canaanites, even with their iron chariots, won't stand a chance against you."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="18">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then the entire congregation of the People of Israel got together at Shiloh. They put up the Tent of Meeting. The land was under their control</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> but there were still seven Israelite tribes who had yet to receive their inheritance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Joshua addressed the People of Israel: "How long are you going to sit around on your hands, putting off taking possession of the land that GOD, the God of your ancestors, has given you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Pick three men from each tribe so I can commission them. They will survey and map the land, showing the inheritance due each tribe, and report back to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They will divide it into seven parts. Judah will stay in its territory in the south and the people of Joseph will keep to their place in the north.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "You are responsible for preparing a survey map showing seven portions. Then bring it to me so that I can cast lots for you here in the presence of our GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Only the Levites get no portion among you because the priesthood of GOD is their inheritance. And Gad, Reuben, and the half-tribe of Manasseh already have their inheritance on the east side of the Jordan, given to them by Moses the servant of GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> So the men set out. As they went out to survey the land, Joshua charged them: "Go. Survey the land and map it. Then come back to me and I will cast lots for you here at Shiloh in the presence of GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So off the men went. They covered the ground and mapped the country by towns in a scroll. Then they reported back to Joshua at the camp at Shiloh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Joshua cast the lots for them at Shiloh in the presence of GOD. That's where Joshua divided up the land to the People of Israel, according to their tribal divisions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The first lot turned up for the tribe of Benjamin with its clans. The border of the allotment went between the peoples of Judah and Joseph.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The northern border began at the Jordan, then went up to the ridge north of Jericho, ascending west into the hill country into the wilderness of Beth Aven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> From there the border went around to Luz, to its southern ridge (that is, Bethel), and then down from Ataroth Addar to the mountain to the south of Lower Beth Horon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> There the border took a turn on the west side and swung south from the mountain to the south of Beth Horon and ended at Kiriath Baal (that is, Kiriath Jearim), a town of the people of Judah. This was the west side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The southern border began at the edge of Kiriath Jearim on the west, then ran west until it reached the spring, the Waters of Nephtoah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> It then descended to the foot of the mountain opposite the Valley of Ben Hinnom (which flanks the Valley of Rephaim to the north), descended to the Hinnom Valley, just south of the Jebusite ridge, and went on to En Rogel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> From there it curved north to En Shemesh and Geliloth, opposite the Red Pass (Adummim), down to the Stone of Bohan the son of Reuben,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> continued toward the north flank of Beth Arabah, then plunged to the Arabah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> It then followed the slope of Beth Hoglah north and came out at the northern bay of the Salt Sea--the south end of the Jordan. This was the southern border.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The east border was formed by the Jordan. This was the inheritance of the people of Benjamin for their clans, marked by these borders on all sides.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The cities of the tribe of Benjamin, clan by clan, were: Jericho, Beth Hoglah, Emek Keziz,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Beth Arabah, Zemaraim, Bethel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Avvim, Parah, Ophrah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Kephar Ammoni, Ophni, and Geba-- twelve towns with their villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Gibeon, Ramah, Beeroth,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Mizpah, Kephirah, Mozah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Rekem, Irpeel, Taralah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Zelah, Haeleph, the Jebusite city (that is, Jerusalem), Gibeah, and Kiriath Jearim-- fourteen cities with their villages. This was the inheritance for Benjamin, according to its clans.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="19">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The second lot went to Simeon for its clans. Their inheritance was within the territory of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> In their inheritance they had: Beersheba (or Sheba), Moladah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Hazar Shual, Balah, Ezem,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Eltolad, Bethul, Hormah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Ziklag, Beth Marcaboth, Hazar Susah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Beth Lebaoth, and Sharuhen-- thirteen towns and their villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Ain, Rimmon, Ether, and Ashan-- four towns and their villages--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> plus all the villages around these towns as far as Baalath Beer, the Ramah of the Negev. This is the inheritance of the tribe of Simeon according to its clans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The inheritance of Simeon came out of the share of Judah, because Judah's portion turned out to be more than they needed. That's how the people of Simeon came to get their lot from within Judah's portion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The third lot went to Zebulun, clan by clan: The border of their inheritance went all the way to Sarid.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> It ran west to Maralah, met Dabbesheth, and then went to the brook opposite Jokneam.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> In the other direction from Sarid, the border ran east; it followed the sunrise to the border of Kisloth Tabor, on to Daberath and up to Japhia.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> It continued east to Gath Hepher and Eth Kazin, came out at Rimmon, and turned toward Neah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> There the border went around on the north to Hannathon and ran out into the Valley of Iphtah El.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> It included Kattath, Nahalal, Shimron, Idalah, and Bethlehem--twelve cities with their villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> This is the inheritance of the people of Zebulun for their clans--these towns and their villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The fourth lot went to Issachar, clan by clan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Their territory included: Jezreel, Kesulloth, Shunem,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Hapharaim, Shion, Anaharath,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Rabbith, Kishion, Ebez,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Remeth, En Gannim, En Haddah, and Beth Pazzez.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The boundary touched Tabor, Shahazumah, and Beth Shemesh and ended at the Jordan--sixteen towns and their villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> These towns with their villages were the inheritance of the tribe of Issachar, clan by clan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The fifth lot went to the tribe of Asher, clan by clan:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Their territory included Helkath, Hali, Beten, Acshaph,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Allammelech, Amad, and Mishal. The western border touched Carmel and Shihor Libnath,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> then turned east toward Beth Dagon, touched Zebulun and the Valley of Iphtah El, and went north to Beth Emek and Neiel, skirting Cabul on the left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> It went on to Abdon, Rehob, Hammon, and Kanah, all the way to Greater Sidon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The border circled back toward Ramah, extended to the fort city of Tyre, turned toward Hosah, and came out at the Sea in the region of Aczib,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Ummah, Aphek, and Rehob--twenty-two towns and their villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> These towns and villages were the inheritance of the tribe of Asher, clan by clan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The sixth lot came to Naphtali and its clans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Their border ran from Heleph, from the oak at Zaanannim, passing Adami Nekeb and Jabneel to Lakkum and ending at the Jordan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The border returned on the west at Aznoth Tabor and came out at Hukkok, meeting Zebulun on the south, Asher on the west, and the Jordan on the east.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> The fort cities were: Ziddim, Zer, Hammath, Rakkath, Kinnereth,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Adamah, Ramah, Hazor,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Kedesh, Edrei, En Hazor,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Iron, Migdal El, Horem, Beth Anath, and Beth Shemesh-- nineteen towns and their villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> This is the inheritance of the tribe of Naphtali, the cities and their villages, clan by clan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> The seventh lot fell to Dan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> The territory of their inheritance included: Zorah, Eshtaol, Ir Shemesh,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Shaalabbin, Aijalon, Ithlah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Elon, Timnah, Ekron,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Eltekeh, Gibbethon, Baalath,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> Jehud, Bene Berak, Gath Rimmon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Me Jarkon, and Rakkon, with the region facing Joppa.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> But the people of Dan failed to get rid of the Westerners (Amorites), who pushed them back into the hills. The Westerners kept them out of the plain and they didn't have enough room. So the people of Dan marched up and attacked Leshem. They took it, killed the inhabitants, and settled in. They renamed it Leshem Dan after the name of Dan their ancestor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> This is the inheritance of the tribe of Dan, according to its clans, these towns with their villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> They completed the dividing of the land as inheritance and the setting of its boundaries. The People of Israel then gave an inheritance among them to Joshua son of Nun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> In obedience to GOD's word, they gave him the city which he had requested, Timnath Serah in the hill country of Ephraim. He rebuilt the city and settled there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> These are the inheritances which Eleazar the priest and Joshua son of Nun and the ancestral leaders assigned by lot to the tribes of Israel at Shiloh in the presence of GOD at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. They completed the dividing of the land.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="20">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then GOD spoke to Joshua:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Tell the People of Israel: Designate the asylum-cities, as I instructed you through Moses,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> so that anyone who kills a person accidentally--that is, unintentionally--may flee there as a safe place of asylum from the avenger of blood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "A person shall escape for refuge to one of these cities, stand at the entrance to the city gate, and lay out his case before the city's leaders. The leaders must then take him into the city among them and give him a place to live with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "If the avenger of blood chases after him, they must not give him up--he didn't intend to kill the person; there was no history of ill-feeling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He may stay in that city until he has stood trial before the congregation and until the death of the current high priest. Then he may go back to his own home in his hometown from which he fled."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They set apart Kedesh in Galilee in the hills of Naphtali, Shechem in the hills of Ephraim, and Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron) in the hills of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> On the other side of the Jordan, east of Jericho, they designated Bezer on the desert plateau from the tribe of Reuben, Ramoth in Gilead from the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan from the tribe of Manasseh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> These were the designated cities for the People of Israel and any resident foreigner living among them, so that anyone who killed someone unintentionally could flee there and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood without a fair trial before the congregation.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="21">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The ancestral heads of the Levites came to Eleazar the priest and Joshua son of Nun and to the heads of the other tribes of the People of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> This took place at Shiloh in the land of Canaan. They said, "GOD commanded through Moses that you give us cities to live in with access to pastures for our cattle."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> So the People of Israel, out of their own inheritance, gave the Levites, just as GOD commanded, the following cities and pastures:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The lot came out for the families of the Kohathites this way: Levites descended from Aaron the priest received by lot thirteen cities out of the tribes of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The rest of the Kohathites received by lot ten cities from the families of the tribes of Ephraim, Dan, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The Gershonites received by lot thirteen cities from the families of the tribes of Issachar, Asher, Naphtali, and the half-tribe of Manasseh in Bashan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The families of the Merarites received twelve towns from the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Zebulun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> So the People of Israel gave these cities with their pastures to the Levites just as GOD had ordered through Moses, that is, by lot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They assigned from the tribes of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin the following towns, here named individually</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> (these were for the descendants of Aaron who were from the families of the Kohathite branch of Levi because the first lot fell to them):</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Kiriath Arba (Arba was the ancestor of Anak), that is, Hebron, in the hills of Judah, with access to the pastures around it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The fields of the city and its open lands they had already given to Caleb son of Jephunneh as his possession.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> To the descendants of Aaron the priest they gave Hebron (the asylum-city for the unconvicted killers), Libnah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Jattir, Eshtemoa,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Holon, Debir,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Ain, Juttah, and Beth Shemesh, all with their accompanying pastures--nine towns from these two tribes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And from the tribe of Benjamin: Gibeon, Geba,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Anathoth, and Almon, together with their pastures--four towns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The total for the cities and pastures for the priests descended from Aaron came to thirteen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The rest of the Kohathite families from the tribe of Levi were assigned their cities by lot from the tribe of Ephraim:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Shechem (the asylum-city for the unconvicted killer) in the hills of Ephraim, Gezer,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Kibzaim, and Beth Horon, with their pastures--four towns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> From the tribe of Dan they received Eltekeh, Gibbethon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Aijalon, and Gath Rimmon, all with their pastures--four towns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> And from the half-tribe of Manasseh they received Taanach and Gath Rimmon with their pastures--two towns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> All told, ten cities with their pastures went to the remaining Kohathite families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The Gershonite families of the tribe of Levi were given from the half-tribe of Manasseh: Golan in Bashan (an asylum-city for the unconvicted killer), and Be Eshtarah, with their pastures--two cities.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> And from the tribe of Issachar: Kishion, Daberath,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Jarmuth, and En Gannim, with their pastures--four towns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> From the tribe of Asher: Mishal, Abdon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Helkath, and Rehob, with their pastures--four towns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> From the tribe of Naphtali: Kedesh in Galilee (an asylum-city for the unconvicted killer), Hammoth Dor, and Kartan, with their pastures--three towns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> For the Gershonites and their families: thirteen towns with their pastures.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The Merari families, the remaining Levites, were given from the tribe of Zebulun: Jokneam, Kartah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Dimnah, and Nahalal, with their pastures--four cities.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> From the tribe of Reuben: Bezer, Jahaz,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Kedemoth, and Mephaath, with their pastures--four towns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> From the tribe of Gad: Ramoth in Gilead (an asylum-city for the unconvicted killer), Mahanaim,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Heshbon, and Jazer, with their pastures--a total of four towns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> All these towns were assigned by lot to the Merarites, the remaining Levites--twelve towns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> The Levites held forty-eight towns with their accompanying pastures within the territory of the People of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Each of these towns had pastures surrounding it--this was the case for all these towns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> And so GOD gave Israel the entire land that he had solemnly vowed to give to their ancestors. They took possession of it and made themselves at home in it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> And GOD gave them rest on all sides, as he had also solemnly vowed to their ancestors. Not a single one of their enemies was able to stand up to them--GOD handed over all their enemies to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> Not one word failed from all the good words GOD spoke to the house of Israel. Everything came out right.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="22">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then Joshua called together the Reubenites, Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He said: "You have carried out everything Moses the servant of GOD commanded you, and you have obediently done everything I have commanded you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> All this time and right down to this very day you have not abandoned your brothers; you've shouldered the task laid on you by GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> And now GOD, your God, has given rest to your brothers just as he promised them. You're now free to go back to your homes, the country of your inheritance that Moses the servant of GOD gave you on the other side of the Jordan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Only this: Be vigilant in keeping the Commandment and The Revelation that Moses the servant of GOD laid on you: Love GOD, your God, walk in all his ways, do what he's commanded, embrace him, serve him with everything you are and have."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then Joshua blessed them and sent them on their way. They went home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> (To the half-tribe of Manasseh, Moses had assigned a share in Bashan. To the other half, Joshua assigned land with their brothers west of the Jordan.) When Joshua sent them off to their homes, he blessed them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He said: "Go home. You're going home rich--great herds of cattle, silver and gold, bronze and iron, huge piles of clothing. Share the wealth with your friends and families--all this plunder from your enemies!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The Reubenites, Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh left the People of Israel at Shiloh in the land of Canaan to return to Gilead, the land of their possession, which they had taken under the command of Moses as ordered by GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They arrived at Geliloth on the Jordan (touching on Canaanite land). There the Reubenites, Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh built an altar on the banks of the Jordan--a huge altar!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The People of Israel heard of it: "What's this? The Reubenites, Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh have built an altar facing the land of Canaan at Geliloth on the Jordan, across from the People of Israel!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When the People of Israel heard this, the entire congregation mustered at Shiloh to go to war against them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They sent Phinehas son of Eleazar the priest to the Reubenites, Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh (that is, to the land of Gilead).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Accompanying him were ten chiefs, one chief for each of the ten tribes, each the head of his ancestral family. They represented the military divisions of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They went to the Reubenites, Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh and spoke to them:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "The entire congregation of GOD wants to know: What is this violation against the God of Israel that you have committed, turning your back on GOD and building your own altar--a blatant act of rebellion against GOD?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Wasn't the crime of Peor enough for us? Why, to this day we aren't rid of it, still living with the fallout of the plague on the congregation of GOD!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Look at you--turning your back on GOD! If you rebel against GOD today, tomorrow he'll vent his anger on all of us, the entire congregation of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "If you think the land of your possession isn't holy enough but somehow contaminated, come back over to GOD's possession, where GOD's Dwelling is set up, and take your land there, but don't rebel against GOD. And don't rebel against us by building your own altar apart from the Altar of our GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> When Achan son of Zerah violated the holy curse, didn't anger fall on the whole congregation of Israel? He wasn't the only one to die for his sin."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The Reubenites, Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh replied to the heads of the tribes of Israel:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The God of Gods is GOD, The God of Gods is GOD! "He knows and he'll let Israel know if this is a rebellious betrayal of GOD. And if it is, don't bother saving us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> If we built ourselves an altar in rebellion against GOD, if we did it to present on it Whole-Burnt-Offerings or Grain-Offerings or to enact there sacrificial Peace-Offerings, let GOD decide.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "But that's not it. We did it because we cared. We were anxious lest someday your children should say to our children, 'You're not connected with GOD, the God of Israel!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> GOD made the Jordan a boundary between us and you. You Reubenites and Gadites have no part in GOD.' And then your children might cause our children to quit worshiping GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "So we said to ourselves, 'Let's do something. Let's build an altar--but not for Whole-Burnt-Offerings, not for sacrifices.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "We built this altar as a witness between us and you and our children coming after us, a witness to the Altar where we worship GOD in his Sacred Dwelling with our Whole-Burnt-Offerings and our sacrifices and our Peace-Offerings. "This way, your children won't be able to say to our children in the future, 'You have no part in GOD.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "We said to ourselves, 'If anyone speaks disparagingly to us or to our children in the future, we'll say: Look at this model of GOD's Altar which our ancestors made. It's not for Whole-Burnt-Offerings, not for sacrifices. It's a witness connecting us with you.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "Rebelling against or turning our backs on GOD is the last thing on our minds right now. We never dreamed of building an altar for Whole-Burnt-Offerings or Grain-Offerings to rival the Altar of our GOD in front of his Sacred Dwelling."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Phinehas the priest, all the heads of the congregation, and the heads of the military divisions of Israel who were also with him heard what the Reubenites, Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh had to say. They were satisfied.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Priest Phinehas son of Eleazar said to Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh, "Now we're convinced that GOD is present with us since you haven't been disloyal to GOD in this matter. You saved the People of Israel from GOD's discipline."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Then Priest Phinehas son of Eleazar left the Reubenites, Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh (from Gilead) and, with the chiefs, returned to the land of Canaan to the People of Israel and gave a full report.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> They were pleased with the report. The People of Israel blessed God--there was no more talk of attacking and destroying the land in which the Reubenites and Gadites were living.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Reuben and Gad named the altar: A Witness Between Us. GOD Alone Is God.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="23">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A long time later, after GOD had given Israel rest from all their surrounding enemies, and Joshua was a venerable old man,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Joshua called all Israel together--elders, chiefs, judges, and officers. Then he spoke to them: "I'm an old man. I've lived a long time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You have seen everything that GOD has done to these nations because of you. He did it because he's GOD, your God. He fought for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Stay alert: I have assigned to you by lot these nations that remain as an inheritance to your tribes--these in addition to the nations I have already cut down--from the Jordan to the Great Sea in the west.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD, your God, will drive them out of your path until there's nothing left of them and you'll take over their land just as GOD, your God, promised you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Now, stay strong and steady. Obediently do everything written in the Book of The Revelation of Moses--don't miss a detail.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Don't get mixed up with the nations that are still around. Don't so much as speak the names of their gods or swear by them. And by all means don't worship or pray to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Hold tight to GOD, your God, just as you've done up to now.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "GOD has driven out superpower nations before you. And up to now, no one has been able to stand up to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Think of it--one of you, single-handedly, putting a thousand on the run! Because GOD is GOD, your God. Because he fights for you, just as he promised you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Now, vigilantly guard your souls: Love GOD, your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Because if you wander off and start taking up with these remaining nations still among you (intermarry, say, and have other dealings with them),</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> know for certain that GOD, your God, will not get rid of these nations for you. They'll be nothing but trouble to you--horsewhips on your backs and sand in your eyes--until you're the ones who will be driven out of this good land that GOD, your God, has given you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "As you can see, I'm about to go the way we all end up going. Know this with all your heart, with everything in you, that not one detail has failed of all the good things GOD, your God, promised you. It has all happened. Nothing's left undone--not so much as a word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "But just as sure as everything good that GOD, your God, has promised has come true, so also GOD will bring to pass every bad thing until there's nothing left of you in this good land that GOD has given you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> If you leave the path of the Covenant of GOD, your God, that he commanded you, go off and serve and worship other gods, GOD's anger will blaze out against you. In no time at all there'll be nothing left of you, no sign that you've ever been in this good land he gave you."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="24">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Joshua called together all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He called in the elders, chiefs, judges, and officers. They presented themselves before God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Then Joshua addressed all the people: "This is what GOD, the God of Israel, says: A long time ago your ancestors, Terah and his sons Abraham and Nahor, lived to the east of the River Euphrates. They worshiped other gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I took your ancestor Abraham from the far side of The River. I led him all over the land of Canaan and multiplied his descendants. I gave him Isaac.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then I gave Isaac Jacob and Esau. I let Esau have the mountains of Seir as home, but Jacob and his sons ended up in Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I sent Moses and Aaron. I hit Egypt hard with plagues and then led you out of there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I brought your ancestors out of Egypt. You came to the sea, the Egyptians in hot pursuit with chariots and cavalry, to the very edge of the Red Sea!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Then they cried out for help to GOD. He put a cloud between you and the Egyptians and then let the sea loose on them. It drowned them. "You watched the whole thing with your own eyes, what I did to Egypt. And then you lived in the wilderness for a long time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I brought you to the country of the Amorites, who lived east of the Jordan, and they fought you. But I fought for you and you took their land. I destroyed them for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then Balak son of Zippor made his appearance. He was the king of Moab. He got ready to fight Israel by sending for Balaam son of Beor to come and curse you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But I wouldn't listen to Balaam--he ended up blessing you over and over! I saved you from him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "You then crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho. The Jericho leaders ganged up on you as well as the Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hittites, Girgashites, Hivites, and Jebusites, but I turned them over to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "I sent the Hornet ahead of you. It drove out the two Amorite kings--did your work for you. You didn't have to do a thing, not so much as raise a finger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "I handed you a land for which you did not work, towns you did not build. And here you are now living in them and eating from vineyards and olive groves you did not plant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "So now: Fear GOD. Worship him in total commitment. Get rid of the gods your ancestors worshiped on the far side of The River (the Euphrates) and in Egypt. You, worship GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "If you decide that it's a bad thing to worship GOD, then choose a god you'd rather serve--and do it today. Choose one of the gods your ancestors worshiped from the country beyond The River, or one of the gods of the Amorites, on whose land you're now living. As for me and my family, we'll worship GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The people answered, "We'd never forsake GOD! Never! We'd never leave GOD to worship other gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "GOD is our God! He brought up our ancestors from Egypt and from slave conditions. He did all those great signs while we watched. He has kept his eye on us all along the roads we've traveled and among the nations we've passed through.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Just for us he drove out all the nations, Amorites and all, who lived in the land. "Count us in: We too are going to worship GOD. He's our God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Then Joshua told the people: "You can't do it; you're not able to worship GOD. He is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He won't put up with your fooling around and sinning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> When you leave GOD and take up the worship of foreign gods, he'll turn right around and come down on you hard. He'll put an end to you--and after all the good he has done for you!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But the people told Joshua: "No! No! We worship GOD!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> And so Joshua addressed the people: "You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen GOD for yourselves--to worship him." And they said, "We are witnesses."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Joshua said, "Now get rid of all the foreign gods you have with you. Say an unqualified Yes to GOD, the God of Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The people answered Joshua, "We will worship GOD. What he says, we'll do."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Joshua completed a Covenant for the people that day there at Shechem. He made it official, spelling it out in detail.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Joshua wrote out all the directions and regulations into the Book of The Revelation of God. Then he took a large stone and set it up under the oak that was in the holy place of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Joshua spoke to all the people: "This stone is a witness against us. It has heard every word that GOD has said to us. It is a standing witness against you lest you cheat on your God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Then Joshua dismissed the people, each to his own place of inheritance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> After all this, Joshua son of Nun, the servant of GOD, died. He was 110 years old.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> They buried him in the land of his inheritance at Timnath Serah in the mountains of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Israel served GOD through the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him, who had themselves experienced all that GOD had done for Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Joseph's bones, which the People of Israel had brought from Egypt, they buried in Shechem in the plot of ground that Jacob had purchased from the sons of Hamor (who was the father of Shechem). He paid a hundred silver coins for it. It belongs to the inheritance of the family of Joseph.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Eleazar son of Aaron died. They buried him at Gibeah, which had been allotted to his son Phinehas in the mountains of Ephraim.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="7" bname="Judges">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A time came after the death of Joshua when the People of Israel asked GOD, "Who will take the lead in going up against the Canaanites to fight them?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> And GOD said, "Judah will go. I've given the land to him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The men of Judah said to those of their brother Simeon, "Go up with us to our territory and we'll fight the Canaanites. Then we'll go with you to your territory." And Simeon went with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> So Judah went up. GOD gave them the Canaanites and the Perizzites. They defeated them at Bezek--ten military units!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They caught up with My-Master-Bezek there and fought him. They smashed the Canaanites and the Perizzites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> My-Master-Bezek ran, but they gave chase and caught him. They cut off his thumbs and big toes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> My-Master-Bezek said, "Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off used to crawl under my table, scavenging. Now God has done to me what I did to them." They brought him to Jerusalem and he died there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The people of Judah attacked and captured Jerusalem, subduing the city by sword and then sending it up in flames.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> After that they had gone down to fight the Canaanites who were living in the hill country, the Negev, and the foothills.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Judah had gone on to the Canaanites who lived in Hebron (Hebron used to be called Kiriath Arba) and brought Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai to their knees.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> From there they had marched against the population of Debir (Debir used to be called Kiriath Sepher).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Caleb had said, "Whoever attacks Kiriath Sepher and takes it, I'll give my daughter Acsah to him as his wife."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb's brother, took it, so Caleb gave him his daughter Acsah as his wife.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> When she arrived she got him to ask for farm land from her father. As she dismounted from her donkey Caleb asked her, "What would you like?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> She said, "Give me a marriage gift. You've given me desert land; Now give me pools of water!" And he gave her the upper and the lower pools.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The people of Hobab the Kenite, Moses' relative, went up with the people of Judah from the City of Palms to the wilderness of Judah at the descent of Arad. They settled down there with the Amalekites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The people of Judah went with their kin the Simeonites and struck the Canaanites who lived in Zephath. They carried out the holy curse and named the city Curse-town.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But Judah didn't manage to capture Gaza, Ashkelon, and Ekron with their territories.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> GOD was certainly with Judah in that they took over the hill country. But they couldn't oust the people on the plain because they had iron chariots.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> They gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had directed. Caleb drove out the three sons of Anak.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But the people of Benjamin couldn't get rid of the Jebusites living in Jerusalem. Benjaminites and Jebusites live side by side in Jerusalem to this day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The house of Joseph went up to attack Bethel. GOD was with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Joseph sent out spies to look the place over. Bethel used to be known as Luz.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The spies saw a man leaving the city and said to him, "Show us a way into the city and we'll treat you well."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The man showed them a way in. They killed everyone in the city but the man and his family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The man went to Hittite country and built a city. He named it Luz; that's its name to this day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> But Manasseh never managed to drive out Beth Shan, Taanach, Dor, Ibleam, and Megiddo with their territories. The Canaanites dug in their heels and wouldn't budge.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> When Israel became stronger they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but they never got rid of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Neither did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer. The Canaanites stuck it out and lived there with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Nor did Zebulun drive out the Canaanites in Kitron or Nahalol. They kept living there, but they were put to forced labor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Nor did Asher drive out the people of Acco, Sidon, Ahlab, Aczib, Helbah, Aphek, and Rehob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Asher went ahead and settled down with the Canaanites since they could not get rid of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Naphtali fared no better. They couldn't drive out the people of Beth Shemesh or Beth Anath so they just moved in and lived with them. They did, though, put them to forced labor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The Amorites pushed the people of Dan up into the hills and wouldn't let them down on the plains.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> The Amorites stubbornly continued to live in Mount Heres, Aijalon, and Shaalbim. But when the house of Joseph got the upper hand, they were put to forced labor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> The Amorite border extended from Scorpions' Pass and Sela upward.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's angel went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, "I brought you out of Egypt; I led you to the land that I promised to your fathers; and I said, I'll never break my covenant with you--never!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> And you're never to make a covenant with the people who live in this land. Tear down their altars! But you haven't obeyed me! What's this that you're doing?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "So now I'm telling you that I won't drive them out before you. They'll trip you up and their gods will become a trap."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When GOD's angel had spoken these words to all the People of Israel, they cried out--oh! how they wept!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They named the place Bokim (Weepers). And there they sacrificed to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> After Joshua had dismissed them, the People of Israel went off to claim their allotted territories and take possession of the land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The people worshiped GOD throughout the lifetime of Joshua and the time of the leaders who survived him, leaders who had been in on all of GOD's great work that he had done for Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then Joshua son of Nun, the servant of GOD, died. He was 110 years old.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They buried him in his allotted inheritance at Timnath Heres in the hills of Ephraim north of Mount Gaash.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Eventually that entire generation died and was buried. Then another generation grew up that didn't know anything of GOD or the work he had done for Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The People of Israel did evil in GOD's sight:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> they served Baal-gods; they deserted GOD, the God of their parents who had led them out of Egypt; they took up with other gods, gods of the peoples around them. They actually worshiped them! And oh, how they angered GOD</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> as they worshiped god Baal and goddess Astarte!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD's anger was hot against Israel: He handed them off to plunderers who stripped them; he sold them cheap to enemies on all sides. They were helpless before their enemies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Every time they walked out the door GOD was with them--but for evil, just as GOD had said, just as he had sworn he would do. They were in a bad way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But then GOD raised up judges who saved them from their plunderers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But they wouldn't listen to their judges; they prostituted themselves to other gods--worshiped them! They lost no time leaving the road walked by their parents, the road of obedience to GOD's commands. They refused to have anything to do with it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When GOD was setting up judges for them, he would be right there with the judge: He would save them from their enemies' oppression as long as the judge was alive, for GOD was moved to compassion when he heard their groaning because of those who afflicted and beat them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But when the judge died, the people went right back to their old ways--but even worse than their parents!--running after other gods, serving and worshiping them. Stubborn as mules, they didn't drop a single evil practice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And GOD's anger blazed against Israel. He said, "Because these people have thrown out my covenant that I commanded their parents and haven't listened to me,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I'm not driving out one more person from the nations that Joshua left behind when he died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I'll use them to test Israel and see whether they stay on GOD's road and walk down it as their parents did."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> That's why GOD let those nations remain. He didn't drive them out or let Joshua get rid of them.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> These are the nations that GOD left there, using them to test the Israelites who had no experience in the Canaanite wars.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He did it to train the descendants of Israel, the ones who had no battle experience, in the art of war.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He left the five Philistine tyrants, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites living on Mount Lebanon from Mount Baal Hermon to Hamath's Pass.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They were there to test Israel and see whether they would obey GOD's commands that were given to their parents through Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But the People of Israel made themselves at home among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They married their daughters and gave their own daughters to their sons in marriage. And they worshiped their gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The People of Israel did evil in GOD's sight. They forgot their GOD and worshiped the Baal gods and Asherah goddesses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD's hot anger blazed against Israel. He sold them off to Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram Naharaim. The People of Israel were in servitude to Cushan-Rishathaim for eight years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The People of Israel cried out to GOD and GOD raised up a savior who rescued them: Caleb's nephew Othniel, son of his younger brother Kenaz.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The Spirit of GOD came on him and he rallied Israel. He went out to war and GOD gave him Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram Naharaim. Othniel made short work of him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The land was quiet for forty years. Then Othniel son of Kenaz died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But the People of Israel went back to doing evil in GOD's sight. So GOD made Eglon king of Moab a power against Israel because they did evil in GOD's sight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He recruited the Ammonites and Amalekites and went out and struck Israel. They took the City of Palms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The People of Israel were in servitude to Eglon fourteen years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The People of Israel cried out to GOD and GOD raised up for them a savior, Ehud son of Gera, a Benjaminite. He was left-handed. The People of Israel sent tribute by him to Eglon king of Moab.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Ehud made himself a short two-edged sword and strapped it on his right thigh under his clothes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab. Eglon was grossly fat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> After Ehud finished presenting the tribute, he went a little way with the men who had carried it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But when he got as far as the stone images near Gilgal, he went back and said, "I have a private message for you, O king." The king told his servants, "Leave." They all left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Ehud approached him--the king was now quite alone in his cool rooftop room--and said, "I have a word of God for you." Eglon stood up from his throne.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Ehud reached with his left hand and took his sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king's big belly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Not only the blade but the hilt went in. The fat closed in over it so he couldn't pull it out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Ehud slipped out by way of the porch and shut and locked the doors of the rooftop room behind him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Then he was gone. When the servants came, they saw with surprise that the doors to the rooftop room were locked. They said, "He's probably relieving himself in the restroom."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> They waited. And then they worried--no one was coming out of those locked doors. Finally, they got a key and unlocked them. There was their master, fallen on the floor, dead!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> While they were standing around wondering what to do, Ehud was long gone. He got past the stone images and escaped to Seirah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> When he got there, he sounded the trumpet on Mount Ephraim. The People of Israel came down from the hills and joined him. He took his place at their head.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> He said, "Follow me, for GOD has given your enemies--yes, Moab!--to you." They went down after him and secured the fords of the Jordan against the Moabites. They let no one cross over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> At that time, they struck down about ten companies of Moabites, all of them well-fed and robust. Not one escaped.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> That day Moab was subdued under the hand of Israel. The land was quiet for eighty years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Shamgar son of Anath came after Ehud. Using a cattle prod, he killed six hundred Philistines single-handed. He too saved Israel.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The People of Israel kept right on doing evil in GOD's sight. With Ehud dead,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD sold them off to Jabin king of Canaan who ruled from Hazor. Sisera, who lived in Harosheth Haggoyim, was the commander of his army.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The People of Israel cried out to GOD because he had cruelly oppressed them with his nine hundred iron chariots for twenty years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Deborah was a prophet, the wife of Lappidoth. She was judge over Israel at that time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> She held court under Deborah's Palm between Ramah and Bethel in the hills of Ephraim. The People of Israel went to her in matters of justice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> She sent for Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, "It has become clear that GOD, the God of Israel, commands you: Go to Mount Tabor and prepare for battle. Take ten companies of soldiers from Naphtali and Zebulun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I'll take care of getting Sisera, the leader of Jabin's army, to the Kishon River with all his chariots and troops. And I'll make sure you win the battle."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Barak said, "If you go with me, I'll go. But if you don't go with me, I won't go."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> She said, "Of course I'll go with you. But understand that with an attitude like that, there'll be no glory in it for you. GOD will use a woman's hand to take care of Sisera." Deborah got ready and went with Barak to Kedesh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Barak called Zebulun and Naphtali together at Kedesh. Ten companies of men followed him. And Deborah was with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> It happened that Heber the Kenite had parted company with the other Kenites, the descendants of Hobab, Moses' in-law. He was now living at Zaanannim Oak near Kedesh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They told Sisera that Barak son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Sisera immediately called up all his chariots to the Kishon River--nine hundred iron chariots!--along with all his troops who were with him at Harosheth Haggoyim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Deborah said to Barak, "Charge! This very day GOD has given you victory over Sisera. Isn't GOD marching before you?" Barak charged down the slopes of Mount Tabor, his ten companies following him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> GOD routed Sisera--all those chariots, all those troops!--before Barak. Sisera jumped out of his chariot and ran.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Barak chased the chariots and troops all the way to Harosheth Haggoyim. Sisera's entire fighting force was killed--not one man left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Meanwhile Sisera, running for his life, headed for the tent of Jael, wife of Heber the Kenite. Jabin king of Hazor and Heber the Kenite were on good terms with one another.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Jael stepped out to meet Sisera and said, "Come in, sir. Stay here with me. Don't be afraid." So he went with her into her tent. She covered him with a blanket.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He said to her, "Please, a little water. I'm thirsty." She opened a bottle of milk, gave him a drink, and then covered him up again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He then said, "Stand at the tent flap. If anyone comes by and asks you, 'Is there anyone here?' tell him, 'No, not a soul.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then while he was fast asleep from exhaustion, Jael wife of Heber took a tent peg and hammer, tiptoed toward him, and drove the tent peg through his temple and all the way into the ground. He convulsed and died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Barak arrived in pursuit of Sisera. Jael went out to greet him. She said, "Come, I'll show you the man you're looking for." He went with her and there he was--Sisera, stretched out, dead, with a tent peg through his neck.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> On that day God subdued Jabin king of Canaan before the People of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The People of Israel pressed harder and harder on Jabin king of Canaan until there was nothing left of him.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> That day Deborah and Barak son of Abinoam sang this song:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> When they let down their hair in Israel, they let it blow wild in the wind. The people volunteered with abandon, bless GOD!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Hear O kings! Listen O princes! To GOD, yes to GOD, I'll sing, Make music to GOD, to the God of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD, when you left Seir, marched across the fields of Edom, Earth quaked, yes, the skies poured rain, oh, the clouds made rivers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Mountains leapt before GOD, the Sinai God, before GOD, the God of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> In the time of Shamgar son of Anath, and in the time of Jael, Public roads were abandoned, travelers went by backroads.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Warriors became fat and sloppy, no fight left in them. Then you, Deborah, rose up; you got up, a mother in Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> God chose new leaders, who then fought at the gates. And not a shield or spear to be seen among the forty companies of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Lift your hearts high, O Israel, with abandon, volunteering yourselves with the people--bless GOD!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You who ride on prize donkeys comfortably mounted on blankets And you who walk down the roads, ponder, attend!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Gather at the town well and listen to them sing, Chanting the tale of GOD's victories, his victories accomplished in Israel. Then the people of GOD went down to the city gates.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Wake up, wake up, Deborah! Wake up, wake up, sing a song! On your feet, Barak! Take your prisoners, son of Abinoam!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then the remnant went down to greet the brave ones. The people of GOD joined the mighty ones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The captains from Ephraim came to the valley, behind you, Benjamin, with your troops. Captains marched down from Makir, from Zebulun high-ranking leaders came down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Issachar's princes rallied to Deborah, Issachar stood fast with Barak, backing him up on the field of battle. But in Reuben's divisions there was much second-guessing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Why all those campfire discussions? Diverted and distracted, Reuben's divisions couldn't make up their minds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Gilead played it safe across the Jordan, and Dan, why did he go off sailing? Asher kept his distance on the seacoast, safe and secure in his harbors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But Zebulun risked life and limb, defied death, as did Naphtali on the battle heights.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The kings came, they fought, the kings of Canaan fought. At Taanach they fought, at Megiddo's brook, but they took no silver, no plunder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The stars in the sky joined the fight, from their courses they fought against Sisera.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The torrent Kishon swept them away, the torrent attacked them, the torrent Kishon. Oh, you'll stomp on the necks of the strong!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Then the hoofs of the horses pounded, charging, stampeding stallions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "Curse Meroz," says GOD's angel. "Curse, double curse, its people, Because they didn't come when GOD needed them, didn't rally to GOD's side with valiant fighters."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Most blessed of all women is Jael, wife of Heber the Kenite, most blessed of homemaking women.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> He asked for water, she brought milk; In a handsome bowl, she offered cream.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> She grabbed a tent peg in her left hand, with her right hand she seized a hammer. She hammered Sisera, she smashed his head, she drove a hole through his head.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> He slumped at her feet. He fell. He sprawled. He slumped at her feet. He fell. Slumped. Fallen. Dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Sisera's mother waited at the window, a weary, anxious watch. "What's keeping his chariot? What delays his chariot's rumble?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The wisest of her ladies-in-waiting answers with calm, reassuring words,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "Don't you think they're busy at plunder, dividing up the loot? A girl, maybe two girls, for each man, And for Sisera a bright silk shirt, a prize, fancy silk shirt! And a colorful scarf--make it two scarves-- to grace the neck of the plunderer."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Thus may all GOD's enemies perish, while his lovers be like the unclouded sun. The land was quiet for forty years.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Yet again the People of Israel went back to doing evil in GOD's sight. GOD put them under the domination of Midian for seven years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Midian overpowered Israel. Because of Midian, the People of Israel made for themselves hideouts in the mountains--caves and forts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When Israel planted its crops, Midian and Amalek, the easterners, would invade them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> camp in their fields, and destroy their crops all the way down to Gaza. They left nothing for them to live on, neither sheep nor ox nor donkey.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Bringing their cattle and tents, they came in and took over, like an invasion of locusts. And their camels--past counting! They marched in and devastated the country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The People of Israel, reduced to grinding poverty by Midian, cried out to GOD for help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> One time when the People of Israel had cried out to GOD because of Midian,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD sent them a prophet with this message: "GOD, the God of Israel, says, I delivered you from Egypt, I freed you from a life of slavery;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I rescued you from Egypt's brutality and then from every oppressor; I pushed them out of your way and gave you their land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "And I said to you, 'I am GOD, your God. Don't for a minute be afraid of the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living.' But you didn't listen to me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> One day the angel of GOD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, whose son Gideon was threshing wheat in the winepress, out of sight of the Midianites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The angel of GOD appeared to him and said, "GOD is with you, O mighty warrior!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Gideon replied, "With me, my master? If GOD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all the miracle-wonders our parents and grandparents told us about, telling us, 'Didn't GOD deliver us from Egypt?' The fact is, GOD has nothing to do with us--he has turned us over to Midian."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But GOD faced him directly: "Go in this strength that is yours. Save Israel from Midian. Haven't I just sent you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Gideon said to him, "Me, my master? How and with what could I ever save Israel? Look at me. My clan's the weakest in Manasseh and I'm the runt of the litter."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> GOD said to him, "I'll be with you. Believe me, you'll defeat Midian as one man."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Gideon said, "If you're serious about this, do me a favor: Give me a sign to back up what you're telling me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Don't leave until I come back and bring you my gift." He said, "I'll wait till you get back."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Gideon went and prepared a young goat and a huge amount of unraised bread (he used over half a bushel of flour!). He put the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot and took them back under the shade of the oak tree for a sacred meal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The angel of God said to him, "Take the meat and unraised bread, place them on that rock, and pour the broth on them." Gideon did it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The angel of GOD stretched out the tip of the stick he was holding and touched the meat and the bread. Fire broke out of the rock and burned up the meat and bread while the angel of God slipped away out of sight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> And Gideon knew it was the angel of God! Gideon said, "Oh no! Master, GOD! I have seen the angel of God face to face!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But GOD reassured him, "Easy now. Don't panic. You won't die."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Then Gideon built an altar there to GOD and named it "GOD's Peace." It's still called that at Ophrah of Abiezer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> That night this happened. GOD said to him, "Take your father's best seven-year-old bull, the prime one. Tear down your father's Baal altar and chop down the Asherah fertility pole beside it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Then build an altar to GOD, your God, on the top of this hill. Take the prime bull and present it as a Whole-Burnt-Offering, using firewood from the Asherah pole that you cut down."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Gideon selected ten men from his servants and did exactly what GOD had told him. But because of his family and the people in the neighborhood, he was afraid to do it openly, so he did it that night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Early in the morning, the people in town were shocked to find Baal's altar torn down, the Asherah pole beside it chopped down, and the prime bull burning away on the altar that had been built.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> They kept asking, "Who did this?" Questions and more questions, and then the answer: "Gideon son of Joash did it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The men of the town demanded of Joash: "Bring out your son! He must die! Why, he tore down the Baal altar and chopped down the Asherah tree!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> But Joash stood up to the crowd pressing in on him, "Are you going to fight Baal's battles for him? Are you going to save him? Anyone who takes Baal's side will be dead by morning. If Baal is a god in fact, let him fight his own battles and defend his own altar."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> They nicknamed Gideon that day Jerub-Baal because after he had torn down the Baal altar, he had said, "Let Baal fight his own battles."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> All the Midianites and Amalekites (the easterners) got together, crossed the river, and made camp in the Valley of Jezreel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> GOD's Spirit came over Gideon. He blew his ram's horn trumpet and the Abiezrites came out, ready to follow him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> He dispatched messengers all through Manasseh, calling them to the battle; also to Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali. They all came.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Gideon said to God, "If this is right, if you are using me to save Israel as you've said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> then look: I'm placing a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If dew is on the fleece only, but the floor is dry, then I know that you will use me to save Israel, as you said."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> That's what happened. When he got up early the next morning, he wrung out the fleece--enough dew to fill a bowl with water!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Then Gideon said to God, "Don't be impatient with me, but let me say one more thing. I want to try another time with the fleece. But this time let the fleece stay dry, while the dew drenches the ground."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> God made it happen that very night. Only the fleece was dry while the ground was wet with dew.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Jerub-Baal (Gideon) got up early the next morning, all his troops right there with him. They set up camp at Harod's Spring. The camp of Midian was in the plain, north of them near the Hill of Moreh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD said to Gideon, "You have too large an army with you. I can't turn Midian over to them like this--they'll take all the credit, saying, 'I did it all myself,' and forget about me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Make a public announcement: 'Anyone afraid, anyone who has any qualms at all, may leave Mount Gilead now and go home.'" Twenty-two companies headed for home. Ten companies were left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD said to Gideon: "There are still too many. Take them down to the stream and I'll make a final cut. When I say, 'This one goes with you,' he'll go. When I say, 'This one doesn't go,' he won't go."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> So Gideon took the troops down to the stream. GOD said to Gideon: "Everyone who laps with his tongue, the way a dog laps, set on one side. And everyone who kneels to drink, drinking with his face to the water, set to the other side."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Three hundred lapped with their tongues from their cupped hands. All the rest knelt to drink.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD said to Gideon: "I'll use the three hundred men who lapped at the stream to save you and give Midian into your hands. All the rest may go home."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> After Gideon took all their provisions and trumpets, he sent all the Israelites home. He took up his position with the three hundred. The camp of Midian stretched out below him in the valley.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> That night, GOD told Gideon: "Get up and go down to the camp. I've given it to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> If you have any doubts about going down, go down with Purah your armor bearer;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> when you hear what they're saying, you'll be bold and confident." He and his armor bearer Purah went down near the place where sentries were posted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Midian and Amalek, all the easterners, were spread out on the plain like a swarm of locusts. And their camels! Past counting, like grains of sand on the seashore!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Gideon arrived just in time to hear a man tell his friend a dream. He said, "I had this dream: A loaf of barley bread tumbled into the Midianite camp. It came to the tent and hit it so hard it collapsed. The tent fell!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> His friend said, "This has to be the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite! God has turned Midian--the whole camp!--over to him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> When Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he went to his knees before God in prayer. Then he went back to the Israelite camp and said, "Get up and get going! GOD has just given us the Midianite army!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He divided the three hundred men into three companies. He gave each man a trumpet and an empty jar, with a torch in the jar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He said, "Watch me and do what I do. When I get to the edge of the camp, do exactly what I do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When I and those with me blow the trumpets, you also, all around the camp, blow your trumpets and shout, 'For GOD and for Gideon!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Gideon and his hundred men got to the edge of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just after the sentries had been posted. They blew the trumpets, at the same time smashing the jars they carried.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> All three companies blew the trumpets and broke the jars. They held the torches in their left hands and the trumpets in their right hands, ready to blow, and shouted, "A sword for GOD and for Gideon!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They were stationed all around the camp, each man at his post. The whole Midianite camp jumped to its feet. They yelled and fled.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> When the three hundred blew the trumpets, GOD aimed each Midianite's sword against his companion, all over the camp. They ran for their lives--to Beth Shittah, toward Zererah, to the border of Abel Meholah near Tabbath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Israelites rallied from Naphtali, from Asher, and from all over Manasseh. They had Midian on the run.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Gideon then sent messengers through all the hill country of Ephraim, urging them, "Come down against Midian! Capture the fords of the Jordan at Beth Barah."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> So all the men of Ephraim rallied and captured the fords of the Jordan at Beth Barah. They also captured the two Midianite commanders Oreb (Raven) and Zeeb (Wolf). They killed Oreb at Raven Rock; Zeeb they killed at Wolf Winepress. And they pressed the pursuit of Midian. They brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon across the Jordan.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then the Ephraimites said to Gideon, "Why did you leave us out of this, not calling us when you went to fight Midian?" They were indignant and let him know it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> But Gideon replied, "What have I done compared to you? Why, even the gleanings of Ephraim are superior to the vintage of Abiezer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> God gave you Midian's commanders, Oreb and Zeeb. What have I done compared with you?" When they heard this, they calmed down and cooled off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Gideon and his three hundred arrived at the Jordan and crossed over. They were bone-tired but still pressing the pursuit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He asked the men of Succoth, "Please, give me some loaves of bread for my troops I have with me. They're worn out, and I'm hot on the trail of Zebah and Zalmunna, the Midianite kings."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But the leaders in Succoth said, "You're on a wild goose chase; why should we help you on a fool's errand?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Gideon said, "If you say so. But when GOD gives me Zebah and Zalmunna, I'll give you a thrashing, whip your bare flesh with desert thorns and thistles!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He went from there to Peniel and made the same request. The men of Peniel, like the men of Succoth, also refused.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Gideon told them, "When I return safe and sound, I'll demolish this tower."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor with an army of about fifteen companies, all that was left of the fighting force of the easterners--they had lost 120 companies of soldiers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Gideon went up the caravan trail east of Nobah and Jogbehah, found and attacked the undefended camp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Zebah and Zalmunna fled, but he chased and captured the two kings of Midian. The whole camp had panicked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Gideon son of Joash returned from the battle by way of the Heres Pass.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He captured a young man from Succoth and asked some questions. The young man wrote down the names of the officials and leaders of Succoth, seventy-seven men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Then Gideon went to the men of Succoth and said, "Here are the wild geese, Zebah and Zalmunna, you said I'd never catch. You wouldn't give so much as a scrap of bread to my worn-out men; you taunted us, saying that we were on a fool's errand."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Then he took the seventy-seven leaders of Succoth and thrashed them with desert thorns and thistles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And he demolished the tower of Peniel and killed the men of the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> He then addressed Zebah and Zalmunna: "Tell me about the men you killed at Tabor." "They were men much like you," they said, "each one like a king's son."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Gideon said, "They were my brothers, my mother's sons. As GOD lives, if you had let them live, I would let you live."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Then he spoke to Jether, his firstborn: "Get up and kill them." But he couldn't do it, couldn't draw his sword. He was afraid--he was still just a boy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Zebah and Zalmunna said, "Do it yourself--if you're man enough!" And Gideon did it. He stepped up and killed Zebah and Zalmunna. Then he took the crescents that hung on the necks of their camels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The Israelites said, "Rule over us, you and your son and your grandson. You have saved us from Midian's tyranny."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Gideon said, "I most certainly will not rule over you, nor will my son. GOD will reign over you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Then Gideon said, "But I do have one request. Give me, each of you, an earring that you took as plunder." Ishmaelites wore gold earrings, and the men all had their pockets full of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> They said, "Of course. They're yours!" They spread out a blanket and each man threw his plundered earrings on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The gold earrings that Gideon had asked for weighed about forty-three pounds--and that didn't include the crescents and pendants, the purple robes worn by the Midianite kings, and the ornaments hung around the necks of their camels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Gideon made the gold into a sacred ephod and put it on display in his hometown, Ophrah. All Israel prostituted itself there. Gideon and his family, too, were seduced by it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Midian's tyranny was broken by the Israelites; nothing more was heard from them. The land was quiet for forty years in Gideon's time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Jerub-Baal son of Joash went home and lived in his house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Gideon had seventy sons. He fathered them all--he had a lot of wives!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> His concubine, the one at Shechem, also bore him a son. He named him Abimelech.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Gideon son of Joash died at a good old age. He was buried in the tomb of his father Joash at Ophrah of the Abiezrites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Gideon was hardly cool in the tomb when the People of Israel had gotten off track and were prostituting themselves to Baal--they made Baal-of-the-Covenant their god.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The People of Israel forgot all about GOD, their God, who had saved them from all their enemies who had hemmed them in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> And they didn't keep faith with the family of Jerub-Baal (Gideon), honoring all the good he had done for Israel.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Abimelech son of Jerub-Baal went to Shechem to his uncles and all his mother's relatives and said to them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Ask all the leading men of Shechem, 'What do you think is best, that seventy men rule you--all those sons of Jerub-Baal--or that one man rule? You'll remember that I am your own flesh and blood.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> His mother's relatives reported the proposal to the leaders of Shechem. They were inclined to take Abimelech. "Because," they said, "he is, after all, one of us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They gave him seventy silver pieces from the shrine of Baal-of-the-Covenant. With the money he hired some reckless riff-raff soldiers and they followed along after him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He went to his father's house in Ophrah and killed his half brothers, the sons of Jerub-Baal--seventy men! And on one stone! The youngest, Jotham son of Jerub-Baal, managed to hide, the only survivor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then all the leaders of Shechem and Beth Millo gathered at the Oak by the Standing Stone at Shechem and crowned Abimelech king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When this was all told to Jotham, he climbed to the top of Mount Gerizim, raised his voice, and shouted: Listen to me, leaders of Shechem. And let God listen to you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The trees set out one day to anoint a king for themselves. They said to Olive Tree, "Rule over us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But Olive Tree told them, "Am I no longer good for making oil That gives glory to gods and men, and to be demoted to waving over trees?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The trees then said to Fig Tree, "You come and rule over us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But Fig Tree said to them, "Am I no longer good for making sweets, My mouthwatering sweet fruits, and to be demoted to waving over trees?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The trees then said to Vine, "You come and rule over us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But Vine said to them, "Am I no longer good for making wine, Wine that cheers gods and men, and to be demoted to waving over trees?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> All the trees then said to Tumbleweed, "You come and reign over us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But Tumbleweed said to the trees: "If you're serious about making me your king, Come and find shelter in my shade. But if not, let fire shoot from Tumbleweed and burn down the cedars of Lebanon!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Now listen: Do you think you did a right and honorable thing when you made Abimelech king? Do you think you treated Jerub-Baal and his family well, did for him what he deserved?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> My father fought for you, risked his own life, and rescued you from Midian's tyranny,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> and you have, just now, betrayed him. You massacred his sons--seventy men on a single stone! You made Abimelech, the son by his maidservant, king over Shechem's leaders because he's your relative.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> If you think that this is an honest day's work, this way you have treated Jerub-Baal today, then enjoy Abimelech and let him enjoy you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But if not, let fire break from Abimelech and burn up the leaders of Shechem and Beth Millo. And let fire break from the leaders of Shechem and Beth Millo and burn up Abimelech."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And Jotham fled. He ran for his life. He went to Beer and settled down there, because he was afraid of his brother Abimelech.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Abimelech ruled over Israel for three years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Then God brought bad blood between Abimelech and Shechem's leaders, who now worked treacherously behind his back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Violence boomeranged: The murderous violence that killed the seventy brothers, the sons of Jerub-Baal, was now loose among Abimelech and Shechem's leaders, who had supported the violence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> To undermine Abimelech, Shechem's leaders put men in ambush on the mountain passes who robbed travelers on those roads. And Abimelech was told.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> At that time Gaal son of Ebed arrived with his relatives and moved into Shechem. The leaders of Shechem trusted him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> One day they went out into the fields, gathered grapes in the vineyards, and trod them in the winepress. Then they held a celebration in their god's temple, a feast, eating and drinking. And then they started putting down Abimelech.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Gaal son of Ebed said, "Who is this Abimelech? And who are we Shechemites to take orders from him? Isn't he the son of Jerub-Baal, and isn't this his henchman Zebul? We belong to the race of Hamor and bear the noble name of Shechem. Why should we be toadies of Abimelech?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> If I were in charge of this people, the first thing I'd do is get rid of Abimelech! I'd say, 'Show me your stuff, Abimelech--let's see who's boss here!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Zebul, governor of the city, heard what Gaal son of Ebed was saying and got angry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Secretly he sent messengers to Abimelech with the message, "Gaal son of Ebed and his relatives have come to Shechem and are stirring up trouble against you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Here's what you do: Tonight bring your troops and wait in ambush in the field.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> In the morning, as soon as the sun breaks, get moving and charge the city. Gaal and his troops will come out to you, and you'll know what to do next."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Abimelech and his troops, four companies of them, went up that night and waited in ambush approaching Shechem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Gaal son of Ebed had gotten up and was standing in the city gate. Abimelech and his troops left their cover.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> When Gaal saw them he said to Zebul, "Look at that, people coming down from the tops of the mountains!" Zebul said, "That's nothing but mountain shadows; they just look like men." Gaal kept chattering away.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Then he said again, "Look at the troops coming down off Tabbur-erez (the Navel of the World)--and one company coming straight from the Oracle Oak."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Zebul said, "Where is that big mouth of yours now? You who said, 'And who is Abimelech that we should take orders from him?' Well, there he is with the troops you ridiculed. Here's your chance. Fight away!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Gaal went out, backed by the leaders of Shechem, and did battle with Abimelech.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Abimelech chased him, and Gaal turned tail and ran. Many fell wounded, right up to the city gate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Abimelech set up his field headquarters at Arumah while Zebul kept Gaal and his relatives out of Shechem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> The next day the people went out to the fields. This was reported to Abimelech.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> He took his troops, divided them into three companies, and placed them in ambush in the fields. When he saw that the people were well out in the open, he sprang up and attacked them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Abimelech and the company with him charged ahead and took control of the entrance to the city gate; the other two companies chased down those who were in the open fields and killed them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> Abimelech fought at the city all that day. He captured the city and massacred everyone in it. He leveled the city to the ground, then sowed it with salt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> When the leaders connected with Shechem's Tower heard this, they went into the fortified God-of-the-Covenant temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> This was reported to Abimelech that the Shechem's Tower bunch were gathered together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> He and his troops climbed Mount Zalmon (Dark Mountain). Abimelech took his ax and chopped a bundle of firewood, picked it up, and put it on his shoulder. He said to his troops, "Do what you've seen me do, and quickly."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> So each of his men cut his own bundle. They followed Abimelech, piled their bundles against the Tower fortifications, and set the whole structure on fire. Everyone in Shechem's Tower died, about a thousand men and women.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Abimelech went on to Thebez. He camped at Thebez and captured it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> The Tower-of-Strength stood in the middle of the city; all the men and women of the city along with the city's leaders had fled there and locked themselves in. They were up on the tower roof.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> Abimelech got as far as the tower and assaulted it. He came up to the tower door to set it on fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> Just then some woman dropped an upper millstone on his head and crushed his skull.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> He called urgently to his young armor-bearer and said, "Draw your sword and kill me so they can't say of me, 'A woman killed him.'" His armor bearer drove in his sword, and Abimelech died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> When the Israelites saw that Abimelech was dead, they went home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> God avenged the evil Abimelech had done to his father, murdering his seventy brothers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> And God brought down on the heads of the men of Shechem all the evil that they had done, the curse of Jotham son of Jerub-Baal.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Tola son of Puah, the son of Dodo, was next after Abimelech. He rose to the occasion to save Israel. He was a man of Issachar. He lived in Shamir in the hill country of Ephraim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He judged Israel for twenty-three years and then died and was buried at Shamir.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> After him, Jair the Gileadite stepped into leadership. He judged Israel for twenty-two years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He had thirty sons who rode on thirty donkeys and had thirty towns in Gilead. The towns are still called Jair's Villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Jair died and was buried in Kamon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And then the People of Israel went back to doing evil in GOD's sight. They worshiped the Baal gods and Ashtoreth goddesses: gods of Aram, Sidon, and Moab; gods of the Ammonites and the Philistines. They just walked off and left GOD, quit worshiping him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And GOD exploded in hot anger at Israel and sold them off to the Philistines and Ammonites, who,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> beginning that year, bullied and battered the People of Israel mercilessly. For eighteen years they had them under their thumb, all the People of Israel who lived east of the Jordan in the Amorite country of Gilead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then the Ammonites crossed the Jordan to go to war also against Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim. Israel was in a bad way!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The People of Israel cried out to GOD for help: "We've sinned against you! We left our God and worshiped the Baal gods!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD answered the People of Israel: "When the Egyptians, Amorites, Ammonites, Philistines, Sidonians--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> even Amalek and Midian!--oppressed you and you cried out to me for help, I saved you from them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And now you've gone off and betrayed me, worshiping other gods. I'm not saving you anymore.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Go ahead! Cry out for help to the gods you've chosen--let them get you out of the mess you're in!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The People of Israel said to GOD: "We've sinned. Do to us whatever you think best, but please, get us out of this!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Then they cleaned house of the foreign gods and worshiped only GOD. And GOD took Israel's troubles to heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The Ammonites prepared for war, setting camp in Gilead. The People of Israel set their rival camp in Mizpah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The leaders in Gilead said, "Who will stand up for us against the Ammonites? We'll make him head over everyone in Gilead!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Jephthah the Gileadite was one tough warrior. He was the son of a whore, but Gilead was his father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Meanwhile Gilead's legal wife had given him other sons, and when they grew up, his wife's sons threw Jephthah out. They told him: "You're not getting any of our family inheritance--you're the son of another woman."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> So Jephthah fled from his brothers and went to live in the land of Tob. Some riff-raff joined him and went around with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Some time passed. And then the Ammonites started fighting Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> With the Ammonites at war with them, the elders of Gilead went to get Jephthah from the land of Tob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They said to Jephthah: "Come. Be our general and we'll fight the Ammonites."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead: "But you hate me. You kicked me out of my family home. So why are you coming to me now? Because you are in trouble. Right?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The elders of Gilead replied, "That's it exactly. We've come to you to get you to go with us and fight the Ammonites. You'll be the head of all of us, all the Gileadites."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Jephthah addressed the elders of Gilead, "So if you bring me back home to fight the Ammonites and GOD gives them to me, I'll be your head--is that right?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They said, "GOD is witness between us; whatever you say, we'll do."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Jephthah went along with the elders of Gilead. The people made him their top man and general. And Jephthah repeated what he had said before GOD at Mizpah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites with a message: "What's going on here that you have come into my country picking a fight?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The king of the Ammonites told Jephthah's messengers: "Because Israel took my land when they came up out of Egypt--from the Arnon all the way to the Jabbok and to the Jordan. Give it back peaceably and I'll go."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Jephthah again sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites with the message:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Jephthah's word: Israel took no Moabite land and no Ammonite land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When they came up from Egypt, Israel went through the desert as far as the Red Sea, arriving at Kadesh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> There Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom saying, 'Let us pass through your land, please.' But the king of Edom wouldn't let them. Israel also requested permission from the king of Moab, but he wouldn't let them cross either. They were stopped in their tracks at Kadesh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> So they traveled across the desert and circled around the lands of Edom and Moab. They came out east of the land of Moab and set camp on the other side of the Arnon--they didn't set foot in Moabite territory, for Arnon was the Moabite border.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Israel then sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites at Heshbon the capital. Israel asked, 'Let us pass, please, through your land on the way to our country.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But Sihon didn't trust Israel to cut across his land; he got his entire army together, set up camp at Jahaz, and fought Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But GOD, the God of Israel, gave Sihon and all his troops to Israel. Israel defeated them. Israel took all the Amorite land,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> all Amorite land from Arnon to the Jabbok and from the desert to the Jordan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> It was GOD, the God of Israel, who pushed out the Amorites in favor of Israel; so who do you think you are to try to take it over?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Why don't you just be satisfied with what your god Chemosh gives you and we'll settle for what GOD, our God, gives us?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Do you think you're going to come off better than Balak son of Zippor, the king of Moab? Did he get anywhere in opposing Israel? Did he risk war?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> All this time--it's been three hundred years now!--that Israel has lived in Heshbon and its villages, in Aroer and its villages, and in all the towns along the Arnon, why didn't you try to snatch them away then?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> No, I haven't wronged you. But this is an evil thing that you are doing to me by starting a fight. Today GOD the Judge will decide between the People of Israel and the people of Ammon."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> But the king of the Ammonites refused to listen to a word that Jephthah had sent him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> GOD's Spirit came upon Jephthah. He went across Gilead and Manasseh, went through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there approached the Ammonites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Jephthah made a vow before GOD: "If you give me a clear victory over the Ammonites,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> then I'll give to GOD whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in one piece from among the Ammonites--I'll offer it up in a sacrificial burnt offering."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Then Jephthah was off to fight the Ammonites. And GOD gave them to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> He beat them soundly, all the way from Aroer to the area around Minnith as far as Abel Keramim--twenty cities! A massacre! Ammonites brought to their knees by the People of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Jephthah came home to Mizpah. His daughter ran from the house to welcome him home--dancing to tambourines! She was his only child. He had no son or daughter except her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> When he realized who it was, he ripped his clothes, saying, "Ah, dearest daughter--I'm dirt. I'm despicable. My heart is torn to shreds. I made a vow to GOD and I can't take it back!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> She said, "Dear father, if you made a vow to GOD, do to me what you vowed; GOD did his part and saved you from your Ammonite enemies."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> And then she said to her father, "But let this one thing be done for me. Give me two months to wander through the hills and lament my virginity since I will never marry, I and my dear friends."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> "Oh yes, go," he said. He sent her off for two months. She and her dear girlfriends went among the hills, lamenting that she would never marry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> At the end of the two months, she came back to her father. He fulfilled the vow with her that he had made. She had never slept with a man. It became a custom in Israel</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> that for four days every year the young women of Israel went out to mourn for the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The men of Ephraim mustered their troops, crossed to Zaphon, and said to Jephthah, "Why did you go out to fight the Ammonites without letting us go with you? We're going to burn your house down on you!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Jephthah said, "I and my people had our hands full negotiating with the Ammonites. And I did call to you for help but you ignored me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When I saw that you weren't coming, I took my life in my hands and confronted the Ammonites myself. And GOD gave them to me! So why did you show up here today? Are you spoiling for a fight with me?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> So Jephthah got his Gilead troops together and fought Ephraim. And the men of Gilead hit them hard because they were saying, "Gileadites are nothing but half-breeds and rejects from Ephraim and Manasseh."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Gilead captured the fords of the Jordan at the crossing to Ephraim. If an Ephraimite fugitive said, "Let me cross," the men of Gilead would ask, "Are you an Ephraimite?" and he would say, "No."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And they would say, "Say, 'Shibboleth.'" But he would always say, "Sibboleth"--he couldn't say it right. Then they would grab him and kill him there at the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two Ephraimite divisions were killed on that occasion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Jephthah judged Israel six years. Jephthah the Gileadite died and was buried in his city, Mizpah of Gilead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> After him, Ibzan of Bethlehem judged Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He had thirty sons and thirty daughters. He gave his daughters in marriage outside his clan and brought in thirty daughters-in-law from the outside for his sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He judged Israel seven years. Ibzan died and was buried in Bethlehem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> After him, Elon the Zebulunite judged Israel. He judged Israel ten years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Elon the Zebulunite died and was buried at Aijalon in the land of Zebulun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> After him, Abdon son of Hillel the Pirathonite judged Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He had forty sons and thirty grandsons who rode on seventy donkeys. He judged Israel eight years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Abdon son of Hillel the Pirathonite died and was buried at Pirathon in the land of Ephraim in the Amalekite hill country.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> And then the People of Israel were back at it again, doing what was evil in GOD's sight. GOD put them under the domination of the Philistines for forty years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> At that time there was a man named Manoah from Zorah from the tribe of Dan. His wife was barren and childless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The angel of God appeared to her and told her, "I know that you are barren and childless, but you're going to become pregnant and bear a son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But take much care: Drink no wine or beer; eat nothing ritually unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You are, in fact, pregnant right now, carrying a son. No razor will touch his head--the boy will be God's Nazirite from the moment of his birth. He will launch the deliverance from Philistine oppression."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The woman went to her husband and said, "A man of God came to me. He looked like the angel of God--terror laced with glory! I didn't ask him where he was from and he didn't tell me his name,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> but he told me, 'You're pregnant. You're going to give birth to a son. Don't drink any wine or beer and eat nothing ritually unclean. The boy will be God's Nazirite from the moment of birth to the day of his death.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Manoah prayed to GOD: "Master, let the man of God you sent come to us again and teach us how to raise this boy who is to be born."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> God listened to Manoah. God's angel came again to the woman. She was sitting in the field; her husband Manoah wasn't there with her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> She jumped to her feet and ran and told her husband: "He's back! The man who came to me that day!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Manoah got up and, following his wife, came to the man. He said to him, "Are you the man who spoke to my wife?" He said, "I am."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Manoah said, "So. When what you say comes true, what do you have to tell us about this boy and his work?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The angel of God said to Manoah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Keep in mind everything I told the woman. Eat nothing that comes from the vine: Drink no wine or beer; eat no ritually unclean foods. She's to observe everything I commanded her."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Manoah said to the angel of God, "Please, stay with us a little longer; we'll prepare a meal for you--a young goat."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> GOD's angel said to Manoah, "Even if I stay, I won't eat your food. But if you want to prepare a Whole-Burnt-Offering for GOD, go ahead--offer it!" Manoah had no idea that he was talking to the angel of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then Manoah asked the angel of God, "What's your name? When your words come true, we'd like to honor you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The angel of GOD said, "What's this? You ask for my name? You wouldn't understand--it's sheer wonder."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> So Manoah took the kid and the Grain-Offering and sacrificed them on a rock altar to GOD who works wonders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> As the flames leapt up from the altar to heaven, GOD's angel also ascended in the altar flames. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell facedown to the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Manoah and his wife never saw the angel of GOD again. Only then did Manoah realize that this was GOD's angel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> He said to his wife, "We're as good as dead! We've looked on God!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But his wife said, "If GOD were planning to kill us, he wouldn't have accepted our Whole-Burnt-Offering and Grain-Offering, or revealed all these things to us--given us this birth announcement."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The woman gave birth to a son. They named him Samson. The boy grew and GOD blessed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The Spirit of GOD began working in him while he was staying at a Danite camp between Zorah and Eshtaol.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Samson went down to Timnah. There in Timnah a woman caught his eye, a Philistine girl.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He came back and told his father and mother, "I saw a woman in Timnah, a Philistine girl; get her for me as my wife."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> His parents said to him, "Isn't there a woman among the girls in the neighborhood of our people? Do you have to go get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?" But Samson said to his father, "Get her for me. She's the one I want--she's the right one."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> (His father and mother had no idea that GOD was behind this, that he was arranging an opportunity against the Philistines. At the time the Philistines lorded it over Israel.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother. When he got to the vineyards of Timnah, a young lion came at him, roaring.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The Spirit of GOD came on him powerfully and he ripped it open barehanded, like tearing a young goat. But he didn't tell his parents what he had done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Then he went on down and spoke to the woman. In Samson's eyes, she was the one.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Some days later when he came back to get her, he made a little detour to look at what was left of the lion. And there a wonder: a swarm of bees in the lion's carcass--and honey!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He scooped it up in his hands and kept going, eating as he went. He rejoined his father and mother and gave some to them and they ate. But he didn't tell them that he had scooped out the honey from the lion's carcass.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> His father went on down to make arrangements with the woman, while Samson prepared a feast there. That's what the young men did in those days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Because the people were wary of him, they arranged for thirty friends to mingle with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Samson said to them: "Let me put a riddle to you. If you can figure it out during the seven days of the feast, I'll give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of fine clothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But if you can't figure it out then you'll give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of fine clothing." They said, "Put your riddle. Let's hear it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> So he said, From the eater came something to eat, From the strong came something sweet. They couldn't figure it out. After three days they were still stumped.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> On the fourth day they said to Samson's bride, "Worm the answer out of your husband or we'll burn you and your father's household. Have you invited us here to bankrupt us?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So Samson's bride turned on the tears, saying to him, "You hate me. You don't love me. You've told a riddle to my people but you won't even tell me the answer." He said, "I haven't told my own parents--why would I tell you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But she turned on the tears all the seven days of the feast. On the seventh day, worn out by her nagging, he told her. Then she went and told it to her people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The men of the town came to him on the seventh day, just before sunset and said, What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion? And Samson said, If you hadn't plowed with my heifer, You wouldn't have found out my riddle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Then the Spirit of GOD came powerfully on him. He went down to Ashkelon and killed thirty of their men, stripped them, and gave their clothing to those who had solved the riddle. Stalking out, smoking with anger, he went home to his father's house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Samson's bride became the wife of the best man at his wedding.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Later on--it was during the wheat harvest--Samson visited his bride, bringing a young goat. He said, "Let me see my wife--show me her bedroom." But her father wouldn't let him in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He said, "I concluded that by now you hated her with a passion, so I gave her to your best man. But her little sister is even more beautiful. Why not take her instead?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Samson said, "That does it. This time when I wreak havoc on the Philistines, I'm blameless."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Samson then went out and caught three hundred jackals. He lashed the jackals' tails together in pairs and tied a torch between each pair of tails.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He then set fire to the torches and let them loose in the Philistine fields of ripe grain. Everything burned, both stacked and standing grain, vineyards and olive orchards--everything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The Philistines said, "Who did this?" They were told, "Samson, son-in-law of the Timnite who took his bride and gave her to his best man." The Philistines went up and burned both her and her father to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Samson then said, "If this is the way you're going to act, I swear I'll get even with you. And I'm not quitting till the job's done!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> With that he tore into them, ripping them limb from limb--a huge slaughter. Then he went down and stayed in a cave at Etam Rock.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The Philistines set out and made camp in Judah, preparing to attack Lehi (Jawbone).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When the men of Judah asked, "Why have you come up against us?" they said, "We're out to get Samson. We're going after Samson to do to him what he did to us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Three companies of men from Judah went down to the cave at Etam Rock and said to Samson, "Don't you realize that the Philistines already bully and lord it over us? So what's going on with you, making things even worse?" He said, "It was tit for tat. I only did to them what they did to me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They said, "Well, we've come down here to tie you up and turn you over to the Philistines." Samson said, "Just promise not to hurt me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "We promise," they said. "We will tie you up and surrender you to them but, believe us, we won't kill you." They proceeded to tie him with new ropes and led him up from the Rock.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> As he approached Lehi, the Philistines came to meet him, shouting in triumph. And then the Spirit of GOD came on him with great power. The ropes on his arms fell apart like flax on fire; the thongs slipped off his hands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He spotted a fresh donkey jawbone, reached down and grabbed it, and with it killed the whole company.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> And Samson said, With a donkey's jawbone I made heaps of donkeys of them. With a donkey's jawbone I killed an entire company.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When he finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone. He named that place Ramath Lehi (Jawbone Hill).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Now he was suddenly very thirsty. He called out to GOD, "You have given your servant this great victory. Are you going to abandon me to die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> So God split open the rock basin in Lehi; water gushed out and Samson drank. His spirit revived--he was alive again! That's why it's called En Hakkore (Caller's Spring). It's still there at Lehi today.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Samson judged Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Samson went to Gaza and saw a prostitute. He went to her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The news got around: "Samson's here." They gathered around in hiding, waiting all night for him at the city gate, quiet as mice, thinking, "At sunrise we'll kill him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Samson was in bed with the woman until midnight. Then he got up, seized the doors of the city gate and the two gateposts, bolts and all, hefted them on his shoulder, and carried them to the top of the hill that faces Hebron.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Some time later he fell in love with a woman in the Valley of Sorek (Grapes). Her name was Delilah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The Philistine tyrants approached her and said, "Seduce him. Discover what's behind his great strength and how we can tie him up and humble him. Each man's company will give you a hundred shekels of silver."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So Delilah said to Samson, "Tell me, dear, the secret of your great strength, and how you can be tied up and humbled."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Samson told her, "If they were to tie me up with seven bowstrings--the kind made from fresh animal tendons, not dried out--then I would become weak, just like anyone else."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The Philistine tyrants brought her seven bowstrings, not dried out, and she tied him up with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The men were waiting in ambush in her room. Then she said, "The Philistines are on you, Samson!" He snapped the cords as though they were mere threads. The secret of his strength was still a secret.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Delilah said, "Come now, Samson--you're playing with me, making up stories. Be serious; tell me how you can be tied up."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He told her, "If you were to tie me up tight with new ropes, ropes never used for work, then I would be helpless, just like anybody else."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> So Delilah got some new ropes and tied him up. She said, "The Philistines are on you, Samson!" The men were hidden in the next room. He snapped the ropes from his arms like threads.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Delilah said to Samson, "You're still playing games with me, teasing me with lies. Tell me how you can be tied up." He said to her, "If you wove the seven braids of my hair into the fabric on the loom and drew it tight, then I would be as helpless as any other mortal." When she had him fast asleep, Delilah took the seven braids of his hair and wove them into the fabric on the loom</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> and drew it tight. Then she said, "The Philistines are on you, Samson!" He woke from his sleep and ripped loose from both the loom and fabric!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> She said, "How can you say 'I love you' when you won't even trust me? Three times now you've toyed with me, like a cat with a mouse, refusing to tell me the secret of your great strength."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> She kept at it day after day, nagging and tormenting him. Finally, he was fed up--he couldn't take another minute of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He spilled it. He told her, "A razor has never touched my head. I've been God's Nazirite from conception. If I were shaved, my strength would leave me; I would be as helpless as any other mortal."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When Delilah realized that he had told her his secret, she sent for the Philistine tyrants, telling them, "Come quickly--this time he's told me the truth." They came, bringing the bribe money.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> When she got him to sleep, his head on her lap, she motioned to a man to cut off the seven braids of his hair. Immediately he began to grow weak. His strength drained from him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Then she said, "The Philistines are on you, Samson!" He woke up, thinking, "I'll go out, like always, and shake free." He didn't realize that GOD had abandoned him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The Philistines grabbed him, gouged out his eyes, and took him down to Gaza. They shackled him in irons and put him to the work of grinding in the prison.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But his hair, though cut off, began to grow again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The Philistine tyrants got together to offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon. They celebrated, saying, Our god has given us Samson our enemy!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> And when the people saw him, they joined in, cheering their god, Our god has given Our enemy to us, The one who ravaged our country, Piling high the corpses among us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Then this: Everyone was feeling high and someone said, "Get Samson! Let him show us his stuff!" They got Samson from the prison and he put on a show for them. They had him standing between the pillars.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Samson said to the young man who was acting as his guide, "Put me where I can touch the pillars that hold up the temple so I can rest against them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The building was packed with men and women, including all the Philistine tyrants. And there were at least 3,000 in the stands watching Samson's performance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> And Samson cried out to GOD: Master, GOD! Oh, please, look on me again, Oh, please, give strength yet once more. God! With one avenging blow let me be avenged On the Philistines for my two eyes!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Then Samson reached out to the two central pillars that held up the building and pushed against them, one with his right arm, the other with his left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Saying, "Let me die with the Philistines," Samson pushed hard with all his might. The building crashed on the tyrants and all the people in it. He killed more people in his death than he had killed in his life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> His brothers and all his relatives went down to get his body. They carried him back and buried him in the tomb of Manoah his father, between Zorah and Eshtaol. He judged Israel for twenty years.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="17">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> There was a man from the hill country of Ephraim named Micah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He said to his mother, "Remember that 1,100 pieces of silver that were taken from you? I overheard you when you pronounced your curse. Well, I have the money; I stole it. But now I've brought it back to you." His mother said, "GOD bless you, my son!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> As he returned the 1,100 silver pieces to his mother, she said, "I had totally consecrated this money to GOD for my son to make a statue, a cast god."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then she took 200 pieces of the silver and gave it to a sculptor and he cast them into the form of a god.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> This man, Micah, had a private chapel. He had made an ephod and some teraphim-idols and had ordained one of his sons to be his priest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> In those days there was no king in Israel. People did whatever they felt like doing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Meanwhile there was a young man from Bethlehem in Judah and from a family of Judah. He was a Levite but was a stranger there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He left that town, Bethlehem in Judah, seeking his fortune. He got as far as the hill country of Ephraim and showed up at Micah's house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Micah asked him, "So where are you from?" He said, "I'm a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah. I'm on the road, looking for a place to settle down."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Micah said, "Stay here with me. Be my father and priest. I'll pay you ten pieces of silver a year, whatever clothes you need, and your meals."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The Levite agreed and moved in with Micah. The young man fit right in and became one of the family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Micah appointed the young Levite as his priest. This all took place in Micah's home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Micah said, "Now I know that GOD will make things go well for me--why, I've got a Levite for a priest!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="18">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In those days there was no king in Israel. But also in those days, the tribe of Dan was looking for a place to settle down. They hadn't yet occupied their plot among the tribes of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The Danites sent out five robust warriors from Zorah and Eshtaol to look over the land and see what was out there suitable for their families. They said, "Go and explore the land." They went into the hill country of Ephraim and got as far as the house of Micah. They camped there for the night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> As they neared Micah's house, they recognized the voice of the young Levite. They went over and said to him, "How on earth did you get here? What's going on? What are you doing here?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He said, "One thing led to another: Micah hired me and I'm now his priest."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They said, "Oh, good--inquire of God for us. Find out whether our mission will be a success."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The priest said, "Go assured. GOD's looking out for you all the way."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The five men left and headed north to Laish. They saw that the people there were living in safety under the umbrella of the Sidonians, quiet and unsuspecting. They had everything going for them. But the people lived a long way from the Sidonians to the west and had no treaty with the Arameans to the east.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> When they got back to Zorah and Eshtaol, their brothers asked, "So, how did you find things?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They said, "Let's go for it! Let's attack. We've seen the land and it is excellent. Are you going to just sit on your hands? Don't dawdle! Invade and conquer!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When you get there, you'll find they're sitting ducks, totally unsuspecting. Wide open land--God is handing it over to you, everything you could ever ask for."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> So 600 Danite men set out from Zorah and Eshtaol, armed to the teeth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Along the way they made camp at Kiriath Jearim in Judah. That is why the place is still today called Dan's Camp--it's just west of Kiriath Jearim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> From there they proceeded into the hill country of Ephraim and came to Micah's house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The five men who earlier had explored the country of Laish told their companions, "Did you know there's an ephod, teraphim-idols, and a cast god-sculpture in these buildings? What do you think? Do you want to do something about it?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So they turned off the road there, went to the house of the young Levite at Micah's place and asked how things had been with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The 600 Danites, all well-armed, stood guard at the entrance to the gate</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> while the five scouts who had gone to explore the land went in and took the carved idol, the ephod, the teraphim-idols, and the god-sculpture. The priest was standing at the gate entrance with the 600 armed men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When the five went into Micah's house and took the carved idol, the ephod, the teraphim-idols, and the sculpted god, the priest said to them, "What do you think you're doing?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They said to him, "Hush! Don't make a sound. Come with us. Be our father and priest. Which is more important, that you be a priest to one man or that you become priest to a whole tribe and clan in Israel?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The priest jumped at the chance. He took the ephod, the teraphim-idols, and the idol and fell in with the troops.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They turned away and set out, putting the children, the cattle, and the gear in the lead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> They were well on their way from Micah's house before Micah and his neighbors got organized. But they soon overtook the Danites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They shouted at them. The Danites turned around and said, "So what's all the noise about?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Micah said, "You took my god, the one I made, and you took my priest. And you marched off! What do I have left? How can you now say, 'What's the matter?'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> But the Danites answered, "Don't yell at us; you just might provoke some fierce, hot-tempered men to attack you, and you'll end up an army of dead men."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The Danites went on their way. Micah saw that he didn't stand a chance against their arms. He turned back and went home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> So they took the things that Micah had made, along with his priest, and they arrived at Laish, that city of quiet and unsuspecting people. They massacred the people and burned down the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> There was no one around to help. They were a long way from Sidon and had no treaty with the Arameans. Laish was in the valley of Beth Rehob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> When they rebuilt the city they renamed it Dan after their ancestor who was a son of Israel, but its original name was Laish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The Danites set up the god-figure for themselves. Jonathan son of Gershom, the son of Moses, and his descendants were priests to the tribe of Dan down to the time of the land's captivity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> All during the time that there was a sanctuary of God in Shiloh, they kept for their private use the god-figure that Micah had made.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="19">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> It was an era when there was no king in Israel. A Levite, living as a stranger in the backwoods hill country of Ephraim, got himself a concubine, a woman from Bethlehem in Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> But she quarreled with him and left, returning to her father's house in Bethlehem in Judah. She was there four months.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then her husband decided to go after her and try to win her back. He had a servant and a pair of donkeys with him. When he arrived at her father's house, the girl's father saw him, welcomed him, and made him feel at home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> His father-in-law, the girl's father, pressed him to stay. He stayed with him three days; they feasted and drank and slept.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> On the fourth day, they got up at the crack of dawn and got ready to go. But the girl's father said to his son-in-law, "Strengthen yourself with a hearty breakfast and then you can go."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So they sat down and ate breakfast together. The girl's father said to the man, "Come now, be my guest. Stay the night--make it a holiday."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The man got up to go, but his father-in-law kept after him, so he ended up spending another night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> On the fifth day, he was again up early, ready to go. The girl's father said, "You need some breakfast." They went back and forth, and the day slipped on as they ate and drank together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But the man and his concubine were finally ready to go. Then his father-in-law, the girl's father, said, "Look, the day's almost gone--why not stay the night? There's very little daylight left; stay another night and enjoy yourself. Tomorrow you can get an early start and set off for your own place."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But this time the man wasn't willing to spend another night. He got things ready, left, and went as far as Jebus (Jerusalem) with his pair of saddled donkeys, his concubine, and his servant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> At Jebus, though, the day was nearly gone. The servant said to his master, "It's late; let's go into this Jebusite city and spend the night."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But his master said, "We're not going into any city of foreigners. We'll go on to Gibeah."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He directed his servant, "Keep going. Let's go on ahead. We'll spend the night either at Gibeah or Ramah."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> So they kept going. As they pressed on, the sun finally left them in the vicinity of Gibeah, which belongs to Benjamin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They left the road there to spend the night at Gibeah. The Levite went and sat down in the town square, but no one invited them in to spend the night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Then, late in the evening, an old man came in from his day's work in the fields. He was from the hill country of Ephraim and lived temporarily in Gibeah where all the local citizens were Benjaminites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When the old man looked up and saw the traveler in the town square, he said, "Where are you going? And where are you from?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The Levite said, "We're just passing through. We're coming from Bethlehem on our way to a remote spot in the hills of Ephraim. I come from there. I've just made a trip to Bethlehem in Judah and I'm on my way back home, but no one has invited us in for the night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> We wouldn't be any trouble: We have food and straw for the donkeys, and bread and wine for the woman, the young man, and me--we don't need anything."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The old man said, "It's going to be all right; I'll take care of you. You aren't going to spend the night in the town square."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He took them home and fed the donkeys. They washed up and sat down to a good meal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> They were relaxed and enjoying themselves when the men of the city, a gang of local hell-raisers all, surrounded the house and started pounding on the door. They yelled for the owner of the house, the old man, "Bring out the man who came to your house. We want to have sex with him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> He went out and told them, "No, brothers! Don't be obscene--this man is my guest. Don't commit this outrage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Look, my virgin daughter and his concubine are here. I'll bring them out for you. Abuse them if you must, but don't do anything so senselessly vile to this man."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> But the men wouldn't listen to him. Finally, the Levite pushed his concubine out the door to them. They raped her repeatedly all night long. Just before dawn they let her go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The woman came back and fell at the door of the house where her master was sleeping. When the sun rose, there she was.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> It was morning. Her master got up and opened the door to continue his journey. There she was, his concubine, crumpled in a heap at the door, her hands on the threshold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "Get up," he said. "Let's get going." There was no answer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> He lifted her onto his donkey and set out for home. When he got home he took a knife and dismembered his concubine--cut her into twelve pieces. He sent her, piece by piece, throughout the country of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> And he ordered the men he sent out, "Say to every man in Israel: 'Has such a thing as this ever happened from the time the Israelites came up from the land of Egypt until now? Think about it! Talk it over. Do something!'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="20">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then all the People of Israel came out. The congregation met in the presence of GOD at Mizpah. They were all there, from Dan to Beersheba, as one person!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The leaders of all the people, representing all the tribes of Israel, took their places in the gathering of God's people. There were 400 divisions of sword-wielding infantry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Meanwhile the Benjaminites got wind that the Israelites were meeting at Mizpah. The People of Israel said, "Now tell us. How did this outrageous evil happen?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The Levite, the husband of the murdered woman, spoke: "My concubine and I came to spend the night at Gibeah, a Benjaminite town.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> That night the men of Gibeah came after me. They surrounded the house, intending to kill me. They gang-raped my concubine and she died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So I took my concubine, cut up her body, and sent her piece by piece--twelve pieces!--to every part of Israel's inheritance. This vile and outrageous crime was committed in Israel!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So, Israelites, make up your minds. Decide on some action!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> All the people were at once and as one person on their feet. "None of us will go home; not a single one of us will go to his own house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Here's our plan for dealing with Gibeah: We'll march against it by drawing lots.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> We'll take ten of every hundred men from all the tribes of Israel (a hundred of every thousand, and a thousand of every ten thousand) to carry food for the army. When the troops arrive at Gibeah they will settle accounts for this outrageous and vile evil that was done in Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> So all the men in Israel were gathered against the city, totally united.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The Israelite tribes sent messengers throughout the tribe of Benjamin saying, "What's the meaning of this outrage that took place among you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Surrender the men right here and now, these hell-raisers of Gibeah. We'll put them to death and burn the evil out of Israel." But they wouldn't do it. The Benjaminites refused to listen to their brothers, the People of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Instead they raised an army from all their cities and rallied at Gibeah to go to war against the People of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> In no time at all they had recruited from their cities twenty-six divisions of sword-wielding infantry. From Gibeah they got 700 hand-picked fighters, the best.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> There were another 700 super marksmen who were ambidextrous--they could sling a stone at a hair and not miss.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The men of Israel, excluding Benjamin, mobilized 400 divisions of sword-wielding fighting men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They set out and went to Bethel to inquire of God. The People of Israel said, "Who of us shall be first to go into battle with the Benjaminites?" GOD said, "Judah goes first."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The People of Israel got up the next morning and camped before Gibeah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The army of Israel marched out against Benjamin and took up their positions, ready to attack Gibeah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But the Benjaminites poured out of Gibeah and devastated twenty-two Israelite divisions on the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The army took heart. The men of Israel took up the positions they had deployed on the first day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The Israelites went back to the sanctuary and wept before GOD until evening. They again inquired of GOD, "Shall we again go into battle against the Benjaminites, our brothers?" GOD said, "Yes. Attack."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> On the second day, the Israelites again advanced against Benjamin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> This time as the Benjaminites came out of the city, on this second day, they devastated another eighteen Israelite divisions, all swordsmen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> All the People of Israel, the whole army, were back at Bethel, weeping, sitting there in the presence of GOD. That day they fasted until evening. They sacrificed Whole-Burnt-Offerings and Peace-Offerings before GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> And they again inquired of GOD. The Chest of God's Covenant was there at that time with</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, as the ministering priest. They asked, "Shall we again march into battle against the Benjaminites, our brothers? Or should we call it quits?" And GOD said, "Attack. Tomorrow I'll give you victory."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> This time Israel placed men in ambush all around Gibeah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> On the third day when Israel set out, they took up the same positions before the Benjaminites as before.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> When the Benjaminites came out to meet the army, they moved out from the city. Benjaminites began to cut down some of the troops just as they had before. About thirty men fell in the field and on the roads to Bethel and Gibeah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The Benjaminites started bragging, "We're dropping them like flies, just as before!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> But the Israelites strategized: "Now let's retreat and pull them out of the city onto the main roads." So every Israelite moved farther out to Baal Tamar; at the same time the Israelite ambush rushed from its place west of Gibeah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Ten crack divisions from all over Israel now arrived at Gibeah--intense, bloody fighting! The Benjaminites had no idea that they were about to go down in defeat--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> GOD routed them before Israel. The Israelites decimated twenty-five divisions of Benjamin that day--25,100 killed. They were all swordsmen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> The Benjaminites saw that they were beaten. The men of Israel acted like they were retreating before Benjamin, knowing that they could depend on the ambush they had prepared for Gibeah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> The ambush erupted and made quick work of Gibeah. The ambush spread out and massacred the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> The strategy for the main body of the ambush was that they send up a smoke signal from the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Then the men of Israel would turn in battle. When that happened, Benjamin had killed about thirty Israelites and thought they were on their way to victory, yelling out, "They're on the run, just as in the first battle!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> But then the signal went up from the city--a huge column of smoke. When the Benjaminites looked back, there it was, the whole city going up in smoke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> By the time the men of Israel had turned back on them, the men of Benjamin fell apart--they could see that they were trapped.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Confronted by the Israelites, they tried to get away down the wilderness road, but by now the battle was everywhere. The men of Israel poured out of the towns, killing them right and left,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> hot on their trail, picking them off east of Gibeah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Eighteen divisions of Benjaminites were wiped out, all their best fighters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> Five divisions turned to escape to the wilderness, to Rimmon Rock, but the Israelites caught and slaughtered them on roads. Keeping the pressure on, the Israelites brought down two more divisions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> The total of the Benjaminites killed that day came to twenty-five divisions of infantry, their best swordsmen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> Six hundred men got away. They made it to Rimmon Rock in the wilderness and held out there for four months.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> The men of Israel came back and killed all the Benjaminites who were left, all the men and animals they found in every town, and then torched the towns, sending them up in flames.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="21">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Back at Mizpah the men of Israel had taken an oath: "No man among us will give his daughter to a Benjaminite in marriage."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Now, back in Bethel, the people sat in the presence of God until evening. They cried loudly; there was widespread lamentation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They said, "Why, O GOD, God of Israel, has this happened? Why do we find ourselves today missing one whole tribe from Israel?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Early the next morning, the people got busy and built an altar. They sacrificed Whole-Burnt-Offerings and Peace-Offerings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then the Israelites said, "Who from all the tribes of Israel didn't show up as we gathered in the presence of GOD?" For they had all taken a sacred oath that anyone who had not gathered in the presence of GOD at Mizpah had to be put to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But the People of Israel were feeling sorry for Benjamin, their brothers. They said, "Today, one tribe is cut off from Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> How can we get wives for those who are left? We have sworn by GOD not to give any of our daughters to them in marriage."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They said, "Which one of the tribes of Israel didn't gather before GOD at Mizpah?" It turned out that no one had come to the gathering from Jabesh Gilead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When they took a roll call of the people, not a single person from Jabesh Gilead was there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So the congregation sent twelve divisions of their top men there with the command, "Kill everyone of Jabesh Gilead, including women and children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> These are your instructions: Every man and woman who has had sexual intercourse you must kill. But keep the virgins alive." And that's what they did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And they found 400 virgins among those who lived in Jabesh Gilead; they had never had sexual intercourse with a man. And they brought them to the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then the congregation sent word to the Benjaminites who were at the Rimmon Rock and offered them peace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And Benjamin came. They gave them the women they had let live at Jabesh Gilead. But even then, there weren't enough for all the men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The people felt bad for Benjamin; GOD had left out Benjamin--the missing piece from the Israelite tribes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The elders of the congregation said, "How can we get wives for the rest of the men, since all the Benjaminite women have been killed?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> How can we keep the inheritance alive for the Benjaminite survivors? How can we prevent an entire tribe from extinction?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> We certainly can't give our own daughters to them as wives." (Remember, the Israelites had taken the oath: "Cursed is anyone who provides a wife to Benjamin.")</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Then they said, "There is that festival of GOD held every year in Shiloh. It's north of Bethel, just east of the main road that goes up from Bethel to Shechem and a little south of Lebonah."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> So they told the Benjaminites, "Go and hide in the vineyards.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Stay alert--when you see the Shiloh girls come out to dance the dances, run out of the vineyards, grab one of the Shiloh girls for your wife, and then hightail it back to the country of Benjamin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> When their fathers or brothers come to lay charges against us, we'll tell them, 'We did them a favor. After all we didn't go to war and kill to get wives for men. And it wasn't as if you were in on it by giving consent. But if you keep this up, you will incur blame.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> And that's what the Benjaminites did: They carried off girls from the dance, wives enough for their number, got away, and went home to their inheritance. They rebuilt their towns and settled down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> From there the People of Israel dispersed, each man heading back to his own tribe and clan, each to his own plot of land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> At that time there was no king in Israel. People did whatever they felt like doing.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="8" bname="Ruth">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Once upon a time--it was back in the days when judges led Israel--there was a famine in the land. A man from Bethlehem in Judah left home to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The man's name was Elimelech; his wife's name was Naomi; his sons were named Mahlon and Kilion--all Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They all went to the country of Moab and settled there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Elimelech died and Naomi was left, she and her two sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The sons took Moabite wives; the name of the first was Orpah, the second Ruth. They lived there in Moab for the next ten years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But then the two brothers, Mahlon and Kilion, died. Now the woman was left without either her young men or her husband.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> One day she got herself together, she and her two daughters-in-law, to leave the country of Moab and set out for home; she had heard that GOD had been pleased to visit his people and give them food.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And so she started out from the place she had been living, she and her two daughters-in-law with her, on the road back to the land of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> After a short while on the road, Naomi told her two daughters-in-law, "Go back. Go home and live with your mothers. And may GOD treat you as graciously as you treated your deceased husbands and me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> May GOD give each of you a new home and a new husband!" She kissed them and they cried openly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They said, "No, we're going on with you to your people."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But Naomi was firm: "Go back, my dear daughters. Why would you come with me? Do you suppose I still have sons in my womb who can become your future husbands?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Go back, dear daughters--on your way, please! I'm too old to get a husband. Why, even if I said, 'There's still hope!' and this very night got a man and had sons,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> can you imagine being satisfied to wait until they were grown? Would you wait that long to get married again? No, dear daughters; this is a bitter pill for me to swallow--more bitter for me than for you. GOD has dealt me a hard blow."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Again they cried openly. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye; but Ruth embraced her and held on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Naomi said, "Look, your sister-in-law is going back home to live with her own people and gods; go with her."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But Ruth said, "Don't force me to leave you; don't make me go home. Where you go, I go; and where you live, I'll live. Your people are my people, your God is my god;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> where you die, I'll die, and that's where I'll be buried, so help me GOD--not even death itself is going to come between us!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When Naomi saw that Ruth had her heart set on going with her, she gave in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And so the two of them traveled on together to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem the whole town was soon buzzing: "Is this really our Naomi? And after all this time!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But she said, "Don't call me Naomi; call me Bitter. The Strong One has dealt me a bitter blow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I left here full of life, and GOD has brought me back with nothing but the clothes on my back. Why would you call me Naomi? God certainly doesn't. The Strong One ruined me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> And so Naomi was back, and Ruth the foreigner with her, back from the country of Moab. They arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> It so happened that Naomi had a relative by marriage, a man prominent and rich, connected with Elimelech's family. His name was Boaz.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> One day Ruth, the Moabite foreigner, said to Naomi, "I'm going to work; I'm going out to glean among the sheaves, following after some harvester who will treat me kindly." Naomi said, "Go ahead, dear daughter."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And so she set out. She went and started gleaning in a field, following in the wake of the harvesters. Eventually she ended up in the part of the field owned by Boaz, her father-in-law Elimelech's relative.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> A little later Boaz came out from Bethlehem, greeting his harvesters, "GOD be with you!" They replied, "And GOD bless you!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Boaz asked his young servant who was foreman over the farm hands, "Who is this young woman? Where did she come from?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The foreman said, "Why, that's the Moabite girl, the one who came with Naomi from the country of Moab.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> She asked permission. 'Let me glean,' she said, 'and gather among the sheaves following after your harvesters.' She's been at it steady ever since, from early morning until now, without so much as a break."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then Boaz spoke to Ruth: "Listen, my daughter. From now on don't go to any other field to glean--stay right here in this one. And stay close to my young women.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Watch where they are harvesting and follow them. And don't worry about a thing; I've given orders to my servants not to harass you. When you get thirsty, feel free to go and drink from the water buckets that the servants have filled."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> She dropped to her knees, then bowed her face to the ground. "How does this happen that you should pick me out and treat me so kindly--me, a foreigner?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Boaz answered her, "I've heard all about you--heard about the way you treated your mother-in-law after the death of her husband, and how you left your father and mother and the land of your birth and have come to live among a bunch of total strangers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> GOD reward you well for what you've done--and with a generous bonus besides from GOD, to whom you've come seeking protection under his wings."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> She said, "Oh sir, such grace, such kindness--I don't deserve it. You've touched my heart, treated me like one of your own. And I don't even belong here!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> At the lunch break, Boaz said to her, "Come over here; eat some bread. Dip it in the wine." So she joined the harvesters. Boaz passed the roasted grain to her. She ate her fill and even had some left over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> When she got up to go back to work, Boaz ordered his servants: "Let her glean where there's still plenty of grain on the ground--make it easy for her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Better yet, pull some of the good stuff out and leave it for her to glean. Give her special treatment."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. When she threshed out what she had gathered, she ended up with nearly a full sack of barley!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> She gathered up her gleanings, went back to town, and showed her mother-in-law the results of her day's work; she also gave her the leftovers from her lunch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Naomi asked her, "So where did you glean today? Whose field? GOD bless whoever it was who took such good care of you!" Ruth told her mother-in-law, "The man with whom I worked today? His name is Boaz."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, "Why, GOD bless that man! GOD hasn't quite walked out on us after all! He still loves us, in bad times as well as good!" Naomi went on, "That man, Ruth, is one of our circle of covenant redeemers, a close relative of ours!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Ruth the Moabitess said, "Well, listen to this: He also told me, 'Stick with my workers until my harvesting is finished.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Naomi said to Ruth, "That's wonderful, dear daughter! Do that! You'll be safe in the company of his young women; no danger now of being raped in some stranger's field."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> So Ruth did it--she stuck close to Boaz's young women, gleaning in the fields daily until both the barley and wheat harvesting were finished. And she continued living with her mother-in-law.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> One day her mother-in-law Naomi said to Ruth, "My dear daughter, isn't it about time I arranged a good home for you so you can have a happy life?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> And isn't Boaz our close relative, the one with whose young women you've been working? Maybe it's time to make our move. Tonight is the night of Boaz's barley harvest at the threshing floor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Take a bath. Put on some perfume. Get all dressed up and go to the threshing floor. But don't let him know you're there until the party is well under way and he's had plenty of food and drink.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When you see him slipping off to sleep, watch where he lies down and then go there. Lie at his feet to let him know that you are available to him for marriage. Then wait and see what he says. He'll tell you what to do."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Ruth said, "If you say so, I'll do it, just as you've told me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> She went down to the threshing floor and put her mother-in-law's plan into action.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Boaz had a good time, eating and drinking his fill--he felt great. Then he went off to get some sleep, lying down at the end of a stack of barley. Ruth quietly followed; she lay down to signal her availability for marriage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> In the middle of the night the man was suddenly startled and sat up. Surprise! This woman asleep at his feet!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He said, "And who are you?" She said, "I am Ruth, your maiden; take me under your protecting wing. You're my close relative, you know, in the circle of covenant redeemers--you do have the right to marry me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He said, "GOD bless you, my dear daughter! What a splendid expression of love! And when you could have had your pick of any of the young men around.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And now, my dear daughter, don't you worry about a thing; I'll do all you could want or ask. Everybody in town knows what a courageous woman you are--a real prize!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> You're right, I am a close relative to you, but there is one even closer than I am.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> So stay the rest of the night. In the morning, if he wants to exercise his customary rights and responsibilities as the closest covenant redeemer, he'll have his chance; but if he isn't interested, as GOD lives, I'll do it. Now go back to sleep until morning."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Ruth slept at his feet until dawn, but she got up while it was still dark and wouldn't be recognized. Then Boaz said to himself, "No one must know that Ruth came to the threshing floor."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So Boaz said, "Bring the shawl you're wearing and spread it out." She spread it out and he poured it full of barley, six measures, and put it on her shoulders. Then she went back to town.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When she came to her mother-in-law, Naomi asked, "And how did things go, my dear daughter?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Ruth told her everything that the man had done for her, adding, "And he gave me all this barley besides--six quarts! He told me, 'You can't go back empty-handed to your mother-in-law!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Naomi said, "Sit back and relax, my dear daughter, until we find out how things turn out; that man isn't going to fool around. Mark my words, he's going to get everything wrapped up today."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Boaz went straight to the public square and took his place there. Before long the "closer relative," the one mentioned earlier by Boaz, strolled by. "Step aside, old friend," said Boaz. "Take a seat." The man sat down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Boaz then gathered ten of the town elders together and said, "Sit down here with us; we've got some business to take care of." And they sat down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Boaz then said to his relative, "The piece of property that belonged to our relative Elimelech is being sold by his widow Naomi, who has just returned from the country of Moab.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I thought you ought to know about it. Buy it back if you want it--you can make it official in the presence of those sitting here and before the town elders. You have first redeemer rights. If you don't want it, tell me so I'll know where I stand. You're first in line to do this and I'm next after you." He said, "I'll buy it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then Boaz added, "You realize, don't you, that when you buy the field from Naomi, you also get Ruth the Moabite, the widow of our dead relative, along with the redeemer responsibility to have children with her to carry on the family inheritance."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then the relative said, "Oh, I can't do that--I'd jeopardize my own family's inheritance. You go ahead and buy it--you can have my rights--I can't do it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> In the olden times in Israel, this is how they handled official business regarding matters of property and inheritance: a man would take off his shoe and give it to the other person. This was the same as an official seal or personal signature in Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> So when Boaz's "redeemer" relative said, "Go ahead and buy it," he signed the deal by pulling off his shoe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Boaz then addressed the elders and all the people in the town square that day: "You are witnesses today that I have bought from Naomi everything that belonged to Elimelech and Kilion and Mahlon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> including responsibility for Ruth the foreigner, the widow of Mahlon--I'll take her as my wife and keep the name of the deceased alive along with his inheritance. The memory and reputation of the deceased is not going to disappear out of this family or from his hometown. To all this you are witnesses this very day."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> All the people in the town square that day, backing up the elders, said, "Yes, we are witnesses. May GOD make this woman who is coming into your household like Rachel and Leah, the two women who built the family of Israel. May GOD make you a pillar in Ephrathah and famous in Bethlehem!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> With the children GOD gives you from this young woman, may your family rival the family of Perez, the son Tamar bore to Judah."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Boaz married Ruth. She became his wife. Boaz slept with her. By GOD's gracious gift she conceived and had a son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The town women said to Naomi, "Blessed be GOD! He didn't leave you without family to carry on your life. May this baby grow up to be famous in Israel!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He'll make you young again! He'll take care of you in old age. And this daughter-in-law who has brought him into the world and loves you so much, why, she's worth more to you than seven sons!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Naomi took the baby and held him in her arms, cuddling him, cooing over him, waiting on him hand and foot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The neighborhood women started calling him "Naomi's baby boy!" But his real name was Obed. Obed was the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> This is the family tree of Perez: Perez had Hezron,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Hezron had Ram, Ram had Amminadab,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Amminadab had Nahshon, Nahshon had Salmon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Salmon had Boaz, Boaz had Obed,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Obed had Jesse, and Jesse had David.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="9" bname="1 Samuel">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> There once was a man who lived in Ramathaim. He was descended from the old Zuph family in the Ephraim hills. His name was Elkanah. (He was connected with the Zuphs from Ephraim through his father Jeroham, his grandfather Elihu, and his great-grandfather Tohu.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He had two wives. The first was Hannah; the second was Peninnah. Peninnah had children; Hannah did not.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Every year this man went from his hometown up to Shiloh to worship and offer a sacrifice to GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies. Eli and his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, served as the priests of GOD there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When Elkanah sacrificed, he passed helpings from the sacrificial meal around to his wife Peninnah and all her children,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> but he always gave an especially generous helping to Hannah because he loved her so much, and because GOD had not given her children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But her rival wife taunted her cruelly, rubbing it in and never letting her forget that GOD had not given her children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> This went on year after year. Every time she went to the sanctuary of GOD she could expect to be taunted. Hannah was reduced to tears and had no appetite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Her husband Elkanah said, "Oh, Hannah, why are you crying? Why aren't you eating? And why are you so upset? Am I not of more worth to you than ten sons?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So Hannah ate. Then she pulled herself together, slipped away quietly, and entered the sanctuary. The priest Eli was on duty at the entrance to GOD's Temple in the customary seat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Crushed in soul, Hannah prayed to GOD and cried and cried--inconsolably.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then she made a vow: Oh, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, If you'll take a good, hard look at my pain, If you'll quit neglecting me and go into action for me By giving me a son, I'll give him completely, unreservedly to you. I'll set him apart for a life of holy discipline.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> It so happened that as she continued in prayer before GOD, Eli was watching her closely.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Hannah was praying in her heart, silently. Her lips moved, but no sound was heard. Eli jumped to the conclusion that she was drunk.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He approached her and said, "You're drunk! How long do you plan to keep this up? Sober up, woman!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Hannah said, "Oh no, sir--please! I'm a woman hard used. I haven't been drinking. Not a drop of wine or beer. The only thing I've been pouring out is my heart, pouring it out to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Don't for a minute think I'm a bad woman. It's because I'm so desperately unhappy and in such pain that I've stayed here so long."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Eli answered her, "Go in peace. And may the God of Israel give you what you have asked of him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Think well of me--and pray for me!" she said, and went her way. Then she ate heartily, her face radiant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Up before dawn, they worshiped GOD and returned home to Ramah. Elkanah slept with Hannah his wife, and GOD began making the necessary arrangements in response to what she had asked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Before the year was out, Hannah had conceived and given birth to a son. She named him Samuel, explaining, "I asked GOD for him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> When Elkanah next took his family on their annual trip to Shiloh to worship GOD, offering sacrifices and keeping his vow,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Hannah didn't go. She told her husband, "After the child is weaned, I'll bring him myself and present him before GOD--and that's where he'll stay, for good."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Elkanah said to his wife, "Do what you think is best. Stay home until you have weaned him. Yes! Let GOD complete what he has begun!" So she did. She stayed home and nursed her son until she had weaned him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Then she took him up to Shiloh, bringing also the makings of a generous sacrificial meal--a prize bull, flour, and wine. The child was so young to be sent off!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> They first butchered the bull, then brought the child to Eli.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Hannah said, "Excuse me, sir. Would you believe that I'm the very woman who was standing before you at this very spot, praying to GOD?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> I prayed for this child, and GOD gave me what I asked for.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> And now I have dedicated him to GOD. He's dedicated to GOD for life." Then and there, they worshiped GOD.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Hannah prayed: I'm bursting with God-news! I'm walking on air. I'm laughing at my rivals. I'm dancing my salvation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Nothing and no one is holy like GOD, no rock mountain like our God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Don't dare talk pretentiously-- not a word of boasting, ever! For GOD knows what's going on. He takes the measure of everything that happens.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The weapons of the strong are smashed to pieces, while the weak are infused with fresh strength.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The well-fed are out begging in the streets for crusts, while the hungry are getting second helpings. The barren woman has a houseful of children, while the mother of many is bereft.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD brings death and GOD brings life, brings down to the grave and raises up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD brings poverty and GOD brings wealth; he lowers, he also lifts up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He puts poor people on their feet again; he rekindles burned-out lives with fresh hope, Restoring dignity and respect to their lives-- a place in the sun! For the very structures of earth are GOD's; he has laid out his operations on a firm foundation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He protectively cares for his faithful friends, step by step, but leaves the wicked to stumble in the dark. No one makes it in this life by sheer muscle!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> GOD's enemies will be blasted out of the sky, crashed in a heap and burned. GOD will set things right all over the earth, he'll give strength to his king, he'll set his anointed on top of the world!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Elkanah went home to Ramah. The boy stayed and served GOD in the company of Eli the priest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Eli's own sons were a bad lot. They didn't know GOD and could not have cared less</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> about the customs of priests among the people. Ordinarily, when someone offered a sacrifice, the priest's servant was supposed to come up and, while the meat was boiling,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> stab a three-pronged fork into the cooking pot. The priest then got whatever came up on the fork. But this is how Eli's sons treated all the Israelites who came to Shiloh to offer sacrifices to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Before they had even burned the fat to GOD, the priest's servant would interrupt whoever was sacrificing and say, "Hand over some of that meat for the priest to roast. He doesn't like boiled meat; he likes his rare."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> If the man objected, "First let the fat be burned--God's portion!--then take all you want," the servant would demand, "No, I want it now. If you won't give it, I'll take it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> It was a horrible sin these young servants were committing--and right in the presence of GOD!--desecrating the holy offerings to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> In the midst of all this, Samuel, a boy dressed in a priestly linen tunic, served GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Additionally, every year his mother would make him a little robe cut to his size and bring it to him when she and her husband came for the annual sacrifice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife, saying, "GOD give you children to replace this child you have dedicated to GOD." Then they would go home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> GOD was most especially kind to Hannah. She had three more sons and two daughters! The boy Samuel stayed at the sanctuary and grew up with GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> By this time Eli was very old. He kept getting reports on how his sons were ripping off the people and sleeping with the women who helped out at the sanctuary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Eli took them to task: "What's going on here? Why are you doing these things? I hear story after story of your corrupt and evil carrying on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Oh, my sons, this is not right! These are terrible reports I'm getting, stories spreading right and left among GOD's people!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> If you sin against another person, there's help--God's help. But if you sin against GOD, who is around to help?" But they were far gone in disobedience and refused to listen to a thing their father said. So GOD, who was fed up with them, decreed their death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> But the boy Samuel was very much alive, growing up, blessed by GOD and popular with the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> A holy man came to Eli and said: "This is GOD's message: I revealed myself openly to your ancestors when they were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Out of all the tribes of Israel, I chose your family to be my priests: to preside at the altar, to burn incense, to wear the priestly robes in my presence. I put your ancestral family in charge of all the sacrificial offerings of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> So why do you now treat as mere loot these very sacrificial offerings that I commanded for my worship? Why do you treat your sons better than me, turning them loose to get fat on these offerings, and ignoring me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Therefore--this is GOD's word, the God of Israel speaking--I once said that you and your ancestral family would be my priests indefinitely, but now--GOD's word, remember!--there is no way this can continue. I honor those who honor me; those who scorn me I demean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "Be well warned: It won't be long before I wipe out both your family and your future family. No one in your family will make it to old age!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> You'll see good things that I'm doing in Israel, but you'll see it and weep, for no one in your family will live to enjoy it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> I will leave one person to serve at my altar, but it will be a hard life, with many tears. Everyone else in your family will die before their time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> What happens to your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, will be the proof: Both will die the same day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Then I'll establish for myself a true priest. He'll do what I want him to do, be what I want him to be. I'll make his position secure and he'll do his work freely in the service of my anointed one.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Survivors from your family will come to him begging for handouts, saying, 'Please, give me some priest work, just enough to put some food on the table.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The boy Samuel was serving GOD under Eli's direction. This was at a time when the revelation of GOD was rarely heard or seen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> One night Eli was sound asleep (his eyesight was very bad--he could hardly see).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> It was well before dawn; the sanctuary lamp was still burning. Samuel was still in bed in the Temple of GOD, where the Chest of God rested.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then GOD called out, "Samuel, Samuel!" Samuel answered, "Yes? I'm here."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then he ran to Eli saying, "I heard you call. Here I am." Eli said, "I didn't call you. Go back to bed." And so he did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD called again, "Samuel, Samuel!" Samuel got up and went to Eli, "I heard you call. Here I am." Again Eli said, "Son, I didn't call you. Go back to bed."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> (This all happened before Samuel knew GOD for himself. It was before the revelation of GOD had been given to him personally.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD called again, "Samuel!"--the third time! Yet again Samuel got up and went to Eli, "Yes? I heard you call me. Here I am." That's when it dawned on Eli that GOD was calling the boy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So Eli directed Samuel, "Go back and lie down. If the voice calls again, say, 'Speak, GOD. I'm your servant, ready to listen.'" Samuel returned to his bed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then GOD came and stood before him exactly as before, calling out, "Samuel! Samuel!" Samuel answered, "Speak. I'm your servant, ready to listen."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD said to Samuel, "Listen carefully. I'm getting ready to do something in Israel that is going to shake everyone up and get their attention.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The time has come for me to bring down on Eli's family everything I warned him of, every last word of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I'm letting him know that the time's up. I'm bringing judgment on his family for good. He knew what was going on, that his sons were desecrating God's name and God's place, and he did nothing to stop them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> This is my sentence on the family of Eli: The evil of Eli's family can never be wiped out by sacrifice or offering."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Samuel stayed in bed until morning, then rose early and went about his duties, opening the doors of the sanctuary, but he dreaded having to tell the vision to Eli.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But then Eli summoned Samuel: "Samuel, my son!" Samuel came running: "Yes? What can I do for you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "What did he say? Tell it to me, all of it. Don't suppress or soften one word, as God is your judge! I want it all, word for word as he said it to you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> So Samuel told him, word for word. He held back nothing. Eli said, "He is GOD. Let him do whatever he thinks best."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Samuel grew up. GOD was with him, and Samuel's prophetic record was flawless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Everyone in Israel, from Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south, recognized that Samuel was the real thing--a true prophet of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> GOD continued to show up at Shiloh, revealed through his word to Samuel at Shiloh.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Whatever Samuel said was broadcast all through Israel. Israel went to war against the Philistines. Israel set up camp at Ebenezer, the Philistines at Aphek.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The Philistines marched out to meet Israel, the fighting spread, and Israel was badly beaten--about 4,000 soldiers left dead on the field.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When the troops returned to camp, Israel's elders said, "Why has GOD given us such a beating today by the Philistines? Let's go to Shiloh and get the Chest of GOD's Covenant. It will accompany us and save us from the grip of our enemies."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> So the army sent orders to Shiloh. They brought the Chest of the Covenant of GOD, the GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the Cherubim-Enthroned-GOD. Eli's two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, accompanied the Chest of the Covenant of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When the Chest of the Covenant of GOD was brought into camp, everyone gave a huge cheer. The shouts were like thunderclaps shaking the very ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The Philistines heard the shouting and wondered what on earth was going on: "What's all this shouting among the Hebrews?" Then they learned that the Chest of GOD had entered the Hebrew camp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The Philistines panicked: "Their gods have come to their camp! Nothing like this has ever happened before.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> We're done for! Who can save us from the clutches of these supergods? These are the same gods who hit the Egyptians with all kinds of plagues out in the wilderness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> On your feet, Philistines! Courage! We're about to become slaves to the Hebrews, just as they have been slaves to us. Show what you're made of! Fight for your lives!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And did they ever fight! It turned into a rout. They thrashed Israel so mercilessly that the Israelite soldiers ran for their lives, leaving behind an incredible 30,000 dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> As if that wasn't bad enough, the Chest of God was taken and the two sons of Eli--Hophni and Phinehas--were killed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Immediately, a Benjaminite raced from the front lines back to Shiloh. Shirt torn and face smeared with dirt,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> he entered the town. Eli was sitting on his stool beside the road keeping vigil, for he was extremely worried about the Chest of God. When the man ran straight into town to tell the bad news, everyone wept.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They were appalled. Eli heard the loud wailing and asked, "Why this uproar?" The messenger hurried over and reported.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Eli was ninety-eight years old then, and blind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The man said to Eli, "I've just come from the front, barely escaping with my life." "And so, my son," said Eli, "what happened?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The messenger answered, "Israel scattered before the Philistines. The defeat was catastrophic, with enormous losses. Your sons Hophni and Phinehas died, and the Chest of God was taken."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> At the words, "Chest of God," Eli fell backwards off his stool where he sat next to the gate. Eli was an old man, and very fat. When he fell, he broke his neck and died. He had led Israel forty years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> His daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was pregnant and ready to deliver. When she heard that the Chest of God had been taken and that both her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she went to her knees to give birth, going into hard labor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> As she was about to die, her midwife said, "Don't be afraid. You've given birth to a son!" But she gave no sign that she had heard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The Chest of God gone, father-in-law dead, husband dead, she named the boy Ichabod (Glory's-Gone),</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> saying, "Glory is exiled from Israel since the Chest of God was taken."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Once the Philistines had seized the Chest of God, they took it from Ebenezer to Ashdod,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> brought it into the shrine of Dagon, and placed it alongside the idol of Dagon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Next morning when the citizens of Ashdod got up, they were shocked to find Dagon toppled from his place, flat on his face before the Chest of GOD. They picked him up and put him back where he belonged.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> First thing the next morning they found him again, toppled and flat on his face before the Chest of GOD. Dagon's head and arms were broken off, strewn across the entrance. Only his torso was in one piece.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> (That's why even today, the priests of Dagon and visitors to the Dagon shrine in Ashdod avoid stepping on the threshold.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD was hard on the citizens of Ashdod. He devastated them by hitting them with tumors. This happened in both the town and the surrounding neighborhoods. He let loose rats among them. Jumping from ships there, rats swarmed all over the city! And everyone was deathly afraid.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When the leaders of Ashdod saw what was going on, they decided, "The chest of the god of Israel has got to go. We can't handle this, and neither can our god Dagon."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They called together all the Philistine leaders and put it to them: "How can we get rid of the chest of the god of Israel?" The leaders agreed: "Move it to Gath." So they moved the Chest of the God of Israel to Gath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But as soon as they moved it there, GOD came down hard on that city, too. It was mass hysteria! He hit them with tumors. Tumors broke out on everyone in town, young and old.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So they sent the Chest of God on to Ekron, but as the Chest was being brought into town, the people shouted in protest, "You'll kill us all by bringing in this Chest of the God of Israel!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They called the Philistine leaders together and demanded, "Get it out of here, this Chest of the God of Israel. Send it back where it came from. We're threatened with mass death!" For everyone was scared to death when the Chest of God showed up. God was already coming down very hard on the place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Those who didn't die were hit with tumors. All over the city cries of pain and lament filled the air.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> After the Chest of GOD had been among the Philistine people for seven months,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> the Philistine leaders called together their religious professionals, the priests, and experts on the supernatural for consultation: "How can we get rid of this Chest of GOD, get it off our hands without making things worse? Tell us!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They said, "If you're going to send the Chest of the God of Israel back, don't just dump it on them. Pay compensation. Then you will be healed. After you're in the clear again, God will let up on you. Why wouldn't he?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "And what exactly would make for adequate compensation?" "Five gold tumors and five gold rats," they said, "to match the number of Philistine leaders. Since all of you--leaders and people--suffered the same plague,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> make replicas of the tumors and rats that are devastating the country and present them as an offering to the glory of the God of Israel. Then maybe he'll ease up and not be so hard on you and your gods, and on your country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Why be stubborn like the Egyptians and Pharaoh? God didn't quit pounding on them until they let the people go. Only then did he let up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "So here's what you do: Take a brand-new oxcart and two cows that have never been in harness. Hitch the cows to the oxcart and send their calves back to the barn.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Put the Chest of GOD on the cart. Secure the gold replicas of the tumors and rats that you are offering as compensation in a sack and set them next to the Chest. Then send it off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But keep your eyes on it. If it heads straight back home to where it came from, toward Beth Shemesh, it is clear that this catastrophe is a divine judgment, but if not, we'll know that God had nothing to do with it--it was just an accident."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So that's what they did: They hitched two cows to the cart, put their calves in the barn,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> and placed the Chest of GOD and the sack of gold rats and tumors on the cart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The cows headed straight for home, down the road to Beth Shemesh, straying neither right nor left, mooing all the way. The Philistine leaders followed them to the outskirts of Beth Shemesh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The people of Beth Shemesh were harvesting wheat in the valley. They looked up and saw the Chest. Jubilant, they ran to meet it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The cart came into the field of Joshua, a Beth Shemeshite, and stopped there beside a huge boulder. The harvesters tore the cart to pieces, then chopped up the wood and sacrificed the cows as a burnt offering to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The Levites took charge of the Chest of GOD and the sack containing the gold offerings, placing them on the boulder. Offering the sacrifices, everyone in Beth Shemesh worshiped GOD most heartily that day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When the five Philistine leaders saw what they came to see, they returned the same day to Ekron.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The five gold replicas of the tumors were offered by the Philistines in compensation for the cities of Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The five gold rats matched the number of Philistine towns, both large and small, ruled by the five leaders. The big boulder on which they placed the Chest of GOD is still there in the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh, a landmark.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> God struck some of the men of Beth Shemesh who, out of curiosity, irreverently peeked into the Chest of GOD. Seventy died. The whole town was in mourning, reeling under the hard blow from GOD,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> and questioning, "Who can stand before GOD, this holy God? And who can we get to take this Chest off our hands?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They sent emissaries to Kiriath Jearim, saying, "The Philistines have returned the Chest of GOD. Come down and get it."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> And they did. The men of Kiriath Jearim came and got the Chest of GOD and delivered it to the house of Abinadab on the hill. They ordained his son, Eleazar, to take responsibility for the Chest of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> From the time that the Chest came to rest in Kiriath Jearim, a long time passed--twenty years it was--and throughout Israel there was a widespread, fearful movement toward GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then Samuel addressed the house of Israel: "If you are truly serious about coming back to GOD, clean house. Get rid of the foreign gods and fertility goddesses, ground yourselves firmly in GOD, worship him and him alone, and he'll save you from Philistine oppression."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They did it. They got rid of the gods and goddesses, the images of Baal and Ashtoreth, and gave their exclusive attention and service to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Next Samuel said, "Get everybody together at Mizpah and I'll pray for you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So everyone assembled at Mizpah. They drew water from the wells and poured it out before GOD in a ritual of cleansing. They fasted all day and prayed, "We have sinned against GOD." So Samuel prepared the Israelites for holy war there at Mizpah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When the Philistines heard that Israel was meeting at Mizpah, the Philistine leaders went on the offensive. Israel got the report and became frightened--Philistines on the move again!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They pleaded with Samuel, "Pray with all your might! And don't let up! Pray to GOD, our God, that he'll save us from the boot of the Philistines."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Samuel took a young lamb not yet weaned and offered it whole as a Whole-Burnt-Offering to GOD. He prayed fervently to GOD, interceding for Israel. And GOD answered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> While Samuel was offering the sacrifice, the Philistines came within range to fight Israel. Just then GOD thundered, a huge thunderclap exploding among the Philistines. They panicked--mass confusion!--and ran helter-skelter from Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Israel poured out of Mizpah and gave chase, killing Philistines right and left, to a point just beyond Beth Car.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Samuel took a single rock and set it upright between Mizpah and Shen. He named it "Ebenezer" (Rock of Help), saying, "This marks the place where GOD helped us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The Philistines learned their lesson and stayed home--no more border crossings. GOD was hard on the Philistines all through Samuel's lifetime.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> All the cities from Ekron to Gath that the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored. Israel also freed the surrounding countryside from Philistine control. And there was peace between Israel and the Amorites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Samuel gave solid leadership to Israel his entire life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Every year he went on a circuit from Bethel to Gilgal to Mizpah. He gave leadership to Israel in each of these places.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But always he would return to Ramah, where he lived, and preside from there. That is where he built an altar to GOD.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When Samuel got to be an old man, he set his sons up as judges in Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> His firstborn son was named Joel, the name of his second, Abijah. They were assigned duty in Beersheba.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But his sons didn't take after him; they were out for what they could get for themselves, taking bribes, corrupting justice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Fed up, all the elders of Israel got together and confronted Samuel at Ramah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They presented their case: "Look, you're an old man, and your sons aren't following in your footsteps. Here's what we want you to do: Appoint a king to rule us, just like everybody else."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When Samuel heard their demand--"Give us a king to rule us!"--he was crushed. How awful! Samuel prayed to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD answered Samuel, "Go ahead and do what they're asking. They are not rejecting you. They've rejected me as their King.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> From the day I brought them out of Egypt until this very day they've been behaving like this, leaving me for other gods. And now they're doing it to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So let them have their own way. But warn them of what they're in for. Tell them the way kings operate, just what they're likely to get from a king."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So Samuel told them, delivered GOD's warning to the people who were asking him to give them a king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He said, "This is the way the kind of king you're talking about operates. He'll take your sons and make soldiers of them--chariotry, cavalry, infantry,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> regimented in battalions and squadrons. He'll put some to forced labor on his farms, plowing and harvesting, and others to making either weapons of war or chariots in which he can ride in luxury.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He'll put your daughters to work as beauticians and waitresses and cooks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He'll conscript your best fields, vineyards, and orchards and hand them over to his special friends.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He'll tax your harvests and vintage to support his extensive bureaucracy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Your prize workers and best animals he'll take for his own use.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He'll lay a tax on your flocks and you'll end up no better than slaves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The day will come when you will cry in desperation because of this king you so much want for yourselves. But don't expect GOD to answer."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But the people wouldn't listen to Samuel. "No!" they said. "We will have a king to rule us!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Then we'll be just like all the other nations. Our king will rule us and lead us and fight our battles."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Samuel took in what they said and rehearsed it with GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> GOD told Samuel, "Do what they say. Make them a king." Then Samuel dismissed the men of Israel: "Go home, each of you to your own city."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> There was a man from the tribe of Benjamin named Kish. He was the son of Abiel, grandson of Zeror, great-grandson of Becorath, great-great-grandson of Aphiah--a Benjaminite of stalwart character.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He had a son, Saul, a most handsome young man. There was none finer--he literally stood head and shoulders above the crowd!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Some of Kish's donkeys got lost. Kish said to his son, "Saul, take one of the servants with you and go look for the donkeys."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Saul took one of the servants and went to find the donkeys. They went into the hill country of Ephraim around Shalisha, but didn't find them. Then they went over to Shaalim--no luck. Then to Jabin, and still nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When they got to Zuph, Saul said to the young man with him, "Enough of this. Let's go back. Soon my father is going to forget about the donkeys and start worrying about us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He replied, "Not so fast. There's a holy man in this town. He carries a lot of weight around here. What he says is always right on the mark. Maybe he can tell us where to go."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Saul said, "If we go, what do we have to give him? There's no more bread in our sacks. We've nothing to bring as a gift to the holy man. Do we have anything else?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The servant spoke up, "Look, I just happen to have this silver coin! I'll give it to the holy man and he'll tell us how to proceed!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> (In former times in Israel, a person who wanted to seek God's word on a matter would say, "Let's visit the Seer," because the one we now call "the Prophet" used to be called "the Seer.")</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Good," said Saul, "let's go." And they set off for the town where the holy man lived.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> As they were climbing up the hill into the town, they met some girls who were coming out to draw water. They said to them, "Is this where the Seer lives?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They answered, "It sure is--just ahead. Hurry up. He's come today because the people have prepared a sacrifice at the shrine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> As soon as you enter the town, you can catch him before he goes up to the shrine to eat. The people won't eat until he arrives, for he has to bless the sacrifice. Only then can everyone eat. So get going. You're sure to find him!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They continued their climb and entered the city. And then there he was--Samuel!--coming straight toward them on his way to the shrine!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The very day before, GOD had confided in Samuel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "This time tomorrow, I'm sending a man from the land of Benjamin to meet you. You're to anoint him as prince over my people Israel. He will free my people from Philistine oppression. Yes, I know all about their hard circumstances. I've heard their cries for help."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The moment Samuel laid eyes on Saul, GOD said, "He's the one, the man I told you about. This is the one who will keep my people in check."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Saul came up to Samuel in the street and said, "Pardon me, but can you tell me where the Seer lives?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "I'm the Seer," said Samuel. "Accompany me to the shrine and eat with me. In the morning I'll tell you all about what's on your mind, and send you on your way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And by the way, your lost donkeys--the ones you've been hunting for the last three days--have been found, so don't worry about them. At this moment, Israel's future is in your hands."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Saul answered, "But I'm only a Benjaminite, from the smallest of Israel's tribes, and from the most insignificant clan in the tribe at that. Why are you talking to me like this?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Samuel took Saul and his servant and led them into the dining hall at the shrine and seated them at the head of the table. There were about thirty guests.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Then Samuel directed the chef, "Bring the choice cut I pointed out to you, the one I told you to reserve."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The chef brought it and placed it before Saul with a flourish, saying, "This meal was kept aside just for you. Eat! It was especially prepared for this time and occasion with these guests." Saul ate with Samuel--a memorable day!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Afterward they went down from the shrine into the city. A bed was prepared for Saul on the breeze-cooled roof of Samuel's house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> They woke at the break of day. Samuel called to Saul on the roof, "Get up and I'll send you off." Saul got up and the two of them went out in the street.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> As they approached the outskirts of town, Samuel said to Saul, "Tell your servant to go on ahead of us. You stay with me for a bit. I have a word of God to give you."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then Samuel took a flask of oil, poured it on Saul's head, and kissed him. He said, "Do you see what this means? GOD has anointed you prince over his people. "This sign will confirm GOD's anointing of you as prince over his inheritance:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> After you leave me today, as you get closer to your home country of Benjamin, you'll meet two men near Rachel's Tomb. They'll say, 'The donkeys you went to look for are found. Your father has forgotten about the donkeys and is worried about you, wringing his hands--quite beside himself!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Leaving there, you'll arrive at the Oak of Tabor. There you'll meet three men going up to worship God at Bethel. One will be carrying three young goats, another carrying three sacks of bread, and the third a jug of wine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They'll say, 'Hello, how are you?' and offer you two loaves of bread, which you will accept.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Next, you'll come to Gibeah of God, where there's a Philistine garrison. As you approach the town, you'll run into a bunch of prophets coming down from the shrine, playing harps and tambourines, flutes and drums. And they'll be prophesying.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Before you know it, the Spirit of GOD will come on you and you'll be prophesying right along with them. And you'll be transformed. You'll be a new person!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "When these confirming signs are accomplished, you'll know that you're ready: Whatever job you're given to do, do it. God is with you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Now, go down to Gilgal and I will follow. I'll come down and join you in worship by sacrificing burnt offerings and peace offerings. Wait seven days. Then I'll come and tell you what to do next."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Saul turned and left Samuel. At that very moment God transformed him--made him a new person! And all the confirming signs took place the same day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When Saul and his party got to Gibeah, there were the prophets, right in front of them! Before he knew it, the Spirit of God came on Saul and he was prophesying right along with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> When those who had previously known Saul saw him prophesying with the prophets, they were totally surprised. "What's going on here? What's come over the son of Kish? How on earth did Saul get to be a prophet?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> One man spoke up and said, "Who started this? Where did these people ever come from?" That's how the saying got started, "Saul among the prophets! Who would have guessed?!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> When Saul was done prophesying, he returned home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> His uncle asked him and his servant, "So where have you two been all this time?" "Out looking for the donkeys. We looked and looked and couldn't find them. And then we found Samuel!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "So," said Saul's uncle, "what did Samuel tell you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Saul said, "He told us not to worry--the donkeys had been found." But Saul didn't breathe a word to his uncle of what Samuel said about the king business.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Samuel called the people to assemble before GOD at Mizpah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> He addressed the children of Israel, "This is GOD's personal message to you: "I brought Israel up out of Egypt. I delivered you from Egyptian oppression--yes, from all the bullying governments that made your life miserable.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And now you want nothing to do with your God, the very God who has a history of getting you out of troubles of all sorts. "And now you say, 'No! We want a king; give us a king!' "Well, if that's what you want, that's what you'll get! Present yourselves formally before GOD, ranked in tribes and families."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> After Samuel got all the tribes of Israel lined up, the Benjamin tribe was picked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then he lined up the Benjamin tribe in family groups, and the family of Matri was picked. The family of Matri took its place in the lineup, and the name Saul, son of Kish, was picked. But when they went looking for him, he was nowhere to be found.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Samuel went back to GOD: "Is he anywhere around?" GOD said, "Yes, he's right over there--hidden in that pile of baggage."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They ran and got him. He took his place before everyone, standing tall--head and shoulders above them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Samuel then addressed the people, "Take a good look at whom GOD has chosen: the best! No one like him in the whole country!" Then a great shout went up from the people: "Long live the king!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Samuel went on to instruct the people in the rules and regulations involved in a kingdom, wrote it all down in a book, and placed it before GOD. Then Samuel sent everyone home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Saul also went home to Gibeah, and with him some true and brave men whom GOD moved to join him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> But the riff-raff went off muttering, "'Deliverer'? Don't make me laugh!" They held him in contempt and refused to congratulate him. But Saul paid them no mind. Nahash, king of the Ammonites, was brutalizing the tribes of Gad and Reuben, gouging out their right eyes and intimidating anyone who would come to Israel's help. There were very few Israelites living on the east side of the Jordan River who had not had their right eyes gouged out by Nahash. But seven thousand men had escaped from the Ammonites and were now living safely in Jabesh.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> So Nahash went after them and prepared to go to war against Jabesh Gilead. The men of Jabesh petitioned Nahash: "Make a treaty with us and we'll serve you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Nahash said, "I'll make a treaty with you on one condition: that every right eye among you be gouged out! I'll humiliate every last man and woman in Israel before I'm done!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The town leaders of Jabesh said, "Give us time to send messengers around Israel--seven days should do it. If no one shows up to help us, we'll accept your terms."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The messengers came to Saul's place at Gibeah and told the people what was going on. As the people broke out in loud wails,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Saul showed up. He was coming back from the field with his oxen. Saul asked, "What happened? Why is everyone crying?" And they repeated the message that had come from Jabesh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The Spirit of God came on Saul when he heard the report and he flew into a rage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He grabbed the yoke of oxen and butchered them on the spot. He sent the messengers throughout Israel distributing the bloody pieces with this message: "Anyone who refuses to join up with Saul and Samuel, let this be the fate of his oxen!" The terror of GOD seized the people, and they came out, one and all, not a laggard among them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Saul took command of the people at Bezek. There were 300,000 men from Israel, another 30,000 from Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Saul instructed the messengers, "Tell this to the folk in Jabesh Gilead: 'Help is on the way. Expect it by noon tomorrow.'" The messengers set straight off and delivered their message. Elated, the people of Jabesh Gilead</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> sent word to Nahash: "Tomorrow we'll give ourselves up. You can deal with us on your terms."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Long before dawn the next day, Saul had strategically placed his army in three groups. At first light they broke into the enemy camp and slaughtered Ammonites until noon. Those who were left ran for their lives, scattering every which way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The people came to Samuel then and said, "Where are those men who said, 'Saul is not fit to rule over us'? Hand them over. We'll kill them!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But Saul said, "Nobody is going to be executed this day. This is the day GOD saved Israel!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Come, let's go to Gilgal and there reconsecrate the kingship."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They all trooped out to Gilgal. Before GOD, they crowned Saul king at Gilgal. And there they worshiped, sacrificing peace offerings. Saul and all Israel celebrated magnificently.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Samuel addressed all Israel: "I've listened to everything you've said to me, listened carefully to every word, and I've given you a king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> See for yourself: Your king among you, leading you! But now look at me: I'm old and gray, and my sons are still here. I've led you faithfully from my youth until this very day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Look at me! Do you have any complaints to bring before GOD and his anointed? Have I ever stolen so much as an ox or a donkey? Have I ever taken advantage of you or exploited you? Have I ever taken a bribe or played fast and loose with the law? Bring your complaint and I'll make it right."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Oh no," they said, "never. You've never done any of that--never abused us, never lined your own pockets."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "That settles it then," said Samuel. "GOD is witness, and his anointed is witness that you find nothing against me--no faults, no complaints."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And the people said, "He is witness." Samuel continued, "This is the GOD who made Moses and Aaron your leaders and brought your ancestors out of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Take your stand before him now as I review your case before GOD in the light of all the righteous ways in which GOD has worked with you and your ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> When Jacob's sons entered Egypt, the Egyptians made life hard for them and they cried for help to GOD. GOD sent Moses and Aaron, who led your ancestors out of Egypt and settled them here in this place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "They soon forgot their GOD, so he sold them off to Sisera, commander of Hazor's army, later to a hard life under the Philistines, and still later to the king of Moab. They had to fight for their lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Then they cried for help to GOD. They confessed, 'We've sinned! We've gone off and left GOD and worshiped the fertility gods and goddesses of Canaan. Oh, deliver us from the brutalities of our enemies and we'll worship you alone.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "So GOD sent Jerub-Baal (Gideon), Bedan (Barak), Jephthah, and Samuel. He saved you from that hard life surrounded by enemies, and you lived in peace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "But when you saw Nahash, king of the Ammonites, preparing to attack you, you said to me, 'No more of this. We want a king to lead us.' And GOD was already your king!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "So here's the king you wanted, the king you asked for. GOD has let you have your own way, given you a king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> If you fear GOD, worship and obey him, and don't rebel against what he tells you. If both you and your king follow GOD, no problem. GOD will be sure to save you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But if you don't obey him and rebel against what he tells you, king or no king, you will fare no better than your fathers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Pay attention! Watch this wonder that GOD is going to perform before you now!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> It's summer, as you well know, and the rainy season is over. But I'm going to pray to GOD. He'll send thunder and rain, a sign to convince you of the great wrong you have done to GOD by asking for a king."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Samuel prayed to GOD, and GOD sent thunder and rain that same day. The people were greatly afraid and in awe of GOD and of Samuel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Then all the people begged Samuel, "Pray to your GOD for us, your servants. Pray that we won't die! On top of all our other sins, we've piled on one more--asking for a king!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Samuel said to them, "Don't be fearful. It's true that you have done something very wrong. All the same, don't turn your back on GOD. Worship and serve him heart and soul!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Don't chase after ghost-gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> There's nothing to them. They can't help you. They're nothing but ghost-gods! GOD, simply because of who he is, is not going to walk off and leave his people. GOD took delight in making you into his very own people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "And neither will I walk off and leave you. That would be a sin against GOD! I'm staying right here at my post praying for you and teaching you the good and right way to live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> But I beg of you, fear GOD and worship him honestly and heartily. You've seen how greatly he has worked among you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Be warned: If you live badly, both you and your king will be thrown out."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Saul was a young man when he began as king. He was king over Israel for many years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Saul conscripted enough men for three companies of soldiers. He kept two companies under his command at Micmash and in the Bethel hills. The other company was under Jonathan at Gibeah in Benjamin. He sent the rest of the men home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Jonathan attacked and killed the Philistine governor stationed at Geba (Gibeah). When the Philistines heard the news, they raised the alarm: "The Hebrews are in revolt!" Saul ordered the reveille trumpets blown throughout the land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The word went out all over Israel, "Saul has killed the Philistine governor--drawn first blood! The Philistines are stirred up and mad as hornets!" Summoned, the army came to Saul at Gilgal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The Philistines rallied their forces to fight Israel: three companies of chariots, six companies of cavalry, and so many infantry they looked like sand on the seashore. They went up into the hills and set up camp at Micmash, east of Beth Aven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When the Israelites saw that they were way outnumbered and in deep trouble, they ran for cover, hiding in caves and pits, ravines and brambles and cisterns--wherever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They retreated across the Jordan River, refugees fleeing to the country of Gad and Gilead. But Saul held his ground in Gilgal, his soldiers still with him but scared to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He waited seven days, the time set by Samuel. Samuel failed to show up at Gilgal, and the soldiers were slipping away, right and left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So Saul took charge: "Bring me the burnt offering and the peace offerings!" He went ahead and sacrificed the burnt offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> No sooner had he done it than Samuel showed up! Saul greeted him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Samuel said, "What on earth are you doing?" Saul answered, "When I saw I was losing my army from under me, and that you hadn't come when you said you would, and that the Philistines were poised at Micmash,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I said, 'The Philistines are about to come down on me in Gilgal, and I haven't yet come before GOD asking for his help.' So I took things into my own hands, and sacrificed the burnt offering."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "That was a fool thing to do," Samuel said to Saul. "If you had kept the appointment that your GOD commanded, by now GOD would have set a firm and lasting foundation under your kingly rule over Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> As it is, your kingly rule is already falling to pieces. GOD is out looking for your replacement right now. This time he'll do the choosing. When he finds him, he'll appoint him leader of his people. And all because you didn't keep your appointment with GOD!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> At that, Samuel got up and left Gilgal. What army there was left followed Saul into battle. They went into the hills from Gilgal toward Gibeah in Benjamin. Saul looked over and assessed the soldiers still with him--a mere six hundred!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Saul, his son Jonathan, and the soldiers who had remained made camp at Geba (Gibeah) of Benjamin. The Philistines were camped at Micmash.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Three squads of raiding parties were regularly sent out from the Philistine camp. One squadron was assigned to the Ophrah road going toward Shual country;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> another was assigned to the Beth Horon road; the third took the border road that rimmed the Valley of Hyenas.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> There wasn't a blacksmith to be found anywhere in Israel. The Philistines made sure of that--"Lest those Hebrews start making swords and spears."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> That meant that the Israelites had to go down among the Philistines to keep their farm tools--plowshares and mattocks, axes and sickles--sharp and in good repair.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They charged a silver coin for the plowshares and mattocks, and half that for the rest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> So when the battle of Micmash was joined, there wasn't a sword or spear to be found anywhere in Israel--except for Saul and his son Jonathan; they were both well-armed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> A patrol of Philistines took up a position at Micmash Pass.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Later that day, Jonathan, Saul's son, said to his armor bearer, "Come on, let's go over to the Philistine garrison patrol on the other side of the pass." But he didn't tell his father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Meanwhile, Saul was taking it easy under the pomegranate tree at the threshing floor on the edge of town at Geba (Gibeah). There were about six hundred men with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Ahijah, wearing the priestly Ephod, was also there. (Ahijah was the son of Ahitub, brother of Ichabod, son of Phinehas, who was the son of Eli the priest of GOD at Shiloh.) No one there knew that Jonathan had gone off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The pass that Jonathan was planning to cross over to the Philistine garrison was flanked on either side by sharp rock outcroppings, cliffs named Bozez and Seneh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The cliff to the north faced Micmash; the cliff to the south faced Geba (Gibeah).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Jonathan said to his armor bearer, "Come on now, let's go across to these uncircumcised pagans. Maybe GOD will work for us. There's no rule that says God can only deliver by using a big army. No one can stop GOD from saving when he sets his mind to it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> His armor bearer said, "Go ahead. Do what you think best. I'm with you all the way."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Jonathan said, "Here's what we'll do. We'll cross over the pass and let the men see we're there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> If they say, 'Halt! Don't move until we check you out,' we'll stay put and not go up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But if they say, 'Come on up,' we'll go right up--and we'll know GOD has given them to us. That will be our sign."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> So they did it, the two of them. They stepped into the open where they could be seen by the Philistine garrison. The Philistines shouted out, "Look at that! The Hebrews are crawling out of their holes!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then they yelled down to Jonathan and his armor bearer, "Come on up here! We've got a thing or two to show you!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Jonathan shouted to his armor bearer, "Up! Follow me! GOD has turned them over to Israel!" Jonathan scrambled up on all fours, his armor bearer right on his heels. When the Philistines came running up to them, he knocked them flat, his armor bearer right behind finishing them off, bashing their heads in with stones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> In this first bloody encounter, Jonathan and his armor bearer killed about twenty men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> That set off a terrific upheaval in both camp and field, the soldiers in the garrison and the raiding squad badly shaken up, the ground itself shuddering--panic like you've never seen before!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Saul's sentries posted back at Geba (Gibeah) in Benjamin saw the confusion and turmoil raging in the camp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Saul commanded, "Line up and take the roll. See who's here and who's missing."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When they called the roll, Jonathan and his armor bearer turned up missing. Saul ordered Ahijah, "Bring the priestly Ephod. Let's see what GOD has to say here." (Ahijah was responsible for the Ephod in those days.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> While Saul was in conversation with the priest, the upheaval in the Philistine camp became greater and louder. Then Saul interrupted Ahijah: "Put the Ephod away."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Saul immediately called his army together and they went straight to the battle. When they got there they found total confusion--Philistines swinging their swords wildly, killing each other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Hebrews who had earlier defected to the Philistine camp came back. They now wanted to be with Israel under Saul and Jonathan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Not only that, but when all the Israelites who had been hiding out in the backwoods of Ephraim heard that the Philistines were running for their lives, they came out and joined the chase.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> GOD saved Israel! What a day! The fighting moved on to Beth Aven. The whole army was behind Saul now--ten thousand strong!--with the fighting scattering into all the towns throughout the hills of Ephraim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Saul did something really foolish that day. He addressed the army: "A curse on the man who eats anything before evening, before I've wreacked vengeance on my enemies!" None of them ate a thing all day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> There were honeycombs here and there in the fields.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> But no one so much as put his finger in the honey to taste it, for the soldiers to a man feared the curse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> But Jonathan hadn't heard his father put the army under oath. He stuck the tip of his staff into some honey and ate it. Refreshed, his eyes lit up with renewed vigor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> A soldier spoke up, "Your father has put the army under solemn oath, saying, 'A curse on the man who eats anything before evening!' No wonder the soldiers are drooping!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Jonathan said, "My father has imperiled the country. Just look how quickly my energy has returned since I ate a little of this honey!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> It would have been a lot better, believe me, if the soldiers had eaten their fill of whatever they took from the enemy. Who knows how much worse we could have whipped them!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> They killed Philistines that day all the way from Micmash to Aijalon, but the soldiers ended up totally exhausted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Then they started plundering. They grabbed anything in sight--sheep, cattle, calves--and butchered it where they found it. Then they glutted themselves--meat, blood, the works.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Saul was told, "Do something! The soldiers are sinning against GOD. They're eating meat with the blood still in it!" Saul said, "You're biting the hand that feeds you! Roll a big rock over here--now!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> He continued, "Disperse among the troops and tell them, 'Bring your oxen and sheep to me and butcher them properly here. Then you can feast to your heart's content. Please don't sin against GOD by eating meat with the blood still in it.'" And so they did. That night each soldier, one after another, led his animal there to be butchered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> That's the story behind Saul's building an altar to GOD. It's the first altar to GOD that he built.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Saul said, "Let's go after the Philistines tonight! We can spend the night looting and plundering. We won't leave a single live Philistine!" "Sounds good to us," said the troops. "Let's do it!" But the priest slowed them down: "Let's find out what God thinks about this."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> So Saul prayed to God, "Shall I go after the Philistines? Will you put them in Israel's hand?" God didn't answer him on that occasion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Saul then said, "All army officers, step forward. Some sin has been committed this day. We're going to find out what it is and who did it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> As GOD lives, Israel's Savior God, whoever sinned will die, even if it should turn out to be Jonathan, my son!" Nobody said a word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Saul said to the Israelites, "You line up over on that side, and I and Jonathan my son will stand on this side." The army agreed, "Fine. Whatever you say."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Then Saul prayed to GOD, "O God of Israel, why haven't you answered me today? Show me the truth. If the sin is in me or Jonathan, then, O GOD, give the sign Urim. But if the sin is in the army of Israel, give the sign Thummim." The Urim sign turned up and pointed to Saul and Jonathan. That cleared the army.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Next Saul said, "Cast the lots between me and Jonathan--and death to the one GOD points to!" The soldiers protested, "No--this is not right. Stop this!" But Saul pushed on anyway. They cast the lots, Urim and Thummim, and the lot fell to Jonathan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Saul confronted Jonathan. "What did you do? Tell me!" Jonathan said, "I licked a bit of honey off the tip of the staff I was carrying. That's it--and for that I'm to die?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Saul said, "Yes. Jonathan most certainly will die. It's out of my hands--I can't go against God, can I?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> The soldiers rose up: "Jonathan--die? Never! He's just carried out this stunning salvation victory for Israel. As surely as GOD lives, not a hair on his head is going to be harmed. Why, he's been working hand-in-hand with God all day!" The soldiers rescued Jonathan and he didn't die.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Saul pulled back from chasing the Philistines, and the Philistines went home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> Saul extended his rule, capturing neighboring kingdoms. He fought enemies on every front--Moab, Ammon, Edom, the king of Zobah, the Philistines. Wherever he turned, he came up with a victory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> He became invincible! He smashed Amalek, freeing Israel from the savagery and looting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> Saul's sons were Jonathan, Ishvi, and Malki-Shua. His daughters were Merab, the firstborn, and Michal, the younger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Saul's wife was Ahinoam, daughter of Ahimaaz. Abner son of Ner was commander of Saul's army (Ner was Saul's uncle).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> Kish, Saul's father, and Ner, Abner's father, were the sons of Abiel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> All through Saul's life there was war, bitter and relentless, with the Philistines. Saul conscripted every strong and brave man he laid eyes on.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Samuel said to Saul, "GOD sent me to anoint you king over his people, Israel. Now, listen again to what GOD says.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> This is the GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies speaking: "'I'm about to get even with Amalek for ambushing Israel when Israel came up out of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Here's what you are to do: Go to war against Amalek. Put everything connected with Amalek under a holy ban. And no exceptions! This is to be total destruction--men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys--the works.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Saul called the army together at Telaim and prepared them to go to war--two hundred companies of infantry from Israel and another ten companies from Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Saul marched to Amalek City and hid in the canyon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then Saul got word to the Kenites: "Get out of here while you can. Evacuate the city right now or you'll get lumped in with the Amalekites. I'm warning you because you showed real kindness to the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt." And they did. The Kenites evacuated the place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Then Saul went after Amalek, from the canyon all the way to Shur near the Egyptian border.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He captured Agag, king of Amalek, alive. Everyone else was killed under the terms of the holy ban.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Saul and the army made an exception for Agag, and for the choice sheep and cattle. They didn't include them under the terms of the holy ban. But all the rest, which nobody wanted anyway, they destroyed as decreed by the holy ban.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then GOD spoke to Samuel:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "I'm sorry I ever made Saul king. He's turned his back on me. He refuses to do what I tell him." Samuel was angry when he heard this. He prayed his anger and disappointment all through the night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He got up early in the morning to confront Saul but was told, "Saul's gone. He went to Carmel to set up a victory monument in his own honor, and then was headed for Gilgal." By the time Samuel caught up with him, Saul had just finished an act of worship, having used Amalekite plunder for the burnt offerings sacrificed to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> As Samuel came close, Saul called out, "GOD's blessings on you! I accomplished GOD's plan to the letter!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Samuel said, "So what's this I'm hearing--this bleating of sheep, this mooing of cattle?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Only some Amalekite loot," said Saul. "The soldiers saved back a few of the choice cattle and sheep to offer up in sacrifice to GOD. But everything else we destroyed under the holy ban."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Enough!" interrupted Samuel. "Let me tell you what GOD told me last night." Saul said, "Go ahead. Tell me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And Samuel told him. "When you started out in this, you were nothing--and you knew it. Then GOD put you at the head of Israel--made you king over Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Then GOD sent you off to do a job for him, ordering you, 'Go and put those sinners, the Amalekites, under a holy ban. Go to war against them until you have totally wiped them out.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> So why did you not obey GOD? Why did you grab all this loot? Why, with GOD's eyes on you all the time, did you brazenly carry out this evil?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Saul defended himself. "What are you talking about? I did obey GOD. I did the job GOD set for me. I brought in King Agag and destroyed the Amalekites under the terms of the holy ban.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> So the soldiers saved back a few choice sheep and cattle from the holy ban for sacrifice to GOD at Gilgal--what's wrong with that?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Then Samuel said, Do you think all GOD wants are sacrifices-- empty rituals just for show? He wants you to listen to him! Plain listening is the thing, not staging a lavish religious production.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Not doing what GOD tells you is far worse than fooling around in the occult. Getting self-important around GOD is far worse than making deals with your dead ancestors. Because you said No to GOD's command, he says No to your kingship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Saul gave in and confessed, "I've sinned. I've trampled roughshod over GOD's Word and your instructions. I cared more about pleasing the people. I let them tell me what to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Oh, absolve me of my sin! Take my hand and lead me to the altar so I can worship GOD!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> But Samuel refused: "No, I can't come alongside you in this. You rejected GOD's command. Now GOD has rejected you as king over Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> As Samuel turned to leave, Saul grabbed at his priestly robe and a piece tore off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Samuel said, "GOD has just now torn the kingdom from you, and handed it over to your neighbor, a better man than you are.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Israel's God-of-Glory doesn't deceive and he doesn't dither. He says what he means and means what he says."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Saul tried again, "I have sinned. But don't abandon me! Support me with your presence before the leaders and the people. Come alongside me as I go back to worship GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Samuel did. He went back with him. And Saul went to his knees before GOD and worshiped.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Then Samuel said, "Present King Agag of Amalek to me." Agag came, dragging his feet, muttering that he'd be better off dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Samuel said, "Just as your sword made many a woman childless, so your mother will be childless among those women!" And Samuel cut Agag down in the presence of GOD right there in Gilgal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Samuel left immediately for Ramah and Saul went home to Gibeah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Samuel never laid eyes on Saul again in this life, although he grieved long and deeply over him. But GOD was sorry he had ever made Saul king in the first place.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD addressed Samuel: "So, how long are you going to mope over Saul? You know I've rejected him as king over Israel. Fill your flask with anointing oil and get going. I'm sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I've spotted the very king I want among his sons."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "I can't do that," said Samuel. "Saul will hear about it and kill me." GOD said, "Take a heifer with you and announce, 'I've come to lead you in worship of GOD, with this heifer as a sacrifice.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Make sure Jesse gets invited. I'll let you know what to do next. I'll point out the one you are to anoint."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Samuel did what GOD told him. When he arrived at Bethlehem, the town fathers greeted him, but apprehensively. "Is there something wrong?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Nothing's wrong. I've come to sacrifice this heifer and lead you in the worship of GOD. Prepare yourselves, be consecrated, and join me in worship." He made sure Jesse and his sons were also consecrated and called to worship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When they arrived, Samuel took one look at Eliab and thought, "Here he is! GOD's anointed!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But GOD told Samuel, "Looks aren't everything. Don't be impressed with his looks and stature. I've already eliminated him. GOD judges persons differently than humans do. Men and women look at the face; GOD looks into the heart."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Jesse then called up Abinadab and presented him to Samuel. Samuel said, "This man isn't GOD's choice either."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Next Jesse presented Shammah. Samuel said, "No, this man isn't either."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Jesse presented his seven sons to Samuel. Samuel was blunt with Jesse, "GOD hasn't chosen any of these."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then he asked Jesse, "Is this it? Are there no more sons?" "Well, yes, there's the runt. But he's out tending the sheep." Samuel ordered Jesse, "Go get him. We're not moving from this spot until he's here."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Jesse sent for him. He was brought in, the very picture of health--bright-eyed, good-looking. GOD said, "Up on your feet! Anoint him! This is the one."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Samuel took his flask of oil and anointed him, with his brothers standing around watching. The Spirit of GOD entered David like a rush of wind, God vitally empowering him for the rest of his life. Samuel left and went home to Ramah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> At that very moment the Spirit of GOD left Saul and in its place a black mood sent by GOD settled on him. He was terrified.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Saul's advisors said, "This awful tormenting depression from God is making your life miserable.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> O master, let us help. Let us look for someone who can play the harp. When the black mood from God moves in, he'll play his music and you'll feel better."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Saul told his servants, "Go ahead. Find me someone who can play well and bring him to me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> One of the young men spoke up, "I know someone. I've seen him myself: the son of Jesse of Bethlehem, an excellent musician. He's also courageous, of age, well-spoken, and good-looking. And GOD is with him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> So Saul sent messengers to Jesse requesting, "Send your son David to me, the one who tends the sheep."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Jesse took a donkey, loaded it with a couple of loaves of bread, a flask of wine, and a young goat, and sent his son David with it to Saul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> David came to Saul and stood before him. Saul liked him immediately and made him his right-hand man.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Saul sent word back to Jesse: "Thank you. David will stay here. He's just the one I was looking for. I'm very impressed by him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> After that, whenever the bad depression from God tormented Saul, David got out his harp and played. That would calm Saul down, and he would feel better as the moodiness lifted.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="17">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Philistines drew up their troops for battle. They deployed them at Socoh in Judah, and set up camp between Socoh and Azekah at Ephes Dammim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Saul and the Israelites came together, camped at Oak Valley, and spread out their troops in battle readiness for the Philistines.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The Philistines were on one hill, the Israelites on the opposing hill, with the valley between them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> A giant nearly ten feet tall stepped out from the Philistine line into the open, Goliath from Gath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He had a bronze helmet on his head and was dressed in armor--126 pounds of it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He wore bronze shin guards and carried a bronze sword.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> His spear was like a fence rail--the spear tip alone weighed over fifteen pounds. His shield bearer walked ahead of him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Goliath stood there and called out to the Israelite troops, "Why bother using your whole army? Am I not Philistine enough for you? And you're all committed to Saul, aren't you? So pick your best fighter and pit him against me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> If he gets the upper hand and kills me, the Philistines will all become your slaves. But if I get the upper hand and kill him, you'll all become our slaves and serve us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I challenge the troops of Israel this day. Give me a man. Let us fight it out together!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> When Saul and his troops heard the Philistine's challenge, they were terrified and lost all hope.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Enter David. He was the son of Jesse the Ephrathite from Bethlehem in Judah. Jesse, the father of eight sons, was himself too old to join Saul's army.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Jesse's three older sons had followed Saul to war. The names of the three sons who had joined up with Saul were Eliab, the firstborn; next, Abinadab; and third, Shammah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> David was the youngest son. While his three oldest brothers went to war with Saul, David went back and forth from attending to Saul to tending his father's sheep in Bethlehem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> (SEE 17:14)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Each morning and evening for forty days, Goliath took his stand and made his speech.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> One day, Jesse told David his son, "Take this sack of cracked wheat and these ten loaves of bread and run them down to your brothers in the camp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And take these ten wedges of cheese to the captain of their division. Check in on your brothers to see whether they are getting along all right, and let me know how they're doing--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Saul and your brothers, and all the Israelites in their war with the Philistines in the Oak Valley."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> David was up at the crack of dawn and, having arranged for someone to tend his flock, took the food and was on his way just as Jesse had directed him. He arrived at the camp just as the army was moving into battle formation, shouting the war cry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Israel and the Philistines moved into position, facing each other, battle-ready.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> David left his bundles of food in the care of a sentry, ran to the troops who were deployed, and greeted his brothers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> While they were talking together, the Philistine champion, Goliath of Gath, stepped out from the front lines of the Philistines, and gave his usual challenge. David heard him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The Israelites, to a man, fell back the moment they saw the giant--totally frightened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The talk among the troops was, "Have you ever seen anything like this, this man openly and defiantly challenging Israel? The man who kills the giant will have it made. The king will give him a huge reward, offer his daughter as a bride, and give his entire family a free ride."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> David, who was talking to the men standing around him, asked, "What's in it for the man who kills that Philistine and gets rid of this ugly blot on Israel's honor? Who does he think he is, anyway, this uncircumcised Philistine, taunting the armies of God-Alive?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> They told him what everyone was saying about what the king would do for the man who killed the Philistine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Eliab, his older brother, heard David fraternizing with the men and lost his temper: "What are you doing here! Why aren't you minding your own business, tending that scrawny flock of sheep? I know what you're up to. You've come down here to see the sights, hoping for a ringside seat at a bloody battle!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "What is it with you?" replied David. "All I did was ask a question."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Ignoring his brother, he turned to someone else, asked the same question, and got the same answer as before.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The things David was saying were picked up and reported to Saul. Saul sent for him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "Master," said David, "don't give up hope. I'm ready to go and fight this Philistine."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Saul answered David, "You can't go and fight this Philistine. You're too young and inexperienced--and he's been at this fighting business since before you were born."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> David said, "I've been a shepherd, tending sheep for my father. Whenever a lion or bear came and took a lamb from the flock,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> I'd go after it, knock it down, and rescue the lamb. If it turned on me, I'd grab it by the throat, wring its neck, and kill it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Lion or bear, it made no difference--I killed it. And I'll do the same to this Philistine pig who is taunting the troops of God-Alive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> GOD, who delivered me from the teeth of the lion and the claws of the bear, will deliver me from this Philistine." Saul said, "Go. And GOD help you!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Then Saul outfitted David as a soldier in armor. He put his bronze helmet on his head and belted his sword on him over the armor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> David tried to walk but he could hardly budge. David told Saul, "I can't even move with all this stuff on me. I'm not used to this." And he took it all off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Then David took his shepherd's staff, selected five smooth stones from the brook, and put them in the pocket of his shepherd's pack, and with his sling in his hand approached Goliath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> As the Philistine paced back and forth, his shield bearer in front of him, he noticed David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> He took one look down on him and sneered--a mere youngster, apple-cheeked and peach-fuzzed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> The Philistine ridiculed David. "Am I a dog that you come after me with a stick?" And he cursed him by his gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> "Come on," said the Philistine. "I'll make roadkill of you for the buzzards. I'll turn you into a tasty morsel for the field mice."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> David answered, "You come at me with sword and spear and battle-ax. I come at you in the name of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel's troops, whom you curse and mock.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> This very day GOD is handing you over to me. I'm about to kill you, cut off your head, and serve up your body and the bodies of your Philistine buddies to the crows and coyotes. The whole earth will know that there's an extraordinary God in Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> And everyone gathered here will learn that GOD doesn't save by means of sword or spear. The battle belongs to GOD--he's handing you to us on a platter!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> That roused the Philistine, and he started toward David. David took off from the front line, running toward the Philistine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> David reached into his pocket for a stone, slung it, and hit the Philistine hard in the forehead, embedding the stone deeply. The Philistine crashed, facedown in the dirt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> That's how David beat the Philistine--with a sling and a stone. He hit him and killed him. No sword for David!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> Then David ran up to the Philistine and stood over him, pulled the giant's sword from its sheath, and finished the job by cutting off his head. When the Philistines saw that their great champion was dead, they scattered, running for their lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> The men of Israel and Judah were up on their feet, shouting! They chased the Philistines all the way to the outskirts of Gath and the gates of Ekron.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> Wounded Philistines were strewn along the Shaaraim road all the way to Gath and Ekron. After chasing the Philistines, the Israelites came back and looted their camp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> David took the Philistine's head and brought it to Jerusalem. But the giant's weapons he placed in his own tent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> When Saul saw David go out to meet the Philistine, he said to Abner, commander of the army, "Tell me about this young man's family." Abner said, "For the life of me, O King, I don't know."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> The king said, "Well, find out the lineage of this raw youth."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> As soon as David came back from killing the Philistine, Abner brought him, the Philistine's head still in his hand, straight to Saul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> Saul asked him, "Young man, whose son are you?" "I'm the son of your servant Jesse," said David, "the one who lives in Bethlehem."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="18">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> By the time David had finished reporting to Saul, Jonathan was deeply impressed with David--an immediate bond was forged between them. He became totally committed to David. From that point on he would be David's number-one advocate and friend.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Saul received David into his own household that day, no more to return to the home of his father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Jonathan, out of his deep love for David, made a covenant with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He formalized it with solemn gifts: his own royal robe and weapons--armor, sword, bow, and belt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Whatever Saul gave David to do, he did it--and did it well. So well that Saul put him in charge of his military operations. Everybody, both the people in general and Saul's servants, approved of and admired David's leadership.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> As they returned home, after David had killed the Philistine, the women poured out of all the villages of Israel singing and dancing, welcoming King Saul with tambourines, festive songs, and lutes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> In playful frolic the women sang, Saul kills by the thousand, David by the ten thousand!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> This made Saul angry--very angry. He took it as a personal insult. He said, "They credit David with 'ten thousands' and me with only 'thousands.' Before you know it they'll be giving him the kingdom!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> From that moment on, Saul kept his eye on David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The next day an ugly mood was sent by God to afflict Saul, who became quite beside himself, raving. David played his harp, as he usually did at such times. Saul had a spear in his hand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Suddenly Saul threw the spear, thinking, "I'll nail David to the wall." David ducked, and the spear missed. This happened twice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Now Saul feared David. It was clear that GOD was with David and had left Saul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> So, Saul got David out of his sight by making him an officer in the army. David was in combat frequently.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Everything David did turned out well. Yes, GOD was with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> As Saul saw David becoming more successful, he himself grew more fearful. He could see the handwriting on the wall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But everyone else in Israel and Judah loved David. They loved watching him in action.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> One day Saul said to David, "Here is Merab, my eldest daughter. I want to give her to you as your wife. Be brave and bold for my sake. Fight GOD's battles!" But all the time Saul was thinking, "The Philistines will kill him for me. I won't have to lift a hand against him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> David, embarrassed, answered, "Do you really mean that? I'm from a family of nobodies! I can't be son-in-law to the king."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The wedding day was set, but as the time neared for Merab and David to be married, Saul reneged and married his daughter off to Adriel the Meholathite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Meanwhile, Saul's daughter Michal was in love with David. When Saul was told of this, he rubbed his hands in anticipation. "Ah, a second chance. I'll use Michal as bait to get David out where the Philistines will make short work of him." So again he said to David, "You're going to be my son-in-law."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> (SEE 18:20)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Saul ordered his servants, "Get David off by himself and tell him, 'The king is very taken with you, and everyone at court loves you. Go ahead, become the king's son-in-law!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The king's servants told all this to David, but David held back. "What are you thinking of? I can't do that. I'm a nobody; I have nothing to offer."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> When the servants reported David's response to Saul, he told them to tell David this: "The king isn't expecting any money from you; only this: Go kill a hundred Philistines and bring evidence of your vengeance on the king's behalf. Avenge the king on his enemies." (Saul expected David to be killed in action.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> (SEE 18:24)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> On receiving this message, David was pleased. There was something he could do for the king that would qualify him to be his son-in-law! He lost no time but went right out, he and his men, killed the hundred Philistines, brought their evidence back in a sack, and counted it out before the king--mission completed! Saul gave Michal his daughter to David in marriage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> (SEE 18:26)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> As Saul more and more realized that GOD was with David, and how much his own daughter, Michal, loved him, his fear of David increased and settled into hate. Saul hated David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> (SEE 18:28)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Whenever the Philistine warlords came out to battle, David was there to meet them--and beat them, upstaging Saul's men. David's name was on everyone's lips.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="19">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Saul called his son Jonathan together with his servants and ordered them to kill David. But because Jonathan treasured David,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> he went and warned him: "My father is looking for a way to kill you. Here's what you are to do. Tomorrow morning, hide and stay hidden.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I'll go out with my father into the field where you are hiding. I'll talk about you with my father and we'll see what he says. Then I'll report back to you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Jonathan brought up David with his father, speaking well of him. "Please," he said to his father, "don't attack David. He hasn't wronged you, has he? And just look at all the good he has done!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He put his life on the line when he killed the Philistine. What a great victory GOD gave Israel that day! You were there. You saw it and were on your feet applauding with everyone else. So why would you even think of sinning against an innocent person, killing David for no reason whatever?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Saul listened to Jonathan and said, "You're right. As GOD lives, David lives. He will not be killed."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Jonathan sent for David and reported to him everything that was said. Then he brought David back to Saul and everything was as it was before.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> War broke out again and David went out to fight Philistines. He beat them badly, and they ran for their lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But then a black mood from God settled over Saul and took control of him. He was sitting at home, his spear in his hand, while David was playing music.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Suddenly, Saul tried to skewer David with his spear, but David ducked. The spear stuck in the wall and David got away. It was night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Saul sent men to David's house to stake it out and then, first thing in the morning, to kill him. But Michal, David's wife, told him what was going on. "Quickly now--make your escape tonight. If not, you'll be dead by morning!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> She let him out of a window, and he made his escape.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then Michal took a dummy god and put it in the bed, placed a wig of goat's hair on its head, and threw a quilt over it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> When Saul's men arrived to get David, she said, "He's sick in bed."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Saul sent his men back, ordering them, "Bring him, bed and all, so I can kill him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When the men entered the room, all they found in the bed was the dummy god with its goat-hair wig!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Saul stormed at Michal: "How could you play tricks on me like this? You sided with my enemy, and now he's gotten away!" Michal said, "He threatened me. He said, 'Help me out of here or I'll kill you.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> David made good his escape and went to Samuel at Ramah and told him everything Saul had done to him. Then he and Samuel withdrew to the privacy of Naioth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Saul was told, "David's at Naioth in Ramah."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He immediately sent his men to capture him. They saw a band of prophets prophesying with Samuel presiding over them. Before they knew it, the Spirit of God was on them, too, and they were ranting and raving right along with the prophets!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> That was reported back to Saul, and he dispatched more men. They, too, were soon prophesying. So Saul tried a third time--a third set of men--and they ended up mindlessly raving as well!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Fed up, Saul went to Ramah himself. He came to the big cistern at Secu and inquired, "Where are Samuel and David?" A bystander said, "Over at Naioth in Ramah."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> As he headed out for Naioth in Ramah, the Spirit of God was on him, too. All the way to Naioth he was caught up in a babbling trance!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He ripped off his clothes and lay there rambling gibberish before Samuel for a day and a night, stretched out naked. People are still talking about it: "Saul among the prophets! Who would have guessed?"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="20">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> David got out of Naioth in Ramah alive and went to Jonathan. "What do I do now? What wrong have I inflicted on your father that makes him so determined to kill me?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Nothing," said Jonathan. "You've done nothing wrong. And you're not going to die. Really, you're not! My father tells me everything. He does nothing, whether big or little, without confiding in me. So why would he do this behind my back? It can't be."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But David said, "Your father knows that we are the best of friends. So he says to himself, 'Jonathan must know nothing of this. If he does, he'll side with David.' But it's true--as sure as GOD lives, and as sure as you're alive before me right now--he's determined to kill me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Jonathan said, "Tell me what you have in mind. I'll do anything for you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> David said, "Tomorrow marks the New Moon. I'm scheduled to eat dinner with the king. Instead, I'll go hide in the field until the evening of the third.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> If your father misses me, say, 'David asked if he could run down to Bethlehem, his hometown, for an anniversary reunion, and worship with his family.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> If he says, 'Good!' then I'm safe. But if he gets angry, you'll know for sure that he's made up his mind to kill me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Oh, stick with me in this. You've entered into a covenant of GOD with me, remember! If I'm in the wrong, go ahead and kill me yourself. Why bother giving me up to your father?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Never!" exclaimed Jonathan. "I'd never do that! If I get the slightest hint that my father is fixated on killing you, I'll tell you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> David asked, "And whom will you get to tell me if your father comes back with a harsh answer?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Come outside," said Jonathan. "Let's go to the field." When the two of them were out in the field,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Jonathan said, "As GOD, the God of Israel, is my witness, by this time tomorrow I'll get it out of my father how he feels about you. Then I'll let you know what I learn.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> May GOD do his worst to me if I let you down! If my father still intends to kill you, I'll tell you and get you out of here in one piece. And GOD be with you as he's been with my father!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> If I make it through this alive, continue to be my covenant friend. And if I die,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> keep the covenant friendship with my family--forever. And when GOD finally rids the earth of David's enemies, stay loyal to Jonathan!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> (SEE 20:15)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Jonathan repeated his pledge of love and friendship for David. He loved David more than his own soul!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Jonathan then laid out his plan: "Tomorrow is the New Moon, and you'll be missed when you don't show up for dinner.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> On the third day, when they've quit expecting you, come to the place where you hid before, and wait beside that big boulder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> I'll shoot three arrows in the direction of the boulder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then I'll send off my servant, 'Go find the arrows.' If I yell after the servant, 'The arrows are on this side! Retrieve them!' that's the signal that you can return safely--as GOD lives, not a thing to fear!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But if I yell, 'The arrows are farther out!' then run for it--GOD wants you out of here!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Regarding all the things we've discussed, remember that GOD's in on this with us to the very end!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> David hid in the field. On the holiday of the New Moon, the king came to the table to eat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> He sat where he always sat, the place against the wall, with Jonathan across the table and Abner at Saul's side. But David's seat was empty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Saul didn't mention it at the time, thinking, "Something's happened that's made him unclean. That's it--he's probably unclean for the holy meal."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> But the day after the New Moon, day two of the holiday, David's seat was still empty. Saul asked Jonathan his son, "So where's that son of Jesse? He hasn't eaten with us either yesterday or today."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Jonathan said, "David asked my special permission to go to Bethlehem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> He said, 'Give me leave to attend a family reunion back home. My brothers have ordered me to be there. If it seems all right to you, let me go and see my brothers.' That's why he's not here at the king's table."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Saul exploded in anger at Jonathan: "You son of a slut! Don't you think I know that you're in cahoots with the son of Jesse, disgracing both you and your mother?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> For as long as the son of Jesse is walking around free on this earth, your future in this kingdom is at risk. Now go get him. Bring him here. From this moment, he's as good as dead!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Jonathan stood up to his father. "Why dead? What's he done?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Saul threw his spear at him to kill him. That convinced Jonathan that his father was fixated on killing David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Jonathan stormed from the table, furiously angry, and ate nothing the rest of the day, upset for David and smarting under the humiliation from his father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> In the morning, Jonathan went to the field for the appointment with David. He had his young servant with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> He told the servant, "Run and get the arrows I'm about to shoot." The boy started running and Jonathan shot an arrow way beyond him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> As the boy came to the area where the arrow had been shot, Jonathan yelled out, "Isn't the arrow farther out?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> He yelled again, "Hurry! Quickly! Don't just stand there!" Jonathan's servant then picked up the arrow and brought it to his master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> The boy, of course, knew nothing of what was going on. Only Jonathan and David knew.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Jonathan gave his quiver and bow to the boy and sent him back to town.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> After the servant was gone, David got up from his hiding place beside the boulder, then fell on his face to the ground--three times prostrating himself! And then they kissed one another and wept, friend over friend, David weeping especially hard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Jonathan said, "Go in peace! The two of us have vowed friendship in GOD's name, saying, 'GOD will be the bond between me and you, and between my children and your children forever!'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="21">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> David went on his way and Jonathan returned to town. David went to Nob, to Ahimelech the Priest. Ahimelech was alarmed as he went out to greet David: "What are you doing here all by yourself--and not a soul with you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> David answered Ahimelech the Priest, "The king sent me on a mission and gave strict orders: 'This is top secret--not a word of this to a soul.' I've arranged to meet up with my men in a certain place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Now, what's there here to eat? Do you have five loaves of bread? Give me whatever you can scrounge up!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "I don't have any regular bread on hand," said the priest. "I only have holy bread. If your men have not slept with women recently, it's yours."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> David said, "None of us has touched a woman. I always do it this way when I'm on a mission: My men abstain from sex. Even when it is an ordinary mission we do that--how much more on this holy mission."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So the priest gave them the holy bread. It was the only bread he had, Bread of the Presence that had been removed from GOD's presence and replaced by fresh bread at the same time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> One of Saul's officials was present that day keeping a religious vow. His name was Doeg the Edomite. He was chief of Saul's shepherds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> David asked Ahimelech, "Do you have a spear or sword of any kind around here? I didn't have a chance to grab my weapons. The king's mission was urgent and I left in a hurry."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The priest said, "The sword of Goliath, the Philistine you killed at Oak Valley--that's here! It's behind the Ephod wrapped in a cloth. If you want it, take it. There's nothing else here."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Oh," said David, "there's no sword like that! Give it to me!" And at that, David shot out of there, running for his life from Saul. He went to Achish, king of Gath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> When the servants of Achish saw him, they said, "Can this be David, the famous David? Is this the one they sing of at their dances? Saul kills by the thousand, David by the ten thousand!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When David realized that he had been recognized, he panicked, fearing the worst from Achish, king of Gath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> So right there, while they were looking at him, he pretended to go crazy, pounding his head on the city gate and foaming at the mouth, spit dripping from his beard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Achish took one look at him and said to his servants, "Can't you see he's crazy? Why did you let him in here?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Don't you think I have enough crazy people to put up with as it is without adding another? Get him out of here!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="22">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> So David got away and escaped to the Cave of Adullam. When his brothers and others associated with his family heard where he was, they came down and joined him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Not only that, but all who were down on their luck came around--losers and vagrants and misfits of all sorts. David became their leader. There were about four hundred in all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then David went to Mizpah in Moab. He petitioned the king of Moab, "Grant asylum to my father and mother until I find out what God has planned for me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> David left his parents in the care of the king of Moab. They stayed there all through the time David was hiding out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The prophet Gad told David, "Don't go back to the cave. Go to Judah." David did what he told him. He went to the forest of Hereth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Saul got word of the whereabouts of David and his men. He was sitting under the big oak on the hill at Gibeah at the time, spear in hand, holding court surrounded by his officials.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He said, "Listen here, you Benjaminites! Don't think for a minute that you have any future with the son of Jesse! Do you think he's going to hand over choice land, give you all influential jobs?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Think again. Here you are, conspiring against me, whispering behind my back--not one of you is man enough to tell me that my own son is making deals with the son of Jesse, not one of you who cares enough to tell me that my son has taken the side of this, this . . . outlaw!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then Doeg the Edomite, who was standing with Saul's officials, spoke up: "I saw the son of Jesse meet with Ahimelech son of Ahitub, in Nob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I saw Ahimelech pray with him for GOD's guidance, give him food, and arm him with the sword of Goliath the Philistine."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Saul sent for the priest Ahimelech son of Ahitub, along with the whole family of priests at Nob. They all came to the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Saul said, "You listen to me, son of Ahitub!" "Certainly, master," he said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Why have you ganged up against me with the son of Jesse, giving him bread and a sword, even praying with him for GOD's guidance, setting him up as an outlaw, out to get me?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Ahimelech answered the king, "There's not an official in your administration as true to you as David, your own son-in-law and captain of your bodyguard. None more honorable either.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Do you think that was the first time I prayed with him for God's guidance? Hardly! But don't accuse me of any wrongdoing, me or my family. I have no idea what you're trying to get at with this 'outlaw' talk."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The king said, "Death, Ahimelech! You're going to die--you and everyone in your family!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The king ordered his henchmen, "Surround and kill the priests of GOD! They're hand in glove with David. They knew he was running away from me and didn't tell me." But the king's men wouldn't do it. They refused to lay a hand on the priests of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Then the king told Doeg, "You do it--massacre the priests!" Doeg the Edomite led the attack and slaughtered the priests, the eighty-five men who wore the sacred robes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He then carried the massacre into Nob, the city of priests, killing man and woman, child and baby, ox, donkey, and sheep--the works.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Only one son of Ahimelech son of Ahitub escaped: Abiathar. He got away and joined up with David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Abiathar reported to David that Saul had murdered the priests of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> David said to Abiathar, "I knew it--that day I saw Doeg the Edomite there, I knew he'd tell Saul. I'm to blame for the death of everyone in your father's family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Stay here with me. Don't be afraid. The one out to kill you is out to kill me, too. Stick with me. I'll protect you."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="23">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> It was reported to David that the Philistines were raiding Keilah and looting the grain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> David went in prayer to GOD: "Should I go after these Philistines and teach them a lesson?" GOD said, "Go. Attack the Philistines and save Keilah."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But David's men said, "We live in fear of our lives right here in Judah. How can you think of going to Keilah in the thick of the Philistines?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> So David went back to GOD in prayer. GOD said, "Get going. Head for Keilah. I'm placing the Philistines in your hands."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> David and his men went to Keilah and fought the Philistines. He scattered their cattle, beat them decisively, and saved the people of Keilah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> After Abiathar took refuge with David, he joined David in the raid on Keilah, bringing the Ephod with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Saul learned that David had gone to Keilah and thought immediately, "Good! God has handed him to me on a platter! He's in a walled city with locked gates, trapped!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Saul mustered his troops for battle and set out for Keilah to lay siege to David and his men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But David got wind of Saul's strategy to destroy him and said to Abiathar the priest, "Get the Ephod."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then David prayed to GOD: "God of Israel, I've just heard that Saul plans to come to Keilah and destroy the city because of me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Will the city fathers of Keilah turn me over to him? Will Saul come down and do what I've heard? O GOD, God of Israel, tell me!" GOD replied, "He's coming down."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "And will the head men of Keilah turn me and my men over to Saul?" And GOD said, "They'll turn you over."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> So David and his men got out of there. There were about six hundred of them. They left Keilah and kept moving, going here, there, wherever--always on the move. When Saul was told that David had escaped from Keilah, he called off the raid.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> David continued to live in desert hideouts and the backcountry wilderness hills of Ziph. Saul was out looking for him day after day, but God never turned David over to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> David kept out of the way in the wilderness of Ziph, secluded at Horesh, since it was plain that Saul was determined to hunt him down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Jonathan, Saul's son, visited David at Horesh and encouraged him in God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He said, "Don't despair. My father, Saul, can't lay a hand on you. You will be Israel's king and I'll be right at your side to help. And my father knows it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Then the two of them made a covenant before GOD. David stayed at Horesh and Jonathan went home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Some Ziphites went to Saul at Gibeah and said, "Did you know that David is hiding out near us in the caves and canyons of Horesh? Right now he's at Hakilah Hill just south of Jeshimon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> So whenever you're ready to come down, we'd count it an honor to hand him over to the king."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Saul said, "GOD bless you for thinking about me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Now go back and check everything out. Learn his routines. Observe his movements--where he goes, who he's with. He's very shrewd, you know.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Scout out all his hiding places. Then meet me at Nacon and I'll go with you. If he is anywhere to be found in all the thousands of Judah, I'll track him down!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> So the Ziphites set out on their reconnaissance for Saul. Meanwhile, David and his men were in the wilderness of Maon, in the desert south of Jeshimon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Saul and his men arrived and began their search. When David heard of it, he went south to Rock Mountain, camping out in the wilderness of Maon. Saul heard where he was and set off for the wilderness of Maon in pursuit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Saul was on one side of the mountain, David and his men on the other. David was in full retreat, running, with Saul and his men closing in, about to get him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Just then a messenger came to Saul and said, "Hurry! Come back! The Philistines have just attacked the country!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> So Saul called off his pursuit of David and went back to deal with the Philistines. That's how that place got the name Narrow Escape.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> David left there and camped out in the caves and canyons of En Gedi.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="24">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When Saul came back after dealing with the Philistines, he was told, "David is now in the wilderness of En Gedi."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Saul took three companies--the best he could find in all Israel--and set out in search of David and his men in the region of Wild Goat Rocks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He came to some sheep pens along the road. There was a cave there and Saul went in to relieve himself. David and his men were huddled far back in the same cave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> David's men whispered to him, "Can you believe it? This is the day GOD was talking about when he said, 'I'll put your enemy in your hands. You can do whatever you want with him.'" Quiet as a cat, David crept up and cut off a piece of Saul's royal robe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Immediately, he felt guilty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He said to his men, "GOD forbid that I should have done this to my master, GOD's anointed, that I should so much as raise a finger against him. He's GOD's anointed!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> David held his men in check with these words and wouldn't let them pounce on Saul. Saul got up, left the cave, and went on down the road.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then David stood at the mouth of the cave and called to Saul, "My master! My king!" Saul looked back. David fell to his knees and bowed in reverence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He called out, "Why do you listen to those who say 'David is out to get you'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> This very day with your very own eyes you have seen that just now in the cave GOD put you in my hands. My men wanted me to kill you, but I wouldn't do it. I told them that I won't lift a finger against my master--he's GOD's anointed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Oh, my father, look at this, look at this piece that I cut from your robe. I could have cut you--killed you!--but I didn't. Look at the evidence! I'm not against you. I'm no rebel. I haven't sinned against you, and yet you're hunting me down to kill me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Let's decide which of us is in the right. God may avenge me, but it is in his hands, not mine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> An old proverb says, 'Evil deeds come from evil people.' So be assured that my hand won't touch you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "What does the king of Israel think he's doing? Who do you think you're chasing? A dead dog? A flea?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> GOD is our judge. He'll decide who is right. Oh, that he would look down right now, decide right now--and set me free of you!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When David had finished saying all this, Saul said, "Can this be the voice of my son David?" and he wept in loud sobs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "You're the one in the right, not me," he continued. "You've heaped good on me; I've dumped evil on you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And now you've done it again--treated me generously. GOD put me in your hands and you didn't kill me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Why? When a man meets his enemy, does he send him down the road with a blessing? May GOD give you a bonus of blessings for what you've done for me today!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> I know now beyond doubt that you will rule as king. The kingdom of Israel is already in your grasp!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Now promise me under GOD that you will not kill off my family or wipe my name off the books."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> David promised Saul. Then Saul went home and David and his men went up to their wilderness refuge.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="25">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Samuel died. The whole country came to his funeral. Everyone grieved over his death, and he was buried in his hometown of Ramah. Meanwhile, David moved again, this time to the wilderness of Maon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> There was a certain man in Maon who carried on his business in the region of Carmel. He was very prosperous--three thousand sheep and a thousand goats, and it was sheep-shearing time in Carmel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The man's name was Nabal (Fool), a Calebite, and his wife's name was Abigail. The woman was intelligent and good-looking, the man brutish and mean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> David, out in the backcountry, heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> and sent ten of his young men off with these instructions: "Go to Carmel and approach Nabal. Greet him in my name, 'Peace!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Life and peace to you. Peace to your household, peace to everyone here!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I heard that it's sheep-shearing time. Here's the point: When your shepherds were camped near us we didn't take advantage of them. They didn't lose a thing all the time they were with us in Carmel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Ask your young men--they'll tell you. What I'm asking is that you be generous with my men--share the feast! Give whatever your heart tells you to your servants and to me, David your son.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> David's young men went and delivered his message word for word to Nabal. Nabal tore into them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Who is this David? Who is this son of Jesse? The country is full of runaway servants these days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Do you think I'm going to take good bread and wine and meat freshly butchered for my sheepshearers and give it to men I've never laid eyes on? Who knows where they've come from?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> David's men got out of there and went back and told David what he had said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> David said, "Strap on your swords!" They all strapped on their swords, David and his men, and set out, four hundred of them. Two hundred stayed behind to guard the camp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Meanwhile, one of the young shepherds told Abigail, Nabal's wife, what had happened: "David sent messengers from the backcountry to salute our master, but he tore into them with insults.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Yet these men treated us very well. They took nothing from us and didn't take advantage of us all the time we were in the fields.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They formed a wall around us, protecting us day and night all the time we were out tending the sheep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Do something quickly because big trouble is ahead for our master and all of us. Nobody can talk to him. He's impossible--a real brute!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Abigail flew into action. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five sheep dressed out and ready for cooking, a bushel of roasted grain, a hundred raisin cakes, and two hundred fig cakes, and she had it all loaded on some donkeys.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Then she said to her young servants, "Go ahead and pave the way for me. I'm right behind you." But she said nothing to her husband Nabal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> As she was riding her donkey, descending into a ravine, David and his men were descending from the other end, so they met there on the road.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> David had just said, "That sure was a waste, guarding everything this man had out in the wild so that nothing he had was lost--and now he rewards me with insults. A real slap in the face!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> May God do his worst to me if Nabal and every cur in his misbegotten brood isn't dead meat by morning!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> As soon as Abigail saw David, she got off her donkey and fell on her knees at his feet, her face to the ground in homage,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> saying, "My master, let me take the blame! Let me speak to you. Listen to what I have to say.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Don't dwell on what that brute Nabal did. He acts out the meaning of his name: Nabal, Fool. Foolishness oozes from him. "I wasn't there when the young men my master sent arrived. I didn't see them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> And now, my master, as GOD lives and as you live, GOD has kept you from this avenging murder--and may your enemies, all who seek my master's harm, end up like Nabal!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Now take this gift that I, your servant girl, have brought to my master, and give it to the young men who follow in the steps of my master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "Forgive my presumption! But GOD is at work in my master, developing a rule solid and dependable. My master fights GOD's battles! As long as you live no evil will stick to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> If anyone stands in your way, if anyone tries to get you out of the way, Know this: Your God-honored life is tightly bound in the bundle of God-protected life; But the lives of your enemies will be hurled aside as a stone is thrown from a sling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "When GOD completes all the goodness he has promised my master and sets you up as prince over Israel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> my master will not have this dead weight in his heart, the guilt of an avenging murder. And when GOD has worked things for good for my master, remember me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> And David said, "Blessed be GOD, the God of Israel. He sent you to meet me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> And blessed be your good sense! Bless you for keeping me from murder and taking charge of looking out for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> A close call! As GOD lives, the God of Israel who kept me from hurting you, if you had not come as quickly as you did, stopping me in my tracks, by morning there would have been nothing left of Nabal but dead meat."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Then David accepted the gift she brought him and said, "Return home in peace. I've heard what you've said and I'll do what you've asked."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> When Abigail got home she found Nabal presiding over a huge banquet. He was in high spirits--and very, very drunk. So she didn't tell him anything of what she'd done until morning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> But in the morning, after Nabal had sobered up, she told him the whole story. Right then and there he had a heart attack and fell into a coma.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> About ten days later GOD finished him off and he died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> When David heard that Nabal was dead he said, "Blessed be GOD who has stood up for me against Nabal's insults, kept me from an evil act, and let Nabal's evil boomerang back on him." Then David sent for Abigail to tell her that he wanted her for his wife.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> David's servants went to Abigail at Carmel with the message, "David sent us to bring you to marry him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> She got up, and then bowed down, face to the ground, saying, "I'm your servant, ready to do anything you want. I'll even wash the feet of my master's servants!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Abigail didn't linger. She got on her donkey and, with her five maids in attendance, went with the messengers to David and became his wife.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> David also married Ahinoam of Jezreel. Both women were his wives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Saul had married off David's wife Michal to Palti (Paltiel) son of Laish, who was from Gallim.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="26">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Some Ziphites came to Saul at Gibeah and said, "Did you know that David is hiding out on the Hakilah Hill just opposite Jeshimon?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Saul was on his feet in a minute and on his way to the wilderness of Ziph, taking three thousand of his best men, the pick of the crop, to hunt for David in that wild desert.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He camped just off the road at the Hakilah Hill, opposite Jeshimon. David, still out in the backcountry, knew Saul had come after him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He sent scouts to determine his precise location.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then David set out and came to the place where Saul had set up camp and saw for himself where Saul and Abner, son of Ner, his general, were staying. Saul was safely inside the camp, encircled by the army.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Taking charge, David spoke to Ahimelech the Hittite and to Abishai son of Zeruiah, Joab's brother: "Who will go down with me and enter Saul's camp?" Abishai whispered, "I'll go with you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So David and Abishai entered the encampment by night, and there he was--Saul, stretched out asleep at the center of the camp, his spear stuck in the ground near his head, with Abner and the troops sound asleep on all sides.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Abishai said, "This is the moment! God has put your enemy in your grasp. Let me nail him to the ground with his spear. One hit will do it, believe me; I won't need a second!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But David said to Abishai, "Don't you dare hurt him! Who could lay a hand on GOD's anointed and even think of getting away with it?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He went on, "As GOD lives, either GOD will strike him, or his time will come and he'll die in bed, or he'll fall in battle,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> but GOD forbid that I should lay a finger on GOD's anointed. Now, grab the spear at his head and the water jug and let's get out of here."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> David took the spear and water jug that were right beside Saul's head, and they slipped away. Not a soul saw. Not a soul knew. No one woke up! They all slept through the whole thing. A blanket of deep sleep from GOD had fallen on them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then David went across to the opposite hill and stood far away on the top of the mountain. With this safe distance between them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> he shouted across to the army and Abner son of Ner, "Hey Abner! How long do I have to wait for you to wake up and answer me?" Abner said, "Who's calling?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Aren't you in charge there?" said David. "Why aren't you minding the store? Why weren't you standing guard over your master the king, when a soldier came to kill the king your master?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Bad form! As GOD lives, your life should be forfeit, you and the entire bodyguard. Look what I have--the king's spear and water jug that were right beside his head!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> By now, Saul had recognized David's voice and said, "Is that you, my son David?" David said, "Yes, it's me, O King, my master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Why are you after me, hunting me down? What have I done? What crime have I committed?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Oh, my master, my king, listen to this from your servant: If GOD has stirred you up against me, then I gladly offer my life as a sacrifice. But if it's men who have done it, let them be banished from GOD's presence! They've expelled me from my rightful place in GOD's heritage, sneering, 'Out of here! Go get a job with some other god!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But you're not getting rid of me that easily; you'll not separate me from GOD in life or death. The absurdity! The king of Israel obsessed with a single flea! Hunting me down--a mere partridge--out in the hills!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Saul confessed, "I've sinned! Oh, come back, my dear son David! I won't hurt you anymore. You've honored me this day, treating my life as most precious. And I've acted the fool--a moral dunce, a real clown."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> David answered, "See what I have here? The king's spear. Let one of your servants come and get it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> It's GOD's business to decide what to do with each of us in regard to what's right and who's loyal. GOD put your life in my hands today, but I wasn't willing to lift a finger against GOD's anointed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Just as I honored your life today, may GOD honor my life and rescue me from all trouble."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Saul said to David, "Bless you, dear son David! Yes, do what you have to do! And, yes, succeed in all you attempt!" Then David went on his way, and Saul went home.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="27">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> David thought to himself, "Sooner or later, Saul's going to get me. The best thing I can do is escape to Philistine country. Saul will count me a lost cause and quit hunting me down in every nook and cranny of Israel. I'll be out of his reach for good."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> So David left; he and his six hundred men went to Achish son of Maoch, king of Gath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They moved in and settled down in Gath, with Achish. Each man brought his household; David brought his two wives, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail, widow of Nabal of Carmel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When Saul was told that David had escaped to Gath, he called off the hunt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then David said to Achish, "If it's agreeable to you, assign me a place in one of the rural villages. It doesn't seem right that I, your mere servant, should be taking up space in the royal city."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So Achish assigned him Ziklag. (This is how Ziklag got to be what it is now, a city of the kings of Judah.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> David lived in Philistine country a year and four months.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> From time to time David and his men raided the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites--these people were longtime inhabitants of the land stretching toward Shur and on to Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When David raided an area he left no one alive, neither man nor woman, but took everything else: sheep, cattle, donkeys, camels, clothing--the works. Then he'd return to Achish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Achish would ask, "And whom did you raid today?" David would tell him, "Oh, the Negev of Judah," or "The Negev of Jerahmeel," or "The Negev of the Kenites."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He never left a single person alive lest one show up in Gath and report what David had really been doing. This is the way David operated all the time he lived in Philistine country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Achish came to trust David completely. He thought, "He's made himself so repugnant to his people that he'll be in my camp forever."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="28">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> During this time the Philistines mustered their troops to make war on Israel. Achish said to David, "You can count on this: You're marching with my troops, you and your men."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> And David said, "Good! Now you'll see for yourself what I can do!" "Great!" said Achish. "I'm making you my personal bodyguard--for life!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Samuel was now dead. All Israel had mourned his death and buried him in Ramah, his hometown. Saul had long since cleaned out all those who held seances with the dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The Philistines had mustered their troops and camped at Shunem. Saul had assembled all Israel and camped at Gilboa.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But when Saul saw the Philistine troops, he shook in his boots, scared to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Saul prayed to GOD, but GOD didn't answer--neither by dream nor by sign nor by prophet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So Saul ordered his officials, "Find me someone who can call up spirits so I may go and seek counsel from those spirits." His servants said, "There's a witch at Endor."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Saul disguised himself by putting on different clothes. Then, taking two men with him, he went under the cover of night to the woman and said, "I want you to consult a ghost for me. Call up the person I name."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The woman said, "Just hold on now! You know what Saul did, how he swept the country clean of mediums. Why are you trying to trap me and get me killed?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Saul swore solemnly, "As GOD lives, you won't get in any trouble for this."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The woman said, "So whom do you want me to bring up?" "Samuel. Bring me Samuel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out loudly to Saul, "Why did you lie to me? You're Saul!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The king told her, "You have nothing to fear . . . but what do you see?" "I see a spirit ascending from the underground."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "And what does he look like?" Saul asked. "An old man ascending, robed like a priest." Saul knew it was Samuel. He fell down, face to the ground, and worshiped.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Samuel said to Saul, "Why have you disturbed me by calling me up?" "Because I'm in deep trouble," said Saul. "The Philistines are making war against me and God has deserted me--he doesn't answer me any more, either by prophet or by dream. And so I'm calling on you to tell me what to do."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Why ask me?" said Samuel. "GOD has turned away from you and is now on the side of your neighbor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> GOD has done exactly what he told you through me--ripped the kingdom right out of your hands and given it to your neighbor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> It's because you did not obey GOD, refused to carry out his seething judgment on Amalek, that GOD does to you what he is doing today.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Worse yet, GOD is turning Israel, along with you, over to the Philistines. Tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. And, yes, indeed, GOD is giving Israel's army up to the Philistines."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Saul dropped to the ground, felled like a tree, terrified by Samuel's words. There wasn't an ounce of strength left in him--he'd eaten nothing all day and all night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The woman, realizing that he was in deep shock, said to him, "Listen to me. I did what you asked me to do, put my life in your hands in doing it, carried out your instructions to the letter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> It's your turn to do what I tell you: Let me give you some food. Eat it. It will give you strength so you can get on your way."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> He refused. "I'm not eating anything." But when his servants joined the woman in urging him, he gave in to their pleas, picked himself up off the ground, and sat on the bed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The woman moved swiftly. She butchered a grain-fed calf she had, and took some flour, kneaded it, and baked some flat bread.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Then she served it all up for Saul and his servants. After dining handsomely, they got up from the table and were on their way that same night.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="29">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Philistines mustered all their troops at Aphek. Meanwhile Israel had made camp at the spring at Jezreel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> As the Philistine warlords marched forward by regiments and divisions, David and his men were bringing up the rear with Achish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The Philistine officers said, "What business do these Hebrews have being here?" Achish answered the officers, "Don't you recognize David, ex-servant of King Saul of Israel? He's been with me a long time. I've found nothing to be suspicious of, nothing to complain about, from the day he defected from Saul until now."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Angry with Achish, the Philistine officers said, "Send this man back to where he came from. Let him stick to his normal duties. He's not going into battle with us. He'd switch sides in the middle of the fight! What better chance to get back in favor with his master than by stabbing us in the back!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Isn't this the same David they celebrate at their parties, singing, Saul kills by the thousand, David by the ten thousand!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So Achish had to send for David and tell him, "As GOD lives, you've been a trusty ally--excellent in all the ways you have worked with me, beyond reproach in the ways you have conducted yourself. But the warlords don't see it that way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So it's best that you leave peacefully, now. It's not worth it, displeasing the Philistine warlords."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "But what have I done?" said David. "Have you had a single cause for complaint from the day I joined up with you until now? Why can't I fight against the enemies of my master the king?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "I agree," said Achish. "You're a good man--as far as I'm concerned, God's angel! But the Philistine officers were emphatic: 'He's not to go with us into battle.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So get an early start, you and the men who came with you. As soon as you have light enough to travel, go."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> David rose early, he and his men, and by daybreak they were on their way back to Philistine country. The Philistines went on to Jezreel.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="30">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Three days later, David and his men arrived back in Ziklag. Amalekites had raided the Negev and Ziklag. They tore Ziklag to pieces and then burned it down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They captured all the women, young and old. They didn't kill anyone, but drove them like a herd of cattle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> By the time David and his men entered the village, it had been burned to the ground, and their wives, sons, and daughters all taken prisoner.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> David and his men burst out in loud wails--wept and wept until they were exhausted with weeping.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> David's two wives, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail widow of Nabal of Carmel, had been taken prisoner along with the rest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And suddenly David was in even worse trouble. There was talk among the men, bitter over the loss of their families, of stoning him. David strengthened himself with trust in his GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He ordered Abiathar the priest, son of Ahimelech, "Bring me the Ephod so I can consult God." Abiathar brought it to David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then David prayed to GOD, "Shall I go after these raiders? Can I catch them?" The answer came, "Go after them! Yes, you'll catch them! Yes, you'll make the rescue!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> David went, he and the six hundred men with him. They arrived at the Brook Besor, where some of them dropped out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> David and four hundred men kept up the pursuit, but two hundred of them were too fatigued to cross the Brook Besor, and stayed there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Some who went on came across an Egyptian in a field and took him to David. They gave him bread and he ate. And he drank some water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They gave him a piece of fig cake and a couple of raisin muffins. Life began to revive in him. He hadn't eaten or drunk a thing for three days and nights!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> David said to him, "Who do you belong to? Where are you from?" "I'm an Egyptian slave of an Amalekite," he said. "My master walked off and left me when I got sick--that was three days ago.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> We had raided the Negev of the Kerethites, of Judah, and of Caleb. Ziklag we burned."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> David asked him, "Can you take us to the raiders?" "Promise me by God," he said, "that you won't kill me or turn me over to my old master, and I'll take you straight to the raiders."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He led David to them. They were scattered all over the place, eating and drinking, gorging themselves on all the loot they had plundered from Philistia and Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> David pounced. He fought them from before sunrise until evening of the next day. None got away except for four hundred of the younger men who escaped by riding off on camels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> David rescued everything the Amalekites had taken. And he rescued his two wives!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Nothing and no one was missing--young or old, son or daughter, plunder or whatever. David recovered the whole lot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He herded the sheep and cattle before them, and they all shouted, "David's plunder!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then David came to the two hundred who had been too tired to continue with him and had dropped out at the Brook Besor. They came out to welcome David and his band. As he came near he called out, "Success!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But all the mean-spirited men who had marched with David, the rabble element, objected: "They didn't help in the rescue, they don't get any of the plunder we recovered. Each man can have his wife and children, but that's it. Take them and go!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "Families don't do this sort of thing! Oh no, my brothers!" said David as he broke up the argument. "You can't act this way with what GOD gave us! God kept us safe. He handed over the raiders who attacked us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Who would ever listen to this kind of talk? The share of the one who stays with the gear is the share of the one who fights--equal shares. Share and share alike!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> From that day on, David made that the rule in Israel--and it still is.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> On returning to Ziklag, David sent portions of the plunder to the elders of Judah, his neighbors, with a note saying, "A gift from the plunder of GOD's enemies!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> He sent them to the elders in Bethel, Ramoth Negev, Jattir,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Aroer, Siphmoth, Eshtemoa,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Racal, Jerahmeelite cities, Kenite cities,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Hormah, Bor Ashan, Athach,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> and Hebron, along with a number of other places David and his men went to from time to time. 31</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="31">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Philistines made war on Israel. The men of Israel were in full retreat from the Philistines, falling left and right, wounded on Mount Gilboa.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The Philistines caught up with Saul and his sons. They killed Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malki-Shua, Saul's sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The battle was hot and heavy around Saul. The archers got his range and wounded him badly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Saul said to his weapon bearer, "Draw your sword and put me out of my misery, lest these pagan pigs come and make a game out of killing me." But his weapon bearer wouldn't do it. He was terrified. So Saul took the sword himself and fell on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When the weapon bearer saw that Saul was dead, he too fell on his sword and died with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So Saul, his three sons, and his weapon bearer--the men closest to him--died together that day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When the Israelites in the valley opposite and those on the other side of the Jordan saw that their army was in full retreat and that Saul and his sons were dead, they left their cities and ran for their lives. The Philistines moved in and occupied the sites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The next day, when the Philistines came to rob the dead, they found Saul and his three sons dead on Mount Gilboa.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They cut off Saul's head and stripped off his armor. Then they spread the good news all through Philistine country in the shrines of their idols and among the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They displayed his armor in the shrine of the Ashtoreth. They nailed his corpse to the wall at Beth Shan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The people of Jabesh Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Their valiant men sprang into action. They traveled all night, took the corpses of Saul and his three sons from the wall at Beth Shan, and carried them back to Jabesh and burned off the flesh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They then buried the bones under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh and fasted in mourning for seven days.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="10" bname="2 Samuel">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Shortly after Saul died, David returned to Ziklag from his rout of the Amalekites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Three days later a man showed up unannounced from Saul's army camp. Disheveled and obviously in mourning, he fell to his knees in respect before David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> David asked, "What brings you here?" He answered, "I've just escaped from the camp of Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "So what happened?" said David. "What's the news?" He said, "The Israelites have fled the battlefield, leaving a lot of their dead comrades behind. And Saul and his son Jonathan are dead."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> David pressed the young soldier for details: "How do you know for sure that Saul and Jonathan are dead?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "I just happened by Mount Gilboa and came on Saul, badly wounded and leaning on his spear, with enemy chariots and horsemen bearing down hard on him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He looked behind him, saw me, and called me to him. 'Yes sir,' I said, 'at your service.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He asked me who I was, and I told him, 'I'm an Amalekite.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Come here," he said, "and put me out of my misery. I'm nearly dead already, but my life hangs on."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "So I did what he asked--I killed him. I knew he wouldn't last much longer anyway. I removed his royal headband and bracelet, and have brought them to my master. Here they are."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> In lament, David ripped his clothes to ribbons. All the men with him did the same.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They wept and fasted the rest of the day, grieving the death of Saul and his son Jonathan, and also the army of GOD and the nation Israel, victims in a failed battle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then David spoke to the young soldier who had brought the report: "Who are you, anyway?" "I'm from an immigrant family--an Amalekite."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Do you mean to say," said David, "that you weren't afraid to up and kill GOD's anointed king?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Right then he ordered one of his soldiers, "Strike him dead!" The soldier struck him, and he died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "You asked for it," David told him. "You sealed your death sentence when you said you killed GOD's anointed king."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then David sang this lament over Saul and his son Jonathan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> and gave orders that everyone in Judah learn it by heart. Yes, it's even inscribed in The Book of Jashar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Oh, oh, Gazelles of Israel, struck down on your hills, the mighty warriors--fallen, fallen!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Don't announce it in the city of Gath, don't post the news in the streets of Ashkelon. Don't give those coarse Philistine girls one more excuse for a drunken party!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> No more dew or rain for you, hills of Gilboa, and not a drop from springs and wells, For there the warriors' shields were dragged through the mud, Saul's shield left there to rot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Jonathan's bow was bold-- the bigger they were the harder they fell. Saul's sword was fearless-- once out of the scabbard, nothing could stop it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Saul and Jonathan--beloved, beautiful! Together in life, together in death. Swifter than plummeting eagles, stronger than proud lions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Women of Israel, weep for Saul. He dressed you in finest cottons and silks, spared no expense in making you elegant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The mighty warriors--fallen, fallen in the middle of the fight! Jonathan--struck down on your hills!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> O my dear brother Jonathan, I'm crushed by your death. Your friendship was a miracle-wonder, love far exceeding anything I've known-- or ever hope to know.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The mighty warriors--fallen, fallen. And the arms of war broken to bits.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> After all this, David prayed. He asked God, "Shall I move to one of the cities of Judah?" GOD said, "Yes, move." "And to which city?" "To Hebron."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> So David moved to Hebron, along with his two wives, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> David's men, along with their families, also went with him and made their home in and around Hebron.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The citizens of Judah came to Hebron, and then and there made David king over the clans of Judah. A report was brought to David that the men of Jabesh Gilead had given Saul a decent burial.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> David sent messengers to the men of Jabesh Gilead: "GOD bless you for this--for honoring your master, Saul, with a funeral.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD honor you and be true to you--and I'll do the same, matching your generous act of goodness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Strengthen your resolve and do what must be done. Your master, Saul, is dead. The citizens of Judah have made me their king."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> In the meantime, Abner son of Ner, commander of Saul's army, had taken Saul's son Ish-Bosheth to Mahanaim</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> and made him king over Gilead, over Asher, over Jezreel, over Ephraim, over Benjamin--king, as it turns out, over all Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Ish-Bosheth, Saul's son, was forty years old when he was made king over Israel. He lasted only two years. But the people of Judah stuck with David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> David ruled the people of Judah from Hebron for seven and a half years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> One day Abner son of Ner set out from Mahanaim with the soldiers of Ish-Bosheth son of Saul, headed for Gibeon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Joab son of Zeruiah, with David's soldiers, also set out. They met at the Pool of Gibeon, Abner's group on one side, Joab's on the other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Abner challenged Joab, "Put up your best fighters. Let's see them do their stuff." Joab said, "Good! Let them go at it!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So they lined up for the fight, twelve Benjaminites from the side of Ish-Bosheth son of Saul, and twelve soldiers from David's side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The men from each side grabbed their opponents' heads and stabbed them with their daggers. They all fell dead--the whole bunch together. So, they called the place Slaughter Park. It's right there at Gibeon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The fighting went from bad to worse throughout the day. Abner and the men of Israel were beaten to a pulp by David's men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The three sons of Zeruiah were present: Joab, Abishai, and Asahel. Asahel, as fast as a wild antelope</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> on the open plain, chased Abner, staying hard on his heels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Abner turned and said, "Is that you, Asahel?" "It surely is," he said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Abner said, "Let up on me. Pick on someone you have a chance of beating and be content with those spoils!" But Asahel wouldn't let up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Abner tried again, "Turn back. Don't force me to kill you. How would I face your brother Joab?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> When he refused to quit, Abner struck him in the belly with the blunt end of his spear so hard that it came out his back. Asahel fell to the ground and died at once. Everyone who arrived at the spot where Asahel fell and died stood and gaped--Asahel dead!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> But Joab and Abishai kept up the chase after Abner. As the sun began to set, they came to the hill of Ammah that faced Giah on the road to the backcountry of Gibeon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The Benjaminites had taken their stand with Abner there, deployed strategically on a hill.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Abner called out to Joab, "Are we going to keep killing each other till doomsday? Don't you know that nothing but bitterness will come from this? How long before you call off your men from chasing their brothers?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "As God lives," said Joab, "if you hadn't spoken up, we'd have kept up the chase until morning!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Then he blew the ram's horn trumpet and the whole army of Judah stopped in its tracks. They quit chasing Israel and called off the fighting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Abner and his soldiers marched all that night up the Arabah Valley. They crossed the Jordan and, after a long morning's march, arrived at Mahanaim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> After Joab returned from chasing Abner, he took a head count of the army. Nineteen of David's men (besides Asahel) were missing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> David's men had cut down three hundred and sixty of Abner's men, all Benjaminites--all dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> They brought Asahel and buried him in the family tomb in Bethlehem. Joab and his men then marched all night, arriving in Hebron as the dawn broke.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The war between the house of Saul and the house of David dragged on and on. The longer it went on the stronger David became, with the house of Saul getting weaker.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> During the Hebron years, sons were born to David: Amnon, born of Ahinoam of Jezreel--the firstborn;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Kileab, born of Abigail of Carmel, Nabal's widow--his second; Absalom, born of Maacah, daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur--the third;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Adonijah, born of Haggith--the fourth; Shephatiah, born of Abital--the fifth;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Ithream, born of Eglah--the sixth. These six sons of David were born in Hebron.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Abner took advantage of the continuing war between the house of Saul and the house of David to gain power for himself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Saul had had a concubine, Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah. One day Ish-Bosheth confronted Abner: "What business do you have sleeping with my father's concubine?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Abner lost his temper with Ish-Bosheth, "Treat me like a dog, will you! Is this the thanks I get for sticking by the house of your father, Saul, and all his family and friends? I personally saved you from certain capture by David, and you make an issue out of my going to bed with a woman!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> What GOD promised David, I'll help accomplish--transfer the kingdom from the house of Saul and make David ruler over the whole country, both Israel and Judah, from Dan to Beersheba. If not, may God do his worst to me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> (SEE 3:9)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Ish-Bosheth, cowed by Abner's outburst, couldn't say another word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Abner went ahead and sent personal messengers to David: "Make a deal with me and I'll help bring the whole country of Israel over to you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Great," said David. "It's a deal. But only on one condition: You're not welcome here unless you bring Michal, Saul's daughter, with you when you come to meet me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> David then sent messengers to Ish-Bosheth son of Saul: "Give me back Michal, whom I won as my wife at the cost of a hundred Philistine foreskins."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Ish-Bosheth ordered that she be taken from her husband Paltiel son of Laish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But Paltiel followed her, weeping all the way, to Bahurim. There Abner told him, "Go home." And he went home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Abner got the elders of Israel together and said, "Only yesterday, it seems, you were looking for a way to make David your king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> So do it--now! For GOD has given the go-ahead on David: 'By my servant David's hand, I'll save my people Israel from the oppression of the Philistines and all their other enemies.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Abner took the Benjaminites aside and spoke to them. Then he went to Hebron for a private talk with David, telling him everything that Israel in general and Benjamin in particular were planning to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> When Abner and the twenty men who were with him met with David in Hebron, David laid out a feast for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Abner then said, "I'm ready. Let me go now to rally everyone in Israel for my master, the king. They'll make a treaty with you, authorizing you to rule them however you see fit." Abner was sent off with David's blessing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Soon after that, David's men, led by Joab, came back from a field assignment. Abner was no longer in Hebron with David, having just been dismissed with David's blessing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> As Joab and his raiding party arrived, they were told that Abner the son of Ner had been there with David and had been sent off with David's blessing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Joab went straight to the king: "What's this you've done? Abner shows up, and you let him walk away scot-free?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> You know Abner son of Ner better than that. This was no friendly visit. He was here to spy on you, figure out your comings and goings, find out what you're up to."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Joab left David and went into action. He sent messengers after Abner; they caught up with him at the well at Sirah and brought him back. David knew nothing of all this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> When Abner got back to Hebron, Joab steered him aside at the gate for a personal word with him. There he stabbed him in the belly, killed him in cold blood for the murder of his brother Asahel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Later on, when David heard what happened, he said, "Before GOD I and my kingdom are totally innocent of this murder of Abner son of Ner.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Joab and his entire family will always be under the curse of this bloodguilt. May they forever be victims of crippling diseases, violence, and famine."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> (Joab and his brother, Abishai, murdered Abner because he had killed their brother Asahel at the battle of Gibeon.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> David ordered Joab and all the men under him, "Rip your cloaks into rags! Wear mourning clothes! Lead Abner's funeral procession with loud lament!" King David followed the coffin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> They buried Abner in Hebron. The king's voice was loud in lament as he wept at the side of Abner's grave. All the people wept, too.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Then the king sang this tribute to Abner: Can this be? Abner dead like a nameless bum?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> You were a free man, free to go and do as you wished-- Yet you fell as a victim in a street brawl. And all the people wept--a crescendo of crying!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> They all came then to David, trying to get him to eat something before dark. But David solemnly swore, "I'll not so much as taste a piece of bread, or anything else for that matter, before sunset, so help me God!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Everyone at the funeral took notice--and liked what they saw. In fact everything the king did was applauded by the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> It was clear to everyone that day, including all Israel, that the king had nothing to do with the death of Abner son of Ner.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> The king spoke to his servants: "You realize, don't you, that today a prince and hero fell victim of foul play in Israel?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> And I, though anointed king, was helpless to do anything about it. These sons of Zeruiah are too much for me. GOD, requite the criminal for his crime!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Saul's son, Ish-Bosheth, heard that Abner had died in Hebron. His heart sank. The whole country was shaken.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Ish-Bosheth had two men who were captains of raiding bands--one was named Baanah, the other Recab. They were sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, a Benjaminite. (The people of Beeroth had been assigned to Benjamin</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> ever since they escaped to Gittaim. They still live there as resident aliens.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> It so happened that Saul's son, Jonathan, had a son who was maimed in both feet. When he was five years old, the report on Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel. His nurse picked him up and ran, but in her hurry to get away she fell, and the boy was maimed. His name was Mephibosheth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> One day Baanah and Recab, the two sons of Rimmon, headed out for the house of Ish-Bosheth. They arrived at the hottest time of the day, just as he was taking his afternoon nap.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They entered the house on a ruse, pretending official business. The maid guarding the bedroom had fallen asleep, so Recab and Baanah slipped by her</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> and entered the room where Ish-Bosheth was asleep on his bed. They killed him and then cut off his head, carrying it off as a trophy. They traveled all night long, taking the route through the Arabah Valley.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They presented the head of Ish-Bosheth to David at Hebron, telling the king, "Here's the head of Ish-Bosheth, Saul's son, your enemy. He was out to kill you, but GOD has given vengeance to my master, the king--vengeance this very day on Saul and his children!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> David answered the brothers Recab and Baanah, sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, "As surely as GOD lives--the One who got me out of every trouble I've ever been in--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> when the messenger told me, 'Good news! Saul is dead!' supposing I'd be delighted, I arrested him and killed him on the spot in Ziklag. That's what he got for his so-called good news!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And now you show up--evil men who killed an innocent man in cold blood, a man asleep in his own house! Don't think I won't find you guilty of murder and rid the country of you!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> David then issued orders to his soldiers. They killed the two--chopped off their hands and feet, and hung the corpses at the pool in Hebron. But Ish-Bosheth's head they took and buried in Abner's tomb in Hebron.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Before long all the tribes of Israel approached David in Hebron and said, "Look at us--your own flesh and blood!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> In time past when Saul was our king, you're the one who really ran the country. Even then GOD said to you, 'You will shepherd my people Israel and you'll be the prince.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> All the leaders of Israel met with King David at Hebron, and the king made a treaty with them in the presence of GOD. And so they anointed David king over Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> David was thirty years old when he became king, and ruled for forty years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> In Hebron he ruled Judah for seven and a half years. In Jerusalem he ruled all Israel and Judah for thirty-three years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> David and his men immediately set out for Jerusalem to take on the Jebusites, who lived in that country. But they said, "You might as well go home! Even the blind and the lame could keep you out. You can't get in here!" They had convinced themselves that David couldn't break through.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But David went right ahead and captured the fortress of Zion, known ever since as the City of David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> That day David said, "To get the best of these Jebusites, one must target the water system, not to mention this so-called lame and blind bunch that David hates." (In fact, he was so sick and tired of it, people coined the expression, "No lame and blind allowed in the palace.")</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> David made the fortress city his home and named it "City of David." He developed the city from the outside terraces inward.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> David proceeded with a longer stride, a larger embrace since the GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies was with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> It was at this time that Hiram, king of Tyre, sent messengers to David, along with timbers of cedar. He also sent carpenters and masons to build a house for David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> David took this as a sign that GOD had confirmed him as king of Israel, giving his kingship world prominence for the sake of Israel, his people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> David took on more concubines and wives from Jerusalem after he left Hebron. And more sons and daughters were born to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> These are the names of those born to him in Jerusalem: Shammua, Shobab, Nathan, Solomon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Ibhar, Elishua, Nepheg, Japhia,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Elishama, Eliada, Eliphelet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When the Philistines got word that David had been made king over all Israel, they came on the hunt for him. David heard of it and went down to the stronghold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When the Philistines arrived, they deployed their forces in Raphaim Valley.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Then David prayed to GOD: "Shall I go up and fight the Philistines? Will you help me beat them?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "Go up," GOD replied. "Count on me. I'll help you beat them." David then went straight to Baal Perazim, and smashed them to pieces. Afterwards David said, "GOD exploded on my enemies like a gush of water." That's why David named the place Baal Perazim (The-Master-Who-Explodes).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The retreating Philistines dumped their idols, and David and his soldiers took them away.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Later there was a repeat performance. The Philistines came up again and deployed their troops in the Rephaim Valley.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> David again prayed to GOD. This time GOD said, "Don't attack them head-on. Instead, circle around behind them and ambush them from the grove of sacred trees.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> When you hear the sound of shuffling in the trees, get ready to move out. It's a signal that GOD is going ahead of you to smash the Philistine camp."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> David did exactly what GOD told him. He routed the Philistines all the way from Gibeon to Gezer.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> David mustered the pick of the troops of Israel--thirty divisions of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Together with his soldiers, David headed for Baalah to recover the Chest of God, which was called by the Name GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, who was enthroned over the pair of angels on the Chest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They placed the Chest of God on a brand-new oxcart and removed it from Abinadab's house on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, Abinadab's sons, were driving the new cart</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> loaded with the Chest of God, Ahio in the lead and Uzzah alongside the Chest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> David and the whole company of Israel were in the parade, singing at the top of their lungs and playing mandolins, harps, tambourines, castanets, and cymbals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, the oxen stumbled, so Uzzah reached out and grabbed the Chest of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD blazed in anger against Uzzah and struck him hard because he had profaned the Chest. Uzzah died on the spot, right alongside the Chest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then David got angry because of GOD's deadly outburst against Uzzah. That place is still called Perez Uzzah (The-Explosion-Against-Uzzah).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> David became fearful of GOD that day and said, "This Chest is too hot to handle. How can I ever get it back to the City of David?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He refused to take the Chest of GOD a step farther. Instead, David removed it off the road and to the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The Chest of GOD stayed at the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite for three months. And GOD prospered Obed-Edom and his entire household.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> It was reported to King David that GOD had prospered Obed-Edom and his entire household because of the Chest of God. So David thought, "I'll get that blessing for myself," and went and brought up the Chest of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the City of David, celebrating</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> extravagantly all the way, with frequent sacrifices of choice bulls.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> David, ceremonially dressed in priest's linen, danced with great abandon before GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The whole country was with him as he accompanied the Chest of GOD with shouts and trumpet blasts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But as the Chest of GOD came into the City of David, Michal, Saul's daughter, happened to be looking out a window. When she saw King David leaping and dancing before GOD, her heart filled with scorn.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> They brought the Chest of GOD and set it in the middle of the tent pavilion that David had pitched for it. Then and there David worshiped, offering burnt offerings and peace offerings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When David had completed the sacrifices of burnt and peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> and handed out to each person in the crowd, men and women alike, a loaf of bread, a date cake, and a raisin cake. Then everyone went home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> David returned home to bless his family. Michal, Saul's daughter, came out to greet him: "How wonderfully the king has distinguished himself today--exposing himself to the eyes of the servants' maids like some burlesque street dancer!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> David replied to Michal, "In GOD's presence I'll dance all I want! He chose me over your father and the rest of our family and made me prince over GOD's people, over Israel. Oh yes, I'll dance to GOD's glory--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> more recklessly even than this. And as far as I'm concerned . . . I'll gladly look like a fool . . . but among these maids you're so worried about, I'll be honored no end."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Michal, Saul's daughter, was barren the rest of her life.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Before long, the king made himself at home and GOD gave him peace from all his enemies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Then one day King David said to Nathan the prophet, "Look at this: Here I am, comfortable in a luxurious house of cedar, and the Chest of God sits in a plain tent."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Nathan told the king, "Whatever is on your heart, go and do it. GOD is with you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But that night, the word of GOD came to Nathan saying,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Go and tell my servant David: This is GOD's word on the matter: You're going to build a 'house' for me to live in?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Why, I haven't lived in a 'house' from the time I brought the children of Israel up from Egypt till now. All that time I've moved about with nothing but a tent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And in all my travels with Israel, did I ever say to any of the leaders I commanded to shepherd Israel, 'Why haven't you built me a house of cedar?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "So here is what you are to tell my servant David: The GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies has this word for you: I took you from the pasture, tagging along after sheep, and made you prince over my people Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I was with you everywhere you went and mowed your enemies down before you. Now I'm making you famous, to be ranked with the great names on earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And I'm going to set aside a place for my people Israel and plant them there so they'll have their own home and not be knocked around any more. Nor will evil men afflict you as they always have,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> even during the days I set judges over my people Israel. Finally, I'm going to give you peace from all your enemies. "Furthermore, GOD has this message for you: GOD himself will build you a house!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When your life is complete and you're buried with your ancestors, then I'll raise up your child, your own flesh and blood, to succeed you, and I'll firmly establish his rule.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He will build a house to honor me, and I will guarantee his kingdom's rule permanently.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'll be a father to him, and he'll be a son to me. When he does wrong, I'll discipline him in the usual ways, the pitfalls and obstacles of this mortal life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But I'll never remove my gracious love from him, as I removed it from Saul, who preceded you and whom I most certainly did remove.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Your family and your kingdom are permanently secured. I'm keeping my eye on them! And your royal throne will always be there, rock solid."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Nathan gave David a complete and accurate account of everything he heard and saw in the vision.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> King David went in, took his place before GOD, and prayed: "Who am I, my Master GOD, and what is my family, that you have brought me to this place in life?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But that's nothing compared to what's coming, for you've also spoken of my family far into the future, given me a glimpse into tomorrow, my Master GOD!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> What can I possibly say in the face of all this? You know me, Master GOD, just as I am.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> You've done all this not because of who I am but because of who you are--out of your very heart!--but you've let me in on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "This is what makes you so great, Master GOD! There is none like you, no God but you, nothing to compare with what we've heard with our own ears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> And who is like your people, like Israel, a nation unique in the earth, whom God set out to redeem for himself (and became most famous for it), performing great and fearsome acts, throwing out nations and their gods left and right as you saved your people from Egypt?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> You established for yourself a people--your very own Israel!--your people permanently. And you, GOD, became their God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "So now, great GOD, this word that you have spoken to me and my family, guarantee it permanently! Do exactly what you've promised!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Then your reputation will flourish always as people exclaim, 'The GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies is God over Israel!' And the house of your servant David will remain sure and solid in your watchful presence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> For you, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, Israel's God, told me plainly, 'I will build you a house.' That's how I was able to find the courage to pray this prayer to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "And now, Master GOD, being the God you are, speaking sure words as you do, and having just said this wonderful thing to me,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> please, just one more thing: Bless my family; keep your eye on them always. You've already as much as said that you would, Master GOD! Oh, may your blessing be on my family permanently!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the days that followed, David struck hard at the Philistines--brought them to their knees and took control of the countryside.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He also fought and defeated Moab. He chose two-thirds of them randomly and executed them. The other third he spared. So the Moabites fell under David's rule and were forced to bring tribute.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> On his way to restore his sovereignty at the River Euphrates, David next defeated Hadadezer son of Rehob the king of Zobah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He captured from him a thousand chariots, seven thousand cavalry, and twenty thousand infantry. He hamstrung all the chariot horses, but saved back a hundred.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When the Arameans from Damascus came to the aid of Hadadezer king of Zobah, David killed twenty-two thousand of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> David set up a puppet government in Aram-Damascus. The Arameans became subjects of David and were forced to bring tribute. GOD gave victory to David wherever he marched.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> David plundered the gold shields that belonged to the servants of Hadadezer and brought them to Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He also looted a great quantity of bronze from Tebah and Berothai, cities of Hadadezer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Toi, king of Hamath, heard that David had struck down the entire army of Hadadezer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So he sent his son Joram to King David to greet and congratulate him for fighting and defeating them, for Toi and Hadadezer were old enemies. He brought with him gifts of silver, gold, and bronze.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> King David consecrated these along with the silver and gold from all the nations he had conquered--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> from Aram, Moab, the Ammonites, the Philistines, and from Amalek, along with the plunder from Hadadezer son of Rehob king of Zobah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> David built a victory monument on his return from defeating the Arameans. Abishai son of Zeruiah fought and defeated the Edomites in the Salt Valley. Eighteen thousand of them were killed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> David set up a puppet government in Edom, and the Edomites became subjects under David. GOD gave David victory wherever he marched.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Thus David ruled over all of Israel. He ruled well--fair and evenhanded in all his duties and relationships.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Joab son of Zeruiah was head of the army; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was clerk;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Zadok son of Ahitub and Ahimelech son of Abiathar were priests; Seraiah was secretary;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Benaiah son of Jehoiada was over the Kerethites and Pelethites; And David's sons were priests.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> One day David asked, "Is there anyone left of Saul's family? If so, I'd like to show him some kindness in honor of Jonathan."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> It happened that a servant from Saul's household named Ziba was there. They called him into David's presence. The king asked him, "Are you Ziba?" "Yes sir," he replied.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The king asked, "Is there anyone left from the family of Saul to whom I can show some godly kindness?" Ziba told the king, "Yes, there is Jonathan's son, lame in both feet."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Where is he?" "He's living at the home of Makir son of Ammiel in Lo Debar."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> King David didn't lose a minute. He sent and got him from the home of Makir son of Ammiel in Lo Debar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When Mephibosheth son of Jonathan (who was the son of Saul), came before David, he bowed deeply, abasing himself, honoring David. David spoke his name: "Mephibosheth." "Yes sir?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Don't be frightened," said David. "I'd like to do something special for you in memory of your father Jonathan. To begin with, I'm returning to you all the properties of your grandfather Saul. Furthermore, from now on you'll take all your meals at my table."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Shuffling and stammering, not looking him in the eye, Mephibosheth said, "Who am I that you pay attention to a stray dog like me?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> David then called in Ziba, Saul's right-hand man, and told him, "Everything that belonged to Saul and his family, I've handed over to your master's grandson.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You and your sons and your servants will work his land and bring in the produce, provisions for your master's grandson. Mephibosheth himself, your master's grandson, from now on will take all his meals at my table." Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "All that my master the king has ordered his servant," answered Ziba, "your servant will surely do." And Mephibosheth ate at David's table, just like one of the royal family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Mephibosheth also had a small son named Mica. All who were part of Ziba's household were now the servants of Mephibosheth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, taking all his meals at the king's table. He was lame in both feet.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Sometime after this, the king of the Ammonites died and Hanun, his son, succeeded him as king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> David said, "I'd like to show some kindness to Hanun, the son of Nahash--treat him as well and as kindly as his father treated me." So David sent Hanun condolences regarding his father. But when David's servants got to the land of the Ammonites,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> the Ammonite leaders warned Hanun, their head delegate, "Do you for a minute suppose that David is honoring your father by sending you comforters? Don't you think it's because he wants to snoop around the city and size it up that David has sent his emissaries to you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> So Hanun seized David's men, shaved off half their beards, cut off their robes halfway up their buttocks, and sent them packing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When all this was reported to David, he sent someone to meet them, for they were seriously humiliated. The king told them, "Stay in Jericho until your beards grow out. Only then come back."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When it dawned on the Ammonites that as far as David was concerned they stunk to high heaven, they hired Aramean soldiers from Beth-Rehob and Zobah--twenty thousand infantry--and a thousand men from the king of Maacah, and twelve thousand men from Tob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When David heard of this, he dispatched Joab with his strongest fighters in full force.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The Ammonites marched out and arranged themselves in battle formation at the city gate. The Arameans of Zobah and Rehob and the men of Tob and Maacah took up a position out in the open fields.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When Joab saw that he had two fronts to fight, before and behind, he took his pick of the best of Israel and deployed them to confront the Arameans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The rest of the army he put under the command of Abishai, his brother, and deployed them to confront the Ammonites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then he said, "If the Arameans are too much for me, you help me. And if the Ammonites prove too much for you, I'll come and help you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Courage! We'll fight with might and main for our people and for the cities of our God. And GOD will do whatever he sees needs doing!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But when Joab and his soldiers moved in to fight the Arameans, they ran off in full retreat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Then the Ammonites, seeing the Arameans run for dear life, took to their heels from Abishai and went into the city. So Joab left off fighting the Ammonites and returned to Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> When the Arameans saw how badly they'd been beaten by Israel, they picked up the pieces and regrouped.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Hadadezer sent for the Arameans who were across the River. They came to Helam. Shobach, commander of Hadadezer's army, led them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> All this was reported to David. So David mustered Israel, crossed the Jordan, and came to Helam. The Arameans went into battle formation, ready for David, and the fight was on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But the Arameans again scattered before Israel. David killed seven hundred chariot drivers and forty thousand cavalry. And he mortally wounded Shobach, the army commander, who died on the battlefield.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> When all the kings who were vassals of Hadadezer saw that they had been routed by Israel, they made peace and became Israel's vassals. The Arameans were afraid to help the Ammonites ever again.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When that time of year came around again, the anniversary of the Ammonite aggression, David dispatched Joab and his fighting men of Israel in full force to destroy the Ammonites for good. They laid siege to Rabbah, but David stayed in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> One late afternoon, David got up from taking his nap and was strolling on the roof of the palace. From his vantage point on the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was stunningly beautiful.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> David sent to ask about her, and was told, "Isn't this Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam and wife of Uriah the Hittite?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> David sent his agents to get her. After she arrived, he went to bed with her. (This occurred during the time of "purification" following her period.) Then she returned home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Before long she realized she was pregnant. Later she sent word to David: "I'm pregnant."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> David then got in touch with Joab: "Send Uriah the Hittite to me." Joab sent him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When he arrived, David asked him for news from the front--how things were going with Joab and the troops and with the fighting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then he said to Uriah, "Go home. Have a refreshing bath and a good night's rest." After Uriah left the palace, an informant of the king was sent after him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But Uriah didn't go home. He slept that night at the palace entrance, along with the king's servants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> David was told that Uriah had not gone home. He asked Uriah, "Didn't you just come off a hard trip? So why didn't you go home?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Uriah replied to David, "The Chest is out there with the fighting men of Israel and Judah--in tents. My master Joab and his servants are roughing it out in the fields. So, how can I go home and eat and drink and enjoy my wife? On your life, I'll not do it!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "All right," said David, "have it your way. Stay for the day and I'll send you back tomorrow." So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem the rest of the day. The next day</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> David invited him to eat and drink with him, and David got him drunk. But in the evening Uriah again went out and slept with his master's servants. He didn't go home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> In the letter he wrote, "Put Uriah in the front lines where the fighting is the fiercest. Then pull back and leave him exposed so that he's sure to be killed."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So Joab, holding the city under siege, put Uriah in a place where he knew there were fierce enemy fighters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When the city's defenders came out to fight Joab, some of David's soldiers were killed, including Uriah the Hittite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Joab sent David a full report on the battle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He instructed the messenger, "After you have given to the king a detailed report on the battle,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> if he flares in anger,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> say, 'And by the way, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Joab's messenger arrived in Jerusalem and gave the king a full report.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> He said, "The enemy was too much for us. They advanced on us in the open field, and we pushed them back to the city gate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> But then arrows came hot and heavy on us from the city wall, and eighteen of the king's soldiers died."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> When the messenger completed his report of the battle, David got angry at Joab. He vented it on the messenger: "Why did you get so close to the city? Didn't you know you'd be attacked from the wall? Didn't you remember how Abimelech son of Jerub-Besheth got killed? Wasn't it a woman who dropped a millstone on him from the wall and crushed him at Thebez? Why did you go close to the wall!" "By the way," said Joab's messenger, "your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead." Then David told the messenger, "Oh. I see. Tell Joab, 'Don't trouble yourself over this. War kills--sometimes one, sometimes another--you never know who's next. Redouble your assault on the city and destroy it.' Encourage Joab."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> When Uriah's wife heard that her husband was dead, she grieved for her husband.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> When the time of mourning was over, David sent someone to bring her to his house. She became his wife and bore him a son.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> But GOD was not at all pleased with what David had done, and sent Nathan to David. Nathan said to him, "There were two men in the same city--one rich, the other poor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The rich man had huge flocks of sheep, herds of cattle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The poor man had nothing but one little female lamb, which he had bought and raised. It grew up with him and his children as a member of the family. It ate off his plate and drank from his cup and slept on his bed. It was like a daughter to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "One day a traveler dropped in on the rich man. He was too stingy to take an animal from his own herds or flocks to make a meal for his visitor, so he took the poor man's lamb and prepared a meal to set before his guest."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> David exploded in anger. "As surely as GOD lives," he said to Nathan, "the man who did this ought to be lynched!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He must repay for the lamb four times over for his crime and his stinginess!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "You're the man!" said Nathan. "And here's what GOD, the God of Israel, has to say to you: I made you king over Israel. I freed you from the fist of Saul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I gave you your master's daughter and other wives to have and to hold. I gave you both Israel and Judah. And if that hadn't been enough, I'd have gladly thrown in much more.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So why have you treated the word of GOD with brazen contempt, doing this great evil? You murdered Uriah the Hittite, then took his wife as your wife. Worse, you killed him with an Ammonite sword!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And now, because you treated God with such contempt and took Uriah the Hittite's wife as your wife, killing and murder will continually plague your family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> This is GOD speaking, remember! I'll make trouble for you out of your own family. I'll take your wives from right out in front of you. I'll give them to some neighbor, and he'll go to bed with them openly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> You did your deed in secret; I'm doing mine with the whole country watching!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then David confessed to Nathan, "I've sinned against GOD." Nathan pronounced, "Yes, but that's not the last word. GOD forgives your sin. You won't die for it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But because of your blasphemous behavior, the son born to you will die."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> After Nathan went home, GOD afflicted the child that Uriah's wife bore to David, and he came down sick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> David prayed desperately to God for the little boy. He fasted, wouldn't go out, and slept on the floor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The elders in his family came in and tried to get him off the floor, but he wouldn't budge. Nor could they get him to eat anything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> On the seventh day the child died. David's servants were afraid to tell him. They said, "What do we do now? While the child was living he wouldn't listen to a word we said. Now, with the child dead, if we speak to him there's no telling what he'll do."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> David noticed that the servants were whispering behind his back, and realized that the boy must have died. He asked the servants, "Is the boy dead?" "Yes," they answered. "He's dead."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> David got up from the floor, washed his face and combed his hair, put on a fresh change of clothes, then went into the sanctuary and worshiped. Then he came home and asked for something to eat. They set it before him and he ate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> His servants asked him, "What's going on with you? While the child was alive you fasted and wept and stayed up all night. Now that he's dead, you get up and eat."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "While the child was alive," he said, "I fasted and wept, thinking GOD might have mercy on me and the child would live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But now that he's dead, why fast? Can I bring him back now? I can go to him, but he can't come to me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> David went and comforted his wife Bathsheba. And when he slept with her, they conceived a son. When he was born they named him Solomon. GOD had a special love for him</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> and sent word by Nathan the prophet that GOD wanted him named Jedidiah (God's Beloved).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Joab, at war in Rabbah against the Ammonites, captured the royal city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> He sent messengers to David saying, "I'm fighting at Rabbah, and I've just captured the city's water supply.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Hurry and get the rest of the troops together and set up camp here at the city and complete the capture yourself. Otherwise, I'll capture it and get all the credit instead of you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> So David marshaled all the troops, went to Rabbah, and fought and captured it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> He took the crown from their king's head--very heavy with gold, and with a precious stone in it. It ended up on David's head. And they plundered the city, carrying off a great quantity of loot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> David emptied the city of its people and put them to slave labor using saws, picks, and axes, and making bricks. He did this to all the Ammonite cities. Then David and the whole army returned to Jerusalem.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Some time later, this happened: Absalom, David's son, had a sister who was very attractive. Her name was Tamar. Amnon, also David's son, was in love with her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Amnon was obsessed with his sister Tamar to the point of making himself sick over her. She was a virgin, so he couldn't see how he could get his hands on her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Amnon had a good friend, Jonadab, the son of David's brother Shimeah. Jonadab was exceptionally streetwise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He said to Amnon, "Why are you moping around like this, day after day--you, the son of the king! Tell me what's eating at you." "In a word, Tamar," said Amnon. "My brother Absalom's sister. I'm in love with her."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Here's what you do," said Jonadab. "Go to bed and pretend you're sick. When your father comes to visit you, say, 'Have my sister Tamar come and prepare some supper for me here where I can watch her and she can feed me.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So Amnon took to his bed and acted sick. When the king came to visit, Amnon said, "Would you do me a favor? Have my sister Tamar come and make some nourishing dumplings here where I can watch her and be fed by her."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> David sent word to Tamar who was home at the time: "Go to the house of your brother Amnon and prepare a meal for him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> So Tamar went to her brother Amnon's house. She took dough, kneaded it, formed it into dumplings, and cooked them while he watched from his bed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But when she took the cooking pot and served him, he wouldn't eat. Amnon said, "Clear everyone out of the house," and they all cleared out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then he said to Tamar, "Bring the food into my bedroom, where we can eat in privacy." She took the nourishing dumplings she had prepared and brought them to her brother Amnon in his bedroom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But when she got ready to feed him, he grabbed her and said, "Come to bed with me, sister!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "No, brother!" she said, "Don't hurt me! This kind of thing isn't done in Israel! Don't do this terrible thing!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Where could I ever show my face? And you--you'll be out on the street in disgrace. Oh, please! Speak to the king--he'll let you marry me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But he wouldn't listen. Being much stronger than she, he raped her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> No sooner had Amnon raped her than he hated her--an immense hatred. The hatred that he felt for her was greater than the love he'd had for her. "Get up," he said, "and get out!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Oh no, brother," she said. "Please! This is an even worse evil than what you just did to me!" But he wouldn't listen to her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He called for his valet. "Get rid of this woman. Get her out of my sight! And lock the door after her."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The valet threw her out and locked the door behind her. She was wearing a long-sleeved gown. (That's how virgin princesses used to dress from early adolescence on.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Tamar poured ashes on her head, then she ripped the long-sleeved gown, held her head in her hands, and walked away, sobbing as she went.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Her brother Absalom said to her, "Has your brother Amnon had his way with you? Now, my dear sister, let's keep it quiet--a family matter. He is, after all, your brother. Don't take this so hard." Tamar lived in her brother Absalom's home, bitter and desolate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> King David heard the whole story and was enraged,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> but he didn't discipline Amnon. David doted on him because he was his firstborn. Absalom quit speaking to Amnon--not a word, whether good or bad--because he hated him for violating his sister Tamar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Two years went by. One day Absalom threw a sheep-shearing party in Baal Hazor in the vicinity of Ephraim and invited all the king's sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He also went to the king and invited him. "Look, I'm throwing a sheep-shearing party. Come, and bring your servants."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> But the king said, "No, son--not this time, and not the whole household. We'd just be a burden to you." Absalom pushed, but David wouldn't budge. But he did give him his blessing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Then Absalom said, "Well, if you won't come, at least let my brother Amnon come." "And why," said the king, "should he go with you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> But Absalom was so insistent that he gave in and let Amnon and all the rest of the king's sons go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Absalom prepared a banquet fit for a king. Then he instructed his servants, "Look sharp, now. When Amnon is well into the sauce and feeling no pain, and I give the order 'Strike Amnon,' kill him. And don't be afraid--I'm the one giving the command. Courage! You can do it!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Absalom's servants did to Amnon exactly what their master ordered. All the king's sons got out as fast as they could, jumped on their mules, and rode off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> While they were still on the road, a rumor came to the king: "Absalom just killed all the king's sons--not one is left!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The king stood up, ripped his clothes to shreds, and threw himself on the floor. All his servants who were standing around at the time did the same.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Just then, Jonadab, his brother Shimeah's son, stepped up. "My master must not think that all the young men, the king's sons, are dead. Only Amnon is dead. This happened because of Absalom's outrage since the day that Amnon violated his sister Tamar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> So my master, the king, mustn't make things worse than they are, thinking that all your sons are dead. Only Amnon is dead."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Absalom fled. Just then the sentry on duty looked up and saw a cloud of dust on the road from Horonaim alongside the mountain. He came and told the king, "I've just seen a bunch of men on the Horonaim road, coming around the mountain."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Then Jonadab exclaimed to the king, "See! It's the king's sons coming, just as I said!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> He had no sooner said the words than the king's sons burst in--loud laments and weeping! The king joined in, along with all the servants--loud weeping, many tears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> David mourned the death of his son a long time. When Absalom fled, he went to Talmai son of Ammihud, king of Geshur.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> He was there three years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> The king finally gave up trying to get back at Absalom. He had come to terms with Amnon's death.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Joab son of Zeruiah knew that the king, deep down, still cared for Absalom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> So he sent to Tekoa for a wise woman who lived there and instructed her, "Pretend you are in mourning. Dress in black and don't comb your hair, so you'll look like you've been grieving over a dead loved one for a long time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then go to the king and tell him this . . . " Joab then told her exactly what to say.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The woman of Tekoa went to the king, bowed deeply before him in homage, and said, "O King, help!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He said, "How can I help?" "I'm a widow," she said. "My husband is dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I had two sons. The two of them got into a fight out in the field and there was no one around to step between them. The one struck the other and killed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Then the whole family ganged up against me and demanded, 'Hand over this murderer so we can kill him for the life of the brother he murdered!' They want to wipe out the heir and snuff out the one spark of life left to me. And then there would be nothing left of my husband--not so much as a name--on the face of the earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The king said, "Go home, and I'll take care of this for you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "I'll take all responsibility for what happens," the woman of Tekoa said. "I don't want to compromise the king and his reputation."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Bring the man who has been harassing you," the king continued. "I'll see to it that he doesn't bother you anymore."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Let the king invoke the name of GOD," said the woman, "so this self-styled vigilante won't ruin everything, to say nothing of killing my son." "As surely as GOD lives," he said, "not so much as a hair of your son's head will be lost."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then she asked, "May I say one more thing to my master, the king?" He said, "Go ahead."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Why, then," the woman said, "have you done this very thing against God's people? In his verdict, the king convicts himself by not bringing home his exiled son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> We all die sometime. Water spilled on the ground can't be gathered up again. But God does not take away life. He works out ways to get the exile back."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "So now I've dared come to the king, my master, about all this. They're making my life miserable, and I'm afraid. I said to myself, 'I'll go to the king. Maybe he'll do something!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When the king hears what's going on, he'll step in and rescue me from the abuse of the man who would get rid of me and my son and God's inheritance--the works!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> As your handmaid, I decided ahead of time, 'The word of my master, the king, will be the last word in this, for my master is like an angel of God in discerning good and evil.' GOD be with you!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The king then said, "I'm going to ask you something. Answer me truthfully." "Certainly," she said. "Let my master, the king, speak."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The king said, "Is the hand of Joab mixed up in this?" "On your life, my master king, a body can't veer an inch right or left and get by with it in the royal presence! Yes, it was your servant Joab who put me up to this, and put these very words in my mouth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> It was because he wanted to turn things around that your servant Joab did this. But my master is as wise as God's angels in knowing how to handle things on this earth."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The king spoke to Joab. "All right, I'll do it. Go and bring the young man Absalom back."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Joab bowed deeply in reverence and blessed the king. "I'm reassured to know that I'm still in your good graces and have your confidence, since the king is taking the counsel of his servant."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Joab got up, went to Geshur, and brought Absalom to Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The king said, "He may return to his house, but he is not to see me face to face." So Absalom returned home, but was not permitted to see the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> This Absalom! There wasn't a man in all Israel talked about so much for his handsome good looks--and not a blemish on him from head to toe!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> When he cut his hair--he always cut it short in the spring because it had grown so heavy--the weight of the hair from his head was over two pounds!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Three sons were born to Absalom, and one daughter. Her name was Tamar--and she was a beauty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Absalom lived in Jerusalem for two years, and not once did he see the king face to face.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> He sent for Joab to get him in to see the king, but Joab still wouldn't budge. He tried a second time and Joab still wouldn't.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> So he told his servants, "Listen. Joab's field adjoins mine, and he has a crop of barley in it. Go set fire to it." So Absalom's servants set fire to the field.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> That got him moving--Joab came to Absalom at home and said, "Why did your servants set my field on fire?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Absalom answered him, "Listen, I sent for you saying, 'Come, and soon. I want to send you to the king to ask, "What's the point of my coming back from Geshur? I'd be better off still there!" Let me see the king face to face. If he finds me guilty, then he can put me to death.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Joab went to the king and told him what was going on. Absalom was then summoned--he came and bowed deeply in reverence before him. And the king kissed Absalom.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> As time went on, Absalom took to riding in a horse-drawn chariot, with fifty men running in front of him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Early each morning he would take up his post beside the road at the city gate. When anyone showed up with a case to bring to the king for a decision, Absalom would call him over and say, "Where do you hail from?" And the answer would come, "Your servant is from one of the tribes of Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then Absalom would say, "Look, you've got a strong case; but the king isn't going to listen to you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then he'd say, "Why doesn't someone make me a judge for this country? Anybody with a case could bring it to me and I'd settle things fair and square."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Whenever someone would treat him with special honor, he'd shrug it off and treat him like an equal, making him feel important.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Absalom did this to everyone who came to do business with the king and stole the hearts of everyone in Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> After four years of this, Absalom spoke to the king, "Let me go to Hebron to pay a vow that I made to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Your servant made a vow when I was living in Geshur in Aram saying, 'If GOD will bring me back to Jerusalem, I'll serve him with my life.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The king said, "Go with my blessing." And he got up and set off for Hebron.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then Absalom sent undercover agents to all the tribes of Israel with the message, "When you hear the blast of the ram's horn trumpet, that's your signal: Shout, 'Absalom is king in Hebron!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Two hundred men went with Absalom from Jerusalem. But they had been called together knowing nothing of the plot and made the trip innocently.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> While Absalom was offering sacrifices, he managed also to involve Ahithophel the Gilonite, David's advisor, calling him away from his hometown of Giloh. The conspiracy grew powerful and Absalom's supporters multiplied.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Someone came to David with the report, "The whole country has taken up with Absalom!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Up and out of here!" called David to all his servants who were with him in Jerusalem. "We've got to run for our lives or none of us will escape Absalom! Hurry, he's about to pull the city down around our ears and slaughter us all!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The king's servants said, "Whatever our master, the king, says, we'll do; we're with you all the way!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So the king and his entire household escaped on foot. The king left ten concubines behind to tend to the palace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And so they left, step by step by step, and then paused at the last house</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> as the whole army passed by him--all the Kerethites, all the Pelethites, and the six hundred Gittites who had marched with him from Gath, went past.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The king called out to Ittai the Gittite, "What are you doing here? Go back with King Absalom. You're a stranger here and freshly uprooted from your own country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> You arrived only yesterday, and am I going to let you take your chances with us as I live on the road like a gypsy? Go back, and take your family with you. And God's grace and truth go with you!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But Ittai answered, "As GOD lives and my master the king lives, where my master is, that's where I'll be--whether it means life or death."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "All right," said David, "go ahead." And they went on, Ittai the Gittite with all his men and all the children he had with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The whole country was weeping in loud lament as all the people passed by. As the king crossed the Brook Kidron, the army headed for the road to the wilderness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Zadok was also there, the Levites with him, carrying GOD's Chest of the Covenant. They set the Chest of God down, Abiathar standing by, until all the people had evacuated the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Then the king ordered Zadok, "Take the Chest back to the city. If I get back in GOD's good graces, he'll bring me back and show me where the Chest has been set down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> But if he says, 'I'm not pleased with you'--well, he can then do with me whatever he pleases."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The king directed Zadok the priest, "Here's the plan: Return to the city peacefully, with Ahimaaz your son and Jonathan, Abiathar's son, with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> I'll wait at a spot in the wilderness across the river, until I get word from you telling us what's up."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> So Zadok and Abiathar took the Chest of God back to Jerusalem and placed it there,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> while David went up the Mount of Olives weeping, head covered but barefooted, and the whole army was with him, heads covered and weeping as they ascended.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> David was told, "Ahithophel has joined the conspirators with Absalom." He prayed, "Oh, GOD--turn Ahithophel's counsel to foolishness."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> As David approached the top of the hill where God was worshiped, Hushai the Arkite, clothes ripped to shreds and dirt on his head, was there waiting for him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> David said, "If you come with me, you'll be just one more piece of luggage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Go back to the city and say to Absalom, 'I'm ready to be your servant, O King; I used to be your father's servant, now I'm your servant.' Do that and you'll be able to confuse Ahithophel's counsel for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> The priests Zadok and Abiathar are already there; whatever information you pick up in the palace, tell them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Their two sons--Zadok's son Ahimaaz and Abiathar's son Jonathan--are there with them--anything you pick up can be sent to me by them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Hushai, David's friend, arrived at the same time Absalom was entering Jerusalem.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Shortly after David passed the crest of the hill, Mephibosheth's steward Ziba met him with a string of pack animals, saddled and loaded with a hundred loaves of bread, a hundred raisin cakes, a hundred baskets of fresh fruit, and a skin of wine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The king said to Ziba, "What's all this?" "The donkeys," said Ziba, "are for the king's household to ride, the bread and fruit are for the servants to eat, and the wine is for drinking, especially for those overcome by fatigue in the wilderness."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The king said, "And where is your master's grandson?" "He stayed in Jerusalem," said Ziba. "He said, 'This is the day Israel is going to restore my grandfather's kingdom to me.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Everything that belonged to Mephibosheth," said the king, "is now yours." Ziba said, "How can I ever thank you? I'll be forever in your debt, my master and king; may you always look on me with such kindness!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When the king got to Bahurim, a man appeared who had connections with Saul's family. His name was Shimei son of Gera. As he followed along he shouted insults</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> and threw rocks right and left at David and his company, servants and soldiers alike.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> To the accompaniment of curses he shouted, "Get lost, get lost, you butcher, you hellhound!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD has paid you back for all your dirty work in the family of Saul and for stealing his kingdom. GOD has given the kingdom to your son Absalom. Look at you now--ruined! And good riddance, you pathetic old man!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Abishai son of Zeruiah said, "This mangy dog can't insult my master the king this way--let me go over and cut off his head!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But the king said, "Why are you sons of Zeruiah always interfering and getting in the way? If he's cursing, it's because GOD told him, 'Curse David.' So who dares raise questions?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Besides," continued David to Abishai and the rest of his servants, "my own son, my flesh and bone, is right now trying to kill me; compared to that this Benjaminite is small potatoes. Don't bother with him; let him curse; he's preaching GOD's word to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And who knows, maybe GOD will see the trouble I'm in today and exchange the curses for something good."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> David and his men went on down the road, while Shimei followed along on the ridge of the hill alongside, cursing, throwing stones down on them, and kicking up dirt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> By the time they reached the Jordan River, David and all the men of the company were exhausted. There they rested and were revived.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> By this time Absalom and all his men were in Jerusalem. And Ahithophel was with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Soon after, Hushai the Arkite, David's friend, came and greeted Absalom, "Long live the king! Long live the king!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Absalom said to Hushai, "Is this the way you show devotion to your good friend? Why didn't you go with your friend David?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Because," said Hushai, "I want to be with the person that GOD and this people and all Israel have chosen. And I want to stay with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Besides, who is there to serve other than the son? Just as I served your father, I'm now ready to serve you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Then Absalom spoke to Ahithophel, "Are you ready to give counsel? What do we do next?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Ahithophel told Absalom, "Go and sleep with your father's concubines, the ones he left to tend to the palace. Everyone will hear that you have openly disgraced your father, and the morale of everyone on your side will be strengthened."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> So Absalom pitched a tent up on the roof in public view, and went in and slept with his father's concubines.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The counsel that Ahithophel gave in those days was treated as if God himself had spoken. That was the reputation of Ahithophel's counsel to David; it was the same with Absalom.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="17">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Next Ahithophel advised Absalom, "Let me handpick twelve thousand men and go after David tonight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I'll come on him when he's bone tired and take him by complete surprise. The whole army will run off and I'll kill only David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then I'll bring the army back to you--a bride brought back to her husband! You're only after one man, after all. Then everyone will be together in peace!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Absalom thought it was an excellent strategy, and all the elders of Israel agreed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But then Absalom said, "Call in Hushai the Arkite--let's hear what he has to say."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So Hushai came and Absalom put it to him, "This is what Ahithophel advised. Should we do it? What do you say?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Hushai said, "The counsel that Ahithophel has given in this instance is not good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You know your father and his men, brave and bitterly angry--like a bear robbed of her cubs. And your father is an experienced fighter; you can be sure he won't be caught napping at a time like this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Even while we're talking, he's probably holed up in some cave or other. If he jumps your men from ambush, word will soon get back, 'A slaughter of Absalom's army!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Even if your men are valiant with hearts of lions, they'll fall apart at such news, for everyone in Israel knows the kind of fighting stuff your father's made of, and also the men with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Here's what I'd advise: Muster the whole country, from Dan to Beersheba, an army like the sand of the sea, and you personally lead them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> We'll smoke him out wherever he is, fall on him like dew falls on the earth, and, believe me, there won't be a single survivor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> If he hides out in a city, then the whole army will bring ropes to that city and pull it down and into a gully--not so much as a pebble left of it!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Absalom and all his company agreed that the counsel of Hushai the Arkite was better than the counsel of Ahithophel. (GOD had determined to discredit the counsel of Ahithophel so as to bring ruin on Absalom.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Then Hushai told the priests Zadok and Abiathar, "Ahithophel advised Absalom and the elders of Israel thus and thus, and I advised them thus and thus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Now send this message as quickly as possible to David: 'Don't spend the night on this side of the river; cross immediately or the king and everyone with him will be swallowed up alive.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Jonathan and Ahimaaz were waiting around at En Rogel. A servant girl would come and give them messages and then they would go and tell King David, for it wasn't safe to be seen coming into the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But a soldier spotted them and told Absalom, so the two of them got out of there fast and went to a man's house in Bahurim. He had a well in his yard and they climbed into it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The wife took a rug and covered the well, then spread grain on it so no one would notice anything out of the ordinary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Shortly, Absalom's servants came to the woman's house and asked her, "Have you seen Ahimaaz and Jonathan?" The woman said, "They were headed toward the river." They looked but didn't find them, and then went back to Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> When the coast was clear, Ahimaaz and Jonathan climbed out of the well and went on to make their report to King David, "Get up and cross the river quickly; Ahithophel has given counsel against you!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> David and his whole army were soon up and moving and crossed the Jordan. As morning broke there was not a single person who had not made it across the Jordan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> When Ahithophel realized that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his donkey and left for his hometown. After making out his will and putting his house in order, he hanged himself and died. He was buried in the family tomb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> About the time David arrived at Mahanaim, Absalom crossed the Jordan, and the whole army of Israel with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Absalom had made Amasa head of the army, replacing Joab. (Amasa was the son of a man named Ithra, an Ishmaelite who had married Abigail, daughter of Nahash and sister of Zeruiah, the mother of Joab.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Israel and Absalom set camp in Gilead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> When David arrived at Mahanaim, Shobi son of Nahash from Ammonite Rabbah, and Makir son of Ammiel from Lo Debar, and Barzillai the Gileadite from Rogelim</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> brought beds and blankets, bowls and jugs filled with wheat, barley, flour, roasted grain, beans and lentils,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> honey, and curds and cheese from the flocks and herds. They presented all this to David and his army to eat, "because," they said, "the army must be starved and exhausted and thirsty out in this wilderness."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="18">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> David organized his forces. He appointed captains of thousands and captains of hundreds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Then David deployed his troops, a third under Joab, a third under Abishai son of Zeruiah, Joab's brother, and a third under Ittai the Gittite. The king then announced, "I'm marching with you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They said, "No, you mustn't march with us. If we're forced to retreat, the enemy won't give it a second thought. And if half of us die, they won't do so either. But you are worth ten thousand of us. It will be better for us if you stay in the city and help from there."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "If you say so," said the king. "I'll do what you think is best." And so he stood beside the city gate as the whole army marched out by hundreds and by thousands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then the king ordered Joab and Abishai and Ittai, "Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom." The whole army heard what the king commanded the three captains regarding Absalom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The army took the field to meet Israel. It turned out that the battle was joined in the Forest of Ephraim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The army of Israel was beaten badly there that day by David's men, a terrific slaughter--twenty thousand men!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> There was fighting helter-skelter all over the place--the forest claimed more lives that day than the sword!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Absalom ran into David's men, but was out in front of them riding his mule, when the mule ran under the branches of a huge oak tree. Absalom's head was caught in the oak and he was left dangling between heaven and earth, the mule running right out from under him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> A solitary soldier saw him and reported it to Joab, "I just saw Absalom hanging from an oak tree!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Joab said to the man who told him, "If you saw him, why didn't you kill him then and there? I'd have rewarded you with ten pieces of silver and a fancy belt."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The man told Joab, "Even if I'd had a chance at a thousand pieces of silver, I wouldn't have laid a hand on the king's son. We all heard the king command you and Abishai and Ittai, 'For my sake, protect the young man Absalom.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Why, I'd be risking my life, for nothing is hidden from the king. And you would have just stood there!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Joab said, "I can't waste my time with you." He then grabbed three knives and stabbed Absalom in the heart while he was still alive in the tree;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> by then Absalom was surrounded by ten of Joab's armor bearers; they hacked away at him and killed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Joab then blew the ram's horn trumpet, calling off the army in its pursuit of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> They took Absalom, dumped him into a huge pit in the forest, and piled an immense mound of rocks over him. Meanwhile the whole army of Israel was in flight, each man making his own way home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> While alive, Absalom had erected for himself a pillar in the Valley of the King, "because," he said, "I have no son to carry on my name." He inscribed the pillar with his own name. To this day it is called "The Absalom Memorial."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Ahimaaz, Zadok's son, said, "Let me run to the king and bring him the good news that GOD has delivered him from his enemies."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But Joab said, "You're not the one to deliver the good news today; some other day, maybe, but it's not 'good news' today." (This was because the king's son was dead.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then Joab ordered a Cushite, "You go. Tell the king what you've seen." "Yes sir," said the Cushite, and ran off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Ahimaaz son of Zadok kept at it, begging Joab, "What does it matter? Let me run too, following the Cushite." Joab said, "Why all this 'Run, run'? You'll get no thanks for it, I can tell you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "I don't care; let me run." "Okay," said Joab, "run." So Ahimaaz ran, taking the lower valley road, and passed the Cushite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> David was sitting between the two gates. The sentry had gone up to the top of the gate on the wall and looked around. He saw a solitary runner.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The sentry called down and told the king. The king said, "If he's alone, it must be good news!" As the runner came closer,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> the sentry saw another runner and called down to the gate, "Another runner all by himself." And the king said, "This also must be good news."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Then the sentry said, "I can see the first man now; he runs like Ahimaaz son of Zadok." "He's a good man," said the king. "He's bringing good news for sure."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Then Ahimaaz called out and said to the king, "Peace!" Then he bowed deeply before the king, his face to the ground. "Blessed be your GOD; he has handed over the men who rebelled against my master the king."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The king asked, "But is the young man Absalom all right?" Ahimaaz said, "I saw a huge ruckus just as Joab was sending me off, but I don't know what it was about."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The king said, "Step aside and stand over there." So he stepped aside.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Then the Cushite arrived and said, "Good news, my master and king! GOD has given victory today over all those who rebelled against you!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "But," said the king, "is the young man Absalom all right?" And the Cushite replied, "Would that all of the enemies of my master the king and all who maliciously rose against you end up like that young man."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> The king was stunned. Heartbroken, he went up to the room over the gate and wept. As he wept he cried out, O my son Absalom, my dear, dear son Absalom! Why not me rather than you, my death and not yours, O Absalom, my dear, dear son!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="19">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Joab was told that David was weeping and lamenting over Absalom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The day's victory turned into a day of mourning as word passed through the army, "David is grieving over his son."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The army straggled back to the city that day demoralized, dragging their tails.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> And the king held his face in his hands and lamented loudly, O my son Absalom, Absalom my dear, dear son!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But in private Joab rebuked the king: "Now you've done it--knocked the wind out of your loyal servants who have just saved your life, to say nothing of the lives of your sons and daughters, wives and concubines.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> What is this--loving those who hate you and hating those who love you? Your actions give a clear message: officers and soldiers mean nothing to you. You know that if Absalom were alive right now, we'd all be dead--would that make you happy?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Get hold of yourself; get out there and put some heart into your servants! I swear to GOD that if you don't go to them they'll desert; not a soldier will be left here by nightfall. And that will be the worst thing that has happened yet."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> So the king came out and took his place at the city gate. Soon everyone knew: "Oh, look! The king has come out to receive us." And his whole army came and presented itself to the king. But the Israelites had fled the field of battle and gone home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Meanwhile, the whole populace was now complaining to its leaders, "Wasn't it the king who saved us time and again from our enemies, and rescued us from the Philistines? And now he has had to flee the country on account of Absalom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And now this Absalom whom we made king is dead in battle. So what are you waiting for? Why don't you bring the king back?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> When David heard what was being said, he sent word to Zadok and Abiathar, the priests, "Ask the elders of Judah, 'Why are you so laggard in bringing the king back home?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> You're my brothers! You're my own flesh and blood! So why are you the last ones to bring the king back home?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And tell Amasa, 'You, too, are my flesh and blood. As God is my witness, I'm making you the permanent commander of the army in place of Joab.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He captured the hearts of everyone in Judah. They were unanimous in sending for the king: "Come back, you and all your servants."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So the king returned. He arrived at the Jordan just as Judah reached Gilgal on their way to welcome the king and escort him across the Jordan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Even Shimei son of Gera, the Benjaminite from Bahurim, hurried down to join the men of Judah so he could welcome the king,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> a thousand Benjaminites with him. And Ziba, Saul's steward, with his fifteen sons and twenty servants, waded across the Jordan to meet the king</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> and brought his entourage across, doing whatever they could to make the king comfortable. Shimei son of Gera bowed deeply in homage to the king as soon as he was across the Jordan</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> and said, "Don't think badly of me, my master! Overlook my irresponsible outburst on the day my master the king left Jerusalem--don't hold it against me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> I know I sinned, but look at me now--the first of all the tribe of Joseph to come down and welcome back my master the king!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Abishai son of Zeruiah interrupted, "Enough of this! Shouldn't we kill him outright? Why, he cursed GOD's anointed!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But David said, "What is it with you sons of Zeruiah? Why do you insist on being so contentious? Nobody is going to be killed today. I am again king over Israel!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Then the king turned to Shimei, "You're not going to die." And the king gave him his word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Next Mephibosheth grandson of Saul arrived from Jerusalem to welcome the king. He hadn't combed his hair or trimmed his beard or washed his clothes from the day the king left until the day he returned safe and sound.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The king said, "And why didn't you come with me, Mephibosheth?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "My master the king," he said, "my servant betrayed me. I told him to saddle my donkey so I could ride it and go with the king, for, as you know, I am lame.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> And then he lied to you about me. But my master the king has been like one of God's angels: he knew what was right and did it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Wasn't everyone in my father's house doomed? But you took me in and gave me a place at your table. What more could I ever expect or ask?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "That's enough," said the king. "Say no more. Here's my decision: You and Ziba divide the property between you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Mephibosheth said, "Oh, let him have it all! All I care about is that my master the king is home safe and sound!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Barzillai the Gileadite had come down from Rogelim. He crossed the Jordan with the king to give him a good send-off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Barzillai was a very old man--eighty years old! He had supplied the king's needs all the while he was in Mahanaim since he was very wealthy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "Join me in Jerusalem," the king said to Barzillai. "Let me take care of you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> But Barzillai declined the offer, "How long do you think I'd live if I went with the king to Jerusalem?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> I'm eighty years old and not much good anymore to anyone. Can't taste food; can't hear music. So why add to the burdens of my master the king?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> I'll just go a little way across the Jordan with the king. But why would the king need to make a great thing of that?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Let me go back and die in my hometown and be buried with my father and mother. But my servant Kimham here; let him go with you in my place. But treat him well!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> The king said, "That's settled; Kimham goes with me. And I will treat him well! If you think of anything else, I'll do that for you, too."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> The army crossed the Jordan but the king stayed. The king kissed and blessed Barzillai, who then returned home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Then the king, Kimham with him, crossed over at Gilgal. The whole army of Judah and half the army of Israel processed with the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> The men of Israel came to the king and said, "Why have our brothers, the men of Judah, taken over as if they owned the king, escorting the king and his family and close associates across the Jordan?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> The men of Judah retorted, "Because the king is related to us, that's why! But why make a scene? You don't see us getting treated special because of it, do you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> The men of Israel shot back, "We have ten shares in the king to your one. Besides we're the firstborn--so why are we having to play second fiddle? It was our idea to bring him back." But the men of Judah took a harder line than the men of Israel.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="20">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Just then a good-for-nothing named Sheba son of Bicri the Benjaminite blew a blast on the ram's horn trumpet, calling out, We've got nothing to do with David, there's no future for us with the son of Jesse! Let's get out of here, Israel--head for your tents!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> So all the men of Israel deserted David and followed Sheba son of Bicri. But the men of Judah stayed committed, sticking with their king all the way from the Jordan to Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When David arrived home in Jerusalem, the king took the ten concubines he had left to watch the palace and placed them in seclusion, under guard. He provided for their needs but didn't visit them. They were virtual prisoners until they died, widows as long as they lived.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The king ordered Amasa, "Muster the men of Judah for me in three days; then report in."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Amasa went to carry out his orders, but he was late reporting back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So David told Abishai, "Sheba son of Bicri is going to hurt us even worse than Absalom did. Take your master's servants and hunt him down before he gets holed up in some fortress city where we can't get to him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So under Abishai's command, all the best men--Joab's men and the Kerethites and Pelethites--left Jerusalem to hunt down Sheba son of Bicri.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They were near the boulder at Gibeon when Amasa came their way. Joab was wearing a tunic with a sheathed sword strapped on his waist, but the sword slipped out and fell to the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Joab greeted Amasa, "How are you, brother?" and took Amasa's beard in his right hand as if to kiss him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Amasa didn't notice the sword in Joab's other hand. Joab stuck him in the belly and his guts spilled to the ground. A second blow wasn't needed; he was dead. Then Joab and his brother Abishai continued to chase Sheba son of Bicri.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> One of Joab's soldiers took up his post over the body and called out, "Everyone who sides with Joab and supports David, follow Joab!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Amasa was lying in a pool of blood in the middle of the road; the man realized that the whole army was going to stop and take a look, so he pulled Amasa's corpse off the road into the field and threw a blanket over him so it wouldn't collect spectators.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> As soon as he'd gotten him off the road, the traffic flowed normally, following Joab in the chase after Sheba son of Bicri.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Sheba passed through all the tribes of Israel as far as Abel Beth Maacah; all the Bicrites clustered and followed him into the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Joab's army arrived and laid siege to Sheba in Abel Beth Maacah. They built a siege-ramp up against the city's fortification. The plan was to knock down the wall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But a shrewd woman called out from the city, "Listen, everybody! Please tell Joab to come close so I can talk to him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When he had come, the woman said, "Are you Joab?" He said, "I am." "Then," she said, "listen to what I have to say." He said, "I'm listening."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "There's an old saying in these parts: 'If it's answers you want, come to Abel and get it straight.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> We're a peaceful people here, and reliable. And here you are, trying to tear down one of Israel's mother cities. Why would you want to mess with GOD's legacy like that?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Joab protested, "Believe me, you've got me all wrong. I'm not here to hurt anyone or destroy anything--not on your life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But a man from the hill country of Ephraim, Sheba son of Bicri by name, revolted against King David; hand him over, him only, and we'll get out of here." The woman told Joab, "Sounds good. His head will be tossed to you from the wall."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The woman presented her strategy to the whole city and they did it: They cut off the head of Sheba son of Bicri and tossed it down to Joab. He then blew a blast on the ram's horn trumpet and the soldiers all went home. Joab returned to the king in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Joab was again commander of the whole army of Israel. Benaiah son of Jehoiada was over the Kerethites and Pelethites;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Adoniram over the work crews; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was clerk;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Sheva was historian; Zadok and Abiathar were priests;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Ira the Jairite was David's chaplain.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="21">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> There was a famine in David's time. It went on year after year after year--three years. David went to GOD seeking the reason. GOD said, "This is because there is blood on Saul and his house, from the time he massacred the Gibeonites."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> So the king called the Gibeonites together for consultation. (The Gibeonites were not part of Israel; they were what was left of the Amorites, and protected by a treaty with Israel. But Saul, a fanatic for the honor of Israel and Judah, tried to kill them off.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> David addressed the Gibeonites: "What can I do for you? How can I compensate you so that you will bless GOD's legacy of land and people?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The Gibeonites replied, "We don't want any money from Saul and his family. And it's not up to us to put anyone in Israel to death." But David persisted: "What are you saying I should do for you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then they told the king, "The man who tried to get rid of us, who schemed to wipe us off the map of Israel--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> well, let seven of his sons be handed over to us to be executed--hanged before GOD at Gibeah of Saul, the holy mountain." And David agreed, "I'll hand them over to you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The king spared Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the promise David and Jonathan had spoken before GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But the king selected Armoni and Mephibosheth, the two sons that Rizpah daughter of Aiah had borne to Saul, plus the five sons that Saul's daughter Merab had borne to Adriel son of Barzillai the Meholathite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He turned them over to the Gibeonites who hanged them on the mountain before GOD--all seven died together. Harvest was just getting underway, the beginning of the barley harvest, when they were executed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Rizpah daughter of Aiah took rough burlap and spread it out for herself on a rock from the beginning of the harvest until the heavy rains started. She kept the birds away from the bodies by day and the wild animals by night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> David was told what she had done, this Rizpah daughter of Aiah and concubine of Saul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He then went and got the remains of Saul and Jonathan his son from the leaders at Jabesh Gilead (who had rescued them from the town square at Beth Shan where the Philistines had hung them after striking them down at Gilboa).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He gathered up their remains and brought them together with the dead bodies of the seven who had just been hanged.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The bodies were taken back to the land of Benjamin and given a decent burial in the tomb of Kish, Saul's father. They did everything the king ordered to be done. That cleared things up: from then on God responded to Israel's prayers for the land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> War broke out again between the Philistines and Israel. David and his men went down to fight. David became exhausted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Ishbi-Benob, a warrior descended from Rapha, with a spear weighing nearly eight pounds and outfitted in brand-new armor, announced that he'd kill David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But Abishai son of Zeruiah came to the rescue, struck the Philistine, and killed him. Then David's men swore to him, "No more fighting on the front-lines for you! Don't snuff out the lamp of Israel!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Later there was another skirmish with the Philistines at Gob. That time Sibbecai the Hushathite killed Saph, another of the warriors descended from Rapha.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> At yet another battle with the Philistines at Gob, Elhanan son of Jaar, the weaver of Bethlehem, killed Goliath the Gittite whose spear was as big as a flagpole.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Still another fight broke out in Gath. There was a giant there with six fingers on his hands and six toes on his feet--twenty-four fingers and toes! He was another of those descended from Rapha.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He insulted Israel, and Jonathan son of Shimeah, David's brother, killed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> These four were descended from Rapha in Gath. And they all were killed by David and his soldiers.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="22">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> David prayed to GOD the words of this song after GOD saved him from all his enemies and from Saul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD is bedrock under my feet, the castle in which I live, my rescuing knight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> My God--the high crag where I run for dear life, hiding behind the boulders, safe in the granite hideout; My mountaintop refuge, he saves me from ruthless men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I sing to GOD the Praise-Lofty, and find myself safe and saved.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The waves of death crashed over me, devil waters rushed over me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Hell's ropes cinched me tight; death traps barred every exit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> A hostile world! I called to GOD, to my God I cried out. From his palace he heard me call; my cry brought me right into his presence-- a private audience!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Earth wobbled and lurched; the very heavens shook like leaves, Quaked like aspen leaves because of his rage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> His nostrils flared, billowing smoke; his mouth spit fire. Tongues of fire darted in and out;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> he lowered the sky. He stepped down; under his feet an abyss opened up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He rode a winged creature, swift on wind-wings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He wrapped himself in a trenchcoat of black rain-cloud darkness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But his cloud-brightness burst through, a grand comet of fireworks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Then GOD thundered out of heaven; the High God gave a great shout.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> God shot his arrows--pandemonium! He hurled his lightnings--a rout!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The secret sources of ocean were exposed, the hidden depths of earth lay uncovered The moment GOD roared in protest, let loose his hurricane anger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But me he caught--reached all the way from sky to sea; he pulled me out</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Of that ocean of hate, that enemy chaos, the void in which I was drowning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They hit me when I was down, but GOD stuck by me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He stood me up on a wide-open field; I stood there saved--surprised to be loved!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> GOD made my life complete when I placed all the pieces before him. When I cleaned up my act, he gave me a fresh start.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Indeed, I've kept alert to GOD's ways; I haven't taken God for granted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Every day I review the ways he works, I try not to miss a trick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> I feel put back together, and I'm watching my step.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> GOD rewrote the text of my life when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> You stick by people who stick with you, you're straight with people who're straight with you,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> You're good to good people, you shrewdly work around the bad ones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> You take the side of the down-and-out, but the stuck-up you take down a peg.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Suddenly, GOD, your light floods my path, GOD drives out the darkness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> I smash the bands of marauders, I vault the high fences.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> What a God! His road stretches straight and smooth. Every GOD-direction is road-tested. Everyone who runs toward him Makes it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Is there any god like GOD? Are we not at bedrock?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Is not this the God who armed me well, then aimed me in the right direction?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Now I run like a deer; I'm king of the mountain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> He shows me how to fight; I can bend a bronze bow!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> You protect me with salvation-armor; you touch me and I feel ten feet tall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> You cleared the ground under me so my footing was firm.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> When I chased my enemies I caught them; I didn't let go till they were dead men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> I nailed them; they were down for good; then I walked all over them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> You armed me well for this fight; you smashed the upstarts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> You made my enemies turn tail, and I wiped out the haters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> They cried "uncle" but Uncle didn't come; They yelled for GOD and got no for an answer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> I ground them to dust; they gusted in the wind. I threw them out, like garbage in the gutter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> You rescued me from a squabbling people; you made me a leader of nations. People I'd never heard of served me;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> the moment they got wind of me they submitted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> They gave up; they came trembling from their hideouts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> Live, GOD! Blessing to my Rock, my towering Salvation-God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> This God set things right for me and shut up the people who talked back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> He rescued me from enemy anger. You pulled me from the grip of upstarts, You saved me from the bullies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> That's why I'm thanking you, GOD, all over the world. That's why I'm singing songs that rhyme your name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> God's king takes the trophy; God's chosen is beloved. I mean David and all his children-- always.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="23">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> These are David's last words: The voice of the son of Jesse, the voice of the man God took to the top, Whom the God of Jacob made king, and Israel's most popular singer!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD's Spirit spoke through me, his words took shape on my tongue.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The God of Israel spoke to me, Israel's Rock-Mountain said, "Whoever governs fairly and well, who rules in the Fear-of-God,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Is like first light at daybreak without a cloud in the sky, Like green grass carpeting earth, glistening under fresh rain."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And this is just how my regime has been, for God guaranteed his covenant with me, Spelled it out plainly and kept every promised word-- My entire salvation, my every desire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But the devil's henchmen are like thorns culled and piled as trash;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Better not try to touch them; keep your distance with a rake or hoe. They'll make a glorious bonfire!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> This is the listing of David's top men. Josheb-Basshebeth, the Tahkemonite. He was chief of the Three. He once put his spear to work against eight hundred--killed them all in a day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Eleazar son of Dodai the Ahohite was the next of the elite Three. He was with David when the Philistines poked fun at them at Pas Dammim. When the Philistines drew up for battle, Israel retreated.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But Eleazar stood his ground and killed Philistines right and left until he was exhausted--but he never let go of his sword! A big win for GOD that day. The army then rejoined Eleazar, but all there was left to do was the clean-up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Shammah son of Agee the Hararite was the third of the Three. The Philistines had mustered for battle at Lehi, where there was a field full of lentils. Israel fled before the Philistines,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> but Shammah took his stand at the center of the field, successfully defended it, and routed the Philistines. Another great victory for GOD!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> One day during harvest, the Three parted from the Thirty and joined David at the Cave of Adullam. A squad of Philistines had set up camp in the Valley of Rephaim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> While David was holed up in the Cave, the Philistines had their base camp in Bethlehem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> David had a sudden craving and said, "Would I ever like a drink of water from the well at the gate of Bethlehem!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So the Three penetrated the Philistine lines, drew water from the well at the gate of Bethlehem, and brought it back to David. But David wouldn't drink it; he poured it out as an offering to GOD,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> saying, "There is no way, GOD, that I'll drink this! This isn't mere water, it's their life-blood--they risked their very lives to bring it!" So David refused to drink it. This is the sort of thing that the Three did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Abishai brother of Joab and son of Zeruiah was the head of the Thirty. He once got credit for killing three hundred with his spear, but he was never named in the same breath as the Three.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He was the most respected of the Thirty and was their captain, but never got included among the Three.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Benaiah son of Jehoiada from Kabzeel was a vigorous man who accomplished a great deal. He once killed two lion cubs in Moab. Another time, on a snowy day, he climbed down into a pit and killed a lion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Another time he killed a formidable Egyptian. The Egyptian was armed with a spear and Benaiah went against him with nothing but a walking stick; he seized the spear from his grip and killed him with his own spear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> These are the things that Benaiah son of Jehoiada is famous for. But neither did he ever get ranked with the Three.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> He was held in greatest respect among the Thirty, but he never got included with the Three. David put him in charge of his bodyguard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "The Thirty" consisted of: Asahel brother of Joab; Elhanan son of Dodo of Bethlehem;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Shammah the Harodite; Elika the Harodite;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Helez the Paltite; Ira son of Ikkesh the Tekoite;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Abiezer the Anathothite; Sibbecai the Hushathite;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Zalmon the Ahohite; Maharai the Netophathite;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Heled son of Baanah the Netophathite; Ithai son of Ribai from Gibeah of the Benjaminites;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Benaiah the Pirathonite; Hiddai from the badlands of Gaash;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Abi-Albon the Arbathite; Azmaveth the Barhumite;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Eliahba the Shaalbonite; Jashen the Gizonite; Jonathan son of</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Shammah the Hararite; Ahiam son of Sharar the Urite;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Eliphelet son of Ahasbai the Maacathite; Eliam son of Ahithophel the Gilonite;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Hezro the Carmelite; Paarai the Arbite;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Igal son of Nathan, commander of the army of Hagrites;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Zelek the Ammonite; Naharai the Beerothite, weapon bearer of Joab son of Zeruiah;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Ira the Ithrite; Gareb the Ithrite;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Uriah the Hittite. Thirty-seven, all told.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="24">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Once again GOD's anger blazed out against Israel. He tested David by telling him, "Go and take a census of Israel and Judah."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> So David gave orders to Joab and the army officers under him, "Canvass all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, and get a count of the population. I want to know the number."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But Joab resisted the king: "May your GOD multiply people by the hundreds right before the eyes of my master the king, but why on earth would you do a thing like this?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Nevertheless, the king insisted, and so Joab and the army officers left the king to take a census of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They crossed the Jordan and began with Aroer and the town in the canyon of the Gadites near Jazer,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> proceeded through Gilead, passed Hermon, then on to Dan, but detoured Sidon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They covered Fort Tyre and all the Hivite and Canaanite cities, and finally reached the Negev of Judah at Beersheba.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They canvassed the whole country and after nine months and twenty days arrived back in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Joab gave the results of the census to the king: 800,000 able-bodied fighting men in Israel; in Judah 500,000.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But when it was all done, David was overwhelmed with guilt because he had counted the people, replacing trust with statistics. And David prayed to GOD, "I have sinned badly in what I have just done. But now GOD forgive my guilt--I've been really stupid."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> When David got up the next morning, the word of GOD had already come to Gad the prophet, David's spiritual advisor,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Go and give David this message: 'GOD has spoken thus: There are three things I can do to you; choose one out of the three and I'll see that it's done.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Gad came to deliver the message: "Do you want three years of famine in the land, or three months of running from your enemies while they chase you down, or three days of an epidemic on the country? Think it over and make up your mind. What shall I tell the one who sent me?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> David told Gad, "They're all terrible! But I'd rather be punished by GOD, whose mercy is great, than fall into human hands."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So GOD let loose an epidemic from morning until suppertime. From Dan to Beersheba seventy thousand people died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But when the angel reached out over Jerusalem to destroy it, GOD felt the pain of the terror and told the angel who was spreading death among the people, "Enough's enough! Pull back!" The angel of GOD had just reached the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. David looked up and saw the angel hovering between earth and sky, sword drawn and about to strike Jerusalem. David and the elders bowed in prayer and covered themselves with rough burlap.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When David saw the angel about to destroy the people, he prayed, "Please! I'm the one who sinned; I, the shepherd, did the wrong. But these sheep, what did they do wrong? Punish me and my family, not them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> That same day Gad came to David and said, "Go and build an altar on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> David did what Gad told him, what GOD commanded.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Araunah looked up and saw David and his men coming his way; he met them, bowing deeply, honoring the king</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> and saying, "Why has my master the king come to see me?" "To buy your threshing floor," said David, "so I can build an altar to GOD here and put an end to this disaster."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Oh," said Araunah, "let my master the king take and sacrifice whatever he wants. Look, here's an ox for the burnt offering and threshing paddles and ox-yokes for fuel--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Araunah gives it all to the king! And may GOD, your God, act in your favor."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> But the king said to Araunah, "No. I've got to buy it from you for a good price; I'm not going to offer GOD, my God, sacrifices that are no sacrifice." So David bought the threshing floor and the ox, paying out fifty shekels of silver.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> He built an altar to GOD there and sacrificed burnt offerings and peace offerings. GOD was moved by the prayers and that was the end of the disaster.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="11" bname="1 Kings">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> King David grew old. The years had caught up with him. Even though they piled blankets on him, he couldn't keep warm.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> So his servants said to him, "We're going to get a young virgin for our master the king to be at his side and look after him; she'll get in bed with you and arouse our master the king."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> So they searched the country of Israel for the most ravishing girl they could find; they found Abishag the Shunammite and brought her to the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The girl was stunningly beautiful; she stayed at his side and looked after the king, but the king did not have sex with her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> At this time Adonijah, whose mother was Haggith, puffed himself up saying, "I'm the next king!" He made quite a splash, with chariots and riders and fifty men to run ahead of him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> His father had spoiled him rotten as a child, never once reprimanding him. Besides that, he was very good-looking and the next in line after Absalom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Adonijah talked with Joab son of Zeruiah and with Abiathar the priest, and they threw their weight on his side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But neither the priest Zadok, nor Benaiah son of Jehoiada, nor Nathan the prophet, nor Shimei and Rei, nor David's personal bodyguards supported Adonijah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Next Adonijah held a coronation feast, sacrificing sheep, cattle, and grain-fed heifers at the Stone of Zoheleth near the Rogel Spring. He invited all his brothers, the king's sons, and everyone in Judah who had position and influence--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> but he did not invite the prophet Nathan, Benaiah, the bodyguards, or his brother Solomon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Nathan went to Bathsheba, Solomon's mother, "Did you know that Adonijah, Haggith's son, has taken over as king, and our master David doesn't know a thing about it?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Quickly now, let me tell you how you can save both your own life and Solomon's.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Go immediately to King David. Speak up: 'Didn't you, my master the king, promise me, "Your son Solomon will be king after me and sit on my throne"? So why is Adonijah now king?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> While you're there talking with the king, I'll come in and corroborate your story."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Bathsheba went at once to the king in his palace bedroom. He was so old! Abishag was at his side making him comfortable.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> As Bathsheba bowed low, honoring the king, he said, "What do you want?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "My master," she said, "you promised me in GOD's name, 'Your son Solomon will be king after me and sit on my throne.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And now look what's happened--Adonijah has taken over as king, and my master the king doesn't even know it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He has thrown a huge coronation feast--cattle and grain-fed heifers and sheep--inviting all the king's sons, the priest Abiathar, and Joab head of the army. But your servant Solomon was not invited.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> My master the king, every eye in Israel is watching you to see what you'll do--to see who will sit on the throne of my master the king after him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> If you fail to act, the moment you're buried my son Solomon and I are as good as dead."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Abruptly, while she was telling the king all this, Nathan the prophet came in</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> and was announced: "Nathan the prophet is here." He came before the king, honoring him by bowing deeply, his face touching the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "My master the king," Nathan began, "did you say, 'Adonijah shall be king after me and sit on my throne'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Because that's what's happening. He's thrown a huge coronation feast--cattle, grain-fed heifers, sheep--inviting all the king's sons, the army officers, and Abiathar the priest. They're having a grand time, eating and drinking and shouting, 'Long live King Adonijah!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> But I wasn't invited, nor was the priest Zadok, nor Benaiah son of Jehoiada, nor your servant Solomon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Is this something that my master the king has done behind our backs, not telling your servants who you intended to be king after you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> King David took action: "Get Bathsheba back in here." She entered and stood before the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The king solemnly promised, "As GOD lives, the God who delivered me from every kind of trouble,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> I'll do exactly what I promised in GOD's name, the God of Israel: Your son Solomon will be king after me and take my place on the throne. And I'll make sure it happens this very day."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Bathsheba bowed low, her face to the ground. Kneeling in reverence before the king she said, "Oh, may my master, King David, live forever!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> King David said, "Call Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah son of Jehoiada." They came to the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Then he ordered, "Gather my servants, then mount my son Solomon on my royal mule and lead him in procession down to Gihon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> When you get there, Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet will anoint him king over Israel. Then blow the ram's horn trumpet and shout, 'Long live King Solomon!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> You will then accompany him as he enters and takes his place on my throne, succeeding me as king. I have named him ruler over Israel and Judah."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Benaiah son of Jehoiada backed the king: "Yes! And may GOD, the God of my master the king, confirm it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Just as GOD has been with my master the king, may he also be with Solomon and make his rule even greater than that of my master King David!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Then Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah son of Jehoiada, and the king's personal bodyguard (the Kerethites and Pelethites) went down, mounted Solomon on King David's mule, and paraded with him to Gihon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Zadok the priest brought a flask of oil from the sanctuary and anointed Solomon. They blew the ram's horn trumpet and everyone shouted, "Long live King Solomon!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Everyone joined the fanfare, the band playing and the people singing, the very earth reverberating to the sound.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Adonijah and his retinue of guests were just finishing their "coronation" feast when they heard it. When Joab heard the blast of the ram's horn trumpet he said, "What's going on here? What's all this uproar?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Suddenly, in the midst of the questioning, Jonathan son of Abiathar the priest, showed up. Adonijah said, "Welcome! A brave and good man like you must have good news."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> But Jonathan answered, "Hardly! Our master King David has just mf e Solomon king!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> And the king has surrounded him with Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah son of Jehoiada, with the Kerethites and Pelethites; and they've mounted Solomon on the royal mule.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet have anointed him king at Gihon and the parade is headed up this way singing--a great fanfare! The city is rocking! That's what you're hearing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Here's the crowning touch--Solomon is seated on the throne of the kingdom!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> And that's not all: The king's servants have come to give their blessing to our master King David saying, 'God make Solomon's name even more honored than yours, and make his rule greater than yours!' On his death bed the king worshiped God</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> and prayed, 'Blessed be GOD, Israel's God, who has provided a successor to my throne, and I've lived to see it!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> Panicked, Adonijah's guests got out of there, scattering every which way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> But Adonijah himself, afraid for his life because of Solomon, fled to the sanctuary and grabbed the horns of the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> Solomon was told, "Adonijah, fearful of King Solomon, has taken sanctuary and seized the horns of the Altar and is saying, 'I'm not leaving until King Solomon promises that he won't kill me.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> Solomon then said, "If he proves to be a man of honor, not a hair of his head will be hurt; but if there is evil in him, he'll die."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> Solomon summoned him and they brought him from the Altar. Adonijah came and bowed down, honoring the king. Solomon dismissed him, "Go home."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When David's time to die approached, he charged his son Solomon, saying,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "I'm about to go the way of all the earth, but you--be strong; show what you're made of!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Do what GOD tells you. Walk in the paths he shows you: Follow the life-map absolutely, keep an eye out for the signposts, his course for life set out in the revelation to Moses; then you'll get on well in whatever you do and wherever you go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then GOD will confirm what he promised me when he said, 'If your sons watch their step, staying true to me heart and soul, you'll always have a successor on Israel's throne.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "And don't forget what Joab son of Zeruiah did to the two commanders of Israel's army, to Abner son of Ner and to Amasa son of Jether. He murdered them in cold blood, acting in peacetime as if he were at war, and has been stained with that blood ever since.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Do what you think best with him, but by no means let him get off scot-free--make him pay.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "But be generous to the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite--extend every hospitality to them; that's the way they treated me when I was running for my life from Absalom your brother.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "You also will have to deal with Shimei son of Gera the Benjaminite from Bahurim, the one who cursed me so viciously when I was on my way to Mahanaim. Later, when he welcomed me back at the Jordan, I promised him under GOD, 'I won't put you to death.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But neither should you treat him as if nothing ever happened. You're wise, you know how to handle these things. You'll know what to do to make him pay before he dies."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then David joined his ancestors. He was buried in the City of David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> David ruled Israel for forty years--seven years in Hebron and another thirty-three in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Solomon took over on the throne of his father David; he had a firm grip on the kingdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Adonijah son of Haggith came to Bathsheba, Solomon's mother. She said, "Do you come in peace?" He said, "In peace."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And then, "May I say something to you?" "Go ahead," she said, "speak."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "You know that I had the kingdom right in my hands and everyone expected me to be king, and then the whole thing backfired and the kingdom landed in my brother's lap--GOD's doing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So now I have one request to ask of you; please don't refuse me." "Go ahead, ask," she said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Ask King Solomon--he won't turn you down--to give me Abishag the Shunammite as my wife."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Certainly," said Bathsheba. "I'll speak to the king for you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Bathsheba went to King Solomon to present Adonijah's request. The king got up and welcomed her, bowing respectfully, and returned to his throne. Then he had a throne put in place for his mother, and she sat at his right hand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> She said, "I have a small favor to ask of you. Don't refuse me." The king replied, "Go ahead, Mother; of course I won't refuse you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> She said, "Give Abishag the Shunammite to your brother Adonijah as his wife."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> King Solomon answered his mother, "What kind of favor is this, asking that Abishag the Shunammite be given to Adonijah? Why don't you just ask me to hand over the whole kingdom to him on a platter since he is my older brother and has Abiathar the priest and Joab son of Zeruiah on his side!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Then King Solomon swore under GOD, "May God do his worst to me if Adonijah doesn't pay for this with his life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> As surely as GOD lives, the God who has set me firmly on the throne of my father David and has put me in charge of the kingdom just as he promised, Adonijah will die for this--today!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> King Solomon dispatched Benaiah son of Jehoiada; he struck Adonijah and he died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The king then told Abiathar the priest, "You're exiled to your place in Anathoth. You deserve death but I'm not going to kill you--for now anyway--because you were in charge of the Chest of our ruling GOD in the company of David my father, and because you shared all the hard times with my father."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Solomon stripped Abiathar of his priesthood, fulfilling GOD's word at Shiloh regarding the family of Eli.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> When this news reached Joab, this Joab who had conspired with Adonijah (although he had remained loyal in the Absalom affair), he took refuge in the sanctuary of GOD, seizing the horns of the Altar and holding on for dear life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> King Solomon was told that Joab had escaped to the sanctuary of GOD and was clinging to the Altar; he immediately sent Benaiah son of Jehoiada with orders, "Kill him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Benaiah went to the sanctuary of GOD and said, "King's orders: Come out." He said, "No--I'll die right here." Benaiah went back to the king and reported, "This was Joab's answer."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The king said, "Go ahead then, do what he says: Kill him and bury him. Absolve me and my father's family of the guilt from Joab's senseless murders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> GOD is avenging those bloody murders on Joab's head. Two men he murdered, men better by far than he ever was: Behind my father's back he brutally murdered Abner son of Ner, commander of Israel's army, and Amasa son of Jether, commander of Judah's army.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Responsibility for their murders is forever fixed on Joab and his descendants; but for David and his descendants, his family and kingdom, the final verdict is GOD's peace."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> So Benaiah son of Jehoiada went back, struck Joab, and killed him. He was buried in his family plot out in the desert.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> The king appointed Benaiah son of Jehoiada over the army in place of Joab, and replaced Abiathar with Zadok the priest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> The king next called in Shimei and told him, "Build yourself a house in Jerusalem and live there, but you are not to leave the area.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> If you so much as cross the Brook Kidron, you're as good as dead--you will have decreed your own death sentence."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Shimei answered the king, "Oh, thank you! Your servant will do exactly as my master the king says." Shimei lived in Jerusalem a long time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> But it so happened that three years later, two of Shimei's slaves ran away to Achish son of Maacah, king of Gath. Shimei was told, "Your slaves are in Gath."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Shimei sprang into action, saddled his donkey, and went to Achish in Gath looking for his slaves. And then he came back, bringing his slaves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Solomon was told, "Shimei left Jerusalem for Gath, and now he's back."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Solomon then called for Shimei and said, "Didn't I make you promise me under GOD, and give you a good warning besides, that you would not leave this area? That if you left you would have decreed your own death sentence? And didn't you say, 'Oh, thank you--I'll do exactly as you say'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> So why didn't you keep your sacred promise and do what I ordered?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Then the king told Shimei, "Deep in your heart you know all the evil that you did to my father David; GOD will now avenge that evil on you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> But King Solomon will be blessed and the rule of David will be a sure thing under GOD forever."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> The king then gave orders to Benaiah son of Jehoiada; he went out and struck Shimei dead. The kingdom was now securely in Solomon's grasp.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Solomon arranged a marriage contract with Pharaoh, king of Egypt. He married Pharaoh's daughter and brought her to the City of David until he had completed building his royal palace and GOD's Temple and the wall around Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Meanwhile, the people were worshiping at local shrines because at that time no temple had yet been built to the Name of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Solomon loved GOD and continued to live in the God-honoring ways of David his father, except that he also worshiped at the local shrines, offering sacrifices and burning incense.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The king went to Gibeon, the most prestigious of the local shrines, to worship. He sacrificed a thousand Whole-Burnt-Offerings on that altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> That night, there in Gibeon, GOD appeared to Solomon in a dream: God said, "What can I give you? Ask."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Solomon said, "You were extravagantly generous in love with David my father, and he lived faithfully in your presence, his relationships were just and his heart right. And you have persisted in this great and generous love by giving him--and this very day!--a son to sit on his throne.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "And now here I am: GOD, my God, you have made me, your servant, ruler of the kingdom in place of David my father. I'm too young for this, a mere child! I don't know the ropes, hardly know the 'ins' and 'outs' of this job.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And here I am, set down in the middle of the people you've chosen, a great people--far too many to ever count.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Here's what I want: Give me a God-listening heart so I can lead your people well, discerning the difference between good and evil. For who on their own is capable of leading your glorious people?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> God, the Master, was delighted with Solomon's response.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And God said to him, "Because you have asked for this and haven't grasped after a long life, or riches, or the doom of your enemies, but you have asked for the ability to lead and govern well,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I'll give you what you've asked for--I'm giving you a wise and mature heart. There's never been one like you before; and there'll be no one after.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> As a bonus, I'm giving you both the wealth and glory you didn't ask for--there's not a king anywhere who will come up to your mark.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And if you stay on course, keeping your eye on the life-map and the God-signs as your father David did, I'll also give you a long life."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Solomon woke up--what a dream! He returned to Jerusalem, took his place before the Chest of the Covenant of God, and worshiped by sacrificing Whole-Burnt-Offerings and Peace-Offerings. Then he laid out a banquet for everyone in his service.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The very next thing, two prostitutes showed up before the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The one woman said, "My master, this woman and I live in the same house. While we were living together, I had a baby.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Three days after I gave birth, this woman also had a baby. We were alone--there wasn't anyone else in the house except for the two of us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The infant son of this woman died one night when she rolled over on him in her sleep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> She got up in the middle of the night and took my son--I was sound asleep, mind you!--and put him at her breast and put her dead son at my breast.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> When I got up in the morning to nurse my son, here was this dead baby! But when I looked at him in the morning light, I saw immediately that he wasn't my baby."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Not so!" said the other woman. "The living one's mine; the dead one's yours." The first woman countered, "No! Your son's the dead one; mine's the living one." They went back and forth this way in front of the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The king said, "What are we to do? This woman says, 'The living son is mine and the dead one is yours,' and this woman says, 'No, the dead one's yours and the living one's mine.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> After a moment the king said, "Bring me a sword." They brought the sword to the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Then he said, "Cut the living baby in two--give half to one and half to the other."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The real mother of the living baby was overcome with emotion for her son and said, "Oh no, master! Give her the whole baby alive; don't kill him!" But the other one said, "If I can't have him, you can't have him--cut away!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The king gave his decision: "Give the living baby to the first woman. Nobody is going to kill this baby. She is the real mother."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The word got around--everyone in Israel heard of the king's judgment. They were all in awe of the king, realizing that it was God's wisdom that enabled him to judge truly.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> King Solomon was off to a good start ruling Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> These were the leaders in his government: Azariah son of Zadok--the priest;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Elihoreph and Ahijah, sons of Shisha--secretaries; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud--historian;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Benaiah son of Jehoiada--commander of the army; Zadok and Abiathar--priests;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Azariah son of Nathan--in charge of the regional managers; Zabud son of Nathan--priest and friend to the king;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Ahishar--manager of the palace; Adoniram son of Abda--manager of the slave labor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Solomon had twelve regional managers distributed throughout Israel. They were responsible for supplying provisions for the king and his administration. Each was in charge of bringing supplies for one month of the year.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> These are the names: Ben-Hur in the Ephraim hills;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Ben-Deker in Makaz, Shaalbim, Beth Shemesh, and Elon Bethhanan;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Ben-Hesed in Arubboth--this included Socoh and all of Hepher;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Ben-Abinadab in Naphoth Dor (he was married to Solomon's daughter Taphath);</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Baana son of Ahilud in Taanach and Megiddo, all of Beth Shan next to Zarethan below Jezreel, and from Beth Shan to Abel Meholah over to Jokmeam;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Ben-Geber in Ramoth Gilead--this included the villages of Jair son of Manasseh in Gilead and the region of Argob in Bashan with its sixty large walled cities with bronze-studded gates;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Ahinadab son of Iddo in Mahanaim;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Ahimaaz in Naphtali (he was married to Solomon's daughter Basemath);</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Baana son of Hushai in Asher and Aloth;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Jehoshaphat son of Paruah in Issachar;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Shimei son of Ela in Benjamin;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Geber son of Uri in Gilead--this was the country of Sihon king of the Amorites and also of Og king of Bashan; he managed the whole district by himself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Judah and Israel were densely populated--like sand on an ocean beach! All their needs were met; they ate and drank and were happy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Solomon was sovereign over all the kingdoms from the River Euphrates in the east to the country of the Philistines in the west, all the way to the border of Egypt. They brought tribute and were vassals of Solomon all his life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> One day's food supply for Solomon's household was: 185 bushels of fine flour 375 bushels of meal 10 grain-fed cattle 20 range cattle 100 sheep and miscellaneous deer, gazelles, roebucks, and choice fowl.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> (SEE 4:22)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Solomon was sovereign over everything, countries and kings, west of the River Euphrates from Tiphsah to Gaza. Peace reigned everywhere.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Throughout Solomon's life, everyone in Israel and Judah lived safe and sound, all of them from Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south--content with what they had.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Solomon had forty thousand stalls for chariot horses and twelve thousand horsemen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The district managers, each according to his assigned month, delivered food supplies for King Solomon and all who sat at the king's table; there was always plenty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> They also brought to the designated place their assigned quota of barley and straw for the horses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> God gave Solomon wisdom--the deepest of understanding and the largest of hearts. There was nothing beyond him, nothing he couldn't handle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Solomon's wisdom outclassed the vaunted wisdom of wise men of the East, outshone the famous wisdom of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> He was wiser than anyone--wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, wiser than Heman, wiser than Calcol and Darda the sons of Mahol. He became famous among all the surrounding nations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> He created three thousand proverbs; his songs added up to 1,005.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> He knew all about plants, from the huge cedar that grows in Lebanon to the tiny hyssop that grows in the cracks of a wall. He understood everything about animals and birds, reptiles and fish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Sent by kings from all over the earth who had heard of his reputation, people came from far and near to listen to the wisdom of Solomon.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Hiram king of Tyre sent ambassadors to Solomon when he heard that he had been crowned king in David's place. Hiram had loved David his whole life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Solomon responded, saying,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "You know that David my father was not able to build a temple in honor of GOD because of the wars he had to fight on all sides, until GOD finally put them down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But now GOD has provided peace all around--no one against us, nothing at odds with us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Now here is what I want to do: Build a temple in honor of GOD, my God, following the promise that GOD gave to David my father, namely, 'Your son whom I will provide to succeed you as king, he will build a house in my honor.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And here is how you can help: Give orders for cedars to be cut from the Lebanon forest; my loggers will work alongside yours and I'll pay your men whatever wage you set. We both know that there is no one like you Sidonians for cutting timber."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When Hiram got Solomon's message, he was delighted, exclaiming, "Blessed be GOD for giving David such a wise son to rule this flourishing people!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then he sent this message to Solomon: "I received your request for the cedars and cypresses. It's as good as done--your wish is my command.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> My lumberjacks will haul the timbers from the Lebanon forest to the sea, assemble them into log rafts, float them to the place you set, then have them disassembled for you to haul away. All I want from you is that you feed my crew."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> In this way Hiram supplied all the cedar and cypress timber that Solomon wanted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> In his turn, Solomon gave Hiram 125,000 bushels of wheat and 115,000 gallons of virgin olive oil. He did this every year.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And GOD, for his part, gave Solomon wisdom, just as he had promised. The healthy peace between Hiram and Solomon was formalized by a treaty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> King Solomon raised a workforce of 30,000 men from all over Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He sent them in shifts of 10,000 each month to the Lebanon forest; they would work a month in Lebanon and then be at home two months. Adoniram was in charge of the work crew.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Solomon also had 70,000 unskilled workers and another 80,000 stonecutters up in the hills--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> plus 3,300 foremen managing the project and supervising the work crews.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Following the king's orders, they quarried huge blocks of the best stone--dressed stone for the foundation of The Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Solomon and Hiram's construction workers, assisted by the men of Gebal, cut and prepared the timber and stone for building The Temple.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Four hundred and eighty years after the Israelites came out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's rule over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, Solomon started building The Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The Temple that King Solomon built to GOD was ninety feet long, thirty feet wide, and forty-five feet high.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> There was a porch across the thirty-foot width of The Temple that extended out fifteen feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Within The Temple he made narrow, deep-silled windows.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Against the outside walls he built a supporting structure in which there were smaller rooms:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The lower floor was seven and a half feet wide, the middle floor nine feet, and the third floor ten and a half feet. He had projecting ledges built into the outside Temple walls to support the buttressing beams.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The stone blocks for the building of The Temple were all dressed at the quarry so that the building site itself was reverently quiet--no noise from hammers and chisels and other iron tools.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The entrance to the ground floor was at the south end of The Temple; stairs led to the second floor and then to the third.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Solomon built and completed The Temple, finishing it off with roof beams and planks of cedar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The supporting structure along the outside walls was attached to The Temple with cedar beams and the rooms in it were seven and a half feet tall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The word of GOD came to Solomon saying,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "About this Temple you are building--what's important is that you live the way I've set out for you and do what I tell you, following my instructions carefully and obediently. Then I'll complete in you the promise I made to David your father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I'll personally take up my residence among the Israelites --I won't desert my people Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Solomon built and completed The Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He paneled the interior walls from floor to ceiling with cedar planks; for flooring he used cypress.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The thirty feet at the rear of The Temple he made into an Inner Sanctuary, cedar planks from floor to ceiling--the Holy of Holies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The Main Sanctuary area in front was sixty feet long.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The entire interior of The Temple was cedar, with carvings of fruits and flowers. All cedar--none of the stone was exposed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The Inner Sanctuary within The Temple was for housing the Chest of the Covenant of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> This Inner Sanctuary was a cube, thirty feet each way, all plated with gold. The Altar of cedar was also gold-plated.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Everywhere you looked there was pure gold: gold chains strung in front of the gold-plated Inner Sanctuary--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> gold everywhere--walls, ceiling, floor, and Altar. Dazzling!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Then he made two cherubim, gigantic angel-like figures, from olivewood. Each was fifteen feet tall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The outstretched wings of the cherubim (they were identical in size and shape) measured another fifteen feet. He placed the two cherubim, their wings spread, in the Inner Sanctuary. The combined wingspread stretched the width of the room, the wing of one cherub touched one wall, the wing of the other the other wall, and the wings touched in the middle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> (SEE 6:24)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> (SEE 6:24)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> (SEE 6:24)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The cherubim were gold plated.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> He then carved engravings of cherubim, palm trees, and flower blossoms on all the walls of both the Inner and the Main Sanctuary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> And all the floors of both inner and outer rooms were gold plated.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> He constructed doors of olivewood for the entrance to the Inner Sanctuary; the lintel and doorposts were five-sided.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The doors were also carved with cherubim, palm trees, and flowers, and then covered with gold leaf.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Similarly, he built the entrance to the Main Sanctuary using olivewood for the doorposts but these doorposts were four-sided.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The doors were of cypress, split into two panels, each panel swinging separately.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> These also were carved with cherubim, palm trees, and flowers, and plated with finely hammered gold leaf.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> He built the inner court with three courses of dressed stones topped with a course of planed cedar timbers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> The foundation for GOD's Temple was laid in the fourth year in the month of Ziv.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> It was completed in the eleventh year in the month of Bul (the eighth month) down to the last detail, just as planned. It took Solomon seven years to build it.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> It took Solomon another thirteen years to finish building his own palace complex.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He built the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon a hundred and fifty feet long, seventy-five feet wide, and forty-five feet high.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> There were four rows of cedar columns supporting forty-five cedar beams, fifteen in each row, and then roofed with cedar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Windows in groupings of three were set high in the walls on either side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> All the doors were rectangular and arranged symmetrically.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He built a colonnaded courtyard seventy-five feet long and forty-five wide. It had a roofed porch at the front with ample eaves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He built a court room, the Hall of Justice, where he would decide judicial matters, and paneled it with cedar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He built his personal residence behind the Hall on a similar plan. Solomon also built another one just like it for Pharaoh's daughter, whom he had married.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> No expense was spared--everything here, inside and out, from foundation to roof was constructed using high-quality stone, accurately cut and shaped and polished.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The foundation stones were huge, ranging in size from twelve to fifteen feet, and of the very best quality.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The finest stone was used above the foundation, shaped to size and trimmed with cedar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The courtyard was enclosed with a wall made of three layers of stone and topped with cedar timbers, just like the one in the porch of The Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> King Solomon sent to Tyre and asked Hiram (not the king; another Hiram) to come.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Hiram's mother was a widow from the tribe of Naphtali. His father was a Tyrian and a master worker in bronze. Hiram was a real artist--he could do anything with bronze. He came to King Solomon and did all the bronze work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> First he cast two pillars in bronze, each twenty-seven feet tall and eighteen feet in circumference.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He then cast two capitals in bronze to set on the pillars; each capital was seven and a half feet high</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> and flared at the top in the shape of a lily. Each capital was dressed with an elaborate filigree of seven braided chains and a double row of two hundred pomegranates, setting the pillars off magnificently.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> (SEE 7:17)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> (SEE 7:17)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> (SEE 7:17)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He set the pillars up in the entrance porch to The Temple; the pillar to the south he named Security (Jachin) and the pillar to the north Stability (Boaz).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The capitals were in the shape of lilies. When the pillars were finished,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Hiram's next project was to make the Sea--an immense round basin of cast metal fifteen feet in diameter, seven and a half feet tall, and forty-five feet in circumference.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Just under the rim there were two bands of decorative gourds, ten gourds to each foot and a half. The gourds were cast in one piece with the Sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The Sea was set on twelve bulls, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east; the bulls faced outward supporting the Sea on their hindquarters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The Sea was three inches thick and flared at the rim like a cup, or like a lily. It held about 11,500 gallons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Hiram also made ten washstands of bronze. Each was six feet square and four and a half feet tall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> They were made like this: Panels were fastened to the uprights.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Lions, bulls, and cherubim were represented on the panels and uprights. Beveled wreath-work bordered the lions and bulls above and below.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Each stand was mounted on four bronze wheels with bronze axles. The uprights were cast with decorative relief work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Each stand held a basin on a circular engraved support a foot and a half deep set on a pedestal two and a quarter feet square. The washstand itself was square.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The axles were attached under the stand and the wheels fixed to them. The wheels were twenty-seven inches in diameter;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> they were designed like chariot wheels. Everything--axles, rims, spokes, and hubs--was of cast metal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> There was a handle at the four corners of each washstand, the handles cast in one piece with the stand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> At the top of the washstand there was a ring about nine inches deep. The uprights and handles were cast with the stand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Everything and every available surface was engraved with cherubim, lions, and palm trees, bordered by arabesques.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> The washstands were identical, all cast in the same mold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> He also made ten bronze washbasins, each six feet in diameter with a capacity of 230 gallons, one basin for each of the ten washstands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> He arranged five stands on the south side of The Temple and five on the north. The Sea was placed at the southeast corner of The Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Hiram then fashioned the various utensils: buckets and shovels and bowls. Hiram completed all the work he set out to do for King Solomon on The Temple of GOD:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> two pillars; two capitals on top of the pillars; two decorative filigrees for the capitals;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> four hundred pomegranates for the two filigrees (a double row of pomegranates for each filigree);</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> ten washstands each with its washbasin; one Sea;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> twelve bulls under the Sea;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> miscellaneous buckets, shovels, and bowls. All these artifacts that Hiram made for King Solomon for The Temple of GOD were of burnished bronze.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> He cast them in clay in a foundry on the Jordan plain between Succoth and Zarethan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> These artifacts were never weighed--there were far too many! Nobody has any idea how much bronze was used.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> Solomon was also responsible for all the furniture and accessories in The Temple of GOD: the gold Altar; the gold Table that held the Bread of the Presence;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> the pure gold candelabras, five to the right and five to the left in front of the Inner Sanctuary; the gold flowers, lamps, and tongs;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> the pure gold dishes, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, ladles, and censers; the gold sockets for the doors of the Inner Sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, used also for the doors of the Main Sanctuary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> That completed all the work King Solomon did on The Temple of GOD. He then brought in the items consecrated by his father David, the silver and the gold and the artifacts. He placed them all in the treasury of GOD's Temple.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Bringing all this to a climax, King Solomon called in the leaders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes and the family patriarchs, to bring up the Chest of the Covenant of GOD from Zion, the City of David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> And they came, all Israel before King Solomon in the month of Ethanim, the seventh month, for the great autumn festival.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> With all Israel's leaders present, the priests took up the Chest of GOD</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> and carried up the Chest and the Tent of Meeting and all the holy vessels that went with the Tent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> King Solomon and the entire congregation of Israel were there at the Chest worshiping and sacrificing huge numbers of sheep and cattle--so many that no one could keep track.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then the priests brought the Chest of the Covenant of GOD to its place in the Inner Sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, under the wings of the cherubim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The outspread wings of the cherubim stretched over the Chest and its poles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The poles were so long that their ends could be seen from the entrance to the Inner Sanctuary, but were not noticeable farther out. They're still there today.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> There was nothing in the Chest but the two stone tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb where GOD made a covenant with Israel after bringing them up from Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When the priests left the Holy Place, a cloud filled The Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The priests couldn't carry out their priestly duties because of the cloud--the glory of GOD filled The Temple of GOD!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then Solomon spoke: GOD has told us that he lives in the dark where no one can see him;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I've built this splendid Temple, O God, to mark your invisible presence forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The king then turned to face the congregation and blessed them:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Blessed be GOD, the God of Israel, who spoke personally to my father David. Now he has kept the promise he made when he said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> 'From the day I brought my people Israel from Egypt, I haven't set apart one city among the tribes of Israel to build a Temple to fix my Name there. But I did choose David to rule my people Israel.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "My father David had it in his heart to build a Temple honoring the Name of GOD, the God of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But GOD told him 'It was good that you wanted to build a Temple in my honor--most commendable!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But you are not the one to do it--your son will build it to honor my Name.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "GOD has done what he said he would do: I have succeeded David my father and ruled over Israel just as GOD promised; and now I've built a Temple to honor GOD, the God of Israel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> and I've secured a place for the Chest that holds the covenant of GOD, the covenant that he made with our ancestors when he brought them up from the land of Egypt."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Before the entire congregation of Israel, Solomon took a position before the Altar, spread his hands out before heaven,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> and prayed, O GOD, God of Israel, there is no God like you in the skies above or on the earth below who unswervingly keeps covenant with his servants and relentlessly loves them as they sincerely live in obedience to your way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> You kept your word to David my father, your personal word. You did exactly what you promised--every detail. The proof is before us today!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Keep it up, GOD, O God of Israel! Continue to keep the promises you made to David my father when you said, "You'll always have a descendant to represent my rule on Israel's throne, on the condition that your sons are as careful to live obediently in my presence as you have."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> O God of Israel, let this all happen; confirm and establish it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Can it be that God will actually move into our neighborhood? Why, the cosmos itself isn't large enough to give you breathing room, let alone this Temple I've built.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Even so, I'm bold to ask: Pay attention to these my prayers, both intercessory and personal, O GOD, my God. Listen to my prayers, energetic and devout, that I'm setting before you right now.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Keep your eyes open to this Temple night and day, this place of which you said, "My Name will be honored there,"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> and listen to the prayers that I pray at this place. Listen from your home in heaven and when you hear, forgive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> When someone hurts a neighbor and promises to make things right, and then comes and repeats the promise before your Altar in this Temple,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> listen from heaven and act accordingly: Judge your servants, making the offender pay for his offense and setting the offended free of any charges.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> When your people Israel are beaten by an enemy because they've sinned against you, but then turn to you and acknowledge your rule in prayers desperate and devout in this Temple,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Listen from your home in heaven, forgive the sin of your people Israel, return them to the land you gave their ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> When the skies shrivel up and there is no rain because your people have sinned against you, but then they pray at this place, acknowledging your rule and quitting their sins because you have scourged them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Listen from your home in heaven, forgive the sins of your servants, your people Israel. Then start over with them: Train them to live right and well; send rain on the land you gave your people as an inheritance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> When disasters strike, famine or catastrophe, crop failure or disease, locust or beetle, or when an enemy attacks their defenses--calamity of any sort--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> any prayer that's prayed from anyone at all among your people Israel, hearts penetrated by the disaster, hands and arms thrown out to this Temple for help,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Listen from your home in heaven. Forgive and go to work on us. Give what each deserves, for you know each life from the inside (you're the only one with such "inside knowledge"!)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> so that they'll live before you in lifelong reverent and believing obedience on this land you gave our ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> And don't forget the foreigner who is not a member of your people Israel but has come from a far country because of your reputation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> People are going to be attracted here by your great reputation, your wonder-working power, who come to pray at this Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Listen from your home in heaven. Honor the prayers of the foreigner so that people all over the world will know who you are and what you're like and will live in reverent obedience before you, just as your own people Israel do; so they'll know that you personally make this Temple that I've built what it is.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> When your people go to war against their enemies at the time and place you send them and they pray to GOD toward the city you chose and this Temple I've built to honor your Name,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> Listen from heaven to what they pray and ask for, and do what's right for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> When they sin against you--and they certainly will; there's no one without sin!--and in anger you turn them over to the enemy and they are taken captive to the enemy's land, whether far or near,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> but repent in the country of their captivity and pray with changed hearts in their exile, "We've sinned; we've done wrong; we've been most wicked,"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> and turn back to you heart and soul in the land of the enemy who conquered them, and pray to you toward their homeland, the land you gave their ancestors, toward the city you chose, and this Temple I have built to the honor of your Name,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> Listen from your home in heaven to their prayers desperate and devout and do what is best for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Forgive your people who have sinned against you; forgive their gross rebellions and move their captors to treat them with compassion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> They are, after all, your people and your precious inheritance whom you rescued from the heart of that iron-smelting furnace, Egypt!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> O be alert and attentive to the needy prayers of me, your servant, and your dear people Israel; listen every time they cry out to you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> You handpicked them from all the peoples on earth to be your very own people, as you announced through your servant Moses when you, O GOD, in your masterful rule, delivered our ancestors from Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> Having finished praying to GOD--all these bold and passionate prayers--Solomon stood up before GOD's Altar where he had been kneeling all this time, his arms stretched upward to heaven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> Standing, he blessed the whole congregation of Israel, blessing them at the top of his lungs:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> "Blessed be GOD, who has given peace to his people Israel just as he said he'd do. Not one of all those good and wonderful words that he spoke through Moses has misfired.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> May GOD, our very own God, continue to be with us just as he was with our ancestors--may he never give up and walk out on us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> May he keep us centered and devoted to him, following the life path he has cleared, watching the signposts, walking at the pace and rhythms he laid down for our ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="59"> "And let these words that I've prayed in the presence of GOD be always right there before him, day and night, so that he'll do what is right for me, to guarantee justice for his people Israel day after day after day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="60"> Then all the people on earth will know GOD is the true God; there is no other God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="61"> And you, your lives must be totally obedient to GOD, our personal God, following the life path he has cleared, alert and attentive to everything he has made plain this day."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="62"> The king and all Israel with him then worshiped, offering sacrifices to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="63"> Solomon offered Peace-Offerings, sacrificing to GOD twenty-two thousand cattle, a hundred and twenty thousand sheep. This is how the king and all Israel dedicated The Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="64"> That same day, the king set apart the central area of the Courtyard in front of GOD's Temple for sacred use and there sacrificed the Whole-Burnt-Offerings, Grain-Offerings, and fat from the Peace-Offerings--the bronze Altar was too small to handle all these offerings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="65"> This is how Solomon kept the great autumn feast, and all Israel with him, people there all the way from the far northeast (the Entrance to Hamath) to the far southwest (the Brook of Egypt)--a huge congregation. They started out celebrating for seven days--and then did it another seven days! Two solid weeks of celebration!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="66"> Then he dismissed them. They blessed the king and went home, exuberant with heartfelt gratitude for all the good GOD had done for his servant David and for his people Israel.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> After Solomon had completed building The Temple of GOD and his own palace, all the projects he had set his heart on doing,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD appeared to Solomon again, just as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And GOD said to him, "I've listened to and received all your prayers, your ever-so-passionate prayers. I've sanctified this Temple that you have built: My Name is stamped on it forever; my eyes are on it and my heart in it always.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> As for you, if you live in my presence as your father David lived, pure in heart and action, living the life I've set out for you, attentively obedient to my guidance and judgments,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> then I'll back your kingly rule over Israel, make it a sure thing on a solid foundation. The same guarantee I gave David your father I'm giving you: 'You can count on always having a descendant on Israel's throne.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "But if you or your sons betray me, ignoring my guidance and judgments, taking up with alien gods by serving and worshiping them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> then the guarantee is off: I'll wipe Israel right off the map and repudiate this Temple I've just sanctified to honor my Name. And Israel will become nothing but a bad joke among the peoples of the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And this Temple, splendid as it now is, will become an object of contempt; visitors will shake their heads, saying, 'Whatever happened here? What's the story behind these ruins?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then they'll be told, 'The people who used to live here betrayed their GOD, the very God who rescued their ancestors from Egypt; they took up with alien gods, worshiping and serving them. That's what's behind this GOD-visited devastation.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> At the end of twenty years, having built the two buildings, The Temple of GOD and his personal palace,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Solomon rewarded Hiram king of Tyre with a gift of twenty villages in the district of Galilee. Hiram had provided him with all the cedar and cypress and gold that he had wanted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But when Hiram left Tyre to look over the villages that Solomon had given him, he didn't like what he saw.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He said, "What kind of reward is this, my friend? Twenty backwoods hick towns!" People still refer to them that way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> This is all Hiram got from Solomon in exchange for four and a half tons of gold!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> This is the work record of the labor force that King Solomon raised to build The Temple of GOD, his palace, the defense complex (the Millo), the Jerusalem wall, and the fortified cities of Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Pharaoh king of Egypt had come up and captured Gezer, torched it, and killed all the Canaanites who lived there. He gave it as a wedding present to his daughter, Solomon's wife.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> So Solomon rebuilt Gezer. He also built Lower Beth Horon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Baalath, and Tamar in the desert, back-country</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> storehouse villages, and villages for chariots and horses. Solomon built widely and extravagantly in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and wherever he fancied.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The remnants from the original inhabitants of the land (Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites--all non-Israelites),</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> survivors of the holy wars, were rounded up by Solomon for his gangs of slave labor, a policy still in effect.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But true Israelites were not treated this way; they were used in his army and administration--government leaders and commanders of his chariots and charioteers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They were also the project managers responsible for Solomon's building operations--550 of them in charge of the workforce.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> It was after Pharaoh's daughter ceremonially ascended from the City of David and took up residence in the house built especially for her that Solomon built the defense complex (the Millo).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Three times a year Solomon worshiped at the Altar of GOD, sacrificing Whole-Burnt-Offerings and Peace-Offerings, and burning incense in the presence of GOD. Everything that had to do with The Temple he did generously and well; he didn't skimp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> And ships! King Solomon also built ships at Ezion Geber, located near Elath in Edom on the Red Sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Hiram sent seaworthy sailors to assist Solomon's men with the fleet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> They embarked for Ophir, brought back sixteen tons of gold, and presented it to King Solomon.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The queen of Sheba heard about Solomon and his connection with the Name of GOD. She came to put his reputation to the test by asking tough questions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> She made a grand and showy entrance into Jerusalem--camels loaded with spices, a huge amount of gold, and precious gems. She came to Solomon and talked about all the things that she cared about, emptying her heart to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Solomon answered everything she put to him--nothing stumped him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When the queen of Sheba experienced for herself Solomon's wisdom and saw with her own eyes the palace he had built,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> the meals that were served, the impressive array of court officials and sharply dressed waiters, the lavish crystal, and the elaborate worship extravagant with Whole-Burnt-Offerings at the steps leading up to The Temple of GOD, it took her breath away.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> She said to the king, "It's all true! Your reputation for accomplishment and wisdom that reached all the way to my country is confirmed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself; they didn't exaggerate! Such wisdom and elegance--far more than I could ever have imagined.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Lucky the men and women who work for you, getting to be around you every day and hear your wise words firsthand!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And blessed be GOD, your God, who took such a liking to you and made you king. Clearly, GOD's love for Israel is behind this, making you king to keep a just order and nurture a God-pleasing people."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> She then gave the king four and a half tons of gold, and also sack after sack of spices and expensive gems. There hasn't been a cargo of spices like that since that shipload the queen of Sheba brought to King Solomon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The ships of Hiram also imported gold from Ophir along with tremendous loads of fragrant sandalwood and expensive gems.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The king used the sandalwood for fine cabinetry in The Temple of GOD and the palace complex, and for making harps and dulcimers for the musicians. Nothing like that shipment of sandalwood has been seen since.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> King Solomon for his part gave the queen of Sheba all her heart's desire--everything she asked for, on top of what he had already so generously given her. Satisfied, she returned home with her train of servants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Solomon received twenty-five tons of gold in tribute annually.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> This was above and beyond the taxes and profit on trade with merchants and assorted kings and governors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> King Solomon crafted two hundred body-length shields of hammered gold--seven and a half pounds of gold to each shield--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> and three hundred smaller shields about half that size. He stored the shields in the House of the Forest of Lebanon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The king built a massive throne of ivory accented with a veneer of gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The throne had six steps leading up to it, its back shaped like an arch. The armrests on each side were flanked by lions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Lions, twelve of them, were placed at either end of the six steps. There was no throne like it in any of the surrounding kingdoms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> King Solomon's chalices and tankards were made of gold and all the dinnerware and serving utensils in the House of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold--nothing was made of silver; silver was considered common and cheap.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The king had a fleet of ocean-going ships at sea with Hiram's ships. Every three years the fleet would bring in a cargo of gold, silver, and ivory, and apes and peacocks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> King Solomon was wiser and richer than all the kings of the earth--he surpassed them all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> People came from all over the world to be with Solomon and drink in the wisdom God had given him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> And everyone who came brought gifts--artifacts of gold and silver, fashionable robes and gowns, the latest in weapons, exotic spices, and horses and mules--parades of visitors, year after year.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Solomon collected chariots and horses: fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses! He stabled them in the special chariot cities as well as in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The king made silver as common as rocks and cedar as common as the fig trees in the lowland hills.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> His horses were brought in from Egypt and Cilicia, specially acquired by the king's agents.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Chariots from Egypt went for fifteen pounds of silver and a horse for about three and three-quarter pounds of silver. Solomon carried on a brisk horse-trading business with the Hittite and Aramean royal houses.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> King Solomon was obsessed with women. Pharaoh's daughter was only the first of the many foreign women he loved--Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He took them from the surrounding pagan nations of which GOD had clearly warned Israel, "You must not marry them; they'll seduce you into infatuations with their gods." Solomon fell in love with them anyway, refusing to give them up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He had seven hundred royal wives and three hundred concubines--a thousand women in all! And they did seduce him away from God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> As Solomon grew older, his wives beguiled him with their alien gods and he became unfaithful--he didn't stay true to his GOD as his father David had done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Solomon took up with Ashtoreth, the whore goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech, the horrible god of the Ammonites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Solomon openly defied GOD; he did not follow in his father David's footsteps.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He went on to build a sacred shrine to Chemosh, the horrible god of Moab, and to Molech, the horrible god of the Ammonites, on a hill just east of Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He built similar shrines for all his foreign wives, who then polluted the countryside with the smoke and stench of their sacrifices.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD was furious with Solomon for abandoning the GOD of Israel, the God who had twice appeared to him</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> and had so clearly commanded him not to fool around with other gods. Solomon faithlessly disobeyed GOD's orders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD said to Solomon, "Since this is the way it is with you, that you have no intention of keeping faith with me and doing what I have commanded, I'm going to rip the kingdom from you and hand it over to someone else.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But out of respect for your father David I won't do it in your lifetime. It's your son who will pay--I'll rip it right out of his grasp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Even then I won't take it all; I'll leave him one tribe in honor of my servant David and out of respect for my chosen city Jerusalem."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD incited Hadad, a descendant of the king of Edom, into hostile actions against Solomon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Years earlier, when David devastated Edom, Joab, commander of the army, on his way to bury the dead, massacred all the men of Edom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Joab and his army stayed there for six months, making sure they had killed every man in Edom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Hadad, just a boy at the time, had escaped with some of the Edomites who had worked for his father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Their escape route took them through Midian to Paran. They picked up some men in Paran and went on to Egypt and to Pharaoh king of Egypt, who gave Hadad a house, food, and even land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Pharaoh liked him so well that he gave him the sister of his wife, Queen Tahpenes, in marriage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> She bore Hadad a son named Genubath who was raised like one of the royal family. Genubath grew up in the palace with Pharaoh's children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> While living in Egypt, Hadad heard that both David and Joab, commander of the army, were dead. He approached Pharaoh and said, "Send me off with your blessing--I want to return to my country."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "But why?" said Pharaoh. "Why would you want to leave here? Hasn't everything been to your liking?" "Everything has been just fine," said Hadad, "but I want to go home--give me a good send-off!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Then God incited another adversary against Solomon, Rezon son of Eliada, who had deserted from his master, Hadadezer king of Zobah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> After David's slaughter of the Arameans, Rezon collected a band of outlaws and became their leader. They later settled in Damascus, where Rezon eventually took over as king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Like Hadad, Rezon was a thorn in Israel's side all of Solomon's life. He was king over Aram, and he hated Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> And then, the last straw: Jeroboam son of Nebat rebelled against the king. He was an Ephraimite from Zeredah, his mother a widow named Zeruah. He served in Solomon's administration.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> This is why he rebelled. Solomon had built the outer defense system (the Millo) and had restored the fortifications that were in disrepair from the time of his father David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Jeroboam stood out during the construction as strong and able. When Solomon observed what a good worker he was, he put the young man in charge of the entire workforce of the tribe of Joseph.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> One day Jeroboam was walking down the road out of Jerusalem. Ahijah the prophet of Shiloh, wearing a brand-new cloak, met him. The two of them were alone on that remote stretch of road.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Ahijah took off the new cloak that he was wearing and ripped it into twelve pieces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Then he said to Jeroboam, "Take ten of these pieces for yourself; this is by order of the GOD of Israel: See what I'm doing--I'm ripping the kingdom out of Solomon's hands and giving you ten of the tribes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> In honor of my servant David and out of respect for Jerusalem, the city I especially chose, he will get one tribe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> And here's the reason: He faithlessly abandoned me and went off worshiping Ashtoreth goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh god of the Moabites, and Molech god of the Ammonites. He hasn't lived the way I have shown him, hasn't done what I have wanted, and hasn't followed directions or obeyed orders as his father David did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "Still, I won't take the whole kingdom away from him. I'll stick with him through his lifetime because of my servant David whom I chose and who did follow my directions and obey my orders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> But after that I'll remove the kingdom from his son's control and give you ten tribes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> I'll leave one tribe to his son, to maintain a witness to my servant David in Jerusalem, the city I chose as a memorial to my Name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> "But I have taken you in hand. Rule to your heart's content! You are to be the king of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> If you listen to what I tell you and live the way I show you and do what pleases me, following directions and obeying orders as my servant David did, I'll stick with you no matter what. I'll build you a kingdom as solid as the one I built for David. Israel will be yours!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> I am bringing pain and trouble on David's descendants, but the trials won't last forever."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Solomon ordered the assassination of Jeroboam, but he got away to Egypt and found asylum there with King Shishak. He remained in exile there until Solomon died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> The rest of Solomon's life and rule, his work and his wisdom, you can read for yourself in The Chronicles of Solomon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Solomon ruled in Jerusalem over all Israel for forty years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> He died and was buried in the City of David his father. His son Rehoboam was the next king.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Rehoboam traveled to Shechem where all Israel had gathered to inaugurate him as king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Jeroboam had been in Egypt, where he had taken asylum from King Solomon; when he got the report of Solomon's death he had come back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Rehoboam assembled Jeroboam and all the people. They said to Rehoboam,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Your father made life hard for us--worked our fingers to the bone. Give us a break; lighten up on us and we'll willingly serve you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Give me three days to think it over, then come back," Rehoboam said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> King Rehoboam talked it over with the elders who had advised his father when he was alive: "What's your counsel? How do you suggest that I answer the people?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They said, "If you will be a servant to this people, be considerate of their needs and respond with compassion, work things out with them, they'll end up doing anything for you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But he rejected the counsel of the elders and asked the young men he'd grown up with who were now currying his favor,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "What do you think? What should I say to these people who are saying, 'Give us a break from your father's harsh ways--lighten up on us'?" '</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The young turks he'd grown up with said, "These people who complain, 'Your father was too hard on us; lighten up'--well, tell them this: 'My little finger is thicker than my father's waist.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> If you think life under my father was hard, you haven't seen the half of it. My father thrashed you with whips; I'll beat you bloody with chains!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Three days later Jeroboam and the people showed up, just as Rehoboam had directed when he said, "Give me three days to think it over, then come back."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The king's answer was harsh and rude. He spurned the counsel of the elders</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> and went with the advice of the younger set, "If you think life under my father was hard, you haven't seen the half of it. My father thrashed you with whips; I'll beat you bloody with chains!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Rehoboam turned a deaf ear to the people. GOD was behind all this, confirming the message that he had given to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah of Shiloh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When all Israel realized that the king hadn't listened to a word they'd said, they stood up to him and said, Get lost, David! We've had it with you, son of Jesse! Let's get out of here, Israel, and fast! From now on, David, mind your own business. And with that, they left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But Rehoboam continued to rule those who lived in the towns of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When King Rehoboam next sent out Adoniram, head of the workforce, the Israelites ganged up on him, pelted him with stones, and killed him. King Rehoboam jumped in his chariot and fled to Jerusalem as fast as he could.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Israel has been in rebellion against the Davidic regime ever since.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> When the word was out that Jeroboam was back and available, the assembled people invited him and inaugurated him king over all Israel. The only tribe left to the Davidic dynasty was Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> When Rehoboam got back to Jerusalem, he called up the men of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, a hundred and eighty thousand of their best soldiers, to go to war against Israel and recover the kingdom for Rehoboam son of Solomon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> At this time the word of God came to Shemaiah, a man of God:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "Tell this to Rehoboam son of Solomon king of Judah, along with everyone in Judah and Benjamin and anyone else who is around:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> This is GOD's word: Don't march out; don't fight against your brothers the Israelites; go back home, every last one of you; I'm in charge here." And they did it; they did what GOD said and went home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Jeroboam made a fort at Shechem in the hills of Ephraim, and made that his headquarters. He also built a fort at Penuel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> But then Jeroboam thought, "It won't be long before the kingdom is reunited under David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> As soon as these people resume worship at The Temple of GOD in Jerusalem, they'll start thinking of Rehoboam king of Judah as their ruler. They'll then kill me and go back to King Rehoboam."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> So the king came up with a plan: He made two golden calves. Then he announced, "It's too much trouble for you to go to Jerusalem to worship. Look at these--the gods who brought you out of Egypt!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> He put one calf in Bethel; the other he placed in Dan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> This was blatant sin. Think of it--people traveling all the way to Dan to worship a calf!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> And that wasn't the end of it. Jeroboam built forbidden shrines all over the place and recruited priests from wherever he could find them, regardless of whether they were fit for the job or not.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> To top it off, he created a holy New Year festival to be held on the fifteenth day of the eighth month to replace the one in Judah, complete with worship offered on the Altar at Bethel and sacrificing before the calves he had set up there. He staffed Bethel with priests from the local shrines he had made.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> This was strictly his own idea to compete with the feast in Judah; and he carried it off with flair, a festival exclusively for Israel, Jeroboam himself leading the worship at the Altar.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> And then this happened: Just as Jeroboam was at the Altar, about to make an offering, a holy man came from Judah by GOD's command</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> and preached (these were GOD's orders) to the Altar: "Altar, Altar! GOD's message! 'A son will be born into David's family named Josiah. The priests from the shrines who are making offerings on you, he will sacrifice--on you! Human bones burned on you!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> At the same time he announced a sign: "This is the proof GOD gives--the Altar will split into pieces and the holy offerings spill into the dirt."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When the king heard the message the holy man preached against the Altar at Bethel, he reached out to grab him, yelling, "Arrest him!" But his arm was paralyzed and hung useless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> At the same time the Altar broke apart and the holy offerings all spilled into the dirt--the very sign the holy man had announced by GOD's command.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The king pleaded with the holy man, "Help me! Pray to your GOD for the healing of my arm." The holy man prayed for him and the king's arm was healed--as good as new!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Then the king invited the holy man, "Join me for a meal; I have a gift for you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The holy man told the king, "Not on your life! You couldn't pay me enough to get me to sit down with you at a meal in this place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'm here under GOD's orders, and he commanded, 'Don't eat a crumb, don't drink a drop, and don't go back the way you came.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then he left by a different road than the one on which he had walked to Bethel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> There was an old prophet who lived in Bethel. His sons came and told him the story of what the holy man had done that day in Bethel, told him everything that had happened and what the holy man had said to the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Their father said, "Which way did he go?" His sons pointed out the road that the holy man from Judah had taken.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He told his sons, "Saddle my donkey." When they had saddled it, he got on</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> and rode after the holy man. He found him sitting under an oak tree. He asked him, "Are you the holy man who came from Judah?" "Yes, I am," he said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Well, come home with me and have a meal."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Sorry, I can't do that," the holy man said. "I can neither go back with you nor eat with you in this country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I'm under strict orders from GOD: 'Don't eat a crumb; don't drink a drop; and don't come back the way you came.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But he said, "I am also a prophet, just like you. And an angel came to me with a message from GOD: 'Bring him home with you, and give him a good meal!'" But the man was lying.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> So the holy man went home with him and they had a meal together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> There they were, sitting at the table together, when the word of GOD came to the prophet who had brought him back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He confronted the holy man who had come from Judah: "GOD's word to you: You disobeyed GOD's command; you didn't keep the strict orders your GOD gave you;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> you came back and sat down to a good meal in the very place GOD told you, 'Don't eat a crumb; don't drink a drop.' For that you're going to die far from home and not be buried in your ancestral tomb."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> When the meal was over, the prophet who had brought him back saddled his donkey for him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Down the road a way, a lion met him and killed him. His corpse lay crumpled on the road, the lion on one side and the donkey on the other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Some passersby saw the corpse in a heap on the road, with the lion standing guard beside it. They went to the village where the old prophet lived and told what they had seen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> When the prophet who had gotten him off track heard it, he said, "It's the holy man who disobeyed GOD's strict orders. GOD turned him over to the lion who knocked him around and killed him, just as GOD had told him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The prophet told his sons, "Saddle my donkey." They did it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> He rode out and found the corpse in a heap in the road, with the lion and the donkey standing there. The lion hadn't bothered either the corpse or the donkey.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The old prophet loaded the corpse of the holy man on his donkey and returned it to his own town to give it a decent burial.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> He placed the body in his own tomb. The people mourned, saying, "A sad day, brother!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> After the funeral, the prophet said to his sons, "When I die, bury me in the same tomb where the holy man is buried, my bones alongside his bones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The message that he preached by GOD's command against the Altar at Bethel and against all the sex-and-religion shrines in the towns of Samaria will come true."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> After this happened, Jeroboam kept right on doing evil, recruiting priests for the forbidden shrines indiscriminately--anyone who wanted to could be a priest at one of the local shrines.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> This was the root sin of Jeroboam's government. And it was this that ruined him.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> At about this time Jeroboam's son Abijah came down sick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Jeroboam said to his wife, "Do something. Disguise yourself so no one will know you are the queen and go to Shiloh. Ahijah the prophet lives there, the same Ahijah who told me I'd be king over this people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Take along ten loaves of bread, some sweet rolls, and a jug of honey. Make a visit to him and he'll tell you what's going on with our boy."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Jeroboam's wife did as she was told; she went straight to Shiloh and to Ahijah's house. Ahijah was an old man at this time, and blind,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> but GOD had warned Ahijah, "Jeroboam's wife is on her way to consult with you regarding her sick son; tell her this and this and this." When she came in she was disguised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Ahijah heard her come through the door and said, "Welcome, wife of Jeroboam! But why the deception? I've got bad news for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Go and deliver this message I received firsthand from GOD, the God of Israel, to Jeroboam: I raised you up from obscurity and made you the leader of my people Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I ripped the kingdom from the hands of David's family and gave it to you, but you weren't at all like my servant David who did what I told him and lived from his undivided heart, pleasing me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Instead you've set a new record in works of evil by making alien gods--tin gods! Pushing me aside and turning your back--you've made me mighty angry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "And I'll not put up with it: I'm bringing doom on the household of Jeroboam, killing the lot of them right down to the last male wretch in Israel, whether slave or free. They've become nothing but garbage and I'm getting rid of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The ones who die in the city will be eaten by stray dogs; the ones who die out in the country will be eaten by carrion crows. GOD's decree!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "And that's it. Go on home--the minute you step foot in town, the boy will die.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Everyone will come to his burial, mourning his death. He is the only one in Jeroboam's family who will get a decent burial; he's the only one for whom GOD, the God of Israel, has a good word to say.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Then GOD will appoint a king over Israel who will wipe out Jeroboam's family, wipe them right off the map--doomsday for Jeroboam!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He will hit Israel hard, as a storm slaps reeds about; he'll pull them up by the roots from this good land of their inheritance, weeding them out, and then scatter them to the four winds. And why? Because they made GOD so angry with Asherah sex-and-religion shrines.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He'll wash his hands of Israel because of Jeroboam's sins, which have led Israel into a life of sin."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Jeroboam's wife left and went home to Tirzah. The moment she stepped through the door, the boy died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They buried him and everyone mourned his death, just as GOD had said through his servant the prophet Ahijah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The rest of Jeroboam's life, the wars he fought and the way he ruled, is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He ruled for twenty-two years. He died and was buried with his ancestors. Nadab his son was king after him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Rehoboam son of Solomon was king in Judah. He was forty-one years old when he took the throne and was king for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city GOD selected from all the tribes of Israel for the worship of his Name. Rehoboam's mother was Naamah, an Ammonite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Judah was openly wicked before GOD, making him very angry. They set new records in sin, surpassing anything their ancestors had done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They built Asherah sex-and-religion shrines and set up sacred stones all over the place--on hills, under trees, wherever you looked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Worse, they had male sacred prostitutes, polluting the country outrageously--all the stuff that GOD had gotten rid of when he brought Israel into the land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> In the fifth year of King Rehoboam's rule, Shishak king of Egypt made war against Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> He plundered The Temple of GOD and the royal palace of their treasures, cleaned them out--even the gold shields that Solomon had made.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> King Rehoboam replaced them with bronze shields and outfitted the royal palace guards with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Whenever the king went to GOD's Temple, the guards carried the shields but always returned them to the guardroom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The rest of Rehoboam's life, what he said and did, is all written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam the whole time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Rehoboam died and was buried with his ancestors in the City of David. His mother was Naamah, an Ammonite. His son Abijah ruled after him.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the eighteenth year of the rule of Jeroboam son of Nebat, Abijah took over the throne of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He ruled in Jerusalem three years. His mother was Maacah daughter of Absalom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He continued to sin just like his father before him. He was not truehearted to GOD as his grandfather David had been.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But despite that, out of respect for David, his GOD graciously gave him a lamp, a son to follow him and keep Jerusalem secure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> For David had lived an exemplary life before GOD all his days, not going off on his own in willful defiance of GOD's clear directions (except for that time with Uriah the Hittite).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But war continued between Abijah and Jeroboam the whole time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The rest of Abijah's life, everything he did, is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. But the war with Jeroboam was the dominant theme.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Abijah died and was buried with his ancestors in the City of David. His son Asa was king after him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> In the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Asa began his rule over Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He ruled for forty-one years in Jerusalem. His grandmother's name was Maacah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Asa conducted himself well before GOD, reviving the ways of his ancestor David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He cleaned house: He got rid of the sacred prostitutes and threw out all the idols his predecessors had made.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Asa spared nothing and no one; he went so far as to remove Queen Maacah from her position because she had built a shockingly obscene memorial to the whore goddess Asherah. Asa tore it down and burned it up in the Kidron Valley.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Unfortunately, he didn't get rid of the local sex-and-religion shrines. But he was well-intentioned--his heart was in the right place, in tune with GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> All the gold and silver vessels and artifacts that he and his father had consecrated for holy use he installed in The Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But through much of his reign there was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Baasha king of Israel started it by building a fort at Ramah and closing the border between Israel and Judah so no one could enter or leave Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Asa took all the silver and gold that was left in the treasuries of The Temple of GOD and the royal palace, gave it to his servants, and sent them to Ben-Hadad son of Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion king of Aram, who was ruling in Damascus, with this message:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Let's make a treaty like the one between our fathers. I'm showing my good faith with this gift of silver and gold. Break your deal with Baasha king of Israel so he'll quit fighting against me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Ben-Hadad went along with King Asa and sent out his troops against the towns of Israel. He attacked Ijon, Dan, Abel Beth Maacah, and the entire region of Kinnereth, including Naphtali.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> When Baasha got the report he quit fortifying Ramah and pulled back to Tirzah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Then King Asa issued orders to everyone in Judah--no exemptions--to haul away the logs and stones Baasha had used in the fortification of Ramah and use them to fortify Geba in Benjamin and Mizpah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> A full account of Asa's life, all the great things he did and the fortifications he constructed, is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. In his old age he developed severe gout.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Then Asa died and was buried with his ancestors in the City of David. His son Jehoshaphat became king after him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Nadab son of Jeroboam became king over Israel in the second year of Asa's rule in Judah. He was king of Israel two years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> He was openly evil before GOD--he followed in the footsteps of his father who both sinned and made Israel sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Baasha son of Ahijah of the tribe of Issachar ganged up on him and attacked him at the Philistine town of Gibbethon while Nadab and the Israelites were doing battle there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Baasha killed Nadab in the third year of Asa king of Judah and became Israel's next king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> As soon as he was king he killed everyone in Jeroboam's family. There wasn't a living soul left to the name of Jeroboam; Baasha wiped them out totally, just as GOD's servant Ahijah of Shiloh had prophesied--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> punishment for Jeroboam's sins and for making Israel sin, for making the GOD of Israel thoroughly angry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The rest of Nadab's life, everything else he did, is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> There was continuous war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> In the third year of Asa king of Judah, Baasha son of Ahijah became king in Tirzah over all Israel. He ruled twenty-four years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> He was openly evil before GOD, walking in the footsteps of Jeroboam, who both sinned and made Israel sin.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The word of GOD came to Jehu son of Hanani with this message for Baasha:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "I took you from nothing--a complete nobody--and set you up as the leader of my people Israel, but you plodded along in the rut of Jeroboam, making my people Israel sin and making me seethe over their sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And now the consequences--I will burn Baasha and his regime to cinders, the identical fate of Jeroboam son of Nebat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Baasha's people who die in the city will be eaten by scavenger dogs; carrion crows will eat the ones who die in the country."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The rest of Baasha's life, the record of his regime, is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Baasha died and was buried with his ancestors in Tirzah. His son Elah was king after him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> That's the way it was with Baasha: Through the prophet Jehu son of Hanani, GOD's word came to him and his regime because of his life of open evil before GOD and his making GOD so angry--a chip off the block of Jeroboam, even though GOD had destroyed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> In the twenty-sixth year of Asa king of Judah, Elah son of Baasha began his rule. He was king in Tirzah only two years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> One day when he was at the house of Arza the palace manager, drinking himself drunk, Zimri, captain of half his chariot-force, conspired against him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Zimri slipped in, knocked Elah to the ground, and killed him. This happened in the twenty-seventh year of Asa king of Judah. Zimri then became the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Zimri had no sooner become king than he killed everyone connected with Baasha, got rid of them all like so many stray dogs--relatives and friends alike.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Zimri totally wiped out the family of Baasha, just as GOD's word delivered by the prophet Jehu had said--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> wages for the sins of Baasha and his son Elah; not only for their sins but for dragging Israel into their sins and making the GOD of Israel angry with their stupid idols.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The rest of Elah's life, what he said and did, is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Zimri was king in Tirzah for all of seven days during the twenty-seventh year of the reign of Asa king of Judah. The Israelite army was on maneuvers near the Philistine town of Gibbethon at the time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When they got the report, "Zimri has conspired against the king and killed him," right there in the camp they made Omri, commander of the army, king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Omri and the army immediately left Gibbethon and attacked Tirzah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When Zimri saw that he was surrounded and as good as dead, he entered the palace citadel, set the place on fire, and died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> It was a fit end for his sins, for living a flagrantly evil life before GOD, walking in the footsteps of Jeroboam, sinning and then dragging Israel into his sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> As for the rest of Zimri's life, along with his infamous conspiracy, it's all written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> After that the people of Israel were split right down the middle: Half favored Tibni son of Ginath as king, and half wanted Omri.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Eventually the Omri side proved stronger than the Tibni side. Tibni ended up dead and Omri king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Omri took over as king of Israel in the thirty-first year of the reign of Asa king of Judah. He ruled for twelve years, the first six in Tirzah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He then bought the hill Samaria from Shemer for 150 pounds of silver. He developed the hill and named the city that he built Samaria, after its original owner Shemer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> But as far as GOD was concerned, Omri lived an evil life--set new records in evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> He walked in the footsteps of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who not only sinned but dragged Israel into his sins, making GOD angry--such an empty-headed, empty-hearted life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The rest of Omri's life, the mark he made on his times, is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Omri died and was buried in Samaria. His son Ahab was the next king after him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Ahab son of Omri became king of Israel in the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah. Ahab son of Omri was king over Israel for twenty-two years. He ruled from Samaria.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Ahab son of Omri did even more open evil before GOD than anyone yet--a new champion in evil!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> It wasn't enough for him to copy the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat; no, he went all out, first by marrying Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and then by serving and worshiping the god Baal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> He built a temple for Baal in Samaria, and then furnished it with an altar for Baal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Worse, he went on and built a shrine to the sacred whore Asherah. He made the GOD of Israel angrier than all the previous kings of Israel put together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> It was under Ahab's rule that Hiel of Bethel refortified Jericho, but at a terrible cost: He ritually sacrificed his firstborn son Abiram at the laying of the foundation, and his youngest son Segub at the setting up of the gates. This is exactly what Joshua son of Nun said would happen.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="17">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> And then this happened: Elijah the Tishbite, from among the settlers of Gilead, confronted Ahab: "As surely as GOD lives, the God of Israel before whom I stand in obedient service, the next years are going to see a total drought--not a drop of dew or rain unless I say otherwise."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD then told Elijah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Get out of here, and fast. Head east and hide out at the Kerith Ravine on the other side of the Jordan River.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You can drink fresh water from the brook; I've ordered the ravens to feed you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Elijah obeyed GOD's orders. He went and camped in the Kerith canyon on the other side of the Jordan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And sure enough, ravens brought him his meals, both breakfast and supper, and he drank from the brook.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Eventually the brook dried up because of the drought.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then GOD spoke to him:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Get up and go to Zarephath in Sidon and live there. I've instructed a woman who lives there, a widow, to feed you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So he got up and went to Zarephath. As he came to the entrance of the village he met a woman, a widow, gathering firewood. He asked her, "Please, would you bring me a little water in a jug? I need a drink."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> As she went to get it, he called out, "And while you're at it, would you bring me something to eat?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> She said, "I swear, as surely as your GOD lives, I don't have so much as a biscuit. I have a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a bottle; you found me scratching together just enough firewood to make a last meal for my son and me. After we eat it, we'll die."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Elijah said to her, "Don't worry about a thing. Go ahead and do what you've said. But first make a small biscuit for me and bring it back here. Then go ahead and make a meal from what's left for you and your son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> This is the word of the GOD of Israel: 'The jar of flour will not run out and the bottle of oil will not become empty before GOD sends rain on the land and ends this drought.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And she went right off and did it, did just as Elijah asked. And it turned out as he said--daily food for her and her family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The jar of meal didn't run out and the bottle of oil didn't become empty: GOD's promise fulfilled to the letter, exactly as Elijah had delivered it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Later on the woman's son became sick. The sickness took a turn for the worse--and then he stopped breathing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The woman said to Elijah, "Why did you ever show up here in the first place--a holy man barging in, exposing my sins, and killing my son?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Elijah said, "Hand me your son." He then took him from her bosom, carried him up to the loft where he was staying, and laid him on his bed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Then he prayed, "O GOD, my God, why have you brought this terrible thing on this widow who has opened her home to me? Why have you killed her son?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Three times he stretched himself out full-length on the boy, praying with all his might, "GOD, my God, put breath back into this boy's body!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> GOD listened to Elijah's prayer and put breath back into his body--he was alive!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Elijah picked the boy up, carried him downstairs from the loft, and gave him to his mother. "Here's your son," said Elijah, "alive!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The woman said to Elijah, "I see it all now--you are a holy man. When you speak, GOD speaks--a true word!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="18">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A long time passed. Then GOD's word came to Elijah. The drought was now in its third year. The message: "Go and present yourself to Ahab; I'm about to make it rain on the country."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Elijah set out to present himself to Ahab. The drought in Samaria at the time was most severe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Ahab called for Obadiah, who was in charge of the palace. Obadiah feared GOD--he was very devout.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Earlier, when Jezebel had tried to kill off all the prophets of GOD, Obadiah had hidden away a hundred of them in two caves, fifty in a cave, and then supplied them with food and water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Ahab ordered Obadiah, "Go through the country; locate every spring and every stream. Let's see if we can find enough grass to keep our horses and mules from dying."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So they divided the country between them for the search--Ahab went one way, Obadiah the other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Obadiah went his way and suddenly there he was--Elijah! Obadiah fell on his knees, bowing in reverence, and exclaimed, "Is it really you--my master Elijah?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Yes," said Elijah, "the real me. Now go and tell your boss, 'I've seen Elijah.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Obadiah said, "But what have I done to deserve this? Ahab will kill me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> As surely as your GOD lives, there isn't a country or kingdom where my master hasn't sent out search parties looking for you. And if they said, 'We can't find him; we've looked high and low,' he would make that country or kingdom swear that you were not to be found.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And now you're telling me, 'Go and tell your master Elijah's found!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The minute I leave you the Spirit of GOD will whisk you away to who knows where. Then when I report to Ahab, you'll have disappeared and Ahab will kill me. And I've served GOD devoutly since I was a boy!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Hasn't anyone told you what I did when Jezebel was out to kill the prophets of GOD, how I risked my life by hiding a hundred of them, fifty to a cave, and made sure they got food and water?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And now you're telling me to draw attention to myself by announcing to my master, 'Elijah's been found.' Why, he'll kill me for sure."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Elijah said, "As surely as GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies lives, and before whom I take my stand, I'll meet with your master face to face this very day."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So Obadiah went straight to Ahab and told him. And Ahab went out to meet Elijah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The moment Ahab saw Elijah he said, "So it's you, old troublemaker!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "It's not I who has caused trouble in Israel," said Elijah, "but you and your government--you've dumped GOD's ways and commands and run off after the local gods, the Baals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Here's what I want you to do: Assemble everyone in Israel at Mount Carmel. And make sure that the special pets of Jezebel, the four hundred and fifty prophets of the local gods, the Baals, and the four hundred prophets of the whore goddess Asherah, are there."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> So Ahab summoned everyone in Israel, particularly the prophets, to Mount Carmel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Elijah challenged the people: "How long are you going to sit on the fence? If GOD is the real God, follow him; if it's Baal, follow him. Make up your minds!" Nobody said a word; nobody made a move.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Then Elijah said, "I'm the only prophet of GOD left in Israel; and there are four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Let the Baal prophets bring up two oxen; let them pick one, butcher it, and lay it out on an altar on firewood--but don't ignite it. I'll take the other ox, cut it up, and lay it on the wood. But neither will I light the fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Then you pray to your gods and I'll pray to GOD. The god who answers with fire will prove to be, in fact, God." All the people agreed: "A good plan--do it!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Elijah told the Baal prophets, "Choose your ox and prepare it. You go first, you're the majority. Then pray to your god, but don't light the fire."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> So they took the ox he had given them, prepared it for the altar, then prayed to Baal. They prayed all morning long, "O Baal, answer us!" But nothing happened--not so much as a whisper of breeze. Desperate, they jumped and stomped on the altar they had made.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> By noon, Elijah had started making fun of them, taunting, "Call a little louder--he is a god, after all. Maybe he's off meditating somewhere or other, or maybe he's gotten involved in a project, or maybe he's on vacation. You don't suppose he's overslept, do you, and needs to be waked up?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> They prayed louder and louder, cutting themselves with swords and knives--a ritual common to them--until they were covered with blood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> This went on until well past noon. They used every religious trick and strategy they knew to make something happen on the altar, but nothing happened--not so much as a whisper, not a flicker of response.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Then Elijah told the people, "Enough of that--it's my turn. Gather around." And they gathered. He then put the altar back together for by now it was in ruins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes of Jacob, the same Jacob to whom GOD had said, "From now on your name is Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> He built the stones into the altar in honor of GOD. Then Elijah dug a fairly wide trench around the altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> He laid firewood on the altar, cut up the ox, put it on the wood, and said, "Fill four buckets with water and drench both the ox and the firewood."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Then he said, "Do it again," and they did it. Then he said, "Do it a third time,"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> and they did it a third time. The altar was drenched and the trench was filled with water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> When it was time for the sacrifice to be offered, Elijah the prophet came up and prayed, "O GOD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, make it known right now that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, and that I'm doing what I'm doing under your orders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Answer me, GOD; O answer me and reveal to this people that you are GOD, the true God, and that you are giving these people another chance at repentance."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Immediately the fire of GOD fell and burned up the offering, the wood, the stones, the dirt, and even the water in the trench.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> All the people saw it happen and fell on their faces in awed worship, exclaiming, "GOD is the true God! GOD is the true God!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Elijah told them, "Grab the Baal prophets! Don't let one get away!" They grabbed them. Elijah had them taken down to the Brook Kishon and they massacred the lot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Elijah said to Ahab, "Up on your feet! Eat and drink--celebrate! Rain is on the way; I hear it coming."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Ahab did it: got up and ate and drank. Meanwhile, Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel, bowed deeply in prayer, his face between his knees.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Then he said to his young servant, "On your feet now! Look toward the sea." He went, looked, and reported back, "I don't see a thing." "Keep looking," said Elijah, "seven times if necessary."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> And sure enough, the seventh time he said, "Oh yes, a cloud! But very small, no bigger than someone's hand, rising out of the sea." "Quickly then, on your way. Tell Ahab, 'Saddle up and get down from the mountain before the rain stops you.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> Things happened fast. The sky grew black with wind-driven clouds, and then a huge cloudburst of rain, with Ahab hightailing it in his chariot for Jezreel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> And GOD strengthened Elijah mightily. Pulling up his robe and tying it around his waist, Elijah ran in front of Ahab's chariot until they reached Jezreel.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="19">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Ahab reported to Jezebel everything that Elijah had done, including the massacre of the prophets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Jezebel immediately sent a messenger to Elijah with her threat: "The gods will get you for this and I'll get even with you! By this time tomorrow you'll be as dead as any one of those prophets."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When Elijah saw how things were, he ran for dear life to Beersheba, far in the south of Judah. He left his young servant there</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> and then went on into the desert another day's journey. He came to a lone broom bush and collapsed in its shade, wanting in the worst way to be done with it all--to just die: "Enough of this, GOD! Take my life--I'm ready to join my ancestors in the grave!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Exhausted, he fell asleep under the lone broom bush. Suddenly an angel shook him awake and said, "Get up and eat!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He looked around and, to his surprise, right by his head were a loaf of bread baked on some coals and a jug of water. He ate the meal and went back to sleep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The angel of GOD came back, shook him awake again, and said, "Get up and eat some more--you've got a long journey ahead of you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He got up, ate and drank his fill, and set out. Nourished by that meal, he walked forty days and nights, all the way to the mountain of God, to Horeb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When he got there, he crawled into a cave and went to sleep. Then the word of GOD came to him: "So Elijah, what are you doing here?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "I've been working my heart out for the GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies," said Elijah. "The people of Israel have abandoned your covenant, destroyed the places of worship, and murdered your prophets. I'm the only one left, and now they're trying to kill me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then he was told, "Go, stand on the mountain at attention before GOD. GOD will pass by." A hurricane wind ripped through the mountains and shattered the rocks before GOD, but GOD wasn't to be found in the wind; after the wind an earthquake, but GOD wasn't in the earthquake;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> and after the earthquake fire, but GOD wasn't in the fire; and after the fire a gentle and quiet whisper.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> When Elijah heard the quiet voice, he muffled his face with his great cloak, went to the mouth of the cave, and stood there. A quiet voice asked, "So Elijah, now tell me, what are you doing here?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Elijah said it again, "I've been working my heart out for GOD, the GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, because the people of Israel have abandoned your covenant, destroyed your places of worship, and murdered your prophets. I'm the only one left, and now they're trying to kill me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> GOD said, "Go back the way you came through the desert to Damascus. When you get there anoint Hazael; make him king over Aram.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Then anoint Jehu son of Nimshi; make him king over Israel. Finally, anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Anyone who escapes death by Hazael will be killed by Jehu; and anyone who escapes death by Jehu will be killed by Elisha.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Meanwhile, I'm preserving for myself seven thousand souls: the knees that haven't bowed to the god Baal, the mouths that haven't kissed his image."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Elijah went straight out and found Elisha son of Shaphat in a field where there were twelve pairs of yoked oxen at work plowing; Elisha was in charge of the twelfth pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak over him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Elisha deserted the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, "Please! Let me kiss my father and mother good-bye--then I'll follow you." "Go ahead," said Elijah, "but, mind you, don't forget what I've just done to you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> So Elisha left; he took his yoke of oxen and butchered them. He made a fire with the plow and tackle and then boiled the meat--a true farewell meal for the family. Then he left and followed Elijah, becoming his right-hand man.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="20">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> At about this same time Ben-Hadad king of Aram mustered his troops. He recruited in addition thirty-two local sheiks, all outfitted with horses and chariots. He set out in force and surrounded Samaria, ready to make war.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He sent an envoy into the city to set his terms before Ahab king of Israel:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Ben-Hadad lays claim to your silver and gold, and to the pick of your wives and sons."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The king of Israel accepted the terms: "As you say, distinguished lord; I and everything I have is yours."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But then the envoy returned a second time, saying, "On second thought, I want it all--your silver and gold and all your wives and sons. Hand them over--the whole works.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I'll give you twenty-four hours; then my servants will arrive to search your palace and the houses of your officials and loot them; anything that strikes their fancy, they'll take."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The king of Israel called a meeting of all his tribal elders. He said, "Look at this--outrageous! He's just looking for trouble. He means to clean me out, demanding all my women and children. And after I already agreed to pay him off handsomely!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The elders, backed by the people, said, "Don't cave in to him. Don't give an inch."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So he sent an envoy to Ben-Hadad, "Tell my distinguished lord, 'I agreed to the terms you delivered the first time, but this I can't do--this I won't do!'" The envoy went back and delivered the answer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Ben-Hadad shot back his response: "May the gods do their worst to me, and then worse again, if there'll be anything left of Samaria but rubble."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The king of Israel countered, "Think about it--it's easier to start a fight than end one."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> It happened that when Ben-Hadad heard this retort he was into some heavy drinking, boozing it up with the sheiks in their field shelters. Drunkenly, he ordered his henchmen, "Go after them!" And they attacked the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Just then a lone prophet approached Ahab king of Israel and said, "GOD's word: Have you taken a good look at this mob? Well, look again--I'm turning it over to you this very day. And you'll know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I am GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Ahab said, "Really? And who is going to make this happen?" GOD said, "The young commandos of the regional chiefs." "And who," said Ahab, "will strike the first blow?" GOD said, "You."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Ahab looked over the commandos of the regional chiefs; he counted 232. Then he assessed the available troops--7,000.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> At noon they set out after Ben-Hadad who, with his allies, the thirty-two sheiks, was busy at serious drinking in the field shelters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The commandos of the regional chiefs made up the vanguard. A report was brought to Ben-Hadad: "Men are on their way from Samaria."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> He said, "If they've come in peace, take them alive as hostages; if they've come to fight, the same--take them alive as hostages."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The commandos poured out of the city with the full army behind them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> They hit hard in hand-to-hand combat. The Arameans scattered from the field, with Israel hard on their heels. But Ben-Hadad king of Aram got away on horseback, along with his cavalry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The king of Israel cut down both horses and chariots--an enormous defeat for Aram.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Sometime later the prophet came to the king of Israel and said, "On the alert now--build up your army, assess your capabilities, and see what has to be done. Before the year is out, the king of Aram will be back in force."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Meanwhile the advisors to the king of Aram said, "Their god is a god of the mountains--we don't stand a chance against them there. So let's engage them on the plain where we'll have the advantage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Here's the strategy: Remove each sheik from his place of leadership and replace him with a seasoned officer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Then recruit a fighting force equivalent in size to the army that deserted earlier--horse for horse, chariot for chariot. And we'll fight them on the plain--we're sure to prove stronger than they are." It sounded good to the king; he did what they advised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> As the new year approached, Ben-Hadad rallied Aram and they went up to Aphek to make war on Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The Israelite army prepared to fight and took the field to meet Aram. They moved into battle formation before Aram in two camps, like two flocks of goats. The plain was seething with Arameans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Just then a holy man approached the king of Israel saying, "This is GOD's word: Because Aram said, 'GOD is a god of the mountains and not a god of the valleys,' I'll hand over this huge mob of an army to you. Then you'll know that I am GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The two armies were poised in a standoff for seven days. On the seventh day fighting broke out. The Israelites killed 100,000 of the Aramean infantry in one day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The rest of the army ran for their lives back to the city, Aphek, only to have the city wall fall on 27,000 of the survivors. Ben-Hadad escaped into the city and hid in a closet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Then his advisors told him, "Look, we've heard that the kings of Israel play by the rules; let's dress in old gunnysacks, carry a white flag of truce, and present ourselves to the king of Israel on the chance that he'll let you live."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> So that's what they did. They dressed in old gunnysacks and carried a white flag, and came to the king of Israel saying, "Your servant Ben-Hadad said, 'Please let me live.'" Ahab said, "You mean to tell me that he's still alive? If he's alive, he's my brother."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> The men took this as a good sign and concluded that everything was going to be all right: "Ben-Hadad is most certainly your brother!" The king said, "Go and get him." They went and brought him back by chariot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Ahab said, "I am prepared to return the cities that my father took from your father. And you can set up your headquarters in Damascus just as my father did in Samaria; I'll send you home under safe conduct." Then he made a covenant with him and sent him off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> A man who was one of the prophets said to a bystander, "Hit me; wound me. Do it for GOD's sake--it's his command. Hit me; wound me." But the man wouldn't do it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> So he told him, "Because you wouldn't obey GOD's orders, as soon as you leave me a lion will attack you." No sooner had the man left his side than a lion met him and attacked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> He then found another man and said, "Hit me; wound me." That man did it--hit him hard in the face, drawing blood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Then the prophet went and took a position along the road, with a bandage over his eyes, waiting for the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> It wasn't long before the king happened by. The man cried out to the king, "Your servant was in the thick of the battle when a man showed up and turned over a prisoner to me, saying, 'Guard this man with your life; if he turns up missing you'll pay dearly.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> But I got busy doing one thing after another and the next time I looked he was gone." The king of Israel said, "You've just pronounced your own verdict."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> At that, the man ripped the bandage off his eyes and the king recognized who he was--one of the prophets!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> The man said to the king, "GOD's word: Because you let a man go who was under sentence by GOD, it's now your life for his, your people for his."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> The king of Israel went home in a sulk. He arrived in Samaria in a very bad mood.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="21">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> And then, to top it off, came this: Naboth the Jezreelite owned a vineyard in Jezreel that bordered the palace of Ahab king of Samaria.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> One day Ahab spoke to Naboth, saying, "Give me your vineyard so I can use it as a kitchen garden; it's right next to my house--so convenient. In exchange I'll give you a far better vineyard, or if you'd prefer I'll pay you money for it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But Naboth told Ahab, "Not on your life! So help me GOD, I'd never sell the family farm to you!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Ahab went home in a black mood, sulking over Naboth the Jezreelite's words, "I'll never turn over my family inheritance to you." He went to bed, stuffed his face in his pillow, and refused to eat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Jezebel his wife came to him. She said, "What's going on? Why are you so out of sorts and refusing to eat?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He told her, "Because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite. I said, 'Give me your vineyard--I'll pay you for it or, if you'd rather, I'll give you another vineyard in exchange.' And he said, 'I'll never give you my vineyard.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Jezebel said, "Is this any way for a king of Israel to act? Aren't you the boss? On your feet! Eat! Cheer up! I'll take care of this; I'll get the vineyard of this Naboth the Jezreelite for you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> She wrote letters over Ahab's signature, stamped them with his official seal, and sent them to the elders in Naboth's city and to the civic leaders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> She wrote "Call for a fast day and put Naboth at the head table.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then seat a couple of stool pigeons across from him who, in front of everybody will say, 'You! You blasphemed God and the king!' Then they'll throw him out and stone him to death."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And they did it. The men of the city--the elders and civic leaders--followed Jezebel's instructions that she wrote in the letters sent to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They called for a fast day and seated Naboth at the head table.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then they brought in two stool pigeons and seated them opposite Naboth. In front of everybody the two degenerates accused him, "He blasphemed God and the king!" The company threw him out in the street, stoned him mercilessly, and he died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> When Jezebel got word that Naboth had been stoned to death, she told Ahab, "Go for it, Ahab--take the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite for your own, the vineyard he refused to sell you. Naboth is no more; Naboth is dead."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> (SEE 21:14)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The minute Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, he set out for the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite and claimed it for his own.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then GOD stepped in and spoke to Elijah the Tishbite,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "On your feet; go down and confront Ahab of Samaria, king of Israel. You'll find him in the vineyard of Naboth; he's gone there to claim it as his own.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Say this to him: 'GOD's word: What's going on here? First murder, then theft?' Then tell him, 'GOD's verdict: The very spot where the dogs lapped up Naboth's blood, they'll lap up your blood--that's right, your blood.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Ahab answered Elijah, "My enemy! So, you've run me down!" "Yes, I've found you out," said Elijah. "And because you've bought into the business of evil, defying GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> 'I will most certainly bring doom upon you, make mincemeat of your descendants, kill off every sorry male wretch who's even remotely connected with the name Ahab.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> And I'll bring down on you the same fate that fell on Jeroboam son of Nebat and Baasha son of Ahijah--you've made me that angry by making Israel sin.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> As for Jezebel, GOD said, "Dogs will fight over the flesh of Jezebel all over Jezreel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Anyone tainted by Ahab who dies in the city will be eaten by stray dogs; corpses in the country will be eaten by carrion crows."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Ahab, pushed by his wife Jezebel and in open defiance of GOD, set an all-time record in making big business of evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> He indulged in outrageous obscenities in the world of idols, copying the Amorites whom GOD had earlier kicked out of Israelite territory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> When Ahab heard what Elijah had to say, he ripped his clothes to shreds, dressed in penitential rough burlap, and fasted. He even slept in coarse burlap pajamas. He tiptoed around, quiet as a mouse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Then GOD spoke to Elijah the Tishbite:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "Do you see how penitently submissive Ahab has become to me? Because of his repentance I'll not bring the doom during his lifetime; Ahab's son, though, will get it."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="22">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> They enjoyed three years of peace--no fighting between Aram and Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> In the third year, Jehoshaphat king of Judah had a meeting with the king of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Israel's king remarked to his aides, "Do you realize that Ramoth Gilead belongs to us, and we're sitting around on our hands instead of taking it back from the king of Aram?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He turned to Jehoshaphat and said, "Will you join me in fighting for Ramoth Gilead?" Jehoshaphat said, "You bet. I'm with you all the way--my troops are your troops, my horses are your horses."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He then continued, "But before you do anything, ask GOD for guidance."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The king of Israel got the prophets together--all four hundred of them--and put the question to them: "Should I attack Ramoth Gilead? Or should I hold back?" "Go for it," they said. "GOD will hand it over to the king."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But Jehoshaphat dragged his heels: "Is there still another prophet of GOD around here we can consult?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The king of Israel told Jehoshaphat, "As a matter of fact, there is still one such man. But I hate him. He never preaches anything good to me, only doom, doom, doom--Micaiah son of Imlah." "The king shouldn't talk about a prophet like that," said Jehoshaphat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So the king of Israel ordered one of his men, "On the double! Get Micaiah son of Imlah."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Meanwhile, the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat were seated on their thrones, dressed in their royal robes, resplendent in front of the Samaria city gates. All the prophets were staging a prophecy-performance for their benefit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Zedekiah son of Kenaanah had even made a set of iron horns, and brandishing them called out, "GOD's word! With these horns you'll gore Aram until there's nothing left of him!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> All the prophets chimed in, "Yes! Go for Ramoth Gilead! An easy victory! GOD's gift to the king!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The messenger who went to get Micaiah said, "The prophets have all said Yes to the king. Make it unanimous--vote Yes!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But Micaiah said, "As surely as GOD lives, what GOD says, I'll say."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> With Micaiah before him, the king asked him, "So Micaiah--do we attack Ramoth Gilead, or do we hold back?" "Go ahead," he said. "An easy victory. GOD's gift to the king."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Not so fast," said the king. "How many times have I made you promise under oath to tell me the truth and nothing but the truth?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "All right," said Micaiah, "since you insist. I saw all of Israel scattered over the hills, sheep with no shepherd. Then GOD spoke: 'These poor people have no one to tell them what to do. Let them go home and do the best they can for themselves.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Then the king of Israel turned to Jehoshaphat, "See! What did I tell you? He never has a good word for me from GOD, only doom."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Micaiah kept on: "I'm not done yet; listen to GOD's word: I saw GOD enthroned, and all the angel armies of heaven Standing at attention ranged on his right and his left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And GOD said, 'How can we seduce Ahab into attacking Ramoth Gilead?' Some said this, and some said that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then a bold angel stepped out, stood before GOD, and said, 'I'll seduce him.' 'And how will you do it?' said GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> 'Easy,' said the angel, 'I'll get all the prophets to lie.' 'That should do it,' said GOD. 'On your way--seduce him!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "And that's what has happened. GOD filled the mouths of your puppet prophets with seductive lies. GOD has pronounced your doom."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Just then Zedekiah son of Kenaanah came up and punched Micaiah in the nose, saying, "Since when did the Spirit of GOD leave me and take up with you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Micaiah said, "You'll know soon enough; you'll know it when you're frantically and futilely looking for a place to hide."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The king of Israel had heard enough: "Get Micaiah out of here! Turn him over to Amon the city magistrate and to Joash the king's son</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> with this message, 'King's orders: Lock him up in jail; keep him on bread and water until I'm back in one piece.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Micaiah said, "If you ever get back in one piece, I'm no prophet of GOD." He added,"When it happens, O people, remember where you heard it!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah attacked Ramoth Gilead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, "Wear my kingly robe; I'm going into battle disguised." So the king of Israel entered the battle in disguise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Meanwhile, the king of Aram had ordered his chariot commanders (there were thirty-two of them): "Don't bother with anyone, whether small or great; go after the king of Israel and him only."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> When the chariot commanders saw Jehoshaphat they said, "There he is! The king of Israel!" and took after him. Jehoshaphat yelled out,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> and the chariot commanders realized they had the wrong man--it wasn't the king of Israel after all. They let him go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Just then someone, without aiming, shot an arrow randomly into the crowd and hit the king of Israel in the chink of his armor. The king told his charioteer, "Turn back! Get me out of here--I'm wounded."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> All day the fighting continued, hot and heavy. Propped up in his chariot, the king watched from the sidelines. He died that evening. Blood from his wound pooled in the chariot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> As the sun went down, shouts reverberated through the ranks, "Abandon camp! Head for home!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> The king is dead!" The king was brought to Samaria and there they buried him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> They washed down the chariot at the pool of Samaria where the town whores bathed, and the dogs lapped up the blood, just as GOD's word had said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> The rest of Ahab's life--everything he did, the ivory palace he built, the towns he founded, and the defense system he built up--is all written up in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> He was buried in the family cemetery and his son Ahaziah was the next king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Jehoshaphat son of Asa became king of Judah in the fourth year of Ahab king of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Jehoshaphat was thirty-five years old when he became king and he ruled for twenty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother was Azubah daughter of Shilhi.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> He continued the kind of life characteristic of his father Asa--no detours, no dead ends--pleasing GOD with his life. But he failed to get rid of the neighborhood sex-and-religion shrines. People continued to pray and worship at these idolatrous shrines.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> And he kept on good terms with the king of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> The rest of Jehoshaphat's life, his achievements and his battles, is all written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Also, he got rid of the sacred prostitutes left over from the days of his father Asa.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> Edom was kingless during his reign; a deputy was in charge.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> Jehoshaphat built ocean-going ships to sail to Ophir for gold. But they never made it; they shipwrecked at Ezion Geber.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> During that time Ahaziah son of Ahab proposed a joint shipping venture, but Jehoshaphat wouldn't go in with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Then Jehoshaphat died and was buried in the family cemetery in the City of David his ancestor. Jehoram his son was the next king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> Ahaziah son of Ahab became king over Israel in Samaria in the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah. He ruled Israel for two years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> As far as GOD was concerned, he lived an evil life, reproducing the bad life of his father and mother, repeating the pattern set down by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who led Israel into a life of sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> Worshiping at the Baal shrines, he made GOD, the God of Israel, angry, oh, so angry. If anything, he was worse than his father.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="12" bname="2 Kings">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> After Ahab died, Moab rebelled against Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> One day Ahaziah fell through the balcony railing on the rooftop of his house in Samaria and was injured. He sent messengers off to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron, "Am I going to recover from this accident?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> GOD's angel spoke to Elijah the Tishbite: "Up on your feet! Go out and meet the messengers of the king of Samaria with this word, 'Is it because there's no God in Israel that you're running off to consult Baal-Zebub god of Ekron?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Here's a message from the GOD you've tried to bypass: 'You're not going to get out of that bed you're in--you're as good as dead already.'" Elijah delivered the message and was gone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The messengers went back. The king said, "So why are you back so soon--what's going on?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They told him, "A man met us and said, 'Turn around and go back to the king who sent you; tell him, GOD's message: Is it because there's no God in Israel that you're running off to consult Baal-Zebub god of Ekron? You needn't bother. You're not going to get out of that bed you're in--you're as good as dead already.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The king said, "Tell me more about this man who met you and said these things to you. What was he like?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Shaggy," they said, "and wearing a leather belt." He said, "That has to be Elijah the Tishbite!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The king sent a captain with fifty men to Elijah. Meanwhile Elijah was sitting, big as life, on top of a hill. The captain said, "O Holy Man! King's orders: Come down!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Elijah answered the captain of the fifty, "If it's true that I'm a 'holy man,' lightning strike you and your fifty men!" Out of the blue lightning struck and incinerated the captain and his fifty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The king sent another captain with his fifty men, "O Holy Man! King's orders: Come down. And right now!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Elijah answered, "If it's true that I'm a 'holy man,' lightning strike you and your fifty men!" Immediately a divine lightning bolt struck and incinerated the captain and his fifty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The king then sent a third captain with his fifty men. For a third time, a captain with his fifty approached Elijah. This one fell on his knees in supplication: "O Holy Man, have respect for my life and the souls of these fifty men!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Twice now lightning from out of the blue has struck and incinerated captains with their fifty men; please, I beg you, respect my life!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The angel of GOD told Elijah, "Go ahead; and don't be afraid." Elijah got up and went down with him to the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Elijah told him, "GOD's word: Because you sent messengers to consult Baal-Zebub the god of Ekron, as if there were no God in Israel to whom you could pray, you'll never get out of that bed alive--already you're as good as dead."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And he died, exactly as GOD's word spoken by Elijah had said. Because Ahaziah had no son, his brother Joram became the next king. The succession took place in the second year of the reign of Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The rest of Ahaziah's life is recorded in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Just before GOD took Elijah to heaven in a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on a walk out of Gilgal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Elijah said to Elisha, "Stay here. GOD has sent me on an errand to Bethel." Elisha said, "Not on your life! I'm not letting you out of my sight!" So they both went to Bethel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The guild of prophets at Bethel met Elisha and said, "Did you know that GOD is going to take your master away from you today?" "Yes," he said, "I know it. But keep it quiet."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then Elijah said to Elisha, "Stay here. GOD has sent me on an errand to Jericho." Elisha said, "Not on your life! I'm not letting you out of my sight!" So they both went to Jericho.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The guild of prophets at Jericho came to Elisha and said, "Did you know that GOD is going to take your master away from you today?" "Yes," he said, "I know it. But keep it quiet."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then Elijah said to Elisha, "Stay here. GOD has sent me on an errand to the Jordan." Elisha said, "Not on your life! I'm not letting you out of my sight!" And so the two of them went their way together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Meanwhile, fifty men from the guild of prophets gathered some distance away while the two of them stood at the Jordan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Elijah took his cloak, rolled it up, and hit the water with it. The river divided and the two men walked through on dry land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When they reached the other side, Elijah said to Elisha, "What can I do for you before I'm taken from you? Ask anything." Elisha said, "Your life repeated in my life. I want to be a holy man just like you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "That's a hard one!" said Elijah. "But if you're watching when I'm taken from you, you'll get what you've asked for. But only if you're watching."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And so it happened. They were walking along and talking. Suddenly a chariot and horses of fire came between them and Elijah went up in a whirlwind to heaven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Elisha saw it all and shouted, "My father, my father! You--the chariot and cavalry of Israel!" When he could no longer see anything, he grabbed his robe and ripped it to pieces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then he picked up Elijah's cloak that had fallen from him, returned to the shore of the Jordan, and stood there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He took Elijah's cloak--all that was left of Elijah!--and hit the river with it, saying, "Now where is the GOD of Elijah? Where is he?" When he struck the water, the river divided and Elisha walked through.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The guild of prophets from Jericho saw the whole thing from where they were standing. They said, "The spirit of Elijah lives in Elisha!" They welcomed and honored him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They then said, "We're at your service. We have fifty reliable men here; let's send them out to look for your master. Maybe GOD's spirit has swept him off to some mountain or dropped him into a remote ravine." Elisha said, "No. Don't send them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But they pestered him until he caved in: "Go ahead then. Send them." So they sent the fifty men off. For three days they looked, searching high and low. Nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Finally, they returned to Elisha in Jericho. He told them, "So there--didn't I tell you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> One day the men of the city said to Elisha, "You can see for yourself, master, how well our city is located. But the water is polluted and nothing grows."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He said, "Bring me a brand-new bowl and put some salt in it." They brought it to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He then went to the spring, sprinkled the salt into it, and proclaimed, "GOD's word: I've healed this water. It will no longer kill you or poison your land."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> And sure enough, the water was healed--and remains so to this day, just as Elisha said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Another time, Elisha was on his way to Bethel and some little kids came out from the town and taunted him, "What's up, old baldhead! Out of our way, skinhead!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Elisha turned, took one look at them, and cursed them in the name of GOD. Two bears charged out of the underbrush and knocked them about, ripping them limb from limb--forty-two children in all!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Elisha went on to Mount Carmel, and then returned to Samaria.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Joram son of Ahab began his rule over Israel in Samaria in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah. He was king for twelve years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> In GOD's sight he was a bad king. But he wasn't as bad as his father and mother--to his credit he destroyed the obscene Baal stone that his father had made.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But he hung on to the sinful practices of Jeroboam son of Nebat, the ones that had corrupted Israel for so long. He wasn't about to give them up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> King Mesha of Moab raised sheep. He was forced to give the king of Israel one hundred thousand lambs and another hundred thousand rams.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When Ahab died, the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So King Joram set out from Samaria and prepared Israel for war.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> His first move was to send a message to Jehoshaphat king of Judah: "The king of Moab has rebelled against me. Would you join me and fight him?" "I'm with you all the way," said Jehoshaphat. "My troops are your troops, my horses are your horses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Which route shall we take?" "Through the badlands of Edom."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The king of Israel, the king of Judah, and the king of Edom started out on what proved to be a looping detour. After seven days they had run out of water for both army and animals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The king of Israel said, "Bad news! GOD has gotten us three kings out here to dump us into the hand of Moab."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But Jehoshaphat said, "Isn't there a prophet of GOD anywhere around through whom we can consult GOD?" One of the servants of the king of Israel said, "Elisha son of Shaphat is around somewhere--the one who was Elijah's right-hand man."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Jehoshaphat said, "Good! A man we can trust!" So the three of them--the king of Israel, Jehoshaphat, and the king of Edom--went to meet him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Elisha addressed the king of Israel, "What do you and I have in common? Go consult the puppet-prophets of your father and mother." "Never!" said the king of Israel. "It's GOD who has gotten us into this fix, dumping all three of us kings into the hand of Moab."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Elisha said, "As GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies lives, and before whom I stand ready to serve, if it weren't for the respect I have for Jehoshaphat king of Judah, I wouldn't give you the time of day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But considering--bring me a minstrel." (When a minstrel played, the power of GOD came on Elisha.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He then said, "GOD's word: Dig ditches all over this valley.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Here's what will happen--you won't hear the wind, you won't see the rain, but this valley is going to fill up with water and your army and your animals will drink their fill.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> This is easy for GOD to do; he will also hand over Moab to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> You will ravage the country: Knock out its fortifications, level the key villages, clear-cut the orchards, clog the springs, and litter the cultivated fields with stones."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> In the morning--it was at the hour of morning sacrifice--the water had arrived, water pouring in from the west, from Edom, a flash-flood filling the valley with water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> By this time everyone in Moab had heard that the kings had come up to make war against them. Everyone who was able to handle a sword was called into service and took a stand at the border.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> They were up and ready early in the morning when the sun rose over the water. From where the Moabites stood, the water reflecting the sun looked red, like blood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "Blood! Look at the blood!" they said. "The kings must have fought each other--a bloody massacre! Go for the loot, Moab!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> When Moab entered the camp of Israel, the Israelites were up on their feet killing Moabites right and left, the Moabites running for their lives, Israelites relentless in pursuit--a slaughter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> They leveled the towns, littered the cultivated fields with rocks, clogged the springs, and clear-cut the orchards. Only the capital, Kir Hareseth, was left intact, and that not for long; it too was surrounded and attacked with thrown and flung rocks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> When the king of Moab realized that he was fighting a losing battle, he took seven hundred swordsmen to hack a corridor past the king of Edom, but they didn't make it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Then he took his son, his firstborn who would succeed him as king, and sacrificed him on the city wall. That set off furious anger against Israel. Israel pulled back and returned home.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> One day the wife of a man from the guild of prophets called out to Elisha, "Your servant my husband is dead. You well know what a good man he was, devoted to GOD. And now the man to whom he was in debt is on his way to collect by taking my two children as slaves."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Elisha said, "I wonder how I can be of help. Tell me, what do you have in your house?" "Nothing," she said. "Well, I do have a little oil."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Here's what you do," said Elisha. "Go up and down the street and borrow jugs and bowls from all your neighbors. And not just a few--all you can get.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then come home and lock the door behind you, you and your sons. Pour oil into each container; when each is full, set it aside."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> She did what he said. She locked the door behind her and her sons; as they brought the containers to her, she filled them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When all the jugs and bowls were full, she said to one of her sons, "Another jug, please." He said, "That's it. There are no more jugs." Then the oil stopped.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> She went and told the story to the man of God. He said, "Go sell the oil and make good on your debts. Live, both you and your sons, on what's left."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> One day Elisha passed through Shunem. A leading lady of the town talked him into stopping for a meal. And then it became his custom: Whenever he passed through, he stopped by for a meal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "I'm certain," said the woman to her husband, "that this man who stops by with us all the time is a holy man of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Why don't we add on a small room upstairs and furnish it with a bed and desk, chair and lamp, so that when he comes by he can stay with us?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And so it happened that the next time Elisha came by he went to the room and lay down for a nap.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then he said to his servant Gehazi, "Tell the Shunammite woman I want to see her." He called her and she came to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Through Gehazi Elisha said, "You've gone far beyond the call of duty in taking care of us; what can we do for you? Do you have a request we can bring to the king or to the commander of the army?" She replied, "Nothing. I'm secure and satisfied in my family."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Elisha conferred with Gehazi: "There's got to be something we can do for her. But what?" Gehazi said, "Well, she has no son, and her husband is an old man."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Call her in," said Elisha. He called her and she stood at the open door.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Elisha said to her, "This time next year you're going to be nursing an infant son." "O my master, O Holy Man," she said, "don't play games with me, teasing me with such fantasies!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The woman conceived. A year later, just as Elisha had said, she had a son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The child grew up. One day he went to his father, who was working with the harvest hands,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> complaining, "My head, my head!" His father ordered a servant, "Carry him to his mother."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The servant took him in his arms and carried him to his mother. He lay on her lap until noon and died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> She took him up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, shut him in alone, and left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> She then called her husband, "Get me a servant and a donkey so I can go to the Holy Man; I'll be back as soon as I can."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "But why today? This isn't a holy day--it's neither New Moon nor Sabbath." She said, "Don't ask questions; I need to go right now. Trust me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> She went ahead and saddled the donkey, ordering her servant, "Take the lead--and go as fast as you can; I'll tell you if you're going too fast."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> And so off she went. She came to the Holy Man at Mount Carmel. The Holy Man, spotting her while she was still a long way off, said to his servant Gehazi, "Look out there; why, it's the Shunammite woman!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Quickly now. Ask her, 'Is something wrong? Are you all right? Your husband? Your child?'" She said, "Everything's fine."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> But when she reached the Holy Man at the mountain, she threw herself at his feet and held tightly to him. Gehazi came up to pull her away, but the Holy Man said, "Leave her alone--can't you see that she's in distress? But GOD hasn't let me in on why; I'm completely in the dark."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Then she spoke up: "Did I ask for a son, master? Didn't I tell you, 'Don't tease me with false hopes'?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> He ordered Gehazi, "Don't lose a minute--grab my staff and run as fast as you can. If you meet anyone, don't even take time to greet him, and if anyone greets you, don't even answer. Lay my staff across the boy's face."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The boy's mother said, "As sure as GOD lives and you live, you're not leaving me behind." And so Gehazi let her take the lead, and followed behind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> But Gehazi arrived first and laid the staff across the boy's face. But there was no sound--no sign of life. Gehazi went back to meet Elisha and said, "The boy hasn't stirred."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Elisha entered the house and found the boy stretched out on the bed dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> He went into the room and locked the door--just the two of them in the room--and prayed to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> He then got into bed with the boy and covered him with his body, mouth on mouth, eyes on eyes, hands on hands. As he was stretched out over him like that, the boy's body became warm.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Elisha got up and paced back and forth in the room. Then he went back and stretched himself upon the boy again. The boy started sneezing--seven times he sneezed!--and opened his eyes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> He called Gehazi and said, "Get the Shunammite woman in here!" He called her and she came in. Elisha said, "Embrace your son!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> She fell at Elisha's feet, face to the ground in reverent awe. Then she embraced her son and went out with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Elisha went back down to Gilgal. There was a famine there. While he was consulting with the guild of prophets, he told his servant, "Put a large pot on the fire and cook up some stew for the prophets."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> One of the men went out into the field to get some herbs; he came across a wild vine and picked gourds from it, filling his gunnysack. He brought them back, sliced them up, and put them in the stew, even though no one knew what kind of plant it was.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> The stew was then served up for the men to eat. They started to eat, and then exclaimed, "Death in the pot, O man of God! Death in the pot!" Nobody could eat it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Elisha ordered, "Get me some meal." Then he sprinkled it into the stew pot. "Now serve it up to the men," he said. They ate it, and it was just fine--nothing wrong with that stew!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> One day a man arrived from Baal Shalishah. He brought the man of God twenty loaves of fresh baked bread from the early harvest, along with a few apples from the orchard. Elisha said, "Pass it around to the people to eat."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> His servant said, "For a hundred men? There's not nearly enough!" Elisha said, "Just go ahead and do it. GOD says there's plenty."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> And sure enough, there was. He passed around what he had--they not only ate, but had leftovers.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Naaman was general of the army under the king of Aram. He was important to his master, who held him in the highest esteem because it was by him that GOD had given victory to Aram: a truly great man, but afflicted with a grievous skin disease.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> It so happened that Aram, on one of its raiding expeditions against Israel, captured a young girl who became a maid to Naaman's wife.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> One day she said to her mistress, "Oh, if only my master could meet the prophet of Samaria, he would be healed of his skin disease."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Naaman went straight to his master and reported what the girl from Israel had said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Well then, go," said the king of Aram. "And I'll send a letter of introduction to the king of Israel." So he went off, taking with him about 750 pounds of silver, 150 pounds of gold, and ten sets of clothes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Naaman delivered the letter to the king of Israel. The letter read, "When you get this letter, you'll know that I've personally sent my servant Naaman to you; heal him of his skin disease."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When the king of Israel read the letter, he was terribly upset, ripping his robe to pieces. He said, "Am I a god with the power to bring death or life that I get orders to heal this man from his disease? What's going on here? That king's trying to pick a fight, that's what!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Elisha the man of God heard what had happened, that the king of Israel was so distressed that he'd ripped his robe to shreds. He sent word to the king, "Why are you so upset, ripping your robe like this? Send him to me so he'll learn that there's a prophet in Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So Naaman with his horses and chariots arrived in style and stopped at Elisha's door.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Elisha sent out a servant to meet him with this message: "Go to the River Jordan and immerse yourself seven times. Your skin will be healed and you'll be as good as new."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Naaman lost his temper. He turned on his heel saying, "I thought he'd personally come out and meet me, call on the name of GOD, wave his hand over the diseased spot, and get rid of the disease.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The Damascus rivers, Abana and Pharpar, are cleaner by far than any of the rivers in Israel. Why not bathe in them? I'd at least get clean." He stomped off, mad as a hornet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But his servants caught up with him and said, "Father, if the prophet had asked you to do something hard and heroic, wouldn't you have done it? So why not this simple 'wash and be clean'?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> So he did it. He went down and immersed himself in the Jordan seven times, following the orders of the Holy Man. His skin was healed; it was like the skin of a little baby. He was as good as new.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He then went back to the Holy Man, he and his entourage, stood before him, and said, "I now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is no God anywhere on earth other than the God of Israel. In gratitude let me give you a gift."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "As GOD lives," Elisha replied, "the God whom I serve, I'll take nothing from you." Naaman tried his best to get him to take something, but he wouldn't do it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "If you won't take anything," said Naaman, "let me ask you for something: Give me a load of dirt, as much as a team of donkeys can carry, because I'm never again going to worship any god other than GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But there's one thing for which I need GOD's pardon: When my master, leaning on my arm, enters the shrine of Rimmon and worships there, and I'm with him there, worshiping Rimmon, may you see to it that GOD forgive me for this."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Elisha said, "Everything will be all right. Go in peace." But he hadn't gone far</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> when Gehazi, servant to Elisha the Holy Man, said to himself, "My master has let this Aramean Naaman slip through his fingers without so much as a thank-you. By the living GOD, I'm going after him to get something or other from him!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And Gehazi took off after Naaman. Naaman saw him running after him and jumped down from his chariot to greet him, "Is something wrong?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Nothing's wrong, but something's come up. My master sent me to tell you: 'Two young men just showed up from the hill country of Ephraim, brothers from the guild of the prophets. Supply their needs with a gift of seventy-five pounds of silver and a couple of sets of clothes.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Naaman said, "Of course, how about a hundred and fifty pounds?" Naaman insisted. He tied up the money in two sacks and gave him the two sets of clothes; he even gave him two servants to carry the gifts back with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> When they got to the fort on the hill, Gehazi took the gifts from the servants, stored them inside, then sent the servants back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> He returned and stood before his master. Elisha said, "So what have you been up to, Gehazi?" "Nothing much," he said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Elisha said, "Didn't you know I was with you in spirit when that man stepped down from his chariot to greet you? Tell me, is this a time to look after yourself, lining your pockets with gifts?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Naaman's skin disease will now infect you and your family, with no relief in sight." Gehazi walked away, his skin flaky and white like snow.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> One day the guild of prophets came to Elisha and said, "You can see that this place where we're living under your leadership is getting cramped--we have no elbow room.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Give us permission to go down to the Jordan where each of us will get a log. We'll build a roomier place." Elisha said, "Go ahead."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> One of them then said, "Please! Come along with us!" He said, "Certainly."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He went with them. They came to the Jordan and started chopping down trees.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> As one of them was felling a timber, his axhead flew off and sank in the river. "Oh no, master!" he cried out. "And it was borrowed!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The Holy Man said, "Where did it sink?" The man showed him the place. He cut off a branch and tossed it at the spot. The axhead floated up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Grab it," he said. The man reached out and took it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> One time when the king of Aram was at war with Israel, after consulting with his officers, he said, "At such and such a place I want an ambush set."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The Holy Man sent a message to the king of Israel: "Watch out when you're passing this place, because Aram has set an ambush there."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So the king of Israel sent word concerning the place of which the Holy Man had warned him. This kind of thing happened all the time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The king of Aram was furious over all this. He called his officers together and said, "Tell me, who is leaking information to the king of Israel? Who is the spy in our ranks?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But one of his men said, "No, my master, dear king. It's not any of us. It's Elisha the prophet in Israel. He tells the king of Israel everything you say, even what you whisper in your bedroom."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The king said, "Go and find out where he is. I'll send someone and capture him." The report came back, "He's in Dothan."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Then he dispatched horses and chariots, an impressive fighting force. They came by night and surrounded the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Early in the morning a servant of the Holy Man got up and went out. Surprise! Horses and chariots surrounding the city! The young man exclaimed, "Oh, master! What shall we do?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He said, "Don't worry about it--there are more on our side than on their side."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then Elisha prayed, "O GOD, open his eyes and let him see." The eyes of the young man were opened and he saw. A wonder! The whole mountainside full of horses and chariots of fire surrounding Elisha!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When the Arameans attacked, Elisha prayed to GOD, "Strike these people blind!" And GOD struck them blind, just as Elisha said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Then Elisha called out to them, "Not that way! Not this city! Follow me and I'll lead you to the man you're looking for." And he led them into Samaria.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> As they entered the city, Elisha prayed, "O GOD, open their eyes so they can see where they are." GOD opened their eyes. They looked around--they were trapped in Samaria!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> When the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, "Father, shall I massacre the lot?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Not on your life!" said Elisha. "You didn't lift a hand to capture them, and now you're going to kill them? No sir, make a feast for them and send them back to their master."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> So he prepared a huge feast for them. After they ate and drank their fill he dismissed them. Then they returned home to their master. The raiding bands of Aram didn't bother Israel anymore.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> At a later time, this: Ben-Hadad king of Aram pulled together his troops and launched a siege on Samaria.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> This brought on a terrible famine, so bad that food prices soared astronomically. Eighty shekels for a donkey's head! Five shekels for a bowl of field greens!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> One day the king of Israel was walking along the city wall. A woman cried out, "Help! Your majesty!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> He answered, "If GOD won't help you, where on earth can I go for help? To the granary? To the dairy?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The king continued, "Tell me your story." She said, "This woman came to me and said, 'Give up your son and we'll have him for today's supper; tomorrow we'll eat my son.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I told her, 'Your turn--bring your son so we can have him for supper.' But she had hidden her son away."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> When the king heard the woman's story he ripped apart his robe. Since he was walking on the city wall, everyone saw that next to his skin he was wearing coarse burlap.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> And he called out, "God do his worst to me--and more--if Elisha son of Shaphat still has a head on his shoulders at this day's end."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Elisha was sitting at home, the elders sitting with him. The king had already dispatched an executioner, but before the man arrived Elisha spoke to the elders: "Do you know that this murderer has just now sent a man to take off my head? Look, when the executioner arrives, shut the door and lock it. Don't I even now hear the footsteps of his master behind him?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> While he was giving his instructions, the king showed up, accusing, "This trouble is directly from GOD! And what's next? I'm fed up with GOD!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Elisha said, "Listen! GOD's word! The famine's over. This time tomorrow food will be plentiful--a handful of meal for a shekel; two handfuls of grain for a shekel. The market at the city gate will be buzzing."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The attendant on whom the king leaned for support said to the Holy Man, "You expect us to believe that? Trapdoors opening in the sky and food tumbling out?" "You'll watch it with your own eyes," he said, "but you will not eat so much as a mouthful!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> It happened that four lepers were sitting just outside the city gate. They said to one another, "What are we doing sitting here at death's door?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> If we enter the famine-struck city we'll die; if we stay here we'll die. So let's take our chances in the camp of Aram and throw ourselves on their mercy. If they receive us we'll live, if they kill us we'll die. We've got nothing to lose."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> So after the sun went down they got up and went to the camp of Aram. When they got to the edge of the camp, surprise! Not a man in the camp!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The Master had made the army of Aram hear the sound of horses and a mighty army on the march. They told one another, "The king of Israel hired the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to attack us!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Panicked, they ran for their lives through the darkness, abandoning tents, horses, donkeys--the whole camp just as it was--running for dear life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> These four lepers entered the camp and went into a tent. First they ate and drank. Then they grabbed silver, gold, and clothing, and went off and hid it. They came back, entered another tent, and looted it, again hiding their plunder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Finally they said to one another, "We shouldn't be doing this! This is a day of good news and we're making it into a private party! If we wait around until morning we'll get caught and punished. Come on! Let's go tell the news to the king's palace!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So they went and called out at the city gate, telling what had happened: "We went to the camp of Aram and, surprise!--the place was deserted. Not a soul, not a sound! Horses and donkeys left tethered and tents abandoned just as they were."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The gatekeepers got the word to the royal palace, giving them the whole story.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Roused in the middle of the night, the king told his servants, "Let me tell you what Aram has done. They knew that we were starving, so they left camp and have hid in the field, thinking, 'When they come out of the city, we'll capture them alive and take the city.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> One of his advisors answered, "Let some men go and take five of the horses left behind. The worst that can happen is no worse than what could happen to the whole city. Let's send them and find out what's happened."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They took two chariots with horses. The king sent them after the army of Aram with the orders, "Scout them out; find out what happened."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They went after them all the way to the Jordan. The whole way was strewn with clothes and equipment that Aram had dumped in their panicked flight. The scouts came back and reported to the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The people then looted the camp of Aram. Food prices dropped overnight--a handful of meal for a shekel; two handfuls of grain for a shekel--GOD's word to the letter!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The king ordered his attendant, the one he leaned on for support, to be in charge of the city gate. The people, turned into a mob, poured through the gate, trampling him to death. It was exactly what the Holy Man had said when the king had come to see him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Every word of the Holy Man to the king--"A handful of meal for a shekel, two handfuls of grain for a shekel this time tomorrow in the gate of Samaria,"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> with the attendant's sarcastic reply to the Holy Man, "You expect us to believe that? Trapdoors opening in the sky and food tumbling out?" followed by the response, "You'll watch it with your own eyes, but you won't eat so much as a mouthful"--proved true.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The final stroke came when the people trampled the man to death at the city gate.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Years before, Elisha had told the woman whose son he had brought to life, "Leave here and go, you and your family, and live someplace else. GOD has ordered a famine in the land; it will last for seven years."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The woman did what the Holy Man told her and left. She and her family lived as aliens in the country of Philistia for seven years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then, when the seven years were up, the woman and her family came back. She went directly to the king and asked for her home and farm.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The king was talking with Gehazi, servant to the Holy Man, saying, "Tell me some stories of the great things Elisha did."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> It so happened that as he was telling the king the story of the dead person brought back to life, the woman whose son was brought to life showed up asking for her home and farm. Gehazi said, "My master the king, this is the woman! And this is her son whom Elisha brought back to life!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The king wanted to know all about it, and so she told him the story. The king assigned an officer to take care of her, saying, "Make sure she gets everything back that's hers, plus all profits from the farm from the time she left until now."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Elisha traveled to Damascus. Ben-Hadad, king of Aram, was sick at the time. He was told, "The Holy Man is in town."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The king ordered Hazael, "Take a gift with you and go meet the Holy Man. Ask GOD through him, 'Am I going to recover from this sickness?'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Hazael went and met with Elisha. He brought with him every choice thing he could think of from Damascus--forty camel-loads of items! When he arrived he stood before Elisha and said, "Your son Ben-Hadad, king of Aram, sent me here to ask you, 'Am I going to recover from this sickness?'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Elisha answered, "Go and tell him, 'Don't worry; you'll live.' The fact is, though--GOD showed me--that he's doomed to die."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Elisha then stared hard at Hazael, reading his heart. Hazael felt exposed and dropped his eyes. Then the Holy Man wept.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Hazael said, "Why does my master weep?" "Because," said Elisha, "I know what you're going to do to the children of Israel: burn down their forts, murder their youth, smash their babies, rip open their pregnant women."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Hazael said, "Am I a mongrel dog that I'd do such a horrible thing?" "GOD showed me," said Elisha, "that you'll be king of Aram."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Hazael left Elisha and returned to his master, who asked, "So, what did Elisha tell you?" "He told me, 'Don't worry; you'll live.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But the very next day, someone took a heavy quilt, soaked it in water, covered the king's face, and suffocated him. Now Hazael was king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> In the fifth year of the reign of Joram son of Ahab king of Israel, Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah became king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He was thirty-two years old when he began his rule, and was king for eight years in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> He copied the way of life of the kings of Israel, marrying into the Ahab family and continuing the Ahab line of sin--from GOD's point of view, an evil man living an evil life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But despite that, because of his servant David, GOD was not ready to destroy Judah. He had, after all, promised to keep a lamp burning through David's descendants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> During Jehoram's reign, Edom revolted against Judah's rule and set up their own king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Jehoram responded by taking his army of chariots to Zair. Edom surrounded him, but in the middle of the night he and his charioteers broke through the lines and hit Edom hard. But his infantry deserted him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Edom continues in revolt against Judah right up to the present. Even little Libnah revolted at that time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The rest of the life and times of Jehoram, the record of his rule, is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Jehoram died and was buried in the family grave in the City of David. His son Ahaziah succeeded him as king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> In the twelfth year of the reign of Joram son of Ahab king of Israel, Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah began his reign.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king; he ruled only a year in Jerusalem. His mother was Athaliah, granddaughter of Omri king of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> He lived and ruled just like the Ahab family had done, continuing the same evil-in-GOD's-sight line of sin, related by both marriage and sin to the Ahab clan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> He joined Joram son of Ahab king of Israel in a war against Hazael king of Aram at Ramoth Gilead. The archers wounded Joram.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Joram pulled back to Jezreel to convalesce from the injuries he had received in the fight with Hazael. Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah paid a visit to Joram son of Ahab on his sickbed in Jezreel.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> One day Elisha the prophet ordered a member of the guild of prophets, "Get yourself ready, take a flask of oil, and go to Ramoth Gilead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Look for Jehu son of Jehoshaphat son of Nimshi. When you find him, get him away from his companions and take him to a back room.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Take your flask of oil and pour it over his head and say, 'GOD's word: I anoint you king over Israel.' Then open the door and get out of there as fast as you can. Don't wait around."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The young prophet went to Ramoth Gilead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> On arrival he found the army officers all sitting around. He said, "I have a matter of business with you, officer." Jehu said, "Which one of us?" "With you, officer."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He got up and went inside the building. The young prophet poured the oil on his head and said, "GOD's word, the God of Israel: I've anointed you to be king over the people of GOD, over Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Your assignment is to attack the regime of Ahab your master. I am avenging the massacre of my servants the prophets--yes, the Jezebel-massacre of all the prophets of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The entire line of Ahab is doomed. I'm wiping out the entire bunch of that sad lot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'll see to it that the family of Ahab experiences the same fate as the family of Jeroboam son of Nebat and the family of Baasha son of Ahijah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> As for Jezebel, the dogs will eat her carcass in the open fields of Jezreel. No burial for her!" Then he opened the door and made a run for it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Jehu went back out to his master's officers. They asked, "Is everything all right? What did that crazy fool want with you?" He said, "You know that kind of man--all talk."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "That's a lie!" they said. "Tell us what's going on." He said, "He told me this and this and this--in effect, 'GOD's word: I anoint you king of Israel!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They sprang into action. Each man grabbed his robe; they piled them at the top of the steps for a makeshift throne. Then they blew the trumpet and declared, "Jehu is king!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> That ignited the conspiracy of Jehu son of Jehoshaphat son of Nimshi against Joram. Meanwhile, Joram and the entire army were defending Ramoth Gilead against Hazael king of Aram.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Except that Joram had pulled back to Jezreel to convalesce from the injuries he got from the Arameans in the battle with Hazael king of Aram. Jehu said, "If you really want me as king, don't let anyone sneak out of the city and blab the news in Jezreel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Then Jehu mounted a chariot and rode to Jezreel, where Joram was in bed, resting. King Ahaziah of Judah had come down to visit Joram.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> A sentry standing duty on the watchtower in Jezreel saw the company of Jehu arrive. He said, "I see a band of men." Joram said, "Get a horseman and send him out to meet them and inquire, 'Is anything wrong?'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The horseman rode out to meet Jehu and said, "The king wants to know if there's anything wrong." Jehu said, "What's it to you whether things are right or wrong? Fall in behind me." The sentry said, "The messenger reached them, but he's not returning."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The king then sent a second horseman. When he reached them he said, "The king wants to know if there's anything wrong." Jehu said, "What's it to you whether things are right or wrong? Fall in behind me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The sentry said, "The messenger reached them, but he's not returning. The driving is like the driving of Jehu son of Nimshi--crazy!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Joram ordered, "Get my chariot ready!" They hitched up his chariot. Joram king of Israel and Ahaziah king of Judah, each in his own chariot, drove out to meet Jehu. They met in the field of Naboth of Jezreel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> When Joram saw Jehu he called out, "Good day, Jehu!" Jehu answered, "What's good about it? How can there be anything good about it as long as the promiscuous whoring and sorceries of your mother Jezebel pollute the country?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Joram wheeled his chariot around and fled, yelling to Ahaziah, "It's a trap, Ahaziah!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Jehu pulled on his bow and released an arrow; it hit Joram between the shoulder blades and went right through his heart. He slumped to his knees in his chariot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Jehu ordered Bidkar, his lieutenant, "Quick--throw him into the field of Naboth of Jezreel. Remember when you and I were driving our chariots behind Ahab his father? That's when GOD pronounced this doom upon him:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> 'As surely as I saw the blood of murdered Naboth and his sons yesterday, you'll pay for it on this exact piece of ground. GOD's word!' So take him and throw him out in the field. GOD's instructions carried out to the letter!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Ahaziah king of Judah saw what was going on and made his escape on the road toward Beth Haggan. Jehu chased him, yelling out, "Get him, too!" Jehu's troops shot and wounded him in his chariot on the hill up to Gur, near Ibleam. He was able to make it as far as Megiddo; there he died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> His aides drove on to Jerusalem. They buried him in the family plot in the City of David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> In the eleventh year of the reign of Joram son of Ahab, Ahaziah had become king of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> When Jezebel heard that Jehu had arrived in Jezreel, she made herself up--put on eyeshadow and arranged her hair--and posed seductively at the window.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> When Jehu came through the city gate, she called down, "So, how are things, 'Zimri,' you dashing king-killer?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Jehu looked up at the window and called, "Is there anybody up there on my side?" Two or three palace eunuchs looked out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> He ordered, "Throw her down!" They threw her out the window. Her blood spattered the wall and the horses, and Jehu trampled her under his horse's hooves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Then Jehu went inside and ate his lunch. During lunch he gave orders, "Take care of that damned woman; give her a decent burial--she is, after all, a king's daughter."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> They went out to bury her, but there was nothing left of her but skull, feet, and hands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> They came back and told Jehu. He said, "It's GOD's word, the word spoken by Elijah the Tishbite: In the field of Jezreel, dogs will eat Jezebel;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> The body of Jezebel will be like dog-droppings on the ground in Jezreel. Old friends and lovers will say, 'I wonder, is this Jezebel?'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Ahab had seventy sons still living in Samaria. Jehu wrote letters addressed to the officers of Jezreel, the city elders, and those in charge of Ahab's sons, and posted them to Samaria.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The letters read: This letter is fair warning. You're in charge of your master's children, chariots, horses, fortifications, and weapons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Pick the best and most capable of your master's sons and put him on the throne. Prepare to fight for your master's position.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They were absolutely terrified at the letter. They said, "Two kings have already been wiped out by him; what hope do we have?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> So they sent the warden of the palace, the mayor of the city, the elders, and the guardians to Jehu with this message: "We are your servants. Whatever you say, we'll do. We're not making anyone king here. You're in charge--do what you think best."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then Jehu wrote a second letter: If you are on my side and are willing to follow my orders, here's what you do: Decapitate the sons of your master and bring the heads to me by this time tomorrow in Jezreel. The king's sons numbered seventy. The leaders of the city had taken responsibility for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When they got the letter, they took the king's sons and killed all seventy. Then they put the heads in baskets and sent them to Jehu in Jezreel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> A messenger reported to Jehu: "They've delivered the heads of the king's sons." He said, "Stack them in two piles at the city gate until morning."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> In the morning Jehu came out, stood before the people, and addressed them formally: "Do you realize that this very day you are participants in GOD's righteous workings? True, I am the one who conspired against my master and assassinated him. But who, do you suppose, is responsible for this pile of skulls?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Know this for certain: Not a single syllable that GOD spoke in judgment on the family of Ahab is canceled; you're seeing it with your own eyes--GOD doing what, through Elijah, he said he'd do."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then Jehu proceeded to kill everyone who had anything to do with Ahab's family in Jezreel--leaders, friends, priests. He wiped out the entire lot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> That done, he brushed himself off and set out for Samaria. Along the way, at Beth Eked (Binding House) of the Shepherds,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> he met up with some relatives of Ahaziah king of Judah. Jehu said, "Who are you?" They said, "We're relatives of Ahaziah and we've come down to a reunion of the royal family."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Grab them!" ordered Jehu. They were taken and then massacred at the well of Beth Eked. Forty-two of them--no survivors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He went on from there and came upon Jehonadab the Recabite who was on his way to meet him. Greeting him, he said, "Are we together and of one mind in this?" Jehonadab said, "We are--count on me." "Then give me your hand," said Jehu. They shook hands on it and Jehonadab stepped up into the chariot with Jehu.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Come along with me," said Jehu, "and witness my zeal for GOD." Together they proceeded in the chariot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When they arrived in Samaria, Jehu massacred everyone left in Samaria who was in any way connected with Ahab--a mass execution, just as GOD had told Elijah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Next, Jehu got all the people together and addressed them: Ahab served Baal small-time; Jehu will serve him big-time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Get all the prophets of Baal here--everyone who served him, all his priests. Get everyone here; don't leave anyone out. I have a great sacrifice to offer Baal. If you don't show up, you won't live to tell about it." (Jehu was lying, of course. He planned to destroy all the worshipers of Baal.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Jehu ordered, "Make preparation for a holy convocation for Baal." They did and posted the date.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Jehu then summoned everyone in Israel. They came in droves--every worshiper of Baal in the country. Nobody stayed home. They came and packed the temple of Baal to capacity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Jehu directed the keeper of the wardrobe, "Get robes for all the servants of Baal." He brought out their robes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Jehu and Jehonadab the Recabite now entered the temple of Baal and said, "Double-check and make sure that there are no worshipers of GOD in here; only Baal-worshipers are allowed."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Then they launched the worship, making the sacrifices and burnt offerings. Meanwhile, Jehu had stationed eighty men outside with orders: "Don't let a single person escape; if you do, it's your life for his life."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> When Jehu had finished with the sacrificial solemnities, he signaled to the officers and guards, "Enter and kill! No survivors!" And the bloody slaughter began. The officers and guards threw the corpses outside and cleared the way to enter the inner shrine of Baal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> They hauled out the sacred phallic stone from the temple of Baal and pulverized it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> They smashed the Baal altars and tore down the Baal temple. It's been a public toilet ever since.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> And that's the story of Jehu's wasting of Baal in Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> But for all that, Jehu didn't turn back from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, the sins that had dragged Israel into a life of sin--the golden calves in Bethel and Dan stayed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> GOD commended Jehu: "You did well to do what I saw was best. You did what I ordered against the family of Ahab. As reward, your sons will occupy the throne of Israel for four generations."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Even then, though, Jehu wasn't careful to walk in GOD's ways and honor the God of Israel from an undivided heart. He didn't turn back from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who led Israel into a life of sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> It was about this time that GOD began to shrink Israel. Hazael hacked away at the borders of Israel</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> from the Jordan to the east--all the territory of Gilead, Gad, Reuben, and Manasseh from Aroer near the Brook Arnon. In effect, all Gilead and Bashan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The rest of the life and times of Jehu, his accomplishments and fame, are written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Jehu died and was buried in the family plot in Samaria. His son Jehoahaz was the next king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Jehu ruled Israel from Samaria for twenty-eight years.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Athaliah was the mother of Ahaziah. When she saw that her son was dead, she took over. She began by massacring the entire royal family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> But Jehosheba, daughter of King Joram and sister of Ahaziah, took Ahaziah's son Joash and kidnapped him from among the king's sons slated for slaughter. She hid him and his nurse in a private room away from Athaliah. He didn't get killed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He was there with her, hidden away for six years in The Temple of GOD. Athaliah, oblivious to his existence, ruled the country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> In the seventh year Jehoiada sent for the captains of the bodyguards and the Palace Security Force. They met him in The Temple of GOD. He made a covenant with them, swore them to secrecy, and only then showed them the young prince.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then he commanded them, "These are your instructions: Those of you who come on duty on the Sabbath and guard the palace, and those of you who go off duty on the Sabbath and guard The Temple of GOD, are to join forces at the time of the changing of the guard and form a ring around the young king, weapons at the ready. Kill anyone who tries to break through your ranks. Your job is to stay with the king at all times and places, coming and going."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> (SEE 11:5)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> (SEE 11:5)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> (SEE 11:5)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The captains obeyed the orders of Jehoiada the priest. Each took his men, those who came on duty on the Sabbath and those who went off duty on the Sabbath, and presented them to Jehoiada the priest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The priest armed the officers with spears and shields originally belonging to King David, stored in The Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Well-armed, the guards took up their assigned positions for protecting the king, from one end of The Temple to the other, surrounding both Altar and Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then the priest brought the prince into view, crowned him, handed him the scroll of God's covenant, and made him king. As they anointed him, everyone applauded and shouted, "Long live the king!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Athaliah heard the shouting of guards and people and came to the crowd gathered at The Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Astonished, she saw the king standing beside the throne, flanked by the captains and heralds, with everybody beside themselves with joy, trumpets blaring. Athaliah ripped her robes in dismay and shouted, "Treason! Treason!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Jehoiada the priest ordered the military officers, "Drag her outside and kill anyone who tries to follow her!" (The priest had said, "Don't kill her inside The Temple of GOD.")</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So they dragged her out to the palace's horse corral; there they killed her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Jehoiada now made a covenant between GOD and the king and the people: They were GOD's people. Another covenant was made between the king and the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The people poured into the temple of Baal and tore it down, smashing altar and images to smithereens. They killed Mattan the priest in front of the altar. Jehoiada then stationed sentries in The Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He arranged for the officers of the bodyguard and the palace security, along with the people themselves, to escort the king down from The Temple of GOD through the Gate of the Guards and into the palace. There he sat on the royal throne.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Everybody celebrated the event. And the city was safe and undisturbed--they had killed Athaliah with the royal sword.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Joash was seven years old when he became king.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the seventh year of Jehu, Joash began his kingly rule. He was king for forty years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Gazelle. She was from Beersheba.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Taught and trained by Jehoiada the priest, Joash did what pleased GOD for as long as he lived.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> (Even so, he didn't get rid of the sacred fertility shrines--people still frequented them, sacrificing and burning incense.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Joash instructed the priests: "Take the money that is brought into The Temple of GOD for holy offerings--both mandatory offerings and freewill offerings--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> and, keeping a careful accounting, use them to renovate The Temple wherever it has fallen into disrepair."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But by the twenty-third year of Joash's rule, the priests hadn't done one thing--The Temple was as dilapidated as ever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> King Joash called Jehoiada the priest and the company of priests and said, "Why haven't you renovated this sorry-looking Temple? You are forbidden to take any more money for Temple repairs--from now on, hand over everything you get."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The priests agreed not to take any more money or to be involved in The Temple renovation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then Jehoiada took a single chest and bored a hole in the lid and placed it to the right of the main entrance into The Temple of GOD. All the offerings that were brought to The Temple of GOD were placed in the chest by the priests who guarded the entrance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When they saw that a large sum of money had accumulated in the chest, the king's secretary and the chief priest would empty the chest and count the offerings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They would give the money accounted for to the managers of The Temple project; they in turn would pay the carpenters, construction workers,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> masons, stoneworkers, and the buyers of timber and quarried stone for the repair and renovation of The Temple of GOD--any expenses connected with fixing up The Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But none of the money brought into The Temple of GOD was used for liturgical "extras" (silver chalices, candle snuffers, trumpets, various gold and silver vessels, etc.).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> It was given to the workmen to pay for their repairing GOD's Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And no one even had to check on the men who handled the money given for the project--they were honest men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Offerings designated for Compensation Offerings and Absolution Offerings didn't go into the building project--those went directly to the priests.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Around this time Hazael king of Aram ventured out and attacked Gath, and he captured it. Then he decided to try for Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Joash king of Judah countered by gathering up all the sacred memorials--gifts dedicated for holy use by his ancestors, the kings of Judah, Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, along with the holy memorials he himself had received, plus all the gold that he could find in the temple and palace storerooms--and sent it to Hazael king of Aram. Appeased, Hazael went on his way and didn't bother Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The rest of the life and times of Joash and all that he did are written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> At the last his palace staff formed a conspiracy and assassinated Joash as he was strolling along the ramp of the fortified outside city wall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Jozabad son of Shimeath and Jehozabad son of Shomer were the assassins. And so Joash died and was buried in the family plot in the City of David. His son Amaziah was king after him.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the twenty-third year of Joash son of Ahaziah king of Judah, Jehoahaz son of Jehu became king of Israel in Samaria--a rule of seventeen years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He lived an evil life before GOD, walking step for step in the tracks of Jeroboam son of Nebat who led Israel into a life of sin, swerving neither left or right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Exasperated, GOD was furious with Israel and turned them over to Hazael king of Aram and Ben-Hadad son of Hazael. This domination went on for a long time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then Jehoahaz prayed for a softening of GOD's anger, and GOD listened. He realized how wretched Israel had become under the brutalities of the king of Aram.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> So GOD provided a savior for Israel who brought them out from under Aram's oppression. The children of Israel were again able to live at peace in their own homes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But it didn't make any difference: They didn't change their lives, didn't turn away from the Jeroboam-sins that now characterized Israel, including the sex-and-religion shrines of Asherah still flourishing in Samaria.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Nothing was left of Jehoahaz's army after Hazael's oppression except for fifty cavalry, ten chariots, and ten thousand infantry. The king of Aram had decimated the rest, leaving behind him mostly chaff.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The rest of the life and times of Jehoahaz, the record of his accomplishments, are written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Jehoahaz died and was buried with his ancestors in Samaria. His son Jehoash succeeded him as king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> In the thirty-seventh year of Joash king of Judah, Jehoash son of Jehoahaz became king of Israel in Samaria--a reign of sixteen years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> In GOD's eyes he lived an evil life. He didn't deviate one bit from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who led Israel into a life of sin. He plodded along in the same tracks, step after step.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The rest of the life and times of Jehoash, the record of his accomplishments and his war against Amaziah king of Judah, are written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Jehoash died and joined his ancestors. Jeroboam took over his throne. Jehoash was buried in Samaria in the royal cemetery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Elisha came down sick. It was the sickness of which he would soon die. Jehoash king of Israel paid him a visit. When he saw him he wept openly, crying, "My father, my father! Chariot and horsemen of Israel!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Elisha told him, "Go and get a bow and some arrows." The king brought him the bow and arrows.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Then he told the king, "Put your hand on the bow." He put his hand on the bow. Then Elisha put his hand over the hand of the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Elisha said, "Now open the east window." He opened it. Then he said, "Shoot!" And he shot. "The arrow of GOD's salvation!" exclaimed Elisha. "The arrow of deliverance from Aram! You will do battle against Aram until there's nothing left of it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Now pick up the other arrows," said Elisha. He picked them up. Then he said to the king of Israel, "Strike the ground." The king struck the ground three times and then quit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The Holy Man became angry with him: "Why didn't you hit the ground five or six times? Then you would beat Aram until he was finished. As it is, you'll defeat him three times only."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Then Elisha died and they buried him. Some time later, raiding bands of Moabites, as they often did, invaded the country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> One day, some men were burying a man and spotted the raiders. They threw the man into Elisha's tomb and got away. When the body touched Elisha's bones, the man came alive, stood up, and walked out on his own two feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Hazael king of Aram badgered and bedeviled Israel all through the reign of Jehoahaz.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But GOD was gracious and showed mercy to them. He stuck with them out of respect for his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He never gave up on them, never even considered discarding them, even to this day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Hazael king of Aram died. His son Ben-Hadad was the next king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Jehoash son of Jehoahaz turned things around and took back the cities that Ben-Hadad son of Hazael had taken from his father Jehoahaz. Jehoash went to war three times and defeated him each time, recapturing the cites of Israel.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the second year of Jehoash son of Jehoahaz king of Israel, Amaziah son of Joash became king of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He was twenty-five years old when he became king and he reigned for twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Jehoaddin. She was from Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He lived the way GOD wanted and did the right thing. But he didn't come up to the standards of his ancestor David; instead he lived pretty much as his father Joash had;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> the local sex-and-religion shrines continued to stay in business with people frequenting them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When he had the affairs of the kingdom well in hand, he executed the palace guard that had assassinated his father the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But he didn't kill the sons of the assassins. He was obedient to what GOD commanded, written in the Word revealed to Moses, that parents shouldn't be executed for their children's sins, nor children for those of their parents. We each pay personally for our sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Amaziah roundly defeated Edom in the Valley of Salt to the tune of ten thousand dead. In another battle he took The Rock and renamed it Joktheel, the name it still bears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> One day Amaziah sent envoys to Jehoash son of Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, king of Israel, challenging him to a fight: "Come and meet with me--I dare you. Let's have it out face to face!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Jehoash king of Israel replied to Amaziah king of Judah, "One day a thistle in Lebanon sent word to a cedar in Lebanon, 'Give your daughter to my son in marriage.' But then a wild animal of Lebanon passed by and stepped on the thistle, crushing it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Just because you've defeated Edom in battle, you now think you're a big shot. Go ahead and be proud, but stay home. Why press your luck? Why bring defeat on yourself and Judah?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Amaziah wouldn't take No for an answer. So Jehoash king of Israel gave in and agreed to a battle between him and Amaziah king of Judah. They met at Beth Shemesh, a town of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Judah was thoroughly beaten by Israel--all their soldiers ran home in defeat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Jehoash king of Israel captured Amaziah king of Judah, the son of Joash, the son of Ahaziah, at Beth Shemesh. But Jehoash didn't stop there; he went on to attack Jerusalem. He demolished the wall of Jerusalem all the way from the Ephraim Gate to the Corner Gate--a stretch of about 600 feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He looted the gold, silver, and furnishings--anything he found that was worth taking--from both the palace and The Temple of GOD. And, for good measure, he took hostages. Then he returned to Samaria.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The rest of the life and times of Jehoash, his significant accomplishments and the fight with Amaziah king of Judah, are all written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Jehoash died and was buried in Samaria in the cemetery of the kings of Israel. His son Jeroboam became the next king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah continued as king fifteen years after the death of Jehoash son of Jehoahaz king of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The rest of the life and times of Amaziah is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> At the last they cooked up a plot against Amaziah in Jerusalem and he had to flee to Lachish. But they tracked him down in Lachish and killed him there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> They brought him back on horseback and buried him in Jerusalem, with his ancestors in the City of David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Azariah--he was only sixteen years old at the time--was the unanimous choice of the people of Judah to succeed his father Amaziah as king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Following his father's death, he rebuilt and restored Elath to Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> In the fifteenth year of Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah, Jeroboam son of Jehoash became king of Israel in Samaria. He ruled for forty-one years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> As far as GOD was concerned he lived an evil life, never deviating an inch from all the sin of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who led Israel into a life of sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> But he did restore the borders of Israel to Lebo Hamath in the far north and to the Dead Sea in the south, matching what GOD, the God of Israel, had pronounced through his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> GOD was fully aware of the trouble in Israel, its bitterly hard times. No one was exempt, whether slave or citizen, and no hope of help anywhere was in sight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> But GOD wasn't yet ready to blot out the name of Israel from history, so he used Jeroboam son of Jehoash to save them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The rest of the life and times of Jeroboam, his victories in battle and how he recovered for Israel both Damascus and Hamath which had belonged to Judah, these are all written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Jeroboam died and was buried with his ancestors in the royal cemetery. His son Zechariah became the next king.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Azariah son of Amaziah became king in Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He was sixteen years old when he began his rule and he was king for fifty-two years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Jecoliah. She was from Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He did well in the eyes of GOD, following in the footsteps of his father Amaziah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But he also failed to get rid of the local sex-and-religion shrines; they continued to be popular with the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD afflicted the king with a bad skin disease until the day of his death. He lived in the palace but no longer acted as king; his son Jotham ran the government and ruled the country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The rest of the life and times of Azariah, everything he accomplished, is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Azariah died and was buried with his ancestors in the City of David. Jotham his son was king after him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> In the thirty-eighth year of Azariah king of Judah, Zechariah son of Jeroboam became king over Israel in Samaria. He lasted only six months.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He lived a bad life before GOD, no different from his ancestors. He continued in the line of Jeroboam son of Nebat who led Israel into a life of sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Shallum son of Jabesh conspired against him, assassinated him in public view, and took over as king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The rest of the life and times of Zechariah is written plainly in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> That completed the word of GOD that was given to Jehu, namely, "For four generations your sons will sit on the throne of Israel." Zechariah was the fourth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Shallum son of Jabesh became king in the thirty-ninth year of Azariah king of Judah. He was king in Samaria for only a month.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Menahem son of Gadi came up from Tirzah to Samaria. He attacked Shallum son of Jabesh and killed him. He then became king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The rest of the life and times of Shallum and the account of the conspiracy are written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Using Tirzah as his base, Menahem opened his reign by smashing Tiphsah, devastating both the town and its suburbs because they didn't welcome him with open arms. He savagely ripped open all the pregnant women.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> In the thirty-ninth year of Azariah king of Judah, Menahem son of Gadi became king over Israel. He ruled from Samaria for ten years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> As far as GOD was concerned he lived an evil life. Sin for sin, he repeated the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who led Israel into a life of sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Then Tiglath-Pileser III king of Assyria showed up and attacked the country. But Menahem made a deal with him: He bought his support by handing over about thirty-seven tons of silver.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He raised the money by making every landowner in Israel pay fifty shekels to the king of Assyria. That satisfied the king of Assyria, and he left the country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The rest of the life and times of Menahem, everything he did, is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Menahem died and joined his ancestors. His son Pekahiah became the next king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> In the fiftieth year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekahiah son of Menahem became king of Israel. He ruled in Samaria for two years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> In GOD's eyes he lived an evil life. He stuck to the old sin tracks of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who led Israel into a life of sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> And then his military aide Pekah son of Remaliah conspired against him--killed him in cold blood while he was in his private quarters in the royal palace in Samaria. He also killed Argob and Arieh. Fifty Gadites were in on the conspiracy with him. After the murder he became the next king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The rest of the life and times of Pekahiah, everything he did, is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> In the fifty-second year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekah son of Remaliah became king of Israel in Samaria. He ruled for twenty years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> In GOD's view he lived an evil life; he didn't deviate so much as a hair's breadth from the path laid down by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who led Israel into a life of sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> During the reign of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-Pileser III king of Assyria invaded the country. He captured Ijon, Abel Beth Maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, Galilee--the whole country of Naphtali--and took everyone captive to Assyria.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> But then Hoshea son of Elah mounted a conspiracy against Pekah son of Remaliah. He assassinated him and took over as king. This was in the twentieth year of Jotham son of Uzziah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The rest of the life and times of Pekah, everything he did, is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> In the second year of Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel, Jotham son of Uzziah became king in Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> He was twenty-five years old when he became king and reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Jerusha daughter of Zadok.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> He acted well in GOD's eyes, following in the steps of his father Uzziah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> But he didn't interfere with the traffic to the neighborhood sex-and-religion shrines; they continued, as popular as ever. The construction of the High Gate to The Temple of GOD was his work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> The rest of the life and times of Jotham, the record of his work, is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> It was during these years that GOD began sending Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah to attack Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Jotham died and joined his ancestors. They buried him in the family cemetery in the City of David. His son Ahaz was the next king.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the seventeenth year of Pekah son of Remaliah, Ahaz son of Jotham became king of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king and he ruled for sixteen years in Jerusalem. He didn't behave in the eyes of his GOD; he wasn't at all like his ancestor David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Instead he followed in the track of the kings of Israel. He even indulged in the outrageous practice of "passing his son through the fire"--a truly abominable act he picked up from the pagans GOD had earlier thrown out of the country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He also participated in the activities of the neighborhood sex-and-religion shrines that flourished all over the place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel ganged up against Jerusalem, throwing a siege around the city, but they couldn't make further headway against Ahaz.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> At about this same time and on another front, the king of Edom recovered the port of Elath and expelled the men of Judah. The Edomites occupied Elath and have been there ever since.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Ahaz sent envoys to Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria with this message: "I'm your servant and your son. Come and save me from the heavy-handed invasion of the king of Aram and the king of Israel. They're attacking me right now."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then Ahaz robbed the treasuries of the palace and The Temple of GOD of their gold and silver and sent them to the king of Assyria as a bribe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The king of Assyria responded to him. He attacked and captured Damascus. He deported the people to Nineveh as exiles. Rezin he killed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> King Ahaz went to meet Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria in Damascus. The altar in Damascus made a great impression on him. He sent back to Uriah the priest a drawing and set of blueprints of the altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Uriah the priest built the altar to the specifications that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus. By the time the king returned from Damascus, Uriah had completed the altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The minute the king saw the altar he approached it with reverence and arranged a service of worship with a full course of offerings:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Whole-Burnt-Offerings with billows of smoke, Grain-Offerings, libations of Drink-Offerings, the sprinkling of blood from the Peace-Offerings--the works.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But the old bronze Altar that signaled the presence of GOD he displaced from its central place and pushed it off to the side of his new altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Then King Ahaz ordered Uriah the priest: "From now on offer all the sacrifices on the new altar, the great altar: morning Whole-Burnt-Offerings, evening Grain-Offerings, the king's Whole-Burnt-Offerings and Grain-Offerings, the people's Whole-Burnt-Offerings and Grain-Offerings, and also their Drink-Offerings. Splash all the blood from the burnt offerings and sacrifices against this altar. The old bronze Altar will be for my personal use.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The priest Uriah followed King Ahaz's orders to the letter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then King Ahaz proceeded to plunder The Temple furniture of all its bronze. He stripped the bronze from The Temple furnishings, even salvaged the four bronze oxen that supported the huge basin, The Sea, and set The Sea unceremoniously on the stone pavement.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Finally, he removed any distinctive features from within The Temple that were offensive to the king of Assyria.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The rest of the life and times of Ahaz is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Ahaz died and was buried with his ancestors in the City of David. His son Hezekiah became the next king.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="17">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea son of Elah became king of Israel. He ruled in Samaria for nine years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> As far as GOD was concerned, he lived a bad life, but not nearly as bad as the kings who had preceded him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then Shalmaneser king of Assyria attacked. Hoshea was already a puppet of the Assyrian king and regularly sent him tribute,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> but Shalmaneser discovered that Hoshea had been operating traitorously behind his back--having worked out a deal with King So of Egypt. And, adding insult to injury, Hoshea was way behind on his annual payments of tribute to Assyria. So the king of Assyria arrested him and threw him in prison,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> then proceeded to invade the entire country. He attacked Samaria and threw up a siege against it. The siege lasted three years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> In the ninth year of Hoshea's reign the king of Assyria captured Samaria and took the people into exile in Assyria. He relocated them in Halah, in Gozan along the Habor River, and in the towns of the Medes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The exile came about because of sin: The children of Israel sinned against GOD, their God, who had delivered them from Egypt and the brutal oppression of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They took up with other gods,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> fell in with the ways of life of the pagan nations GOD had chased off, and went along with whatever their kings did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They did all kinds of things on the sly, things offensive to their GOD, then openly and shamelessly built local sex-and-religion shrines at every available site.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They set up their sex-and-religion symbols at practically every crossroads.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Everywhere you looked there was smoke from their pagan offerings to the deities--the identical offerings that had gotten the pagan nations off into exile. They had accumulated a long list of evil actions and GOD was fed up,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> fed up with their persistent worship of gods carved out of deadwood or shaped out of clay, even though GOD had plainly said, "Don't do this--ever!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> GOD had taken a stand against Israel and Judah, speaking clearly through countless holy prophets and seers time and time again, "Turn away from your evil way of life. Do what I tell you and have been telling you in The Revelation I gave your ancestors and of which I've kept reminding you ever since through my servants the prophets."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But they wouldn't listen. If anything, they were even more bullheaded than their stubborn ancestors, if that's possible.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They were contemptuous of his instructions, the solemn and holy covenant he had made with their ancestors, and of his repeated reminders and warnings. They lived a "nothing" life and became "nothings"--just like the pagan peoples all around them. They were well-warned: GOD said, "Don't!" but they did it anyway.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They threw out everything GOD, their God, had told them, and replaced him with two statue-gods shaped like bull-calves and then a phallic pole for the whore goddess Asherah. They worshiped cosmic forces--sky gods and goddesses--and frequented the sex-and-religion shrines of Baal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> They even sank so low as to offer their own sons and daughters as sacrificial burnt offerings! They indulged in all the black arts of magic and sorcery. In short, they prostituted themselves to every kind of evil available to them. And GOD had had enough.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> GOD was so thoroughly angry that he got rid of them, got them out of the country for good until only one tribe was left--Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> (Judah, actually, wasn't much better, for Judah also failed to keep GOD's commands, falling into the same way of life that Israel had adopted.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> GOD rejected everyone connected with Israel, made life hard for them, and permitted anyone with a mind to exploit them to do so. And then this final No as he threw them out of his sight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Back at the time that God ripped Israel out of their place in the family of David, they had made Jeroboam son of Nebat king. Jeroboam debauched Israel--turned them away from serving GOD and led them into a life of total sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The children of Israel went along with all the sins that Jeroboam did, never murmured so much as a word of protest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> In the end, GOD spoke a final No to Israel and turned his back on them. He had given them fair warning, and plenty of time, through the preaching of all his servants the prophets. Then he exiled Israel from her land to Assyria. And that's where they are now.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The king of Assyria brought in people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and relocated them in the towns of Samaria, replacing the exiled Israelites. They moved in as if they owned the place and made themselves at home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> When the Assyrians first moved in, GOD was just another god to them; they neither honored nor worshiped him. Then GOD sent lions among them and people were mauled and killed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> This message was then sent back to the king of Assyria: "The people you brought in to occupy the towns of Samaria don't know what's expected of them from the god of the land, and now he's sent lions and they're killing people right and left because nobody knows what the god of the land expects of them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The king of Assyria ordered, "Send back some priests who were taken into exile from there. They can go back and live there and instruct the people in what the god of the land expects of them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> One of the priests who had been exiled from Samaria came back and moved into Bethel. He taught them how to honor and worship GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> But each people that Assyria had settled went ahead anyway making its own gods and setting them up in the neighborhood sex-and-religion shrines that the citizens of Samaria had left behind--a local custom-made god for each people:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> for Babylon, Succoth Benoth; for Cuthah, Nergal; for Hamath, Ashima;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> for Avva, Nibhaz and Tartak; for Sepharvaim, Adrammelech and Anammelech (people burned their children in sacrificial offerings to these gods!).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> They honored and worshiped GOD, but not exclusively--they also appointed all sorts of priests, regardless of qualification, to conduct a variety of rites at the local fertility shrines.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> They honored and worshiped GOD, but they also kept up their devotions to the old gods of the places they had come from.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> And they're still doing it, still worshiping any old god that has nostalgic appeal to them. They don't really worship GOD--they don't take seriously what he says regarding how to behave and what to believe, what he revealed to the children of Jacob whom he named Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> GOD made a covenant with his people and ordered them, "Don't honor other gods: Don't worship them, don't serve them, don't offer sacrifices to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Worship GOD, the God who delivered you from Egypt in great and personal power. Reverence and fear him. Worship him. Sacrifice to him. And only him!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> All the things he had written down for you, directing you in what to believe and how to behave--well, do them for as long as you live. And whatever you do, don't worship other gods!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> And the covenant he made with you, don't forget your part in that. And don't worship other gods!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Worship GOD, and GOD only--he's the one who will save your from enemy oppression."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> But they didn't pay any attention. They kept doing what they'd always done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> As it turned out, all the time these people were putting on a front of worshiping GOD, they were at the same time involved with their local idols. And they're still doing it. Like father, like son.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="18">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz began his rule over Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He was twenty-five years old when he became king and he ruled for twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> In GOD's opinion he was a good king; he kept to the standards of his ancestor David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He got rid of the local fertility shrines, smashed the phallic stone monuments, and cut down the sex-and-religion Asherah groves. As a final stroke he pulverized the ancient bronze serpent that Moses had made; at that time the Israelites had taken up the practice of sacrificing to it--they had even dignified it with a name, Nehushtan (The Old Serpent).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Hezekiah put his whole trust in the GOD of Israel. There was no king quite like him, either before or after.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He held fast to GOD--never loosened his grip--and obeyed to the letter everything GOD had commanded Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And GOD, for his part, held fast to him through all his adventures. He revolted against the king of Assyria; he refused to serve him one more day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And he drove back the Philistines, whether in sentry outposts or fortress cities, all the way to Gaza and its borders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> In the fourth year of Hezekiah and the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria attacked Samaria. He threw a siege around it</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> and after three years captured it. It was in the sixth year of Hezekiah and the ninth year of Hoshea that Samaria fell to Assyria.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The king of Assyria took Israel into exile and relocated them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River, and in towns of the Medes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> All this happened because they wouldn't listen to the voice of their GOD and treated his covenant with careless contempt. They refused either to listen or do a word of what Moses, the servant of GOD, commanded.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the outlying fortress cities of Judah and captured them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> King Hezekiah sent a message to the king of Assyria at his headquarters in Lachish: "I've done wrong; I admit it. Pull back your army; I'll pay whatever tribute you set." The king of Assyria demanded tribute from Hezekiah king of Judah--eleven tons of silver and a ton of gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Hezekiah turned over all the silver he could find in The Temple of GOD and in the palace treasuries.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Hezekiah even took down the doors of The Temple of GOD and the doorposts that he had overlaid with gold and gave them to the king of Assyria.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> So the king of Assyria sent his top three military chiefs (the Tartan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshakeh) from Lachish with a strong military force to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem. When they arrived at Jerusalem, they stopped at the aqueduct of the Upper Pool on the road to the laundry commons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They called loudly for the king. Eliakim son of Hilkiah who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the royal secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the court historian went out to meet them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The third officer, the Rabshakeh, was spokesman. He said, "Tell Hezekiah: A message from The Great King, the king of Assyria: You're living in a world of make-believe, of pious fantasy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Do you think that mere words are any substitute for military strategy and troops? Now that you've revolted against me, who can you expect to help you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> You thought Egypt would, but Egypt's nothing but a paper tiger--one puff of wind and she collapses; Pharaoh king of Egypt is nothing but bluff and bluster.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Or are you going to tell me, 'We rely on GOD'? But Hezekiah has just eliminated most of the people's access to God by getting rid of all the local God-shrines, ordering everyone in Judah and Jerusalem, 'You must worship at the Jerusalem altar only.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "So be reasonable. Make a deal with my master, the king of Assyria. I'll give you two thousand horses if you think you can provide riders for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> You can't do it? Well, then, how do you think you're going to turn back even one raw buck private from my master's troops? How long are you going to hold on to that figment of your imagination, these hoped-for Egyptian chariots and horses?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "Do you think I've come up here to destroy this country without the express approval of GOD? The fact is that GOD expressly ordered me, 'Attack and destroy this country!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Eliakim son of Hilkiah and Shebna and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, "Please, speak to us in the Aramaic language. We understand Aramaic. Don't speak in Hebrew--everyone crowded on the city wall can hear you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> But the Rabshakeh said, "We weren't sent with a private message to your master and you; this is public--a message to everyone within earshot. After all, they're involved in this as well as you; if you don't come to terms, they'll be eating their own turds and drinking their own pee right along with you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Then he stepped forward and spoke in Hebrew loud enough for everyone to hear, "Listen carefully to the words of The Great King, the king of Assyria:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Don't let Hezekiah fool you; he can't save you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> And don't let Hezekiah give you that line about trusting in GOD, telling you, 'GOD will save us--this city will never be abandoned to the king of Assyria.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Don't listen to Hezekiah--he doesn't know what he's talking about. Listen to the king of Assyria--deal with me and live the good life; I'll guarantee everyone your own plot of ground--a garden and a well!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> I'll take you to a land sweeter by far than this one, a land of grain and wine, bread and vineyards, olive orchards and honey. You only live once--so live, really live! "No. Don't listen to Hezekiah. Don't listen to his lies, telling you 'GOD will save us.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Has there ever been a god anywhere who delivered anyone from the king of Assyria?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? And Samaria--did their gods save them?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Can you name a god who saved anyone anywhere from me, the king of Assyria? So what makes you think that GOD can save Jerusalem from me?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> The people were silent. No one spoke a word for the king had ordered, "Don't anyone say a word--not one word!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace administrator, and Shebna the royal secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the court historian went back to Hezekiah. They had ripped their robes in despair; they reported to Hezekiah the speech of the Rabshakeh.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="19">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When Hezekiah heard it all, he too ripped his robes apart and dressed himself in rough burlap. Then he went into The Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He sent Eliakim, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, all of them dressed in rough burlap, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They said to him, "A message from Hezekiah: 'This is a black day, a terrible day--doomsday! Babies poised to be born, No strength to birth them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "'Maybe GOD, your God, has been listening to the blasphemous speech of the Rabshakeh who was sent by the king of Assyria, his master, to humiliate the living God; maybe GOD, your God, won't let him get by with such talk; and you, maybe you will lift up prayers for what's left of these people.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> That's the message King Hezekiah's servants delivered to Isaiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Isaiah answered them, "Tell your master, 'GOD's word: Don't be at all concerned about what you've heard from the king of Assyria's bootlicking errand boys--these outrageous blasphemies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Here's what I'm going to do: Afflict him with self-doubt. He's going to hear a rumor and, frightened for his life, retreat to his own country. Once there, I'll see to it that he gets killed.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The Rabshakeh left and found that the king of Assyria had pulled up stakes from Lachish and was now fighting against Libnah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then Sennacherib heard that Tirhakah king of Cush was on his way to fight against him. So he sent another envoy with orders to deliver this message to Hezekiah king of Judah:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Don't let that god that you think so much of keep stringing you along with the line, 'Jerusalem will never fall to the king of Assyria.' That's a barefaced lie.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> You know the track record of the kings of Assyria--country after country laid waste, devastated. And what makes you think you'll be an exception?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Take a good look at these wasted nations, destroyed by my ancestors; did their gods do them any good? Look at Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, the people of Eden at Tel Assar. Ruins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And what's left of the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of Sepharvaim, of Hena, of Ivvah? Bones."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Hezekiah took the letter from the envoy and read it. He went to The Temple of GOD and spread it out before GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And Hezekiah prayed--oh, how he prayed! GOD, God of Israel, seated in majesty on the cherubim-throne. You are the one and only God, sovereign over all kingdoms on earth, Maker of heaven, maker of earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Open your ears, GOD, and listen, open your eyes and look. Look at this letter Sennacherib has sent, a brazen insult to the living God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The facts are true, O GOD: The kings of Assyria have laid waste countries and kingdoms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Huge bonfires they made of their gods, their no-gods hand-made from wood and stone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But now O GOD, our God, save us from raw Assyrian power; Make all the kingdoms on earth know that you are GOD, the one and only God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> It wasn't long before Isaiah son of Amoz sent word to Hezekiah: GOD's word: You've prayed to me regarding Sennacherib king of Assyria; I've heard your prayer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> This is my response to him: The Virgin Daughter of Zion holds you in utter contempt; Daughter Jerusalem thinks you're nothing but scum.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Who do you think it is you've insulted? Who do you think you've been bad-mouthing? Before whom do you suppose you've been strutting? The Holy One of Israel, that's who!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> You dispatched your errand boys to humiliate the Master. You bragged, "With my army of chariots I've climbed the highest mountains, snow-peaked alpine Lebanon mountains! I've cut down its giant cedars, chopped down its prize pine trees. I've traveled the world, visited the finest forest retreats.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> I've dug wells in faraway places and drunk their exotic waters; I've waded and splashed barefoot in the rivers of Egypt."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Did it never occur to you that I'm behind all this? Long, long ago I drew up the plans, and now I've gone into action, Using you as a doomsday weapon, reducing proud cities to piles of rubble,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Leaving their people dispirited, slumped shoulders, limp souls. Useless as weeds, fragile as grass, insubstantial as wind-blown chaff.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> I know when you sit down, when you come and when you go; And, yes, I've marked every one of your temper tantrums against me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> It's because of your temper, your blasphemous foul temper, That I'm putting my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth And turning you back to where you came from.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> And this, Hezekiah, will be for you the confirming sign: This year you'll eat the gleanings, next year whatever you can beg, borrow, or steal; But the third year you'll sow and harvest, plant vineyards and eat grapes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> A remnant of the family of Judah yet again will sink down roots and raise up fruit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The remnant will come from Jerusalem, the survivors from Mount Zion. The Zeal of GOD will make it happen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> To sum up, this is what GOD says regarding the king of Assyria: He won't enter this city, nor shoot so much as a single arrow there; Won't brandish a shield, won't even begin to set siege;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> He'll go home by the same road he came; he won't enter this city. GOD's word!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> I'll shield this city, I'll save this city, for my sake and for David's sake.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> And it so happened that that very night an angel of GOD came and massacred a hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrians. When the people of Jerusalem got up next morning, there it was--a whole camp of corpses!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Sennacherib king of Assyria got out of there fast, headed straight home for Nineveh, and stayed put.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> One day when he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer murdered him and then escaped to the land of Ararat. His son Esarhaddon became the next king.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="20">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Some time later Hezekiah became deathly sick. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz paid him a visit and said, "Put your affairs in order; you're about to die--you haven't long to live."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Hezekiah turned from Isaiah and faced GOD, praying:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Remember, O GOD, who I am, what I've done! I've lived an honest life before you, My heart's been true and steady, I've lived to please you; lived for your approval. And then the tears flowed. Hezekiah wept.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Isaiah, leaving, was not halfway across the courtyard when the word of GOD stopped him:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Go back and tell Hezekiah, prince of my people, 'GOD's word, Hezekiah! From the God of your ancestor David: I've listened to your prayer and I've observed your tears. I'm going to heal you. In three days you will walk on your own legs into The Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I've just added fifteen years to your life; I'm saving you from the king of Assyria, and I'm covering this city with my shield--for my sake and my servant David's sake.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Isaiah then said, "Prepare a plaster of figs." They prepared the plaster, applied it to the boil, and Hezekiah was on his way to recovery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Hezekiah said to Isaiah, "How do I know whether this is of GOD and not just the fig plaster? What confirming sign is there that GOD is healing me and that in three days I'll walk into The Temple of GOD on my own legs?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "This will be your sign from GOD," said Isaiah, "that GOD is doing what he said he'd do: Do you want the shadow to advance ten degrees on the sundial or go back ten degrees? You choose."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Hezekiah said, "It would be easy to make the sun's shadow advance ten degrees. Make it go back ten degrees."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> So Isaiah called out in prayer to GOD, and the shadow went back ten degrees on Ahaz's sundial.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Shortly after this, Merodach-Baladan, the son of Baladan king of Babylon, having heard that the king was sick, sent a get-well card and a gift to Hezekiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Hezekiah was pleased and showed the messengers around the place--silver, gold, spices, aromatic oils, his stockpile of weapons--a guided tour of all his prized possessions. There wasn't a thing in his palace or kingdom that Hezekiah didn't show them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And then Isaiah the prophet showed up: "And just what were these men doing here? Where did they come from and why?" Hezekiah said, "They came from far away--from Babylon."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "And what did they see in your palace?" "Everything," said Hezekiah. "There isn't anything I didn't show them--I gave them the grand tour."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Then Isaiah spoke to Hezekiah, "Listen to what GOD has to say about this:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The day is coming when everything you own and everything your ancestors have passed down to you, right down to the last cup and saucer, will be cleaned out of here--plundered and packed off to Babylon. GOD's word!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Worse yet, your sons, the progeny of sons you've begotten, will end up as eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Hezekiah said to Isaiah, "If GOD says it, it must be good." But he was thinking to himself, "It won't happen during my lifetime--I'll enjoy peace and security as long as I live."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The rest of the life and times of Hezekiah, along with his projects, especially the way he engineered the Upper Pool and brought water into the city, are written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Hezekiah died and was buried with his ancestors. His son Manasseh became the next king.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="21">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king. He ruled for fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hephzibah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> In GOD's judgment he was a bad king--an evil king. He reintroduced all the moral rot and spiritual corruption that had been scoured from the country when GOD dispossessed the pagan nations in favor of the children of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He rebuilt all the sex-and-religion shrines that his father Hezekiah had torn down, and he built altars and phallic images for the sex god Baal and sex goddess Asherah, exactly what Ahaz king of Israel had done. He worshiped the cosmic powers, taking orders from the constellations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He even built these pagan altars in The Temple of GOD, the very Jerusalem Temple dedicated exclusively by GOD's decree ("in Jerusalem I place my Name") to GOD's Name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And he built shrines to the cosmic powers and placed them in both courtyards of The Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He burned his own son in a sacrificial offering. He practiced black magic and fortunetelling. He held s�ances and consulted spirits from the underworld. Much evil--in GOD's judgment, a career in evil. And GOD was angry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> As a last straw he placed the carved image of the sex goddess Asherah in The Temple of GOD, a flagrant and provocative violation of GOD's well-known statement to both David and Solomon, "In this Temple and in this city Jerusalem, my choice out of all the tribes of Israel, I place my Name--exclusively and forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Never again will I let my people Israel wander off from this land I gave to their ancestors. But here's the condition: They must keep everything I've commanded in the instructions my servant Moses passed on to them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But the people didn't listen. Manasseh led them off the beaten path into practices of evil even exceeding the evil of the pagan nations that GOD had earlier destroyed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> GOD, thoroughly fed up, sent word through his servants the prophets:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Because Manasseh king of Judah has committed these outrageous sins, eclipsing the sin-performance of the Amorites before him, setting new records in evil, using foul idols to debase Judah into a nation of sinners,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> this is my judgment, GOD's verdict: I, the God of Israel, will visit catastrophe on Jerusalem and Judah, a doom so terrible that when people hear of it they'll shake their heads in disbelief, saying, 'I can't believe it!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "I'll visit the fate of Samaria on Jerusalem, a rerun of Ahab's doom. I'll wipe out Jerusalem as you would wipe out a dish, wiping it out and turning it over to dry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'll get rid of what's left of my inheritance, dumping them on their enemies. If their enemies can salvage anything from them, they're welcome to it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They've been nothing but trouble to me from the day their ancestors left Egypt until now. They pushed me to my limit; I won't put up with their evil any longer."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The final word on Manasseh was that he was an indiscriminate murderer. He drenched Jerusalem with the innocent blood of his victims. That's on top of all the sins in which he involved his people. As far as GOD was concerned, he'd turned them into a nation of sinners.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The rest of the life and times of Manasseh, everything he did and his sorry record of sin, is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Manasseh died and joined his ancestors. He was buried in the palace garden, the Garden of Uzza. His son Amon became the next king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king. He was king for two years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Meshullemeth, the daughter of Haruz. She was from Jotbah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> In GOD's opinion he lived an evil life, just like his father Manasseh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He followed in the footsteps of his father, serving and worshiping the same foul gods his father had served.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> He totally deserted the GOD of his ancestors; he did not live GOD's way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Amon's servants revolted and assassinated him, killing the king right in his own palace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> But the people, in their turn, killed the conspirators against King Amon and then crowned Josiah, Amon's son, as king</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> . The rest of the life and times of Amon is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> They buried Amon in his burial plot in the Garden of Uzza. His son Josiah became the next king.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="22">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Josiah was eight years old when he became king. He ruled for thirty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Jedidah daughter of Adaiah; she was from Bozkath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He lived the way GOD wanted. He kept straight on the path blazed by his ancestor David, not one step to either left or right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> One day in the eighteenth year of his kingship, King Josiah sent the royal secretary Shaphan son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, to The Temple of GOD with instructions:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Go to Hilkiah the high priest and have him count the money that has been brought to The Temple of GOD that the doormen have collected from the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Have them turn it over to the foremen who are managing the work on The Temple of GOD so they can pay the workers who are repairing GOD's Temple,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> all the carpenters, construction workers, and masons. Also, authorize them to buy the lumber and dressed stone for The Temple repairs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You don't need to get a receipt for the money you give them--they're all honest men."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The high priest Hilkiah reported to Shaphan the royal secretary, "I've just found the Book of GOD's Revelation, instructing us in GOD's ways. I found it in The Temple!" He gave it to Shaphan and Shaphan read it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then Shaphan the royal secretary came back to the king and gave him an account of what had gone on: "Your servants have bagged up the money that has been collected for The Temple; they have given it to the foremen to pay The Temple workers."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then Shaphan the royal secretary told the king, "Hilkiah the priest gave me a book." Shaphan proceeded to read it to the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> When the king heard what was written in the book, God's Revelation, he ripped his robes in dismay.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And then he called for Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Acbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the royal secretary, and Asaiah the king's personal aide. He ordered them all:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Go and pray to GOD for me and for this people--for all Judah! Find out what we must do in response to what is written in this book that has just been found! GOD's anger must be burning furiously against us--our ancestors haven't obeyed a thing written in this book, followed none of the instructions directed to us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Acbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went straight to Huldah the prophetess. She was the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, who was in charge of the palace wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem in the Second Quarter. The five men consulted with her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> In response to them she said, "GOD's word, the God of Israel: Tell the man who sent you here</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> that I'm on my way to bring the doom of judgment on this place and this people. Every word written in the book read by the king of Judah will happen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And why? Because they've deserted me and taken up with other gods, made me thoroughly angry by setting up their god-making businesses. My anger is raging white-hot against this place and nobody is going to put it out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "And also tell the king of Judah, since he sent you to ask GOD for direction; tell him this, GOD's comment on what he read in the book:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> 'Because you took seriously the doom of judgment I spoke against this place and people, and because you responded in humble repentance, tearing your robe in dismay and weeping before me, I'm taking you seriously. GOD's word:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> I'll take care of you. You'll have a quiet death and be buried in peace. You won't be around to see the doom that I'm going to bring upon this place.'" The men took her message back to the king.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="23">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The king acted immediately, assembling all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Then the king proceeded to The Temple of GOD, bringing everyone in his train--priests and prophets and people ranging from the famous to the unknown. Then he read out publicly everything written in the Book of the Covenant that was found in The Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The king stood by the pillar and before GOD solemnly committed them all to the covenant: to follow GOD believingly and obediently; to follow his instructions, heart and soul, on what to believe and do; to put into practice the entire covenant, all that was written in the book. The people stood in affirmation; their commitment was unanimous.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then the king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, his associate priest, and The Temple sentries to clean house--to get rid of everything in The Temple of GOD that had been made for worshiping Baal and Asherah and the cosmic powers. He had them burned outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron and then disposed of the ashes in Bethel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He fired the pagan priests whom the kings of Judah had hired to supervise the local sex-and-religion shrines in the towns of Judah and neighborhoods of Jerusalem. In a stroke he swept the country clean of the polluting stench of the round-the-clock worship of Baal, sun and moon, stars--all the so-called cosmic powers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He took the obscene phallic Asherah pole from The Temple of GOD to the Valley of Kidron outside Jerusalem, burned it up, then ground up the ashes and scattered them in the cemetery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He tore out the rooms of the male sacred prostitutes that had been set up in The Temple of GOD; women also used these rooms for weavings for Asherah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He swept the outlying towns of Judah clean of priests and smashed the sex-and-religion shrines where they worked their trade from one end of the country to the other--all the way from Geba to Beersheba. He smashed the sex-and-religion shrine that had been set up just to the left of the city gate for the private use of Joshua, the city mayor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Even though these sex-and-religion priests did not defile the Altar in The Temple itself, they were part of the general priestly corruption and had to go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then Josiah demolished the Topheth, the iron furnace griddle set up in the Valley of Ben Hinnom for sacrificing children in the fire. No longer could anyone burn son or daughter to the god Molech.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He hauled off the horse statues honoring the sun god that the kings of Judah had set up near the entrance to The Temple. They were in the courtyard next to the office of Nathan-Melech, the warden. He burned up the sun-chariots as so much rubbish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The king smashed all the altars to smithereens--the altar on the roof shrine of Ahaz, the various altars the kings of Judah had made, the altars of Manasseh that littered the courtyard of The Temple--he smashed them all, pulverized the fragments, and scattered their dust in the Valley of Kidron.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The king proceeded to make a clean sweep of all the sex-and-religion shrines that had proliferated east of Jerusalem on the south slope of Abomination Hill, the ones Solomon king of Israel had built to the obscene Sidonian sex goddess Ashtoreth, to Chemosh the dirty-old-god of the Moabites, and to Milcom the depraved god of the Ammonites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He tore apart the altars, chopped down the phallic Asherah-poles, and scattered old bones over the sites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Next, he took care of the altar at the shrine in Bethel that Jeroboam son of Nebat had built--the same Jeroboam who had led Israel into a life of sin. He tore apart the altar, burned down the shrine leaving it in ashes, and then lit fire to the phallic Asherah-pole.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> As Josiah looked over the scene, he noticed the tombs on the hillside. He ordered the bones removed from the tombs and had them cremated on the ruined altars, desacralizing the evil altars. This was a fulfillment of the word of GOD spoken by the Holy Man years before when Jeroboam had stood by the altar at the sacred convocation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then the king said, "And that memorial stone--whose is that?" The men from the city said, "That's the grave of the Holy Man who spoke the message against the altar at Bethel that you have just fulfilled."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Josiah said, "Don't trouble his bones." So they left his bones undisturbed, along with the bones of the prophet from Samaria.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But Josiah hadn't finished. He now moved through all the towns of Samaria where the kings of Israel had built neighborhood sex-and-religion shrines, shrines that had so angered GOD. He tore the shrines down and left them in ruins--just as at Bethel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He killed all the priests who had conducted the sacrifices and cremated them on their own altars, thus desacralizing the altars. Only then did Josiah return to Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The king now commanded the people, "Celebrate the Passover to GOD, your God, exactly as directed in this Book of the Covenant."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> This commanded Passover had not been celebrated since the days that the judges judged Israel--none of the kings of Israel and Judah had celebrated it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But in the eighteenth year of the rule of King Josiah this very Passover was celebrated to GOD in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Josiah scrubbed the place clean and trashed spirit-mediums, sorcerers, domestic gods, and carved figures--all the vast accumulation of foul and obscene relics and images on display everywhere you looked in Judah and Jerusalem. Josiah did this in obedience to the words of GOD's Revelation written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in The Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> There was no king to compare with Josiah--neither before nor after--a king who turned in total and repentant obedience to GOD, heart and mind and strength, following the instructions revealed to and written by Moses. The world would never again see a king like Josiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> But despite Josiah, GOD's hot anger did not cool; the raging anger ignited by Manasseh burned unchecked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> And GOD, not swerving in his judgment, gave sentence: "I'll remove Judah from my presence in the same way I removed Israel. I'll turn my back on this city, Jerusalem, that I chose, and even from this Temple of which I said, 'My Name lives here.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The rest of the life and times of Josiah is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Josiah's death came about when Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt marched out to join forces with the king of Assyria at the Euphrates River. When King Josiah intercepted him at the Plain of Megiddo, Neco killed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Josiah's servants took his body in a chariot, returned him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own tomb. By popular choice Jehoahaz son of Josiah was anointed and succeeded his father as king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to rule. He was king in Jerusalem for a mere three months. His mother's name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah. She came from Libnah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> In GOD's opinion, he was an evil king, reverting to the evil ways of his ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Pharaoh Neco captured Jehoahaz at Riblah in the country of Hamath and put him in chains, preventing him from ruling in Jerusalem. He demanded that Judah pay tribute of nearly four tons of silver and seventy-five pounds of gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Then Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim son of Josiah the successor to Josiah, but changed his name to Jehoiakim. Jehoahaz was carted off to Egypt and eventually died there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Meanwhile Jehoiakim, like a good puppet, dutifully paid out the silver and gold demanded by Pharaoh. He scraped up the money by gouging the people, making everyone pay an assessed tax.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to rule; he was king for eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Zebidah daughter of Pedaiah. She had come from Rumah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> In GOD's opinion he was an evil king, picking up on the evil ways of his ancestors.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="24">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> It was during his reign that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon invaded the country. Jehoiakim became his puppet. But after three years he had had enough and revolted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD dispatched a succession of raiding bands against him: Babylonian, Aramean, Moabite, and Ammonite. The strategy was to destroy Judah. Through the preaching of his servants and prophets, GOD had said he would do this, and now he was doing it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> None of this was by chance--it was GOD's judgment as he turned his back on Judah because of the enormity of the sins of Manasseh--Manasseh, the killer-king,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> who made the Jerusalem streets flow with the innocent blood of his victims. GOD wasn't about to overlook such crimes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The rest of the life and times of Jehoiakim is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Jehoiakim died and was buried with his ancestors. His son Jehoiachin became the next king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The threat from Egypt was now over--no more invasions by the king of Egypt--for by this time the king of Babylon had captured all the land between the Brook of Egypt and the Euphrates River, land formerly controlled by the king of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king. His rule in Jerusalem lasted only three months. His mother's name was Nehushta daughter of Elnathan; she was from Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> In GOD's opinion he also was an evil king, no different from his father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The next thing to happen was that the officers of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon attacked Jerusalem and put it under siege.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> While his officers were laying siege to the city, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon paid a personal visit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And Jehoiachin king of Judah, along with his mother, officers, advisors, and government leaders, surrendered. In the eighth year of his reign Jehoiachin was taken prisoner by the king of Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Nebuchadnezzar emptied the treasuries of both The Temple of GOD and the royal palace and confiscated all the gold furnishings that Solomon king of Israel had made for The Temple of GOD. This should have been no surprise--GOD had said it would happen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And then he emptied Jerusalem of people--all its leaders and soldiers, all its craftsmen and artisans. He took them into exile, something like ten thousand of them! The only ones he left were the very poor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He took Jehoiachin into exile to Babylon. With him he took the king's mother, his wives, his chief officers, the community leaders,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> anyone who was anybody--in round numbers, seven thousand soldiers plus another thousand or so craftsmen and artisans, all herded off into exile in Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then the king of Babylon made Jehoiachin's uncle, Mattaniah, his puppet king, but changed his name to Zedekiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he started out as king. He was king in Jerusalem for eleven years. His mother's name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah. Her hometown was Libnah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> As far as GOD was concerned Zedekiah was just one more evil king, a carbon copy of Jehoiakim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The source of all this doom to Jerusalem and Judah was GOD's anger--GOD turned his back on them as an act of judgment. And then Zedekiah revolted against the king of Babylon.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="25">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The revolt dates from the ninth year and tenth month of Zedekiah's reign. Nebuchadnezzar set out for Jerusalem immediately with a full army. He set up camp and sealed off the city by building siege mounds around it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The city was under siege for nineteen months (until the eleventh year of Zedekiah).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> By the fourth month of Zedekiah's eleventh year, on the ninth day of the month, the famine was so bad that there wasn't so much as a crumb of bread for anyone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then there was a breakthrough. At night, under cover of darkness, the entire army escaped through an opening in the wall (it was the gate between the two walls above the King's Garden). They slipped through the lines of the Babylonians who surrounded the city and headed for the Jordan on the Arabah Valley road.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But the Babylonians were in pursuit of the king and they caught up with him in the Plains of Jericho. By then Zedekiah's army had deserted and was scattered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The Babylonians took Zedekiah prisoner and marched him off to the king of Babylon at Riblah, then tried and sentenced him on the spot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Zedekiah's sons were executed right before his eyes; the summary murder of his sons was the last thing he saw, for they then blinded him. Securely handcuffed, he was hauled off to Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> In the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, on the seventh day of the fifth month, Nebuzaradan, the king of Babylon's chief deputy, arrived in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He burned The Temple of GOD to the ground, went on to the royal palace, and then finished off the city--burned the whole place down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He put the Babylonian troops he had with him to work knocking down the city walls.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Finally, he rounded up everyone left in the city, including those who had earlier deserted to the king of Babylon, and took them off into exile.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He left a few poor dirt farmers behind to tend the vineyards and what was left of the fields.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The Babylonians broke up the bronze pillars, the bronze washstands, and the huge bronze basin (the Sea) that were in The Temple of GOD and hauled the bronze off to Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They also took the various bronze-crafted liturgical accessories used in the services of Temple worship,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> as well as the gold and silver censers and sprinkling bowls. The king's deputy didn't miss a thing--he took every scrap of precious metal he could find.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The amount of bronze they got from the two pillars, the Sea, and all the washstands that Solomon had made for The Temple of GOD was enormous--they couldn't weigh it all!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Each pillar stood twenty-seven feet high, plus another four and a half feet for an ornate capital of bronze filigree and decorative fruit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The king's deputy took a number of special prisoners: Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the associate priest, three wardens,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> the chief remaining army officer, five of the king's counselors, the accountant, the chief recruiting officer for the army, and sixty men of standing from among the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Nebuzaradan the king's deputy marched them all off to the king of Babylon at Riblah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And there at Riblah, in the land of Hamath, the king of Babylon killed the lot of them in cold blood. Judah went into exile, orphaned from her land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Regarding the common people who were left behind in Judah, this: Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, as their governor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> When veteran army officers among the people heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah, they came to Gedaliah at Mizpah. Among them were Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan son of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, Jaazaniah the son of the Maacathite, and some of their followers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Gedaliah assured the officers and their men, giving them his word, "Don't be afraid of the Babylonian officials. Go back to your farms and families and respect the king of Babylon. Trust me, everything is going to be all right."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Some time later--it was in the seventh month--Ishmael son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama (he had royal blood in him), came back with ten men and killed Gedaliah, the traitor Jews, and the Babylonian officials who were stationed at Mizpah--a bloody massacre.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> But then, afraid of what the Babylonians would do, they all took off for Egypt, leaders and people, small and great.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> When Jehoiachin king of Judah had been in exile for thirty-seven years, Evil-Merodach became king in Babylon and let Jehoiachin out of prison. This release took place on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The king treated him most courteously and gave him preferential treatment beyond anything experienced by the other political prisoners held in Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Jehoiachin took off his prison garb and for the rest of his life ate his meals in company with the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The king provided everything he needed to live comfortably.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="13" bname="1 Chronicles">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Adam, Seth, Enosh,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Japheth had Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Gomer had Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Javan had Elisha, Tarshish, Kittim, and Rodanim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Ham had Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Cush had Seba, Havilah, Sabta, Raamah, and Sabteca. Raamah had Sheba and Dedan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Cush had Nimrod, the first great hero on earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Mizraim was ancestor to the Ludim, the Anamim, the Lehabim, the Naphtuhim,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> the Pathrusim, the Casluhim, and the Caphtorim from whom the Philistines descended.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Canaan had Sidon (his firstborn) and Heth,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> and was ancestor to the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Shem had Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, Aram, Uz, Hul, Gether, and Meshech.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Arphaxad had Shelah and Shelah had Eber.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Eber had two sons: Peleg (Division) because in his time the earth was divided up; his brother was Joktan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Joktan had Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Ebal, Abimael, Sheba,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab--all sons of Joktan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The three main branches in summary: Shem, Arphaxad, Shelah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Eber, Peleg, Reu,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Serug, Nahor, Terah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> and Abram (Abraham).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> And Abraham had Isaac and Ishmael.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Abraham's family tree developed along these lines: Ishmael had Nebaioth (his firstborn), then Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadad, Tema,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah--the Ishmael branch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Keturah, Abraham's concubine, gave birth to Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. Then Jokshan had Sheba and Dedan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> And Midian had Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida, and Eldaah. These made up the Keturah branch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Abraham had Isaac, and Isaac had Esau and Israel (Jacob).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Esau had Eliphaz, Reuel, Jeush, Jalam, and Korah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Eliphaz had Teman, Omar, Zepho, Gatam, Kenaz, Timna, and Amalek.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> And Reuel had Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Seir then had Lotan, Shobal, Zibeon, Anah, Dishon, Ezer, and Dishan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Lotan had Hori and Homam. Timna was Lotan's sister.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Shobal had Alian, Manahath, Ebal, Shepho, and Onam. Zibeon had Aiah and Anah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Anah had Dishon. Dishon had Hemdan, Eshban, Ithran, and Keran.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Ezer had Bilhan, Zaavan, and Akan. And Dishan had Uz and Aran.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> A list of the kings who ruled in the country of Edom before Israel had a king: Bela son of Beor; his city was Dinhabah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Bela died; Jobab son of Zerah from Bozrah was the next king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> Jobab died; Husham from the country of the Temanites was the next king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Husham died; Hadad son of Bedad, who defeated Midian in the country of Moab, was the next king; his city was Avith.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> Hadad died; Samlah from Masrekah was the next king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> Samlah died; Shaul from Rehoboth-by-the-River was the next king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> Shaul died; Baal-Hanan son of Acbor was the next king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Baal-Hanan died; Hadad was the next king; his city was Pau and his wife was Mehetabel daughter of Matred, the daughter of Me-Zahab.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> Last of all Hadad died. The chieftains of Edom after that were Chief Timna, Chief Alvah, Chief Jetheth,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> Chief Oholibamah, Chief Elah, Chief Pinon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> Chief Kenaz, Chief Teman, Chief Mibzar,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> Chief Magdiel, and Chief Iram. These were the chieftains of Edom.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Israel's (that is, Jacob's) sons: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Dan, Joseph, Benjamin, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Judah had Er, Onan, and Shelah; their mother was Bathshua the Canaanite. Er, Judah's firstborn, was so bad before GOD that GOD killed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Judah also had Perez and Zerah by his daughter-in-law Tamar--a total of five sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Perez had Hezron and Hamul;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Zerah had Zimri, Ethan, Heman, Calcol, and Darda--five sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Carmi had Achar, who brought doom on Israel when he violated a holy ban.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Ethan's son was Azariah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And Hezron had Jerahmeel, Ram, and Chelubai.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Ram had Amminadab and Amminadab had Nahshon, a prominent leader in the Judah family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Nahshon had Salmon and Salmon had Boaz.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Boaz had Obed and Obed had Jesse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Jesse's firstborn was Eliab, followed by Abinadab, Shimea,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Nethanel, Raddai,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Ozem, and finally David; David was the seventh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Their sisters were Zeruiah and Abigail. Zeruiah gave birth to three sons: Abishai, Joab, and Asahel;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Abigail was the mother of Amasa (the father was Jether the Ishmaelite).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Caleb son of Hezron had children by his wife Azubah and also by Jerioth. Azubah's sons were Jesher, Shobab, and Ardon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> After Azubah died, Caleb married Ephrath, who gave birth to Hur.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Hur had Uri and Uri had Bezalel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Some time later Hezron married the daughter of Makir the father of Gilead; he was sixty years old when he married her; she gave birth to Segub.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Then Segub had Jair who owned twenty-three cities in the land of Gilead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Geshur and Aram captured the nomadic villages of Jair and Kenath and their satellite settlements--sixty towns. These all belonged to Makir the father of Gilead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> After the death of Hezron, Caleb married Ephrathah the wife of his father Hezron; she then gave birth to Ashhur the father of Tekoa.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The sons of Jerahmeel, Hezron's firstborn: Ram his firstborn, followed by Bunah, Oren, Ozem, and Ahijah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Jerahmeel had another wife whose name was Atarah; she gave birth to Onam.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The sons of Ram, Jerahmeel's firstborn: Maaz, Jamin, and Eker.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The sons of Onam: Shammai and Jada. The sons of Shammai: Nadab and Abishur.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Abishur's wife was Abihail; she gave birth to Ahban and Molid.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Nadab had Seled and Appaim. Seled died leaving no sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Appaim had Ishi; Ishi had Sheshan; and Sheshan had Ahlai.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Jada, Shammai's brother, had Jether and Jonathan. Jether died leaving no sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Jonathan had Peleth and Zaza. This is the family tree of the sons of Jerahmeel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Sheshan had no sons, only daughters. But Sheshan had an Egyptian servant, Jarha.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Sheshan married his daughter to Jarha and she gave birth to Attai.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Attai had Nathan, Nathan had Zabad,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Zabad had Ephlal, Ephlal had Obed,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Obed had Jehu, Jehu had Azariah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Azariah had Helez, Helez had Eleasah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Eleasah had Sismai, Sismai had Shallum,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Shallum had Jekamiah, and Jekamiah had Elishama.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Jerahmeel's brother Caleb had a son, his firstborn, named Mesha; Mesha had Ziph; Ziph's son was Mareshah the father of Hebron.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> The sons of Hebron: Korah, Tappuah, Rekem, and Shema.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Shema had Raham the father of Jorkeam; Rekem had Shammai.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> Shammai's son was Maon and Maon was the father of Beth Zur.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Caleb's concubine Ephah gave birth to Haran, Moza, and Gazez; Haran had Gazez.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> The sons of Jahdai: Regem, Jotham, Geshan, Pelet, Ephah, and Shaaph.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> Another concubine of Caleb, Maacah, gave birth to Sheber and Tirhanah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> She also bore Shaaph the father of Madmannah and Sheva the father of Macbenah and Gibea. Caleb's daughter was Acsah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> These made up the Caleb branch of the family tree. The sons of Hur, Ephrathah's firstborn: Shobal who had Kiriath Jearim,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> Salma who had Bethlehem, and Hareph father of Beth Gader.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> The family of Shobal, father of Kiriath Jearim: Haroeh, half of the population of Manahath,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> the families of Kiriath Jearim, the Ithrites, the Puthites, the Shumathites, and the Mishraites. The Zorathites and Eshtaolites also came from this line.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> The sons of Salma: Bethlehem, the Netophathites, Atroth Beth Joab, half of the Manahathites, the Zorites,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> and the families of Sopherim who lived at Jabez--the Tirathites, the Shimeathites, and the Sucathites. They made up the Kenites who came from Hammath the father of the house of Recab.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> These are the sons that David had while he lived at Hebron: His firstborn was Amnon by Ahinoam of Jezreel; second, Daniel by Abigail of Carmel;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> third, Absalom born of Maacah, daughter of Talmai king of Geshur; fourth, Adonijah born of Haggith;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> fifth, Shephatiah born of Abital; sixth, Ithream born of his wife Eglah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He had these six sons while he was in Hebron; he was king there for seven years and six months. He went on to be king in Jerusalem for another thirty-three years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> These are the sons he had in Jerusalem: first Shammua, then Shobab, Nathan, and Solomon. Bathsheba daughter of Ammiel was the mother of these four.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And then there were another nine sons: Ibhar, Elishua, Eliphelet,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Nogah, Nepheg, Japhia,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Elishama, Eliada, Eliphelet--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> David's sons, plus Tamar their sister. There were other sons by his concubines.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> In the next generation Solomon had Rehoboam, who had Abijah, who had Asa, who had Jehoshaphat,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> who had Jehoram, who had Ahaziah, who had Joash,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> who had Amaziah, who had Azariah, who had Jotham,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> who had Ahaz, who had Hezekiah, who had Manasseh,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> who had Amon, who had Josiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Josiah's firstborn was Johanan, followed by Jehoiakim, then Zedekiah, and finally Shallum.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Jehoiakim's sons were Jeconiah (Jehoiachin) and Zedekiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The sons of Jeconiah born while he was captive in Babylon: Shealtiel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Malkiram, Pedaiah, Shenazzar, Jekamiah, Hoshama, and Nedabiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Pedaiah had Zerubbabel and Shimei; Zerubbabel had Meshullam and Hananiah. Shelomith was their sister.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And then five more--Hashubah, Ohel, Berekiah, Hasadiah, and Jushab-Hesed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Hananiah's sons were Pelatiah and Jeshaiah. There were also sons of Rephaiah, sons of Arnan, sons of Obadiah, and sons of Shecaniah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Shecaniah had Shemaiah who in his turn had Hattush, Igal, Bariah, Neariah, and Shaphat--six of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Neariah had three sons: Elioenai, Hizkiah, and Azrikam.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> And Elioenai had seven sons: Hodaviah, Eliashib, Pelaiah, Akkub, Johanan, Delaiah, and Anani.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Sons of Judah: Perez, Hezron, Carmi, Hur, and Shobal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Reaiah, Shobal's son, had Jahath; and Jahath had Ahumai and Lahad. These made up the families of the Zorathites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Sons of Etam: Jezreel, Ishma, and Idbash. Their sister was named Hazzelelponi.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Penuel had Gedor and Ezer had Hushah. These were the sons of Hur, firstborn son of Ephrathah, who was the father of Bethlehem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Ashhur the father of Tekoa had two wives, Helah and Naarah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Naarah gave birth to Ahuzzam, Hepher, Temeni, and Haahashtari--Naarah's children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Helah's sons were Zereth, Zohar, Ethnan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> and Koz, who had Anub, Hazzobebah, and the families of Aharhel son of Harum.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Jabez was a better man than his brothers, a man of honor. His mother had named him Jabez (Oh, the pain!), saying, "A painful birth! I bore him in great pain!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Jabez prayed to the God of Israel: "Bless me, O bless me! Give me land, large tracts of land. And provide your personal protection--don't let evil hurt me." God gave him what he asked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Kelub, Shuhah's brother, had Mehir; Mehir had Eshton;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Eshton had Beth Rapha, Paseah, and Tehinnah, who founded Ir Nahash (City of Smiths). These were known as the men of Recah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The sons of Kenaz: Othniel and Seraiah. The sons of Othniel: Hathath and Meonothai.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Meonothai had Ophrah; Seraiah had Joab, the founder of Ge Harashim (Colony of Artisans).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The sons of Caleb son of Jephunneh: Iru, Elah, and Naam. The son of Elah: Kenaz.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The sons of Jehallelel: Ziph, Ziphah, Tiria, and Asarel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The sons of Ezrah: Jether, Mered, Epher, and Jalon. One of Mered's wives, Pharaoh's daughter Bithiah, gave birth to Miriam, Shammai, and Ishbah the father of Eshtemoa.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> His Judean wife gave birth to Jered father of Gedor, Heber father of Soco, and Jekuthiel father of Zanoah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The sons of Hodiah's wife, Naham's sister: the father of Keilah the Garmite, and Eshtemoa the Maacathite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The sons of Shimon: Amnon, Rinnah, Ben-Hanan, and Tilon. The sons of Ishi: Zoheth and Ben-Zoheth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The sons of Shelah son of Judah: Er the father of Lecah, Laadah the father of Mareshah and the family of linen workers at Beth Ashbea,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Jokim, the men of Cozeba, and Joash and Saraph, who ruled in Moab and Jashubi Lehem. (These records are from very old traditions.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They were the potters who lived at Netaim and Gederah, resident potters who worked for the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The Simeon family tree: Nemuel, Jamin, Jarib, Zerah, and Shaul;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Shaul had Shallum, Shallum had Mibsam, and Mibsam had Mishma.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The sons of Mishma: Hammuel had Zaccur and Zaccur had Shimei.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Shimei had sixteen sons and six daughters, but his brothers were not nearly as prolific and never became a large family like Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> They lived in Beersheba, Moladah, Hazar Shual,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Bilhah, Ezem, Tolad,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Bethuel, Hormah, Ziklag,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Beth Marcaboth, Hazar Susim, Beth Biri, and Shaaraim. They lived in these towns until David became king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Other settlements in the vicinity were the five towns of Etam, Ain, Rimmon, Token, and Ashan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> and all the villages around these towns as far as Baalath. These were their settlements. And they kept good family records.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Meshobab; Jamlech; Joshah the son of Amaziah;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Joel; Jehu the son of Joshibiah, the son of Seraiah, the son of Asiel;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Elioenai; Jaakobah; Jeshohaiah; Asaiah; Adiel; Jesimiel; Benaiah;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> and Ziza the son of Shiphi, the son of Allon, the son of Jedaiah, the son of Shimri, the son of Shemaiah--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> all these were the leaders in their families. They prospered and increased in numbers</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> so that they had to go as far as Gedor (Gerar) to the east of the valley looking for pasture for their flocks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> And they found it--lush pasture, lots of elbow room, peaceful and quiet. Some Hamites had lived there in former times.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> But the men in these family trees came when Hezekiah was king of Judah and attacked the Hamites, tearing down their tents and houses. There was nothing left of them, as you can see today. Then they moved in and took over because of the great pastureland.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Five hundred of these Simeonites went on and invaded the hill country of Seir, led by Pelatiah, Neariah, Rephaiah, and Uzziel, the sons of Ishi.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> They killed all the escaped Amalekites who were still around. And they still live there.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The family of Reuben the firstborn of Israel: Though Reuben was Israel's firstborn, after he slept with his father's concubine, a defiling act, his rights as the firstborn were passed on to the sons of Joseph son of Israel. He lost his "firstborn" place in the family tree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> And even though Judah became the strongest of his brothers and King David eventually came from that family, the firstborn rights stayed with Joseph.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The sons of Reuben, firstborn of Israel: Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The descendants of Joel: Shemaiah his son, Gog his son, Shimei his son,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Micah his son, Reaiah his son, Baal his son,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> and Beerah his son, whom Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria took into exile. Beerah was the prince of the Reubenites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Beerah's brothers are listed in the family tree by families: first Jeiel, followed by Zechariah:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> then Bela son of Azaz, the son of Shema, the son of Joel. Joel lived in the area from Aroer to Nebo and Baal Meon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> His family occupied the land up to the edge of the desert that goes all the way to the Euphrates River, since their growing herds of livestock spilled out of Gilead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> During Saul's reign they fought and defeated the Hagrites; they then took over their tents and lived in them on the eastern frontier of Gilead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The family of Gad were their neighbors in Bashan, as far as Salecah:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Joel was the chief, Shapham the second-in-command, and then Janai, the judge in Bashan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Their brothers, by families, were Michael, Meshullam, Sheba, Jorai, Jacan, Zia, and Eber--seven in all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> These were the sons of Abihail son of Huri, the son of Jaroah, the son of Gilead, the son of Michael, the son of Jeshishai, the son of Jahdo, the son of Buz.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Ahi son of Abdiel, the son of Guni, was head of their family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The family of Gad lived in Gilead and Bashan, including the outlying villages and extending as far as the pastures of Sharon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> They were all written into the official family tree during the reigns of Jotham king of Judah and Jeroboam king of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The families of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh had 44,760 men trained for war--physically fit and skilled in handling shield, sword, and bow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They fought against the Hagrites, Jetur, Naphish, and Nodab.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> God helped them as they fought. God handed the Hagrites and all their allies over to them, because they cried out to him during the battle. God answered their prayers because they trusted him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They plundered the Hagrite herds and flocks: 50,000 camels, 250,000 sheep, and 2,000 donkeys. They also captured 100,000 people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Many were killed, because the battle was God's. They lived in that country until the exile.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The half-tribe of Manasseh had a large population. They occupied the land from Bashan to Baal Hermon, that is, to Senir (Mount Hermon).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The heads of their families were Epher, Ishi, Eliel, Azriel, Jeremiah, Hodaviah, and Jahdiel--brave warriors, famous, and heads of their families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> But they were not faithful to the God of their ancestors. They took up with the ungodly gods of the peoples of the land whom God had gotten rid of before they arrived.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria (Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria) to take the families of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh into exile. He deported them to Halah, Habor, Hara, and the river of Gozan. They've been there ever since.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The sons of Levi were Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The children of Amram were Aaron, Moses, and Miriam. The sons of Aaron were Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Eleazar had Phinehas, Phinehas had Abishua,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Abishua had Bukki, Bukki had Uzzi,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Uzzi had Zerahiah, Zerahiah had Meraioth,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Meraioth had Amariah, Amariah had Ahitub,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Ahitub had Zadok, Zadok had Ahimaaz,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Ahimaaz had Azariah, Azariah had Johanan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> and Johanan had Azariah (who served as priest in the temple Solomon built in Jerusalem).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Azariah had Amariah, Amariah had Ahitub,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Ahitub had Zadok, Zadok had Shallum,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Shallum had Hilkiah, Hilkiah had Azariah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Azariah had Seraiah, and Seraiah had Jehozadak.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Jehozadak went off to exile when GOD used Nebuchadnezzar to take Judah and Jerusalem into exile.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The sons of Levi were Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> These are the names of the sons of Gershon: Libni and Shimei.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The sons of Merari were Mahli and Mushi. These are the Levitical clans according to families:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> the sons of Gershon were Libni his son, Jehath his son, Zimmah his son,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Joah his son, Iddo his son, Zerah his son, and Jeatherai his son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The sons of Kohath were Amminadab his son, Korah his son, Assir his son,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Elkanah his son, Ebiasaph his son, Assir his son,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Tahath his son, Uriel his son, Uzziah his son, and Shaul his son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The sons of Elkanah were Amasai and Ahimoth,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Elkanah his son, Zophai his son, Nahath his son,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Eliab his son, Jeroham his son, and Elkanah his son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The sons of Samuel were Joel his firstborn son and Abijah his second.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The sons of Merari were Mahli, Libni his son, Shimei his son, Uzzah his son,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Shimea his son, Haggiah his son, and Asaiah his son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> These are the persons David appointed to lead the singing in the house of GOD after the Chest was placed there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> They were the ministers of music in the place of worship, which was the Tent of Meeting until Solomon built The Temple of GOD in Jerusalem. As they carried out their work, they followed the instructions given to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> These are the persons, together with their sons, who served by preparing for and directing worship: from the family of the Kohathites was Heman the choirmaster, the son of Joel, the son of Samuel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> the son of Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Eliel, the son of Toah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> the son of Zuph, the son of Elkanah, the son of Mahath, the son of Amasai,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> the son of Elkanah, the son of Joel, the son of Azariah, the son of Zephaniah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> the son of Tahath, the son of Assir, the son of Ebiasaph, the son of Korah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, the son of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Heman's associate Asaph stood at his right hand. Asaph was the son of Berekiah, the son of Shimea,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> the son of Michael, the son of Baaseiah, the son of Malkijah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> the son of Ethni, the son of Zerah, the son of Adaiah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> the son of Ethan, the son of Zimmah, the son of Shimei,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> the son of Jahath, the son of Gershon, the son of Levi.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Of the sons of Merari, the associates who stood at his left hand, was Ethan the son of Kishi, the son of Abdi, the son of Malluch,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> the son of Hashabiah, the son of Amaziah, the son of Hilkiah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> the son of Amzi, the son of Bani, the son of Shemer,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> the son of Mahli, the son of Mushi, the son of Merari, the son of Levi.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> The rest of the Levites were assigned to all the other work in the place of worship, the house of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> Aaron and his sons offered the sacrifices on the Altar of Burnt Offering and the Altar of Incense; they were in charge of all the work surrounding the Holy of Holies. They made atonement for Israel following the instructions commanded by Moses, servant of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> These are the sons of Aaron: Eleazar his son, Phinehas his son, Abishua his son,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> Bukki his son, Uzzi his son, Zerahiah his son,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> Meraioth his son, Amariah his son, Ahitub his son,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> Zadok his son, and Ahimaaz his son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> And these are the places where the priestly families were assigned to live. The first assignment went by lot to the sons of Aaron of the Kohathite family;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> they were given Hebron in the land of Judah and all the neighboring pastures.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> Caleb the son of Jephunneh got the fields and villages around the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> The family of Aaron was also given the cities of refuge, with pastures included: Hebron, Libnah, Jattir, Eshtemoa,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> Hilen, Debir,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="59"> Ashan, and Beth Shemesh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="60"> They were also given Geba from the tribe of Benjamin, Alemeth, and Anathoth, all with pastures included. In all, thirteen cities were distributed among the Kohathite families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="61"> The rest of the Kohathites were given another ten cities, distributed by lot from the half-tribe of Manasseh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="62"> The sons of Gershon were given, family by family, thirteen cities from the tribes of Issachar, Asher, Naphtali, and Manasseh in Bashan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="63"> The sons of Merari, family by family, were assigned by lot twelve cities from the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Zebulun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="64"> The sons of Israel gave the Levites both the cities and their pastures.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="65"> They also distributed by lot cities from the tribes of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="66"> Some of the Kohath families were given their cities from the tribe of Ephraim,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="67"> cities of refuge: Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, Gezer,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="68"> Jokmeam, Beth Horon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="69"> Aijalon, and Gath Rimmon--all with their pastures.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="70"> The rest of the sons of Kohath were given Aner and Bileam with their pastures from the half-tribe of Manasseh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="71"> The sons of Gershon were given, family by family, from the half-tribe of Manasseh, Golan in Bashan and Ashtaroth;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="72"> from the tribe of Issachar, Kedesh, Daberath,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="73"> Ramoth, and Anem;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="74"> from the tribe of Asher, Mashal, Abdon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="75"> Hukok, and Rehob;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="76"> from the tribe of Naphtali, Kedesh in Galilee, Hammon, and Kiriathaim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="77"> The rest of the sons of Merari got Rimmono and Tabor from the tribe of Zebulun;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="78"> Bezer in the desert, Jahzah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="79"> Kedemoth, and Mephaath from the tribe of Reuben to the east of the Jordan;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="80"> and Ramoth in Gilead, Mahanaim,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="81"> Heshbon, and Jazer from the tribe of Gad. Pastures were included in all these towns.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The sons of Issachar were Tola, Puah, Jashub, and Shimron--four sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The sons of Tola were Uzzi, Rephaiah, Jeriel, Jahmai, Ibsam, and Samuel--the chiefs of their families. During David's reign, the Tola family counted 22,600 warriors in their lineage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The son of Uzzi was Izrahiah; the sons of Izrahiah were Michael, Obadiah, Joel, and Isshiah--five sons and all of them chiefs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They counted 36,000 warriors in their lineage because they had more wives and sons than their brothers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The extended families of Issachar accounted for 87,000 warriors--all of them listed in the family tree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Benjamin had three sons: Bela, Beker, and Jediael.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Bela had five: Ezbon, Uzzi, Uzziel, Jerimoth, and Iri, all of them chiefs and warriors. They counted 22,034 names in their family tree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Beker's sons were Zemirah, Joash, Eliezer, Elioenai, Omri, Jeremoth, Abijah, Anathoth, and Alemeth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Through these chiefs their family tree listed 20,200 warriors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Jediael's son was Bilhan and the sons of Bilhan were Jeush, Benjamin, Ehud, Kenaanah, Zethan, Tarshish, and Ahishahar--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> all sons of Jediael and family chiefs; they counted 17,200 combat-ready warriors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Shuppim and Huppim were the sons of Ir; Hushim were from the family of Aher.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The sons of Naphtali were Jahziel, Guni, Jezer, and Shallum; they are listed under the maternal line of Bilhah, their grandfather's concubine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Manasseh's sons, born of his Aramean concubine, were Asriel and Makir the father of Gilead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Makir got his wife from the Huppites and Shuppites. His sister's name was Maacah. Another son, Zelophehad, had only daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Makir's wife Maacah bore a son whom she named Peresh; his brother's name was Sheresh and his sons were Ulam and Rakem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Ulam's son was Bedan. This accounts for the sons of Gilead son of Makir, the son of Manasseh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> His sister Hammoleketh gave birth to Ishdod, Abiezer, and Mahlah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The sons of Shemida were Ahian, Shechem, Likhi, and Aniam.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The sons of Ephraim were Shuthelah, Bered his son, Tahath his son, Eleadah his son, Tahath his son,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Zabad his son, Shuthelah his son, and Ezer and Elead, cattle-rustlers, killed on one of their raids by the natives of Gath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Their father Ephraim grieved a long time and his family gathered to give him comfort.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Then he slept with his wife again. She conceived and produced a son. He named him Beriah (Unlucky), because of the bad luck that had come to his family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> His daughter was Sheerah. She built Lower and Upper Beth Horon and Uzzen Sheerah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Rephah was Ephraim's son and also Resheph; Telah was his son, Tahan his son,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Ladan his son, Ammihud his son, Elishama his son,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Nun his son, and Joshua his son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> They occupied Bethel and the neighboring country from Naaran on the east to Gezer and its villages on the west, along with Shechem and its villages, and extending as far as Ayyah and its villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Stretched along the borders of Manasseh were Beth Shan, Taanach, Megiddo, and Dor, together with their satellite villages. The families descended from Joseph son of Israel lived in all these places.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The sons of Asher were Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi, and Beriah; Serah was their sister.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The sons of Beriah were Heber and Malkiel, who had Birzaith.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Heber had Japhlet, Shomer, Hotham, and Shua their sister.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Japhlet had Pasach, Bimhal, and Ashvath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> His brother Shomer had Rohgah, Hubbah, and Aram.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> His brother Helem had Zophah, Imna, Shelesh, and Amal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Zophah had Suah, Harnepher, Shual, Beri, Imrah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Bezer, Hod, Shamma, Shilshah, Ithran, and Beera.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Jether had Jephunneh, Pispah, and Ara.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Ulla had Arah, Hanniel, and Rizia.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> These were Asher's sons, all of them responsible, excellent in character, and brave in battle--good leaders. They listed 26,000 combat-ready men in their family tree.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Benjamin's firstborn son was Bela, followed by Ashbel, Aharah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Nohah, and Rapha--five in all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Bela's sons were Addar, Gera, Abihud,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Abishua, Naaman, Ahoah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Gera, Shephuphan, and Huram.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> These are the families of Ehud that lived in Geba and were exiled to Manahath:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Naaman, Ahijah, and Gera, who led them to exile and had Uzza and Ahihud.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> In the land of Moab, Shaharaim had children after he divorced his wives Hushim and Baara.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> From his new wife Hodesh he had Jobab, Zibia, Mesha, Malcam,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Jeuz, Sakia, and Mirmah--sons who became heads of families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> From his earlier wife Hushim he had Abitub and Elpaal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Elpaal's sons were Eber, Misham, and Shemed, who built Ono and Lod with all their villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Beriah and Shema were family chiefs who lived at Aijalon. They drove out the citizens of Gath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Their brothers were Shashak and Jeremoth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The sons of Beriah were Zebadiah, Arad, Eder,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Michael, Ishpah, and Joha.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The sons of Elpaal were Zebadiah, Meshullam, Hizki, Heber,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Ishmerai, Izliah, and Jobab.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The sons of Shimei were Jakim, Zicri, Zabdi,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Elienai, Zillethai, Eliel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Adaiah, Beraiah, and Shimrath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The sons of Shashak were Ishpan, Eber, Eliel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Abdon, Zicri, Hanan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Hananiah, Elam, Anthothijah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Iphdeiah, and Penuel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The sons of Jeroham were Shamsherai, Shehariah, Athaliah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Jaareshiah, Elijah, and Zicri.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> These were the chiefs of the families as listed in their family tree. They lived in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Jeiel the father of Gibeon lived in Gibeon. His wife's name was Maacah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Abdon was his firstborn son, followed by Zur, Kish, Baal, Nadab,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Gedor, Ahio, Zeker, and Mikloth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Mikloth had Shimeah. They lived in the neighborhood of their extended families in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Ner had Kish, Kish had Saul, and Saul had Jonathan, Malki-Shua, Abinadab, and Esh-Baal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Jonathan had Merib-Baal, and Merib-Baal had Micah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Micah's sons were Pithon, Melech, Tarea, and Ahaz.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Ahaz had Jehoaddah and Jehoaddah had Alemeth, Azmaveth, and Zimri. Zimri had Moza and</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Moza had Binea. Raphah was his son, Eleasah his son, and Azel his son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Azel had six sons named Azrikam, Bokeru, Ishmael, Sheariah, Obadiah, and Hanan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> His brother Eshek's sons were Ulam his firstborn, followed by Jeush and Eliphelet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Ulam's sons were warriors well known as archers. They had lots of sons and grandsons--at least 150. These were all in Benjamin's family tree.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> This is the complete family tree for all Israel, recorded in the Royal Annals of the Kings of Israel and Judah at the time they were exiled to Babylon because of their unbelieving and disobedient lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The first Israelites to return from exile to their homes and cities were the priests, the Levites, and the temple support staff.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Returning to Jerusalem from the families of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh were the following:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Uthai son of Ammihud, the son of Omri, the son of Imri, the son of Bani, from the line of Perez son of Judah;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> from the Shilonites were Asaiah the firstborn and his sons;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> from the family of Zerah there was Jeuel. There were 690 in the Judah group.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> From the family of Benjamin were Sallu son of Meshullam, the son of Hodaviah, the son of Hassenuah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> and Ibneiah son of Jeroham, and Elah son of Uzzi, the son of Micri, and Meshullam son of Shephatiah, the son of Reuel, the son of Ibnijah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> There were 956 in the Benjamin group. All these named were heads of families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> From the company of priests there were Jedaiah; Jehoiarib; Jakin;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Azariah son of Hilkiah, the son of Meshullam, the son of Zadok, the son of Meraioth, the son of Ahitub, who was in charge of taking care of the house of God;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Adaiah son of Jeroham, the son of Pashhur, the son of Malkijah; also Maasai son of Adiel, the son of Jahzerah, the son of Meshullam, the son of Meshillemith, the son of Immer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The priests, all of them heads of families, numbered 1,760, skilled and seasoned servants in the work of worshiping God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> From the Levites were Shemaiah son of Hasshub, the son of Azrikam, the son of Hashabiah, a Merarite;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> then Bakbakkar, Heresh, Galal, Mattaniah son of Mica, the son of Zicri, the son of Asaph;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> also Obadiah son of Shemaiah, the son of Galal, the son of Jeduthun; and finally Berekiah son of Asa, the son of Elkanah, who lived in the villages of the Netophathites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The security guards were Shallum, Akkub, Talmon, Ahiman, and their brothers. Shallum was the chief</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> and up to now the security guard at the King's Gate on the east. They also served as security guards at the camps of Levite families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Shallum son of Kore, the son of Ebiasaph, the son of Korah, along with his brothers in the Korahite family, were in charge of the services of worship as doorkeepers of the Tent, as their ancestors had guarded the entrance to the camp of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> In the early days, Phinehas son of Eleazar was in charge of the security guards--God be with him!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Now Zechariah son of Meshelemiah was the security guard at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The number of those who had been chosen to be security guards was 212--they were officially registered in their own camps. David and Samuel the seer handpicked them for their dependability.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They and their sons had the permanent responsibility for guarding the gates of God's house, the house of worship;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> the main security guards were posted at the four entrances, east, west, north, and south;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> their brothers in the villages were scheduled to give them relief weekly--the four main security guards were responsible for round-the-clock surveillance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Being Levites, they were responsible for the security of all supplies and valuables in the house of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> They kept watch all through the night and had the key to open the doors each morning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Some were in charge of the articles used in The Temple worship--they counted them both when they brought them in and when they took them out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Others were in charge of supplies in the sanctuary--flour, wine, oil, incense, and spices.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> And some of the priests were assigned to mixing the oils for the perfume.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The Levite Mattithiah, the firstborn son of Shallum the Korahite, was responsible for baking the bread for the services of worship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Some of the brothers, sons of the Kohathites, were assigned to preparing the bread set out on the table each Sabbath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> And then there were the musicians, all heads of Levite families. They had permanent living quarters in The Temple; because they were on twenty-four-hour duty,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> they were exempt from all other duties. These were the heads of Levite families as designated in their family tree. They lived in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Jeiel the father of Gibeon lived at Gibeon; his wife was Maacah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> His firstborn son was Abdon, followed by Zur, Kish, Baal, Ner, Nadab,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Gedor, Ahio, Zechariah, and Mikloth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Mikloth had Shimeam. They lived in the same neighborhood as their relatives in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Ner had Kish, Kish had Saul, Saul had Jonathan, Malki-Shua, Abinadab, and Esh-Baal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Merib-Baal was the son of Jonathan and Merib-Baal had Micah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Micah's sons were Pithon, Melech, and Tahrea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Ahaz had Jarah, Jarah had Alemeth, Azmaveth, and Zimri; Zimri had Moza,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Moza had Binea, Rephaiah was his son, Eleasah was his son, and Azel was his son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Azel had six sons: Azrikam, Bokeru, Ishmael, Sheariah, Obadiah, and Hanan--the sons of Azel.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Philistines went to war against Israel; the Israelites ran for their lives from the Philistines but fell, slaughtered on Mount Gilboa.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The Philistines zeroed in on Saul and his sons and killed his sons Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malki-Shua.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The battle went hard against Saul--the archers found him and wounded him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Saul said to his armor bearer, "Draw your sword and finish me off before these pagan pigs get to me and make a sport of my body." But his armor bearer, restrained by both reverence and fear, wouldn't do it. So Saul took his own sword and killed himself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The armor bearer, panicked because Saul was dead, then killed himself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So Saul and his three sons--all four the same day--died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When all the Israelites in the valley saw that the army had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned their cities and ran off; the Philistines came and moved in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The next day the Philistines came to plunder the dead bodies and found Saul and his sons dead on Mount Gilboa.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They stripped Saul, removed his head and his armor, and put them on exhibit throughout Philistia, reporting the victory news to their idols and the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then they put Saul's armor on display in the temple of their gods and placed his skull as a trophy in the temple of their god Dagon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The people of Jabesh Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> All of their fighting men went into action--retrieved the bodies of Saul and his sons and brought them to Jabesh, gave them a dignified burial under the oak at Jabesh, and mourned their deaths for seven days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Saul died in disobedience, disobedient to GOD. He didn't obey GOD's words. Instead of praying, he went to a witch to seek guidance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Because he didn't go to GOD for help, GOD took his life and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then all Israel assembled before David at Hebron. "Look at us," they said. "We're your very flesh and blood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> In the past, yes, even while Saul was king, you were the real leader of Israel. GOD told you, 'You will shepherd my people Israel; you are to be the ruler of my people Israel.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron, David made a covenant with them in the presence of GOD at Hebron. Then they anointed David king over Israel exactly as GOD had commanded through Samuel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> David and all Israel went to Jerusalem (it was the old Jebus, where the Jebusites lived).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The citizens of Jebus told David, "No trespassing--you can't come here." David came on anyway and captured the fortress of Zion, the City of David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> David had said, "The first person to kill a Jebusite will be commander-in-chief." Joab son of Zeruiah was the first; and he became the chief.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> David took up residence in the fortress city; that's how it got its name, "City of David."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> David fortified the city all the way around, both the outer bulwarks (the Millo) and the outside wall. Joab rebuilt the city gates.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> David's stride became longer, his embrace larger--yes, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies was with him!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> These are the chiefs of David's Mighty Men, the ones who linked arms with him as he took up his kingship, with all Israel joining in, helping him become king in just the way GOD had spoken regarding Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The list of David's Mighty Men: Jashobeam son of Hacmoni was chief of the Thirty. Singlehandedly he killed three hundred men, killed them all in one skirmish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Next was Eleazar son of Dodai the Ahohite, one of the Big Three of the Mighty Men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He was with David at Pas Dammim, where the Philistines had mustered their troops for battle. It was an area where there was a field of barley. The army started to flee from the Philistines</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> and then took its stand right in that field--and turned the tide! They slaughtered the Philistines, GOD helping them--a huge victory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The Big Three from the Thirty made a rocky descent to David at the Cave of Adullam while a company of Philistines was camped in the Valley of Rephaim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> David was holed up in the Cave while the Philistines were prepared for battle at Bethlehem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> David had a sudden craving: "What I wouldn't give for a drink of water from the well in Bethlehem, the one at the gate!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The Three penetrated the Philistine camp, drew water from the well at the Bethlehem gate, shouldered it, and brought it to David. And then David wouldn't drink it! He poured it out as a sacred offering to GOD,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> saying, "I'd rather be damned by God than drink this! It would be like drinking the lifeblood of these men--they risked their lives to bring it." So he refused to drink it. These are the kinds of things that the Big Three of the Mighty Men did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Abishai brother of Joab was the chief of the Thirty. Singlehandedly he fought three hundred men, and killed the lot, but he never made it into the circle of the Three.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He was highly honored by the Thirty--he was their chief--still, he didn't measure up to the Three.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Benaiah son of Jehoiada was a Mighty Man from Kabzeel with many exploits to his credit: he killed two famous Moabites; he climbed down into a pit and killed a lion on a snowy day;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> and he killed an Egyptian, a giant seven and a half feet tall. The Egyptian had a spear like a ship's boom but Benaiah went at him with a mere club, tore the spear from the Egyptian's hand, and killed him with it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> These are some of the things Benaiah son of Jehoiada did. But he was never included with the Three.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> He was highly honored among the Thirty, but didn't measure up to the Three. David put him in charge of his personal bodyguard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The Mighty Men of the military were Asahel brother of Joab, Elhanan son of Dodo of Bethlehem,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Shammoth the Harorite, Helez the Pelonite,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Ira son of Ikkesh the Tekoite, Abiezer the Anathothite,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Sibbecai the Hushathite, Ilai the Ahohite,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Maharai the Netophathite, Heled son of Baanah the Netophathite,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Ithai son of Ribai from Gibeah of the Benjaminite, Benaiah the Pirathonite,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Hurai from the ravines of Gaash, Abiel the Arbathite,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Azmaveth the Baharumite, Eliahba the Shaalbonite,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> the sons of Hashem the Gizonite, Jonathan son of Shagee the Hararite,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Ahiam son of Sacar the Haranite, Eliphal son of Ur,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Hepher the Mekerathite, Ahijah the Pelonite,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Hezro the Carmelite, Naarai son of Ezbai,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Joel brother of Nathan, Mibhar son of Hagri,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Zelek the Ammonite, Naharai the Berothite, the armor bearer of Joab son of Zeruiah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Ira the Ithrite, Gareb the Ithrite,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Uriah the Hittite, Zabad son of Ahlai,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Adina son of Shiza the Reubenite, the Reubenite chief of the Thirty,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Hanan son of Maacah, Joshaphat the Mithnite,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Uzzia the Ashterathite, Shama and Jeiel the sons of Hotham the Aroerite,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> Jediael son of Shimri, Joha the Tizite his brother,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Eliel the Mahavite, Jeribai and Joshaviah the sons of Elnaam, Ithmah the Moabite,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> Eliel, Obed, and Jaasiel the Mezobaite.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> These are the men who joined David in Ziklag; it was during the time he was banished by Saul the son of Kish; they were among the Mighty Men, good fighters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They were armed with bows and could sling stones and shoot arrows either right- or left-handed. They hailed from Saul's tribe, Benjamin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The first was Ahiezer; then Joash son of Shemaah the Gibeathite; Jeziel and Pelet the sons of Azmaveth; Beracah; Jehu the Anathothite;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Ishmaiah the Gibeonite, a Mighty Man among the Thirty, a leader of the Thirty; Jeremiah; Jahaziel; Johanan; Jozabad the Gederathite;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Eluzai; Jerimoth; Bealiah; Shemariah; Shephatiah the Haruphite;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Elkanah; Isshiah; Azarel; Joezer; Jashobeam; the Korahites;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> and Joelah and Zebadiah, the sons of Jeroham from Gedor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> There were some Gadites there who had defected to David at his wilderness fortress; they were seasoned and eager fighters who knew how to handle shield and spear. They were wild in appearance, like lions, but as agile as gazelles racing across the hills.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Ezer was the first, then Obadiah, Eliab,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Mishmannah, Jeremiah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Attai, Eliel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Johanan, Elzabad,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Jeremiah, and Macbannai--eleven of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> These Gadites were the cream of the crop--any one of them was worth a hundred lesser men, and the best of them were worth a thousand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They were the ones who crossed the Jordan when it was at flood stage in the first month, and put everyone in the lowlands to flight, both east and west.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> There were also men from the tribes of Benjamin and Judah who joined David in his wilderness fortress.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When David went out to meet them, this is what he said: "If you have come in peace and to help me, you are most welcome to join this company; but if you have come to betray me to my enemies, innocent as I am, the God of our ancestors will see through you and bring judgment on you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Just then Amasai chief of the Thirty, moved by God's Spirit, said, We're on your side, O David, We're committed, O son of Jesse; All is well, yes, all is well with you, And all's well with whoever helps you. Yes, for your God has helped and does help you. So David took them on and assigned them a place under the chiefs of the raiders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Some from the tribe of Manasseh also defected to David when he started out with the Philistines to go to war against Saul. In the end, they didn't actually fight because the Philistine leaders, after talking it over, sent them home, saying, "We can't trust them with our lives--they'll betray us to their master Saul."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The men from Manasseh who defected to David at Ziklag were Adnah, Jozabad, Jediael, Michael, Jozabad, Elihu, and Zillethai, all leaders among the families of Manasseh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They helped David in his raids against the desert bandits; they were all stalwart fighters and good leaders among his raiders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Hardly a day went by without men showing up to help--it wasn't long before his band seemed as large as God's own army!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Here are the statistics on the battle-seasoned warriors who came down from the north to David at Hebron to hand over Saul's kingdom, in accord with GOD's word:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> from Judah, carrying shield and spear, 6,800 battle-ready;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> from Simeon, 7,100 stalwart fighters;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> from Levi, 4,600,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> which included Jehoiada leader of the family of Aaron, bringing 3,700 men</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> and the young and stalwart Zadok with twenty-two leaders from his family;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> from Benjamin, Saul's family, 3,000, most of whom had stuck it out with Saul until now;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> from Ephraim, 20,800, fierce fighters and famous in their hometowns;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> from the half-tribe of Manasseh, 18,000 elected to come and make David king;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> from Issachar, men who understood both the times and Israel's duties, 200 leaders with their families;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> from Zebulun, 50,000 well-equipped veteran warriors, unswervingly loyal;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> from Naphtali, 1,000 chiefs leading 37,000 men heavily armed;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> from Dan, 28,600 battle-ready men;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> from Asher, 40,000 veterans, battle-ready;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> and from East of Jordan, men from Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, heavily armed, 120,000.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> All these soldiers came to David at Hebron, ready to fight if necessary; they were both united and determined to make David king over all Israel. And everyone else in Israel was of the same mind--"Make David king!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> They were with David for three days of feasting celebration, with food and drink supplied by their families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Neighbors ranging from as far north as Issachar, Zebulun, and Naphtali arrived with donkeys, camels, mules, and oxen loaded down with food for the party: flour, fig cakes, raisin cakes, wine, oil, cattle, and sheep--joy in Israel!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> David consulted with all of his leaders, the commanders of thousands and of hundreds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Then David addressed the entire assembly of Israel, "If it seems right to you, and it is GOD's will, let's invite all our relatives wherever they are throughout Israel, along with their relatives, including their priests and Levites from their cities and surrounding pastures, to join us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And let's bring the Chest of our God back--the Chest that was out of sight, out of mind during the days of Saul."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The entire assembly of Israel agreed--everybody agreed that it was the right thing to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> So David gathered all Israel together, from Egypt's Pond of Horus in the southwest to the Pass of Hamath in the northeast, to go and get the Chest of God from Kiriath Jearim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then David and all Israel went to Baalah (Kiriath Jearim) in Judah to bring back the Chest of God, the "Cherubim-Throne-of-GOD," where GOD's Name is invoked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They moved the Chest of God on a brand-new cart from the house of Abinadab with Uzzah and Ahio in charge.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> In procession with the Chest of God, David and all Israel worshiped exuberantly in song and dance, with a marching band of all kinds of instruments.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When they were at the threshing floor of Kidon, the oxen stumbled and Uzzah grabbed the Chest to keep it from falling off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> GOD erupted in anger against Uzzah and killed him because he grabbed the Chest. He died on the spot--in the presence of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> David lost his temper, angry because GOD exploded against Uzzah; the place is still called Perez Uzzah (Exploded Uzzah).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> David was terrified of God that day; he said, "How can I possibly continue this parade with the Chest of God?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> So David called off the parade of the Chest to the City of David; instead he stored it in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The Chest of God was in storage in the house of Obed-Edom for three months. GOD blessed the family of Obed-Edom and everything around him.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> King Hiram of Tyre sent an envoy to David, along with cedar lumber, masons, and carpenters to build him a royal palace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Then David knew for sure that GOD had confirmed him as king over Israel, because of the rising reputation that GOD was giving his kingdom for the benefit of his people Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> David married more wives and had more children in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> His children born in Jerusalem were Shammua, Shobab, Nathan, Solomon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Ibhar, Elishua, Elpelet,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Nogah, Nepheg, Japhia,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Elishama, Beeliada, and Eliphelet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The minute the Philistines heard that David had been made king over a united Israel, they went out in force to capture David. When David got the report, he marched out to confront them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> On their way, the Philistines stopped off to plunder the Valley of Rephaim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> David prayed to God: "Is this the right time to attack the Philistines? Will you give me the victory?" GOD answered, "Attack; I'll give you the victory."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> David attacked at Baal Perazim and slaughtered them. David said, "God exploded my enemies, as water explodes from a burst pipe." That's how the place got its name, Baal Perazim (Baal-Explosion).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The Philistines left their gods behind and David ordered that they be burned up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And then the Philistines were back at it again, plundering in the valley.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> David again prayed to God. God answered, "This time don't attack head-on; circle around and come at them out of the balsam grove.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> When you hear a sound like shuffling feet in the tops of the balsams, attack; God will be two steps ahead of you, slaughtering the Philistines."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> David did exactly as God commanded, slaughtering Philistines all the way from Gibeon to Gezer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> David was soon famous all over the place, far and near; and GOD put the fear of God into the godless nations.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> After David built houses for himself in the City of David, he cleared a place for the Chest and pitched a tent for it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Then David gave orders: "No one carries the Chest of God except the Levites; GOD designated them and them only to carry the Chest of GOD and be available full time for service in the work of worship."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> David then called everyone in Israel to assemble in Jerusalem to bring up the Chest of GOD to its specially prepared place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> David also called in the family of Aaron and the Levites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> From the family of Kohath, Uriel the head with 120 relatives;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> from the family of Merari, Asaiah the head with 220 relatives;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> from the family of Gershon, Joel the head with 130 relatives;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> from the family of Elizaphan, Shemaiah the head with 200 relatives;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> from the family of Hebron, Eliel the head with 80 relatives;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> from the family of Uzziel, Amminadab the head with 112 relatives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then David called in Zadok and Abiathar the priests, and Uriel, Asaiah, Joel, Shemaiah, Eliel, and Amminadab the Levites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He said, "You are responsible for the Levitical families; now consecrate yourselves, both you and your relatives, and bring up the Chest of the GOD of Israel to the place I have set aside for it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The first time we did this, you Levites did not carry it properly, and GOD exploded in anger at us because we didn't make proper preparation and follow instructions."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> So the priests and Levites consecrated themselves to bring up the Chest of the GOD of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The Levites carried the Chest of God exactly as Moses, instructed by GOD, commanded--carried it with poles on their shoulders, careful not to touch it with their hands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> David ordered the heads of the Levites to assign their relatives to sing in the choir, accompanied by a well-equipped marching band, and fill the air with joyful sound.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The Levites assigned Heman son of Joel, and from his family, Asaph son of Berekiah, then Ethan son of Kushaiah from the family of Merari,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> and after them in the second rank their brothers Zechariah, Jaaziel, Shemiramoth, Jehiel, Unni, Eliab, Benaiah, Maaseiah, Mattithiah, Eliphelehu, Mikneiah, Obed-Edom, and Jeiel as security guards.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The members of the choir and marching band were: Heman, Asaph, and Ethan with bronze cymbals;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Zechariah, Aziel, Shemiramoth, Jehiel, Unni, Eliab, Maaseiah, and Benaiah with lyres carrying the melody;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Mattithiah, Eliphelehu, Mikneiah, Obed-Edom, Jeiel, and Azaziah with harps filling in the harmony;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Kenaniah, the Levite in charge of music, a very gifted musician, was music director.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Berekiah and Elkanah were porters for the Chest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The priests Shebaniah, Joshaphat, Nethanel, Amasai, Zechariah, Benaiah, and Eliezer blew the trumpets before the Chest of God. Obed-Edom and Jehiah were also porters for the Chest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Now they were ready. David, the elders of Israel, and the commanders of thousands started out to get the Chest of the Covenant of GOD and bring it up from the house of Obed-Edom. And they went rejoicing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Because God helped the Levites, strengthening them as they carried the Chest of the Covenant of GOD, they paused to worship by sacrificing seven bulls and seven rams.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> They were all dressed in elegant linen--David, the Levites carrying the Chest, the choir and band, and Kenaniah who was directing the music. David also wore a linen prayer shawl (called an ephod).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> On they came, all Israel on parade bringing up the Chest of the Covenant of GOD, shouting and cheering, playing every kind of brass and percussion and string instrument.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> When the Chest of the Covenant of GOD entered the City of David, Michal, Saul's daughter, was watching from a window. When she saw King David dancing ecstatically she was filled with contempt.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> They brought the Chest of God and placed it right in the center of the tent that David had pitched for it; then they worshiped by presenting burnt offerings and peace offerings to God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> When David had completed the offerings of worship, he blessed the people in the name of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then he passed around to every one there, men and women alike, a loaf of bread, a slice of barbecue, and a raisin cake.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then David assigned some of the Levites to the Chest of GOD to lead worship--to intercede, give thanks, and praise the GOD of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Asaph was in charge; under him were Zechariah, Jeiel, Shemiramoth, Jehiel, Mattithiah, Eliab, Benaiah, Obed-Edom, and Jeiel, who played the musical instruments. Asaph was on percussion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The priests Benaiah and Jahaziel blew the trumpets before the Chest of the Covenant of God at set times through the day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> That was the day that David inaugurated regular worship of praise to GOD, led by Asaph and his company.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Thank GOD! Call out his Name! Tell the whole world who he is and what he's done!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Sing to him! Play songs for him! Broadcast all his wonders!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Revel in his holy Name, GOD-seekers, be jubilant!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Study GOD and his strength, seek his presence day and night;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Remember all the wonders he performed, the miracles and judgments that came out of his mouth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Seed of Israel his servant! Children of Jacob, his first choice!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He is GOD, our God; wherever you go you come on his judgments and decisions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He keeps his commitments across thousands of generations, the covenant he commanded,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The same one he made with Abraham, the very one he swore to Isaac;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He posted it in big block letters to Jacob, this eternal covenant with Israel:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "I give you the land of Canaan, this is your inheritance;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Even though you're not much to look at, a few straggling strangers."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> They wandered from country to country, camped out in one kingdom after another;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But he didn't let anyone push them around, he stood up for them against bully-kings:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Don't you dare touch my anointed ones, don't lay a hand on my prophets."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Sing to GOD, everyone and everything! Get out his salvation news every day!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Publish his glory among the godless nations, his wonders to all races and religions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> And why? Because GOD is great--well worth praising! No god or goddess comes close in honor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> All the popular gods are stuff and nonsense, but GOD made the cosmos!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Splendor and majesty flow out of him, strength and joy fill his place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Shout Bravo! to GOD, families of the peoples, in awe of the Glory, in awe of the Strength: Bravo!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Shout Bravo! to his famous Name, lift high an offering and enter his presence! Stand resplendent in his robes of holiness!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> God is serious business, take him seriously; he's put the earth in place and it's not moving.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> So let heaven rejoice, let earth be jubilant, and pass the word among the nations, "GOD reigns!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Let Ocean, all teeming with life, bellow, let Field and all its creatures shake the rafters;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Then the trees in the forest will add their applause to all who are pleased and present before GOD --he's on his way to set things right!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Give thanks to GOD--he is good and his love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Say, "Save us, Savior God, round us up and get us out of these godless places, So we can give thanks to your holy Name, and bask in your life of praise."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Blessed be GOD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Then everybody said, "Yes! Amen!" and "Praise GOD!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> David left Asaph and his coworkers with the Chest of the Covenant of GOD and in charge of the work of worship; they were responsible for the needs of worship around the clock.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> He also assigned Obed-Edom and his sixty-eight relatives to help them. Obed-Edom son of Jeduthun and Hosah were in charge of the security guards.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> The priest Zadok and his family of priests were assigned to the Tent of GOD at the sacred mound at Gibeon</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> to make sure that the services of morning and evening worship were conducted daily, complete with Whole-Burnt-Offerings offered on the Altar of Burnt Offering, as ordered in the Law of GOD, which was the norm for Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> With them were Heman, Jeduthun, and others specifically named, with the job description: "Give thanks to GOD, for his love never quits!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Heman and Jeduthun were also well equipped with trumpets, cymbals, and other instruments for accompanying sacred songs. The sons of Jeduthun formed the security guard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Arrangements completed, the people all left for home. And David went home to bless his family.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="17">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> After the king had made himself at home, he said to Nathan the prophet, "Look at this: Here I am comfortable in a luxurious palace of cedar and the Chest of the Covenant of GOD sits under a tent."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Nathan told David, "Whatever is on your heart, go and do it; God is with you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But that night, the word of God came to Nathan, saying,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Go and tell my servant David, This is GOD's word on the matter: You will not build me a 'house' to live in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Why, I haven't lived in a 'house' from the time I brought up the children of Israel from Egypt till now; I've gone from one tent and makeshift shelter to another.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> In all my travels with all Israel, did I ever say to any of the leaders I commanded to shepherd Israel, 'Why haven't you built me a house of cedar?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "So here is what you are to tell my servant David: The GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies has this word for you: I took you from the pasture, tagging after sheep, and made you prince over my people Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I was with you everywhere you went and mowed your enemies down before you; and now I'm about to make you famous, ranked with the great names on earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'm going to set aside a place for my people Israel and plant them there so they'll have their own home and not be knocked around anymore; nor will evil nations afflict them as they always have,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> even during the days I set judges over my people Israel. And finally, I'm going to conquer all your enemies. "And now I'm telling you this: GOD himself will build you a house!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> When your life is complete and you're buried with your ancestors, then I'll raise up your child to succeed you, a child from your own body, and I'll firmly establish his rule.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He will build a house to honor me, and I will guarantee his kingdom's rule forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I'll be a father to him, and he'll be a son to me. I will never remove my gracious love from him as I did from the one who preceded you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I will set him over my house and my kingdom forever; his throne will always be there, rock solid."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Nathan gave David a complete and accurate report of everything he heard and saw in the vision.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> King David went in, took his place before GOD, and prayed: Who am I, my Master GOD, and what is my family, that you have brought me to this place in life?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But that's nothing compared to what's coming, for you've also spoken of my family far into the future, given me a glimpse into tomorrow and looked on me, Master GOD, as a Somebody.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> What's left for David to say to this--to your honoring your servant, even though you know me, just as I am?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> O GOD, out of the goodness of your heart, you've taken your servant to do this great thing and put your great work on display.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> There's none like you, GOD, no God but you, nothing to compare with what we've heard with our own ears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And who is like your people, like Israel, a nation unique on earth, whom God set out to redeem as his own people (and became most famous for it), performing great and fearsome acts, throwing out nations and their gods left and right as you saved your people from Egypt?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> You established for yourself a people--your very own Israel!--your people forever. And you, GOD, became their God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> So now, great GOD, this word that you have spoken to me and my family, guarantee it forever! Do exactly what you've promised!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Then your reputation will be confirmed and flourish always as people exclaim, "The GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God over Israel, is Israel's God!" And the house of your servant David will remain rock solid under your watchful presence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> You, my God, have told me plainly, "I will build you a house." That's how I was able to find the courage to pray this prayer to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> GOD, being the God you are, you have spoken all these wonderful words to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> As if that weren't enough, you've blessed my family so that it will continue in your presence always. Because you have blessed it, GOD, it's really blessed--blessed for good!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="18">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the days that followed, David struck hard at the Philistines, bringing them to their knees, captured Gath, and took control of the surrounding countryside.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He also fought and defeated Moab. The Moabites came under David's rule and paid regular tribute.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> On his way to restore his sovereignty at the Euphrates River, David defeated Hadadezer king of Zobah (over toward Hamath).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> David captured a thousand chariots, 7,000 cavalry, and 20,000 infantry from him. He hamstrung all the chariot horses, but saved back a hundred.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When the Arameans from Damascus came to the aid of Hadadezer king of Zobah, David killed 22,000 of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> David set up a puppet government in Aram-Damascus. The Arameans became subjects of David and were forced to bring tribute. GOD gave victory to David wherever he marched.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> David plundered the gold shields that belonged to the servants of Hadadezer and brought them to Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He also looted Tebah and Cun, cities of Hadadezer, of a huge quantity of bronze that Solomon later used to make the Great Bronze Sea, the Pillars, and bronze equipment in The Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Tou king of Hamath heard that David had struck down the entire army of Hadadezer king of Zobah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He sent his son Hadoram to King David to greet and congratulate him for fighting and defeating Hadadezer. Tou and Hadadezer were old enemies. Hadoram brought David various things made of silver, gold, and bronze.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> King David consecrated these things along with the silver and gold that he had plundered from other nations: Edom, Moab, the Ammonites, the Philistines, and Amalek.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Abishai son of Zeruiah fought and defeated the Edomites in the Valley of Salt--18,000 of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He set up a puppet government in Edom and the Edomites became subjects under David. GOD gave David victory wherever he marched.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Thus David ruled over all of Israel. He ruled well, fair and evenhanded in all his duties and relationships.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Joab son of Zeruiah was head of the army; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was in charge of public records;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Zadok son of Ahitub and Abimelech son of Abiathar were priests; Shavsha was secretary;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Benaiah son of Jehoiada was over the special forces, the Kerethites and Pelethites; And David's sons held high positions, close to the king.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="19">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Some time after this Nahash king of the Ammonites died and his son succeeded him as king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> David said, "I'd like to show some kindness to Hanun son of Nahash--treat him as well and as kindly as his father treated me." So David sent condolences about his father's death. But when David's servants arrived in Ammonite country and came to Hanun to bring condolences,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> the Ammonite leaders warned Hanun, "Do you for a minute suppose that David is honoring your father by sending you comforters? Don't you know that he's sent these men to snoop around the city and size it up so that he can capture it?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> So Hanun seized David's men, shaved them clean, cut off their robes half way up their buttocks, and sent them packing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When this was all reported to David, he sent someone to meet them, for they were seriously humiliated. The king told them, "Stay in Jericho until your beards grow out; only then come back."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When it dawned on the Ammonites that as far as David was concerned, they stank to high heaven,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> they hired, at a cost of a thousand talents of silver (thirty-seven and a half tons!), chariots and horsemen from the Arameans of Naharaim, Maacah, and Zobah--32,000 chariots and drivers; plus the king of Maacah with his troops who came and set up camp at Medeba; the Ammonites, too, were mobilized from their cities and got ready for battle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> When David heard this, he dispatched Joab with his strongest fighters in full force.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The Ammonites marched out and spread out in battle formation at the city gate; the kings who had come as allies took up a position in the open fields.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When Joab saw that he had two fronts to fight, before and behind, he took his pick of the best of Israel and deployed them to confront the Arameans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The rest of the army he put under the command of Abishai, his brother, and deployed them to deal with the Ammonites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then he said, "If the Arameans are too much for me, you help me; and if the Ammonites prove too much for you, I'll come and help you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Courage! We'll fight might and main for our people and for the cities of our God. And GOD will do whatever he sees needs doing!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But when Joab and his soldiers moved in to fight the Arameans, they ran off in full retreat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Then the Ammonites, seeing the Arameans run for dear life, took to their heels and ran from Abishai into the city. So Joab withdrew from the Ammonites and returned to Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When the Arameans saw how badly they'd been beaten by Israel, they picked up the pieces and regrouped; they sent for the Arameans who were across the river; Shophach, commander of Hadadezer's army, led them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When all this was reported to David, he mustered all Israel, crossed the Jordan, advanced, and prepared to fight. The Arameans went into battle formation, ready for David, and the fight was on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But the Arameans again scattered before Israel. David killed 7,000 chariot drivers and 40,000 infantry. He also killed Shophach, the army commander.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> When all the kings who were vassals of Hadadezer saw that they had been routed by Israel, they made peace with David and served him. The Arameans were afraid to help the Ammonites ever again.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="20">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> That spring, the time when kings usually go off to war, Joab led the army out and ravaged the Ammonites. He then set siege to Rabbah. David meanwhile was back in Jerusalem. Joab hit Rabbah hard and left it in ruins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> David took the crown off the head of their king. Its weight was found to be a talent of gold and set with a precious stone. It was placed on David's head. He hauled great quantities of loot from the city</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> and put the people to hard labor with saws and picks and axes. This is what he did to all the Ammonites. Then David and his army returned to Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Later war broke out with the Philistines at Gezer. That was the time Sibbecai the Hushathite killed Sippai of the clan of giants. The Philistines had to eat crow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> In another war with the Philistines, Elhanan son of Jair killed Lahmi, the brother of Goliath the Gittite whose spear was like a ship's boom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And then there was the war at Gath that featured a hulking giant who had twenty-four fingers and toes, six on each hand and foot--yet another from the clan of giants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When he mocked Israel, Jonathan son of Shimea, David's brother, killed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> These came from the clan of giants and were killed by David and his men.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="21">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Now Satan entered the scene and seduced David into taking a census of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> David gave orders to Joab and the army officers under him, "Canvass all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, and get a count of the population. I want to know the number."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Joab resisted: "May GOD multiply his people by hundreds! Don't they all belong to my master the king? But why on earth would you do a thing like this--why risk getting Israel into trouble with God?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But David wouldn't take no for an answer, so Joab went off and did it--canvassed the country and then came back to Jerusalem</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> and reported the results of the census: There were 1,100,000 fighting men; of that total, Judah accounted for 470,000.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Joab, disgusted by the command--it, in fact, turned his stomach!--protested by leaving Levi and Benjamin out of the census-taking.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And God, offended by the whole thing, punished Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then David prayed, "I have sinned badly in what I have just done, substituting statistics for trust; forgive my sin--I've been really stupid."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD answered by speaking to Gad, David's pastor:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Go and give David this message: 'GOD's word: You have your choice of three punishments; choose one and I'll do the rest.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Gad delivered the message to David:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Do you want three years of famine, three months of running from your enemies while they chase you down, or three days of the sword of GOD--an epidemic unleashed on the country by an angel of GOD? Think it over and make up your mind. What shall I tell the One who sent me?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> David told Gad, "They're all terrible! But I'd rather be punished by GOD whose mercy is great, than fall into human hands."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> So GOD unleashed an epidemic in Israel--70,000 Israelites died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> God then sent the angel to Jerusalem but when he saw the destruction about to begin, he compassionately changed his mind and ordered the death angel, "Enough's enough! Pull back!" The angel of GOD had just reached the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> David looked up and saw the angel hovering between earth and sky, sword drawn and about to strike Jerusalem. David and the elders bowed in prayer and covered themselves with rough burlap.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> David prayed, "Please! I'm the one who sinned; I'm the one at fault. But these sheep, what did they do wrong? Punish me, not them, me and my family; don't take it out on them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The angel of GOD ordered Gad to tell David to go and build an altar to GOD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> David did what Gad told him in obedience to GOD's command.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Meanwhile Araunah had quit threshing the wheat and was watching the angel; his four sons took cover and hid.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> David came up to Araunah. When Araunah saw David, he left the threshing floor and bowed deeply before David, honoring the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> David said to Araunah, "Give me the site of the threshing floor so I can build an altar to GOD. Charge me the market price; we're going to put an end to this disaster."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "O master, my king," said Araunah, "just take it; do whatever you want with it! Look, here's an ox for the burnt offering and threshing paddles for the fuel and wheat for the meal offering--it's all yours!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> David replied to Araunah, "No. I'm buying it from you, and at the full market price. I'm not going to offer GOD sacrifices that are no sacrifice."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> So David bought the place from Araunah for 600 shekels of gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> He built an altar to GOD there and sacrificed Whole-Burnt-Offerings and Peace-Offerings. He called out to GOD and GOD answered by striking the altar of Whole-Burnt-Offering with lightning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Then GOD told the angel to put his sword back into its scabbard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> And that's the story of what happened when David saw that GOD answered him on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite at the time he offered the sacrifice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> At this time the Tabernacle that Moses had constructed in the desert, and with it the Altar of Burnt Offering, were set up at the worship center at Gibeon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> But David, terrified by the angel's sword, wouldn't go there to pray to God anymore.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="22">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> So David declared, "From now on, this is the site for the worship of GOD; this is the place for Israel's Altar of Burnt Offering."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> David ordered all the resident aliens in the land to come together; he sent them to the stone quarries to cut dressed stone to build The Temple of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He also stockpiled a huge quantity of iron for nails and bracings for the doors of the gates, more bronze than could be weighed,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> and cedar logs past counting (the Sidonians and Tyrians shipped in huge loads of cedar logs for David).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> David was thinking, "My son Solomon is too young to plan ahead for this. But the sanctuary that is to be built for GOD has to be the greatest, the talk of all the nations; so I'll get the construction materials together." That's why David prepared this huge stockpile of building materials before he died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then he called in Solomon his son and commanded him to build a sanctuary for the GOD of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> David said to Solomon, "I wanted in the worst way to build a sanctuary to honor my GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But GOD prevented me, saying, 'You've killed too many people, fought too many wars. You are not the one to honor me by building a sanctuary--you've been responsible for too much killing, too much bloodshed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But you are going to have a son and he will be a quiet and peaceful man, and I will calm his enemies down on all sides. His very name will speak peace--that is, Solomon, which means Peace--and I'll give peace and rest under his rule.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He will be the one to build a sanctuary in my honor. He'll be my royal adopted son and I'll be his father; and I'll make sure that the authority of his kingdom over Israel lasts forever.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "So now, son, GOD be with you. GOD-speed as you build the sanctuary for your GOD, the job God has given you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And may GOD also give you discernment and understanding when he puts you in charge of Israel so that you will rule in reverent obedience under GOD's Revelation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> That's what will make you successful, following the directions and doing the things that GOD commanded Moses for Israel. Courage! Take charge! Don't be timid; don't hold back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Look at this--I've gone to a lot of trouble to stockpile materials for the sanctuary of GOD: 100,000 talents (3,775 tons) of gold, a million talents (37,750 tons) of silver, tons of bronze and iron--too much to weigh--and all this timber and stone. And you're free to add more.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And workers both plentiful and prepared: stonecutters, masons, carpenters, artisans in</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> gold and silver, bronze and iron. You're all set--get to work! And GOD-speed!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> David gave orders to all of Israel's leaders to help his son Solomon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> saying, "Isn't it obvious that your GOD is present with you; that he has given you peaceful relations with everyone around? My part in this was to put down the enemies, subdue the land to GOD and his people;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> your part is to give yourselves, heart and soul, to praying to your GOD. So get moving--build the sacred house of worship to GOD! Then bring the Chest of the Covenant of GOD and all the holy furnishings for the worship of God into the sanctuary built in honor of GOD."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="23">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When David got to be an old man, he made his son Solomon king over Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> At the same time he brought together all the leaders of Israel, the priests, and the Levites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The Levites thirty years and older were counted; the total was 38,000.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> David sorted them into work groups: "24,000 are in charge of administering worship in the sanctuary; 6,000 are officials and judges;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> 4,000 are security guards; and 4,000 are to serve in the orchestra, praising GOD with instruments that I have provided for praise."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> David then divided the Levites into groupings named after the sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The Gershonites: Ladan and Shimei.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The three sons of Ladan: Jehiel, Zetham, and Joel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The three sons of Shimei: Shelomoth, Haziel, and Haran, all heads of the families of Ladan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The four sons of Shimei: Jahath, Ziza, Jeush, and Beriah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Jahath came first, followed by Ziza. Jeush and Beriah did not have many sons so they were counted as one family with one task.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The four sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The sons of Amram: Aaron and Moses. Aaron was especially ordained to work in the Holy of Holies, to burn incense before GOD, to serve God and bless his Name always. This was a permanent appointment for Aaron and his sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Moses and his sons were counted in the tribe of Levi.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The sons of Moses: Gershom and Eliezer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Shubael was the first son of Gershom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Rehabiah was the first and only son of Eliezer; but though Eliezer had no other sons, Rehabiah had many sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Shelomith was the first son of Izhar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Hebron had four sons: Jeriah, Amariah, Jahaziel, and Jekameam.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Uzziel had two sons: Micah and Isshiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi. The sons of Mahli: Eleazar and Kish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Eleazar died without any sons, only daughters. Their cousins, the sons of Kish, married the daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Mushi had three sons: Mahli, Eder, and Jerimoth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> These are the sons of Levi twenty years and older, divided up according to families and heads of families and listed in the work groups that took care of the worship in the sanctuary of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> David said, "Now that the GOD of Israel has given rest to his people and made Jerusalem his permanent home,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> the Levites no longer have to carry the Tabernacle and all the furniture required for the work of worship."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> These last words of David referred only to Levites twenty years old and above.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> From now on the assigned work of the Levites was to assist Aaron's sons in the work of worship in GOD's house: maintain courtyards and closets, keep the furniture and utensils of worship clean, take care of any extra work needed in the work of worship,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> and provide bread for the table and flour for the Meal Offerings and the unraised wafers--all baking and mixing, all measuring and weighing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Also they were to be present for morning prayers, thanking and praising GOD, for evening prayers,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> and at the service of Whole-Burnt-Offerings to GOD on Sabbath, at New Moons, and at all festivals. They were on regular duty to serve GOD according to their assignment and the required number.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> In short, the Levites, with the sons of Aaron as their companions in the ministry of holy worship, were responsible for everything that had to do with worship: the place and times and ordering of worship.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="24">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The family of Aaron was grouped as follows: Aaron's sons were Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Nadab and Abihu died before their father and left no sons. So Eleazar and Ithamar filled the office of priest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> David assigned Zadok from the family of Eleazar and Ahimelech from the family of Ithamar and assigned them to separate divisions for carrying out their appointed ministries.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> It turned out that there were more leaders in Eleazar's family than in Ithamar's and so they divided them proportionately: sixteen clan leaders from Eleazar's family and eight clan leaders from Ithamar's family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They assigned the leaders by lot, treating both families alike, for there were officials of the sanctuary and officials of God among both the Eleazar and Ithamar families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The secretary Shemaiah son of Nethanel, a Levite, wrote down their names in the presence of the king, the officials, Zadok the priest, Ahimelech son of Abiathar, and the leaders of the priestly and Levitical families. They took turns: One family was selected from Eleazar and then one from Ithamar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The first lot fell to Jehoiarib, the second to Jedaiah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> the third to Harim, the fourth to Seorim,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> the fifth to Malkijah, the sixth to Mijamin,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> the seventh to Hakkoz, the eighth to Abijah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> the ninth to Jeshua, the tenth to Shecaniah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> the eleventh to Eliashib, the twelfth to Jakim,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> the thirteenth to Huppah, the fourteenth to Jeshebeab,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> the fifteenth to Bilgah, the sixteenth to Immer,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> the seventeenth to Hezir, the eighteenth to Happizzez,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> the nineteenth to Pethahiah, the twentieth to Jehezkel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> the twenty-first to Jakin, the twenty-second to Gamul,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> the twenty-third to Delaiah, and the twenty-fourth to Maaziah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They served in this appointed order when they entered The Temple of GOD, following the procedures laid down by their ancestor Aaron as GOD, the God of Israel, had commanded him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The rest of the Levites are as follows: From the sons of Amram: Shubael; from the sons of Shubael: Jehdeiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Concerning Rehabiah: from his sons, Isshiah was the first.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> From the Izharites: Shelomoth; from the sons of Shelomoth: Jahath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The sons of Hebron: Jeriah the first, Amariah the second, Jahaziel the third, and Jekameam the fourth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The son of Uzziel: Micah, and from the sons of Micah: Shamir.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The brother of Micah was Isshiah, and from the sons of Isshiah: Zechariah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi. The son of Jaaziah: Beno.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The sons of Merari from Jaaziah: Beno, Shoham, Zaccur, and Ibri.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> From Mahli: Eleazar, who had no sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> From Kish: Jerahmeel, the son of Kish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> And from the sons of Mushi: Mahli, Eder, and Jerimoth. These were the Levites by their families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> They also cast lots, the same as their kindred the sons of Aaron had done, in the presence of David the king, Zadok, Ahimelech, and the leaders of the priestly and Levitical families. The families of the oldest and youngest brothers were treated the same.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="25">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Next David and the worship leaders selected some from the family of Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun for special service in preaching and music. Here is the roster of names and assignments:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> From the family of Asaph: Zaccur, Joseph, Nethaniah, and Asarelah; they were supervised by Asaph, who spoke for GOD backed up by the king's authority.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> From the family of Jeduthun there were six sons: Gedaliah, Zeri, Jeshaiah, Shimei, Hashabiah, and Mattithiah; they were supervised by their father Jeduthun, who preached and accompanied himself with the zither--he was responsible for leading the thanks and praise to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> From the family of Heman: Bukkiah, Mattaniah, Uzziel, Shubael, Jerimoth, Hananiah, Hanani, Eliathah, Giddalti, Romamti-Ezer, Joshbekashah, Mallothi, Hothir, and Mahazioth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> These were the sons of Heman the king's seer; they supported and assisted him in his divinely appointed work. God gave Heman fourteen sons and three daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Under their father's supervision they were in charge of leading the singing and providing musical accompaniment in the work of worship in the sanctuary of God (Asaph, Jeduthun, and Heman took their orders directly from the king).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They were well-trained in the sacred music, all of them masters. There were 288 of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They drew names at random to see who would do what. Nobody, whether young or old, teacher or student, was given preference or advantage over another.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The first name from Asaph's family was Joseph and his twelve sons and brothers; second, Gedaliah and his twelve sons and brothers;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> third, Zaccur and his twelve sons and brothers;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> fourth, Izri and his twelve sons and brothers;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> fifth, Nethaniah and his twelve sons and brothers;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> sixth, Bukkiah and his twelve sons and brothers;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> seventh, Jesarelah and his twelve sons and brothers;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> eighth, Jeshaiah and his twelve sons and brothers;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> ninth, Mattaniah and his twelve sons and brothers;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> tenth, Shimei and his twelve sons and brothers;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> eleventh, Azarel and his twelve sons and brothers;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> twelfth, Hashabiah and his twelve sons and brothers;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> thirteenth, Shubael and his twelve sons and brothers;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> fourteenth, Mattithiah and his twelve sons and brothers;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> fifteenth, Jerimoth and his twelve sons and brothers;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> sixteenth, Hananiah and his twelve sons and brothers;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> seventeenth, Joshbekashah and his twelve sons and brothers;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> eighteenth, Hanani and his twelve sons and brothers;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> nineteenth, Mallothi and his twelve sons and brothers;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> twentieth, Eliathah and his twelve sons and brothers;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> twenty-first, Hothir and his twelve sons and brothers;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> twenty-second, Giddalti and his twelve sons and brothers;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> twenty-third, Mahazioth and his twelve sons and brothers;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> twenty-fourth, Romamti-Ezer and his twelve sons and brothers.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="26">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The teams of security guards were from the family of Korah: Meshelemiah son of Kore (one of the sons of Asaph).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Meshelemiah's sons were Zechariah, the firstborn, followed by Jediael, Zebadiah, Jathniel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Elam, Jehohanan, and Eliehoenai--seven sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Obed-Edom's sons were Shemaiah, the firstborn, followed by Jehozabad, Joah, Sacar, Nethanel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Ammiel, Issachar, and Peullethai--God blessed him with eight sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> His son Shemaiah had sons who provided outstanding leadership in the family:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Othni, Rephael, Obed, and Elzabad; his relatives Elihu and Semakiah were also exceptional.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> These all came from the line of Obed-Edom--all of them outstanding and strong. There were sixty-two of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Meshelemiah had eighteen sons and relatives who were outstanding.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The sons of Hosah the Merarite were Shimri (he was not the firstborn but his father made him first),</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> then Hilkiah, followed by Tabaliah and Zechariah. Hosah accounted for thirteen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> These teams of security guards, supervised by their leaders, kept order in The Temple of GOD, keeping up the traditions of their ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They were all assigned to their posts by the same method regardless of the prominence of their families--each picked his gate assignment from a hat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Shelemiah was assigned to the East Gate; his son Zechariah, a shrewd counselor, got the North Gate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Obed-Edom got the South Gate; and his sons pulled duty at the storehouse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Shuppim and Hosah were posted to the West Gate and the Shalleketh Gate on the high road. The guards stood shoulder to shoulder:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> six Levites per day on the east, four per day on the north and on the south, and two at a time at the storehouse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> At the open court to the west, four guards were posted on the road and two at the court.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> These are the teams of security guards from the sons of Korah and Merari.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Other Levites were put in charge of the financial affairs of The Temple of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> From the family of Ladan (all Gershonites) came Jehieli,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> and the sons of Jehieli, Zetham and his brother Joel. They supervised the finances of the sanctuary of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> From the Amramites, the Izharites, the Hebronites, and the Uzzielites:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Shubael, descended from Gershom the son of Moses, was the chief financial officer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> His relatives through Eliezer: his son Rehabiah, his son Jeshaiah, his son Joram, his son Zicri, and his son Shelomith.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Shelomith and his relatives were in charge of valuables consecrated by David the king, family heads, and various generals and commanders from the army.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> They dedicated the plunder that they had gotten in war to the work of the worship of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> In addition, everything that had been dedicated by Samuel the seer, Saul son of Kish, Abner son of Ner, and Joab son of Zeruiah--anything that had been dedicated, ever, was the responsibility of Shelomith and his family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> From the family of the Izharites, Kenaniah and sons were appointed as officials and judges responsible for affairs outside the work of worship and sanctuary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> From the family of the Hebronites, Hashabiah and his relatives--1,700 well-qualified men--were responsible for administration of matters related to the worship of GOD and the king's work in the territory west of the Jordan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> According to the family tree of the Hebronites, Jeriah held pride of place. In the fortieth year of David's reign (his last), the Hebron family tree was researched and outstanding men were found at Jazer in Gilead,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> namely, Jeriah and 2,700 men of his extended family: David the king made them responsible for administration of matters related to the worship of God and the work of the king in the territory east of the Jordan--the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="27">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Here is the listing of the sons of Israel by family heads, commanders and captains, and other officers who served the king in everything military. Army divisions were on duty a month at a time for the twelve months of the year. Each division comprised 24,000 men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> First division, first month: Jashobeam son of Zabdiel was in charge with 24,000 men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He came from the line of Perez. He was over all the army officers during the first month.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The division for the second month: Dodai the Ahohite was in charge: 24,000 men; Mikloth was the leader of his division.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Commander for the third month: Benaiah son of Jehoiada the priest with 24,000 men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> This was the same Benaiah who was a Mighty Man among the Thirty and their chief. His son Ammizabad was in charge of the division.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Fourth division for the fourth month: Asahel brother of Joab; his son Zebadiah succeeded him: 24,000 men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Fifth division, fifth month: commander Shamhuth the Izrahite: 24,000 men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Sixth division, sixth month: Ira son of Ikkesh the Tekoite: 24,000 men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Seventh division, seventh month: Helez the Pelonite, an Ephraimite: 24,000 men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Eighth division, eighth month: Sibbecai the Hushathite, a Zerahite: 24,000 men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Ninth division, ninth month: Abiezer the Anathothite, a Benjaminite: 24,000 men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Tenth division, tenth month: Maharai the Netophathite, a Zerahite: 24,000 men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Eleventh division, eleventh month: Benaiah the Pirathomite, an Ephraimite: 24,000 men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Twelfth division, twelfth month: Heldai the Netophathite from the family of Othniel: 24,000 men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Administrators of the affairs of the tribes: for Reuben: Eliezer son of Zicri;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> for Simeon: Shephatiah son of Maacah; for Levi: Hashabiah son of Kemuel; for Aaron: Zadok;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> for Judah: Elihu, David's brother; for Issachar: Omri son of Michael;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> for Zebulun: Ishmaiah son of Obadiah; for Naphtali: Jerimoth son of Azriel;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> for Ephraim: Hoshea son of Azaziah; for one half-tribe of Manasseh: Joel son of Pedaiah;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> for the half-tribe of Manasseh in Gilead: Iddo son of Zechariah; for Benjamin: Jaasiel son of Abner;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> for Dan: Azarel son of Jeroham. These are the administrative officers assigned to the tribes of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> David didn't keep a count of men under the age of twenty, because GOD had promised to give Israel a population as numerous as the stars in the sky.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Joab son of Zeruiah started out counting the men, but he never finished. God's anger broke out on Israel because of the counting. As it turned out, the numbers were never entered into the court records of King David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The king's storage facilities were supervised by Azmaveth son of Adiel. Jonathan son of Uzziah was responsible for the warehouses in the outlying areas.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Ezri son of Kelub was in charge of the field workers on the farms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Shimei the Ramathite was in charge of the vineyards and Zabdi the Shiphmite was in charge of grapes for the wine vats.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Baal-Hanan the Gederite was in charge of the olive and sycamore-fig trees in the western hills, and Joash was in charge of the olive oil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Shitrai the Sharonite was in charge of herds grazing in Sharon and Shaphat son of Adlai was in charge of herds in the valley.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Obil the Ismaelite was in charge of the camels, Jehdeiah the Meronothite was in charge of the donkeys,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> and Jaziz the Hagrite was in charge of the flocks. These were the ones responsible for taking care of King David's property.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Jonathan, David's uncle, a wise and literate counselor, and Jehiel son of Hacmoni, were responsible for rearing the king's sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Ahithophel was the king's counselor; Hushai the Arkite was the king's friend.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Ahithophel was later replaced by Jehoiada son of Benaiah and by Abiathar. Joab was commander of the king's army.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="28">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> David called together all the leaders of Israel--tribal administrators, heads of various governmental operations, military commanders and captains, stewards in charge of the property and livestock belonging to the king and his sons--everyone who held responsible positions in the kingdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> King David stood tall and spoke: "Listen to me, my people: I fully intended to build a permanent structure for the Chest of the Covenant of GOD, God's footstool. But when I got ready to build it,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> God said to me, 'You may not build a house to honor me--you've done too much fighting--killed too many people.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD chose me out of my family to be king over Israel forever. First he chose Judah as the lead tribe, then he narrowed it down to my family, and finally he picked me from my father's sons, pleased to make me the king over all Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And then from all my sons--and GOD gave me many!--he chose my son Solomon to sit on the throne of GOD's rule over Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He went on to say, 'Your son Solomon will build my house and my courts: I have chosen him to be my royal adopted son; and I will be to him a father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I will guarantee that his kingdom will last if he continues to be as strong-minded in doing what I command and carrying out my decisions as he is doing now.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "And now, in this public place, all Israel looking on and God listening in, as GOD's people, obey and study every last one of the commandments of your GOD so that you can make the most of living in this good land and pass it on intact to your children, insuring a good future.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "And you, Solomon my son, get to know well your father's God; serve him with a whole heart and eager mind, for GOD examines every heart and sees through every motive. If you seek him, he'll make sure you find him, but if you abandon him, he'll leave you for good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Look sharp now! GOD has chosen you to build his holy house. Be brave, determined! And do it!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then David presented his son Solomon with the plans for The Temple complex: porch, storerooms, meeting rooms, and the place for atoning sacrifice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He turned over the plans for everything that God's Spirit had brought to his mind: the design of the courtyards, the arrangements of rooms, and the closets for storing all the holy things.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He gave him his plan for organizing the Levites and priests in their work of leading and ordering worship in the house of God, and for caring for the liturgical furnishings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He provided exact specifications for how much gold and silver was needed for each article used in the serv- ices of worship:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> the gold and silver Lampstands and lamps,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> the gold tables for consecrated bread, the silver tables,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> the gold forks, the bowls and the jars,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> and the incense altar. And he gave him the plan for sculpting the cherubs with their wings outstretched over the Chest of the Covenant of GOD--the cherubim throne.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Here are the blueprints for the whole project as GOD gave me to understand it," David said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> David continued to address Solomon: "Take charge! Take heart! Don't be anxious or get discouraged. GOD, my God, is with you in this; he won't walk off and leave you in the lurch. He's at your side until every last detail is completed for conducting the worship of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> You have all the priests and Levites standing ready to pitch in, and skillful craftsmen and artisans of every kind ready to go to work. Both leaders and people are ready. Just say the word."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="29">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then David the king addressed the congregation: "My son Solomon was singled out and chosen by God to do this. But he's young and untested and the work is huge--this is not just a place for people to meet each other, but a house for GOD to meet us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I've done my best to get everything together for building this house for my God, all the materials necessary: gold, silver, bronze, iron, lumber, precious and varicolored stones, and building stones--vast stockpiles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Furthermore, because my heart is in this, in addition to and beyond what I have gathered, I'm turning over my personal fortune of gold and silver for making this place of worship for my God:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> 3,000 talents (about 113 tons) of gold--all from Ophir, the best--and 7,000 talents (214 tons) of silver for covering the walls of the buildings,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> and for the gold and silver work by craftsmen and artisans. "And now, how about you? Who among you is ready and willing to join in the giving?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Ready and willing, the heads of families, leaders of the tribes of Israel, commanders and captains in the army, stewards of the king's affairs, stepped forward and gave willingly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They gave 5,000 talents (188 tons) and 10,000 darics (185 pounds) of gold, 10,000 talents of silver (377 tons), 18,000 talents of bronze (679 tons), and 100,000 talents (3,775 tons) of iron.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Anyone who had precious jewels put them in the treasury for the building of The Temple of GOD in the custody of Jehiel the Gershonite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And the people were full of a sense of celebration--all that giving! And all given willingly, freely! King David was exuberant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> David blessed GOD in full view of the entire congregation: Blessed are you, GOD of Israel, our father from of old and forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> To you, O GOD, belong the greatness and the might, the glory, the victory, the majesty, the splendor; Yes! Everything in heaven, everything on earth; the kingdom all yours! You've raised yourself high over all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Riches and glory come from you, you're ruler over all; You hold strength and power in the palm of your hand to build up and strengthen all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And here we are, O God, our God, giving thanks to you, praising your splendid Name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "But me--who am I, and who are these my people, that we should presume to be giving something to you? Everything comes from you; all we're doing is giving back what we've been given from your generous hand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> As far as you're concerned, we're homeless, shiftless wanderers like our ancestors, our lives mere shadows, hardly anything to us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> GOD, our God, all these materials--these piles of stuff for building a house of worship for you, honoring your Holy Name--it all came from you! It was all yours in the first place!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I know, dear God, that you care nothing for the surface--you want us, our true selves--and so I have given from the heart, honestly and happily. And now see all these people doing the same, giving freely, willingly--what a joy!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> O GOD, God of our fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, keep this generous spirit alive forever in these people always, keep their hearts set firmly in you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And give my son Solomon an uncluttered and focused heart so that he can obey what you command, live by your directions and counsel, and carry through with building The Temple for which I have provided."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> David then addressed the congregation: "Bless GOD, your God!" And they did it, blessed GOD, the God of their ancestors, and worshiped reverently in the presence of GOD and the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The very next day they butchered the sacrificial animals and offered in the worship of Israel to GOD a thousand bulls, a thousand rams, a thousand sheep, and in addition drink offerings and many other sacrifices.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> They feasted all day, eating and drinking before GOD, exuberant with joy. Then they ceremonially reenacted Solomon's coronation, anointing David's son before GOD as their leader, and Zadok as priest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Solomon sat on the throne of GOD as king in place of David his father. And everything went well; all Israel obeyed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> All the leaders of the people, including all the sons of King David, accepted Solomon as their king and promised their loyalty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Solomon rode high on a crest of popular acclaim--it was all GOD's doing. GOD gave him position and honor beyond any king in Israel before him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> David son of Jesse ruled over all Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> He was king for forty years. He ruled from Hebron seven years and from Jerusalem thirty-three.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> He died at a ripe old age, full of days, wealth, and glory. His son Solomon ruled after him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The history of David the king, from start to finish, is written in the chronicles of Samuel the seer, Nathan the prophet, and Gad the seer,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> including a full account of his rule, his exploits, and the times through which he and Israel and the surrounding kingdoms passed.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="14" bname="2 Chronicles">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Solomon son of David took a firm grip on the reins of his kingdom. GOD was with him and gave him much help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Solomon addressed all Israel--the commanders and captains, the judges, every leader, and all the heads of families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then Solomon and the entire company went to the worship center at Gibeon--that's where the Tent of Meeting of God was, the one that Moses the servant of GOD had made in the wilderness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The Chest of God, though, was in Jerusalem--David had brought it up from Kiriath Jearim, prepared a special place for it, and pitched a tent for it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But the Bronze Altar that Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, had made was in Gibeon, in its place before the Tabernacle of GOD; and that is where Solomon and the congregation gathered to pray.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Solomon worshiped GOD at the Bronze Altar in front of the Tent of Meeting; he sacrificed a thousand Whole-Burnt-Offerings on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> That night God appeared to Solomon. God said, "What do you want from me? Ask."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Solomon answered, "You were extravagantly generous with David my father, and now you have made me king in his place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Establish, GOD, the words you spoke to my father, for you've given me a staggering task, ruling this mob of people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Yes, give me wisdom and knowledge as I come and go among this people--for who on his own is capable of leading these, your glorious people?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> God answered Solomon, "This is what has come out of your heart: You didn't grasp for money, wealth, fame, and the doom of your enemies; you didn't even ask for a long life. You asked for wisdom and knowledge so you could govern well my people over whom I've made you king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Because of this, you get what you asked for--wisdom and knowledge. And I'm presenting you the rest as a bonus--money, wealth, and fame beyond anything the kings before or after you had or will have."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then Solomon left the worship center at Gibeon and the Tent of Meeting and went to Jerusalem. He set to work as king of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Solomon collected chariots and horses: 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horses! He stabled them in the special chariot-cities as well as in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The king made silver and gold as common as rocks, and cedar as common as the fig trees in the lowland hills.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> His horses were brought in from Egypt and Cilicia, specially acquired by the king's agents.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Chariots from Egypt went for fifteen pounds of silver and a horse for about three and three-quarters of a pound of silver. Solomon carried on a brisk horse-trading business with the Hittite and Aramean royal houses.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Solomon gave orders to begin construction on the house of worship in honor of GOD and a palace for himself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Solomon assigned 70,000 common laborers, 80,000 to work the quarries in the mountains, and 3,600 foremen to manage the workforce.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then Solomon sent this message to King Hiram of Tyre: "Send me cedar logs, the same kind you sent David my father for building his palace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'm about to build a house of worship in honor of GOD, a holy place for burning perfumed incense, for setting out holy bread, for making Whole-Burnt-Offerings at morning and evening worship, and for Sabbath, New Moon, and Holy Day services of worship--the acts of worship required of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "The house I am building has to be the best, for our God is the best, far better than competing gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But who is capable of building such a structure? Why, the skies--the entire cosmos!--can't begin to contain him. And me, who am I to think I can build a house adequate for God--burning incense to him is about all I'm good for!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I need your help: Send me a master artisan in gold, silver, bronze, iron, textiles of purple, crimson, and violet, and who knows the craft of engraving; he will supervise the trained craftsmen in Judah and Jerusalem that my father provided.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Also send cedar, cypress, and algum logs from Lebanon; I know you have lumberjacks experienced in the Lebanon forests. I'll send workers to join your crews</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> to cut plenty of timber--I'm going to need a lot, for this house I'm building is going to be absolutely stunning--a showcase temple!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I'll provide all the food necessary for your crew of lumberjacks and loggers: 130,000 bushels of wheat, 120,000 gallons of wine, and 120,000 gallons of olive oil."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Hiram king of Tyre wrote Solomon in reply: "It's plain that GOD loves his people--he made you king over them!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He wrote on, "Blessed be the GOD of Israel, who made heaven and earth, and who gave King David a son so wise, so knowledgeable and shrewd, to build a temple for GOD and a palace for himself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I've sent you Huram-Abi--he's already on his way--he knows the construction business inside and out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> His mother is from Dan and his father from Tyre. He knows how to work in gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, and wood, in purple, violet, linen, and crimson textiles; he is also an expert engraver and competent to work out designs with your artists and architects, and those of my master David, your father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Go ahead and send the wheat, barley, olive oil, and wine you promised for my work crews.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> We'll log the trees you need from the Lebanon forests and raft them down to Joppa. You'll have to get the timber up to Jerusalem yourself."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Solomon then took a census of all the foreigners living in Israel, using the same census-taking method employed by his father. They numbered 153,600.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> He assigned 70,000 of them as common laborers, 80,000 to work the quarries in the mountains, and 3,600 as foremen to manage the work crews.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> So Solomon broke ground, launched construction of the house of GOD in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, the place where GOD had appeared to his father David. The precise site, the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, had been designated by David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He broke ground on the second day in the second month of the fourth year of his rule.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> These are the dimensions that Solomon set for the construction of the house of God: ninety feet long and thirty feet wide.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The porch in front stretched the width of the building, that is, thirty feet; and it was thirty feet high. The interior was gold-plated.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He paneled the main hall with cypress and veneered it with fine gold engraved with palm tree and chain designs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He decorated the building with precious stones and gold from Parvaim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Everything was coated with gold veneer: rafters, doorframes, walls, and doors. Cherubim were engraved on the walls.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He made the Holy of Holies a cube, thirty feet wide, long, and high. It was veneered with 600 talents (something over twenty-two tons) of gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The gold nails weighed fifty shekels (a little over a pound). The upper rooms were also veneered in gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He made two sculptures of cherubim, gigantic angel-like figures, for the Holy of Holies, both veneered with gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The combined wingspread of the side-by-side cherubim (each wing measuring seven and a half feet) stretched from wall to wall, thirty feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> (SEE 3:11)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They stood erect facing the main hall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He fashioned the curtain of violet, purple, and crimson fabric and worked a cherub design into it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He made two huge free-standing pillars, each fifty-two feet tall, their capitals extending another seven and a half feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The top of each pillar was set off with an elaborate filigree of chains, like necklaces, from which hung a hundred pomegranates.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He placed the pillars in front of The Temple, one on the right, and the other on the left. The right pillar he named Jakin (Security) and the left pillar he named Boaz (Stability).</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> He made the Bronze Altar thirty feet long, thirty feet wide, and ten feet high.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He made a Sea--an immense round basin of cast metal fifteen feet in diameter, seven and a half feet high, and forty-five feet in circumference.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Just under the rim, there were two parallel bands of something like bulls, ten to each foot and a half. The figures were cast in one piece with the Sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The Sea was set on twelve bulls, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east. All the bulls faced outward and supported the Sea on their hindquarters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The Sea was three inches thick and flared at the rim like a cup, or a lily. It held about 18,000 gallons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He made ten Washbasins, five set on the right and five on the left, for rinsing the things used for the Whole-Burnt-Offerings. The priests washed themselves in the Sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He made ten gold Lampstands, following the specified pattern, and placed five on the right and five on the left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He made ten tables and set five on the right and five on the left. He also made a hundred gold bowls.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He built a Courtyard especially for the priests and then the great court and doors for the court. The doors were covered with bronze.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He placed the Sea on the right side of The Temple at the southeast corner.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He also made ash buckets, shovels, and bowls. And that about wrapped it up: Huram completed the work he had contracted to do for King Solomon:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> two pillars; two bowl-shaped capitals for the tops of the pillars; two decorative filigrees for the capitals;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> four hundred pomegranates for the filigrees (a double row of pomegranates for each filigree);</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> ten washstands with their basins;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> one Sea and the twelve bulls under it;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> miscellaneous buckets, forks, shovels, and bowls. All these artifacts that Huram-Abi made for King Solomon for The Temple of GOD were made of burnished bronze.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The king had them cast in clay in a foundry on the Jordan plain between Succoth and Zarethan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> These artifacts were never weighed--there were far too many! Nobody has any idea how much bronze was used.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Solomon was also responsible for the furniture and accessories in The Temple of God: the gold Altar; the tables that held the Bread of the Presence;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> the Lampstands of pure gold with their lamps, to be lighted before the Inner Sanctuary, the Holy of Holies;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> the gold flowers, lamps, and tongs (all solid gold);</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> the gold wick trimmers, bowls, ladles, and censers; the gold doors of The Temple, doors to the Holy of Holies, and the doors to the main sanctuary.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> That completed the work King Solomon did on The Temple of GOD. He then brought in the holy offerings of his father David, the silver and the gold and the artifacts. He placed them all in the treasury of God's Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Bringing all this to a climax, Solomon got all the leaders together in Jerusalem--all the chiefs of tribes and the family patriarchs--to move the Chest of the Covenant of GOD from Zion and install it in The Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> All the men of Israel assembled before the king on the feast day of the seventh month, the Feast of Booths.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When all the leaders of Israel were ready, the Levites took up the Chest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They carried the Chest, the Tent of Meeting, and all the sacred things in the Tent used in worship. The priests, all Levites, carried them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> King Solomon and the entire congregation of Israel were there before the Chest, worshiping and sacrificing huge numbers of sheep and cattle--so many that no one could keep track.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The priests brought the Chest of the Covenant of GOD to its place in the Inner Sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, under the wings of the cherubim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The outspread wings of the cherubim formed a canopy over the Chest and its poles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The ends of the poles were so long that they stuck out from the entrance of the Inner Sanctuary, but were not noticeable further out--they're still there today.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> There was nothing in the Chest itself but the two stone tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb where GOD made a covenant with Israel after bringing them up from Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The priests then left the Holy Place. All the priests there were consecrated, regardless of rank or assignment;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> and all the Levites who were musicians were there--Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun, and their families, dressed in their worship robes; the choir and orchestra assembled on the east side of the Altar and were joined by 120 priests blowing trumpets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The choir and trumpets made one voice of praise and thanks to GOD--orchestra and choir in perfect harmony singing and playing praise to GOD: Yes! God is good! His loyal love goes on forever! Then a billowing cloud filled The Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The priests couldn't even carry out their duties because of the cloud--the glory of GOD!--that filled The Temple of God.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then Solomon said, GOD said he would dwell in a cloud,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> But I've built a temple most splendid, A place for you to live in forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The king then turned to face the congregation that had come together and blessed them:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Blessed be GOD, the God of Israel, who spoke personally to my father David. Now he has done what he promised when he said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> 'From the day I brought my people Israel up from Egypt, I haven't set apart one city among the tribes of Israel in which to build a temple to honor my Name, or chosen one person to be the leader.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But now I have chosen both a city and a person: Jerusalem for honoring my Name and David to lead my people Israel.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "My father David very much wanted to build a temple honoring the Name of GOD, the God of Israel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> but GOD told him, 'It was good that you wanted to build a temple in my honor--most commendable!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But you are not the one to do it. Your son, who will carry on your dynasty, will build it for my Name.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "And now you see the promise completed. GOD has done what he said he would do; I have succeeded David my father and now rule Israel; and I have built a temple to honor GOD, the God of Israel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> and have secured a place for the Chest that holds the Covenant of GOD, the covenant he made with the people of Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Before the entire congregation of Israel, Solomon took his position at the Altar of GOD and stretched out his hands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Solomon had made a bronze dais seven and a half feet square and four and a half feet high and placed it inside the court; that's where he now stood. Then he knelt in full view of the whole congregation, stretched his hands to heaven,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> and prayed: GOD, O God of Israel, there is no God like you in the skies above or on the earth below, who unswervingly keeps covenant with his servants and unfailingly loves them while they sincerely live in obedience to your way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> You kept your word to David my father, your promise. You did exactly what you promised--every detail. The proof is before us today!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Keep it up, GOD, O God of Israel! Continue to keep the promises you made to David my father when you said, "You'll always have a descendant to represent my rule on Israel's throne, on the one condition that your sons are as careful to live obediently in my presence as you have."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> O GOD, God of Israel, let this all happen-- confirm and establish it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Can it be that God will actually move into our neighborhood? Why, the cosmos itself isn't large enough to give you breathing room, let alone this Temple I've built.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Even so, I'm bold to ask: Pay attention to these my prayers, both intercessory and personal, O GOD, my God. Listen to my prayers, energetic and devout, that I'm setting before you right now.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Keep your eyes open to this Temple day and night, this place you promised to dignify with your Name. And listen to the prayers that I pray in this place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And listen to your people Israel when they pray at this place. Listen from your home in heaven and when you hear, forgive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> When someone hurts a neighbor and promises to make things right, and then comes and repeats the promise before your Altar in this Temple,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Listen from heaven and act; judge your servants, making the offender pay for the offense And set the offended free, dismissing all charges.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> When your people Israel are beaten by an enemy because they've sinned against you, but then turn to you and acknowledge your rule in prayers desperate and devout in this Temple,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Listen from your home in heaven; forgive the sin of your people Israel, return them to the land you gave to them and their ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> When the skies shrivel up and there is no rain because your people have sinned against you, but then they pray at this place, acknowledging your rule and quit their sins because you have scourged them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Listen from your home in heaven, forgive the sins of your servants, your people Israel. Then start over with them; train them to live right and well; Send rain on the land you gave as inheritance to your people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> When disasters strike, famine or catastrophe, crop failure or disease, locust or beetle, or when an enemy attacks their defenses--calamity of any sort--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> any prayer that's prayed from anyone at all among your people Israel, their hearts penetrated by disaster, hands and arms thrown out for help to this Temple,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Listen from your home in heaven, forgive and reward us: reward each life and circumstance, For you know each life from the inside, (you're the only one with such inside knowledge!),</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> So they'll live before you in lifelong reverence and believing obedience on this land you gave our ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> And don't forget the foreigner who is not a member of your people Israel but has come from a far country because of your reputation--people are going to be attracted here by your great reputation, your wonderworking power--and who come to pray to this Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Listen from your home in heaven and honor the prayers of the foreigner, So that people all over the world will know who you are and what you're like, And live in reverent obedience before you, just as your own people Israel do, So they'll know that you personally make this Temple that I've built what it is.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> When your people go to war against their enemies at the time and place you send them and they pray to GOD toward the city you chose and The Temple I've built to honor your Name,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Listen from heaven to what they pray and ask for and do what is right for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> When they sin against you--and they certainly will; there's no one without sin!--and in anger you turn them over to the enemy and they are taken off captive to the enemy's land, whether far or near,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> but then repent in the country of their captivity and pray with changed hearts in their exile, "We've sinned; we've done wrong; we've been most wicked,"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> and they turn back to you heart and soul in the land of the enemy who conquered them, and pray to you toward their homeland, the land you gave their ancestors, toward the city you chose, and this Temple I have built to the honor of your Name,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Listen from your home in heaven to their prayers desperate and devout; Do what is best for them. Forgive your people who have sinned against you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> And now, dear God, be alert and attentive to prayer, all prayer, offered in this place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Up, GOD, enjoy your new place of quiet repose, you and your mighty covenant Chest; Dress your priests up in salvation clothes, let your holy people celebrate goodness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> And don't, GOD, back out on your anointed ones, keep in mind the love promised to David your servant.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When Solomon finished praying, a bolt of lightning out of heaven struck the Whole-Burnt-Offering and sacrifices and the Glory of GOD filled The Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The Glory was so dense that the priests couldn't get in--GOD so filled The Temple that there was no room for the priests!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When all Israel saw the fire fall from heaven and the Glory of GOD fill The Temple, they fell on their knees, bowed their heads, and worshiped, thanking GOD: Yes! God is good! His love never quits!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then the king and all Israel worshiped, offering sacrifices to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> King Solomon worshiped by sacrificing 22,000 cattle and 120,000 sheep at the dedication of The Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The priests were all on duty; the choir and orchestra of Levites that David had provided for singing and playing anthems to the praise and love of GOD were all there; across the courtyard the priests blew trumpets. All Israelites were on their feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Solomon set apart the central area of the courtyard in front of GOD's Temple for sacred use and there sacrificed the Whole-Burnt-Offerings, Grain-Offerings, and fat from the Peace-Offerings--the Bronze Altar was too small to handle all these offerings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> This is how Solomon kept the great autumn Feast of Booths. For seven days there were people there all the way from the far northeast (the Entrance to Hamath) to the far southwest (the Brook of Egypt)--a huge congregation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They started out celebrating for seven days, and then did it for another seven days, a week for dedicating the Altar and another for the Feast itself--two solid weeks of celebration!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> On the twenty-third day of the seventh month Solomon dismissed his congregation. They left rejoicing, exuberant over all the good GOD had done for David and Solomon and his people Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Solomon completed building The Temple of GOD and the royal palace--the projects he had set his heart on doing. Everything was done--success! Satisfaction!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> GOD appeared to Solomon that very night and said, "I accept your prayer; yes, I have chosen this place as a temple for sacrifice, a house of worship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> If I ever shut off the supply of rain from the skies or order the locusts to eat the crops or send a plague on my people,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> and my people, my God-defined people, respond by humbling themselves, praying, seeking my presence, and turning their backs on their wicked lives, I'll be there ready for you: I'll listen from heaven, forgive their sins, and restore their land to health.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> From now on I'm alert day and night to the prayers offered at this place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Believe me, I've chosen and sanctified this Temple that you have built: My Name is stamped on it forever; my eyes are on it and my heart in it always.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> As for you, if you live in my presence as your father David lived, pure in heart and action, living the life I've set out for you, attentively obedient to my guidance and judgments,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> then I'll back your kingly rule over Israel--make it a sure thing on a sure foundation. The same covenant guarantee I gave to David your father I'm giving to you, namely, 'You can count on always having a descendant on Israel's throne.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "But if you or your sons betray me, ignoring my guidance and judgments, taking up with alien gods by serving and worshiping them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> then the guarantee is off: I'll wipe Israel right off the map and repudiate this Temple I've just sanctified to honor my Name. And Israel will be nothing but a bad joke among the peoples of the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And this Temple, splendid as it now is, will become an object of contempt; tourists will shake their heads, saying, 'What happened here? What's the story behind these ruins?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Then they'll be told, 'The people who used to live here betrayed their GOD, the very God who rescued their ancestors from Egypt; they took up with alien gods, worshiping and serving them. That's what's behind this God-visited devastation.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> At the end of twenty years, Solomon had quite a list of accomplishments. He had: built The Temple of GOD and his own palace;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> rebuilt the cities that Hiram had given him and colonized them with Israelites;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> marched on Hamath Zobah and took it;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> fortified Tadmor in the desert and all the store-cities he had founded in Hamath;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> built the fortress cities Upper Beth Horon and Lower Beth Horon, complete with walls, gates, and bars;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> built Baalath and store-cities; built chariot-cities for his horses. Solomon built impulsively and extravagantly--whenever a whim took him. And in Jerusalem, in Lebanon--wherever he fancied.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The remnants from the original inhabitants of the land (Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites--all non-Israelites),</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> survivors of the holy wars, were rounded up by Solomon for his gangs of slave labor. The policy is in effect today.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But true Israelites were not treated this way; they were used in his army and administration--government leaders and commanders of his chariots and charioteers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They were also the project managers responsible for Solomon's building operations--250 in all in charge of the workforce.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Solomon brought Pharaoh's daughter from the City of David to a house built especially for her, "Because," he said, "my wife cannot live in the house of David king of Israel, for the areas in which the Chest of GOD has entered are sacred."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then Solomon offered Whole-Burnt-Offerings to GOD on the Altar of GOD that he had built in front of The Temple porch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He kept to the regular schedule of worship set down by Moses: Sabbaths, New Moons, and the three annual feasts of Unraised Bread (Passover), Weeks (Pentecost), and Booths.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He followed the practice of his father David in setting up groups of priests carrying out the work of worship, with the Levites assigned to lead the sacred music for praising God and to assist the priests in the daily worship; he assigned security guards to be on duty at each gate--that's what David the man of God had ordered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The king's directions to the priests and Levites and financial stewards were kept right down to the fine print--no innovations--including the treasuries.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> All that Solomon set out to do, from the groundbreaking of The Temple of GOD to its finish, was now complete.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then Solomon went to Ezion Geber and Elath on the coast of Edom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Hiram sent him ships and with them veteran sailors. Joined by Solomon's men they sailed to Ophir (in east Africa), loaded on fifteen tons of gold, and brought it back to King Solomon.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The queen of Sheba heard of Solomon's reputation and came to Jerusalem to put his reputation to the test, asking all the tough questions. She made a showy entrance--an impressive retinue of attendants and camels loaded with perfume and much gold and precious stones. She emptied her heart to Solomon, talking over everything she cared about.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> And Solomon answered everything she put to him--nothing stumped him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When the queen of Sheba experienced for herself Solomon's wisdom and saw with her own eyes the palace he had built,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> the meals that were served, the impressive array of court officials, the sharply dressed waiters, the cupbearers, and then the elaborate worship extravagant with Whole-Burnt-Offerings at The Temple of GOD, it all took her breath away.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> She said to the king, "It's all true! Your reputation for accomplishment and wisdom that reached all the way to my country is confirmed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself; they didn't exaggerate! Such wisdom and elegance--far more than I could ever have imagined.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Lucky the men and women who work for you, getting to be around you every day and hear your wise words firsthand!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And blessed be your GOD who has taken such a liking to you, making you king. Clearly, GOD's love for Israel is behind this, making you king to keep a just order and nurture a God-pleasing people."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> She then gave the king four and a half tons of gold and sack after sack of spices and precious stones. There hasn't been a cargo of spices like the shipload the queen of Sheba brought to King Solomon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The ships of Hiram also imported gold from Ophir along with fragrant sandalwood and expensive gems.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The king used the sandalwood for fine cabinetry in The Temple of GOD and the royal palace, and for making harps and dulcimers for the musicians. Nothing like that shipment of sandalwood has been seen since.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> King Solomon, for his part, gave the queen of Sheba all her heart's desire--everything she asked for. She took away more than she brought. Satisfied, she returned home with her train of servants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Solomon received twenty-five tons of gold annually.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> This was above and beyond the taxes and profit on trade with merchants and traders. All kings of Arabia and various and assorted governors also brought silver and gold to Solomon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> King Solomon crafted 200 body-length shields of hammered gold--about fifteen pounds of gold to each shield</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> --and about 300 small shields about half that size. He stored the shields in the House of the Forest of Lebanon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The king made a massive throne of ivory with a veneer of gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The throne had six steps leading up to it with an attached footstool of gold. The armrests on each side were flanked by lions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Lions, twelve of them, were placed at either end of the six steps. There was no throne like it in any other kingdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> King Solomon's chalices and tankards were made of gold, and all the dinnerware and serving utensils in the House of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold. Nothing was made of silver; silver was considered common and cheap in the time of Solomon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The king's ships, manned by Hiram's sailors, made a round trip to Tarshish every three years, returning with a cargo of gold, silver, and ivory, apes and peacocks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> King Solomon was richer and wiser than all the kings of the earth--he surpassed them all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Kings came from all over the world to be with Solomon and get in on the wisdom God had given him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Everyone who came brought gifts--artifacts of gold and silver, fashionable robes and gowns, the latest in weapons, exotic spices, horses, and mules--parades of visitors, year after year.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Solomon collected horses and chariots. He had 4,000 stalls for horses and chariots, and 12,000 horsemen in barracks in the chariot-cities and in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> He ruled over all the kings from the River Euphrates in the east, throughout the Philistine country, and as far west as the border of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The king made silver as common as rocks and cedar as common as the fig trees in the lowland hills.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> He carried on a brisk horse-trading business with Egypt and other places.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The rest of Solomon's life and rule, from start to finish, one can read in the records of Nathan the prophet, the prophecy of Ahijah of Shiloh, and in the visions of Iddo the seer concerning Jeroboam son of Nebat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Solomon ruled in Jerusalem over all Israel for forty years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Solomon died and was buried in the City of David his father. His son Rehoboam was the next king.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Rehoboam traveled to Shechem where all Israel had gathered to inaugurate him as king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Jeroboam was then in Egypt, where he had taken asylum from King Solomon; when he got the report of Solomon's death, he came back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Summoned by Israel, Jeroboam and all Israel went to Rehoboam and said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Your father made life hard for us--worked our fingers to the bone. Give us a break; lighten up on us and we'll willingly serve you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Give me," said Rehoboam, "three days to think it over; then come back." So the people left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> King Rehoboam talked it over with the elders who had advised his father when he was alive: "What's your counsel? How do you suggest that I answer the people?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They said, "If you will be a servant to this people, be considerate of their needs and respond with compassion, work things out with them, they'll end up doing anything for you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But he rejected the counsel of the elders and asked the young men he'd grown up with who were now currying his favor,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "What do you think? What should I say to these people who are saying, 'Give us a break from your father's harsh ways--lighten up on us'?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The young turks he'd grown up with said, "These people who complain, 'Your father was too hard on us; lighten up'--well, tell them this: 'My little finger is thicker than my father's waist.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> If you think life under my father was hard, you haven't seen the half of it. My father thrashed you with whips; I'll beat you bloody with chains!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Three days later Jeroboam and the people showed up, just as Rehoboam had directed when he said, "Give me three days to think it over; then come back."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The king's answer was harsh and rude. He spurned the counsel of the elders</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> and went with the advice of the younger set: "If you think life under my father was hard, you haven't seen the half of it: my father thrashed you with whips; I'll beat you bloody with chains!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Rehoboam turned a deaf ear to the people. God was behind all this, confirming the message that he had given to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah of Shiloh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When all Israel realized that the king hadn't listened to a word they'd said, they stood up to him and said, Get lost, David! We've had it with you, son of Jesse! Let's get out of here, Israel, and fast! From now on, David, mind your own business. And with that they left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Rehoboam continued to rule only those who lived in the towns of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When King Rehoboam next sent out Adoniram, head of the workforce, the Israelites ganged up on him, pelted him with stones, and killed him. King Rehoboam jumped in his chariot and escaped to Jerusalem as fast as he could.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Israel has been in rebellion against the Davidic dynasty ever since.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When Rehoboam got back to Jerusalem he called up the men of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, 180,000 of their best soldiers, to go to war against Israel and recover the kingdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> At the same time the word of GOD came to Shemaiah, a holy man,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Tell this to Rehoboam son of Solomon, king of Judah, along with all the Israelites in Judah and Benjamin,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> This is GOD's word: Don't march out; don't fight against your brothers the Israelites. Go back home, every last one of you; I'm in charge here." And they did it; they did what GOD said and went home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Rehoboam continued to live in Jerusalem but built up a defense system for Judah all around:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> in Bethlehem, Etam, Tekoa,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Beth Zur, Soco, Adullam,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Gath, Mareshah, Ziph,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Adoraim, Lachish, Azekah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Zorah, Aijalon, and Hebron--a line of defense protecting Judah and Benjamin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He beefed up the fortifications, appointed commanders, and put in supplies of food, olive oil, and wine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He installed arms--large shields and spears--in all the forts, making them very strong. So Judah and Benjamin were secure for the time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The priests and Levites from all over Israel came and made themselves available to Rehoboam.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The Levites left their pastures and properties and moved to Judah and Jerusalem because Jeroboam and his sons had dismissed them from the priesthood of GOD</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> and replaced them with his own priests to preside over the worship centers at which he had installed goat and calf demon-idols.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Everyone from all the tribes of Israel who determined to seek the GOD of Israel migrated with the priests and Levites to Jerusalem to worship there, sacrificing to the GOD of their ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> That gave a tremendous boost to the kingdom of Judah. They stuck with Rehoboam son of Solomon for three years, loyal to the ways of David and Solomon for this period.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Rehoboam married Mahalath daughter of Jerimoth, David's son, and Abihail daughter of Eliab, Jesse's son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Mahalath bore him Jeush, Shemariah, and Zaham.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Then he married Maacah, Absalom's daughter, and she bore him Abijah, Attai, Ziza, and Shelomith.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Maacah was Rehoboam's favorite wife; he loved her more than all his other wives and concubines put together (and he had a lot--eighteen wives and sixty concubines who produced twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters!).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Rehoboam designated Abijah son of Maacah as the "first son" and leader of the brothers--he intended to make him the next king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> He was shrewd in deploying his sons in all the fortress cities that made up his defense system in Judah and Benjamin; he kept them happy with much food and many wives.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> By the time Rehoboam had secured his kingdom and was strong again, he, and all Israel with him, had virtually abandoned GOD and his ways.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> In Rehoboam's fifth year, because he and the people were unfaithful to GOD, Shishak king of Egypt invaded as far as Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He came with 1,200 chariots and 60,000 cavalry, and soldiers from all over--the Egyptian army included Libyans, Sukkites, and Ethiopians.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They took the fortress cities of Judah and advanced as far as Jerusalem itself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then the prophet Shemaiah, accompanied by the leaders of Judah who had retreated to Jerusalem before Shishak, came to Rehoboam and said, "GOD's word: You abandoned me; now I abandon you to Shishak."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The leaders of Israel and the king were repentant and said, "GOD is right."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When GOD saw that they were humbly repentant, the word of GOD came to Shemaiah: "Because they are humble, I'll not destroy them--I'll give them a break; I won't use Shishak to express my wrath against Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> What I will do, though, is make them Shishak's subjects--they'll learn the difference between serving me and serving human kings."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem. He plundered the treasury of The Temple of GOD and the treasury of the royal palace--he took everything he could lay his hands on. He even took the gold shields that Solomon had made.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> King Rehoboam replaced the gold shields with bronze shields and gave them to the guards who were posted at the entrance to the royal palace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Whenever the king went to GOD's Temple, the guards went with him carrying the shields, but they always returned them to the guardroom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Because Rehoboam was repentant, GOD's anger was blunted, so he wasn't totally destroyed. The picture wasn't entirely bleak--there were some good things going on in Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> King Rehoboam regrouped and reestablished his rule in Jerusalem. He was forty-one years old when he became king and continued as king for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city GOD chose out of all the tribes of Israel as the special presence of his Name. His mother was Naamah from Ammon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But the final verdict on Rehoboam was that he was a bad king--GOD was not important to him; his heart neither cared for nor sought after GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The history of Rehoboam, from start to finish, is written in the memoirs of Shemaiah the prophet and Iddo the seer that contain the family trees. There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam the whole time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Rehoboam died and was buried with his ancestors in the City of David. His son Abijah ruled after him.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the eighteenth year of the rule of King Jeroboam, Abijah took over the throne of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He ruled in Jerusalem three years. His mother was Maacah daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. War broke out between Abijah and Jeroboam.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Abijah started out with 400,000 of his best soldiers; Jeroboam countered with 800,000 of his best.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Abijah took a prominent position on Mount Zemaraim in the hill country of Ephraim and gave this speech: "Listen, Jeroboam and all Israel!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Don't you realize that GOD, the one and only God of Israel, established David and his sons as the permanent rulers of Israel, ratified by a 'covenant of salt'--GOD's kingdom ruled by GOD's king?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And what happened? Jeroboam, the son of Solomon's slave Nebat, rebelled against his master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> All the riff-raff joined his cause and were too much for Rehoboam, Solomon's true heir. Rehoboam didn't know his way around--besides he was a real wimp; he couldn't stand up against them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Taking advantage of that weakness, you are asserting yourself against the very rule of GOD that is delegated to David's descendants--you think you are so big with your huge army backed up by the golden-calf idols that Jeroboam made for you as gods!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But just look at what you've done--you threw out the priests of GOD, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, and made priests to suit yourselves, priests just like the pagans have. Anyone who shows up with enough money to pay for it can be a priest! A priest of No-God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "But for the rest of us in Judah, we're sticking with GOD. We have not traded him in for the latest model--we're keeping the tried and true priests of Aaron to lead us to GOD and the Levites to lead us in worship</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> by sacrificing Whole-Burnt-Offerings and aromatic incense to GOD at the daily morning and evening prayers, setting out fresh holy bread on a clean table, and lighting the lamps on the golden Lampstand every night. We continue doing what GOD told us to in the way he told us to do it; but you have rid yourselves of him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Can't you see the obvious? God is on our side; he's our leader. And his priests with trumpets are all ready to blow the signal to battle. O Israel--don't fight against GOD, the God of your ancestors. You will not win this battle."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> While Abijah was speaking, Jeroboam had sent men around to take them by surprise from the rear: Jeroboam in front of Judah and the ambush behind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> When Judah looked back, they saw they were attacked front and back. They prayed desperately to GOD, the priests blew their trumpets, and the soldiers of Judah shouted their battle cry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> At the battle cry, God routed Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The army of Israel scattered before Judah; God gave them the victory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Abijah and his troops slaughtered them--500,000 of Israel's best fighters were killed that day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The army of Israel fell flat on its face--a humiliating defeat. The army of Judah won hands down because they trusted GOD, the God of their ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Abijah followed up his victory by pursuing Jeroboam, taking the towns of Bethel, Jeshanah, and Ephron with their surrounding villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Jeroboam never did recover from his defeat while Abijah lived. Later on GOD struck him down and he died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Meanwhile Abijah flourished; he married fourteen wives and ended up with a family of twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The rest of the history of Abijah, what he did and said, is written in the study written by Iddo the prophet.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Abijah died and was buried with his ancestors in the City of David. His son Asa became the next king. For ten years into Asa's reign the country was at peace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Asa was a good king. He did things right in GOD's eyes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He cleaned house: got rid of the pagan altars and shrines, smashed the sacred stone pillars, and chopped down the sex-and-religion groves (Asherim).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He told Judah to center their lives in GOD, the God of their fathers, to do what the law said, and to follow the commandments.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Because he got rid of all the pagan shrines and altars in the cities of Judah, his kingdom was at peace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Because the land was quiet and there was no war, he was able to build up a good defense system in Judah. GOD kept the peace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Asa said to his people, "While we have the chance and the land is quiet, let's build a solid defense system, fortifying our cities with walls, towers, gates, and bars. We have this peaceful land because we sought GOD; he has given us rest from all troubles." So they built and enjoyed prosperity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Asa had an army of 300,000 Judeans, equipped with shields and spears, and another 280,000 Benjaminites who were shield bearers and archers. They were all courageous warriors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Zerah the Ethiopian went to war against Asa with an army of a million plus 300 chariots and got as far as Mareshah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Asa met him there and prepared to fight from the Valley of Zephathah near Mareshah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then Asa prayed to GOD, "O GOD, you aren't impressed by numbers or intimidated by a show of force once you decide to help: Help us, O GOD; we have come out to meet this huge army because we trust in you and who you are. Don't let mere mortals stand against you!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> GOD defeated the Ethiopians before Asa and Judah; the Ethiopians ran for their lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Asa and his men chased them as far as Gerar; so many of the Ethiopians were killed that there was no fight left in them--a massacre before GOD and his troops; Judah carted off loads of plunder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They devastated all the towns around Gerar whose people were helpless, paralyzed by the fear of GOD, and looted the country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They also attacked herdsmen and brought back a lot of sheep and camels to Jerusalem.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then Azariah son of Obed, moved by the Spirit of God,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> went out to meet Asa. He said, "Listen carefully, Asa, and listen Judah and Benjamin: GOD will stick with you as long as you stick with him. If you look for him he will let himself be found; but if you leave him he'll leave you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> For a long time Israel didn't have the real God, nor did they have the help of priest or teacher or book.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But when they were in trouble and got serious, and decided to seek GOD, the God of Israel, GOD let himself be found.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> At that time it was a dog-eat-dog world; life was constantly up for grabs--no one, regardless of country, knew what the next day might bring.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Nation battered nation, city pummeled city. God let loose every kind of trouble among them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "But it's different with you: Be strong. Take heart. Payday is coming!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Asa heard the prophecy of Azariah son of Obed, took a deep breath, then rolled up his sleeves, and went to work: He cleaned out the obscene and polluting sacred shrines from the whole country of Judah and Benjamin and from the towns he had taken in the hill country of Ephraim. He spruced up the Altar of GOD that was in front of The Temple porch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then he called an assembly for all Judah and Benjamin, including those from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon who were living there at the time (for many from Israel had left their homes and joined forces with Asa when they saw that GOD was on his side).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They all arrived in Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of Asa's reign</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> for a great assembly of worship. From their earlier plunder they offered sacrifices of 700 oxen and 7,000 sheep for the worship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then they bound themselves in a covenant to seek GOD, the God of their fathers, wholeheartedly, holding nothing back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And they agreed that anyone who refused to seek GOD, the God of Israel, should be killed, no matter who it was, young or old, man or woman.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They shouted out their promise to GOD, a joyful sound accompanied with blasts from trumpets and rams' horns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The whole country felt good about the covenant promise--they had given their promise joyfully from the heart. Anticipating the best, they had sought God--and he showed up, ready to be found. GOD gave them peace within and without--a most peaceable kingdom!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> In his clean-up of the country, Asa went so far as to remove his mother, Queen Maacah, from her throne because she had built a shockingly obscene image of the sex goddess Asherah. Asa tore it down, smashed it, and burned it up in the Kidron Valley.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Unfortunately he didn't get rid of the local sex-and-religion shrines. But he was well-intentioned--his heart was in the right place, loyal to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> All the gold and silver vessels and artifacts that he and his father had consecrated for holy use he installed in The Temple of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> There wasn't a trace of war up to the thirty-fifth year of Asa's reign.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> But in the thirty-sixth year of Asa's reign, Baasha king of Israel attacked. He started it by building a fort at Ramah and closing the border between Israel and Judah to keep Asa king of Judah from leaving or entering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Asa took silver and gold from the treasuries of The Temple of GOD and the royal palace and sent it to Ben-Hadad, king of Aram who lived in Damascus, with this message:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Let's make a treaty like the one between our fathers. I'm showing my good faith with this gift of silver and gold. Break your deal with Baasha king of Israel so he'll quit fighting against me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Ben-Hadad went along with King Asa and sent his troops against the towns of Israel. They sacked Ijon, Dan, Abel Maim, and all the store-cities of Naphtali.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When Baasha got the report, he quit fortifying Ramah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then King Asa issued orders to his people in Judah to haul away the logs and stones Baasha had used in the fortification of Ramah and used them himself to fortify Geba and Mizpah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Just after that, Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said, "Because you went for help to the king of Aram and didn't ask GOD for help, you've lost a victory over the army of the king of Aram.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Didn't the Ethiopians and Libyans come against you with superior forces, completely outclassing you with their chariots and cavalry? But you asked GOD for help and he gave you the victory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD is always on the alert, constantly on the lookout for people who are totally committed to him. You were foolish to go for human help when you could have had God's help. Now you're in trouble--one round of war after another."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> At that, Asa lost his temper. Angry, he put Hanani in the stocks. At the same time Asa started abusing some of the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> A full account of Asa is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa came down with a severe case of foot infection. He didn't ask GOD for help, but went instead to the doctors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then Asa died; he died in the forty-first year of his reign.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They buried him in a mausoleum that he had built for himself in the City of David. They laid him in a crypt full of aromatic oils and spices. Then they had a huge bonfire in his memory.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="17">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Asa's son Jehoshaphat was the next king; he started out by working on his defense system against Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He put troops in all the fortress cities of Judah and deployed garrisons throughout Judah and in the towns of Ephraim that his father Asa had captured.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> GOD was on Jehoshaphat's side because he stuck to the ways of his father Asa's early years. He didn't fool around with the popular Baal religion--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> he was a seeker and follower of the God of his father and was obedient to him; he wasn't like Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And GOD secured the kingdom under his rule, gave him a firm grip on it. And everyone in Judah showed their appreciation by bringing gifts. Jehoshaphat ended up very rich and much honored.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He was single-minded in following GOD; and he got rid of the local sex-and-religion shrines.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> In the third year of his reign he sent his officials--excellent men, every one of them--Ben-Hail, Obadiah, Zechariah, Nethanel, and Micaiah on a teaching mission to the cities of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They were accompanied by Levites--Shemaiah, Nethaniah, Zebadiah, Asahel, Shemiramoth, Jehonathan, Adonijah, Tobijah, and Tob-Adonijah; the priests Elishama and Jehoram were also in the company.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They made a circuit of the towns of Judah, teaching the people and using the Book of The Revelation of GOD as their text.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> There was a strong sense of the fear of GOD in all the kingdoms around Judah--they didn't dare go to war against Jehoshaphat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Some Philistines even brought gifts and a load of silver to Jehoshaphat, and the desert bedouin brought flocks--7,700 rams and 7,700 goats.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> So Jehoshaphat became stronger by the day, and constructed more and more forts and store-cities--an age of prosperity for Judah!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He also had excellent fighting men stationed in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The captains of the military units of Judah, classified according to families, were: Captain Adnah with 300,000 soldiers;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> his associate Captain Jehohanan with 280,000;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> his associate Amasiah son of Zicri, a volunteer for GOD, with 200,000.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Officer Eliada represented Benjamin with 200,000 fully equipped with bow and shield;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> and his associate was Jehozabad with 180,000 armed and ready for battle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> These were under the direct command of the king; in addition there were the troops assigned to the fortress cities spread all over Judah.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="18">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> But even though Jehoshaphat was very rich and much honored, he made a marriage alliance with Ahab of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Some time later he paid a visit to Ahab at Samaria. Ahab celebrated his visit with a feast--a huge barbecue with all the lamb and beef you could eat. But Ahab had a hidden agenda; he wanted Jehoshaphat's support in attacking Ramoth Gilead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then Ahab brought it into the open: "Will you join me in attacking Ramoth Gilead?" Jehoshaphat said, "You bet. I'm with you all the way; you can count on me and my troops."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then Jehoshaphat said, "But before you do anything, ask GOD for guidance."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The king of Israel got the prophets together--all 400 of them-- and put the question to them: "Should I attack Ramoth Gilead or should I hold back?" "Go for it," they said. "God will hand it over to the king."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But Jehoshaphat dragged his feet, "Is there another prophet of GOD around here we can consult? Let's get a second opinion."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The king of Israel told Jehoshaphat, "As a matter of fact, there is another. But I hate him. He never preaches anything good to me, only doom, doom, doom--Micaiah son of Imlah." "The king shouldn't talk about a prophet like that!" said Jehoshaphat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> So the king of Israel ordered one of his men, "Quickly, get Micaiah son of Imlah."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Meanwhile, the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat were seated on their thrones, dressed in their royal robes, resplendent in front of the Samaria city gates. All the prophets were staging a prophecy-performance for their benefit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Zedekiah son of Kenaanah had even made a set of iron horns, and brandishing them, called out, "GOD's word! With these horns you'll gore Aram until there's nothing left of them!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> All the prophets chimed in, "Yes! Go for Ramoth Gilead! An easy victory! GOD's gift to the king!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The messenger who went to get Micaiah told him, "The prophets have all said Yes to the king. Make it unanimous--vote Yes!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But Micaiah said, "As sure as GOD lives, what God says, I'll say."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> With Micaiah before him, the king asked him, "So, Micaiah--do we attack Ramoth Gilead? Or do we hold back?" "Go ahead," he said, "an easy victory! God's gift to the king."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Not so fast," said the king. "How many times have I made you promise under oath to tell me the truth and nothing but the truth?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "All right," said Micaiah, "since you insist . . . I saw all of Israel scattered over the hills, sheep with no shepherd. Then GOD spoke, 'These poor people have no one to tell them what to do. Let them go home and do the best they can for themselves.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The king of Israel turned to Jehoshaphat, "See! What did I tell you? He never has a good word for me from GOD, only doom."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Micaiah kept on, "I'm not done yet; listen to GOD's word: I saw GOD enthroned, and all the Angel Armies of heaven standing at attention, ranged on his right and his left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And GOD said, "How can we seduce Ahab into attacking Ramoth Gilead?" Some said this, and some said that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Then a bold angel stepped out, stood before GOD, and said, "I'll seduce him." "And how will you do it?" said GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Easy," said the angel, "I'll get all the prophets to lie." "That should do it," said GOD; "On your way--seduce him!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "And that's what has happened. GOD filled the mouths of your puppet prophets with seductive lies. GOD has pronounced your doom."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Just then Zedekiah son of Kenaanah came up and slapped Micaiah in the face, saying, "Since when did the Spirit of GOD leave me and take up with you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Micaiah said, "You'll know soon enough; you'll know it when you're frantically and futilely looking for a place to hide."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The king of Israel had heard enough: "Get Micaiah out of here! Turn him over to Amon the city magistrate and to Joash the king's son</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> with this message: 'King's orders! Lock him up in jail; keep him on bread and water until I'm back in one piece.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Micaiah said, If you ever get back in one piece, I'm no prophet of GOD. He added, When it happens, O people, remember where you heard it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah went ahead and attacked Ramoth Gilead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, "Wear my kingly robe; I'm going into battle disguised." So the king of Israel entered the battle in disguise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Meanwhile, the king of Aram had ordered his chariot commanders (there were thirty-two of them), "Don't bother with anyone whether small or great; go after the king of Israel and him only."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> When the chariot commanders saw Jehoshaphat, they said, "There he is! The king of Israel!" and took after him. Jehoshaphat yelled out,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> and the chariot commanders realized they had the wrong man--it wasn't the king of Israel after all. God intervened and they let him go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Just then someone, without aiming, shot an arrow into the crowd and hit the king of Israel in the chink of his armor. The king told his charioteer, "Turn back! Get me out of here--I'm wounded."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> All day the fighting continued, hot and heavy. Propped up in his chariot, the king watched from the sidelines. He died that evening.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="19">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> But Jehoshaphat king of Judah got home safe and sound.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Jehu, son of Hanani the seer, confronted King Jehoshaphat: "You have no business helping evil, cozying up to GOD-haters. Because you did this, GOD is good and angry with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But you're not all bad--you made a clean sweep of the polluting sex-and-religion shrines; and you were single-minded in seeking God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Jehoshaphat kept his residence in Jerusalem but made a regular round of visits among the people, from Beersheba in the south to Mount Ephraim in the north, urging them to return to GOD, the God of their ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And he was diligent in appointing judges in the land--each of the fortress cities had its judge.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He charged the judges: "This is serious work; do it carefully. You are not merely judging between men and women; these are GOD's judgments that you are passing on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Live in the fear of GOD--be most careful, for GOD hates dishonesty, partiality, and bribery."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> In Jerusalem Jehoshaphat also appointed Levites, priests, and family heads to decide on matters that had to do with worship and mediating local differences.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He charged them: "Do your work in the fear of GOD; be dependable and honest in your duties.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When a case comes before you involving any of your fellow citizens, whether it seems large (like murder) or small (like matters of interpretation of the law), you are responsible for warning them that they are dealing with GOD. Make that explicit, otherwise both you and they are going to be dealing with GOD's wrath. Do your work well or you'll end up being as guilty as they are.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Amariah the chief priest is in charge of all cases regarding the worship of GOD; Zebadiah son of Ishmael, the leader of the tribe of Judah, is in charge of all civil cases; the Levites will keep order in the courts. Be bold and diligent. And GOD be with you as you do your best."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="20">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Some time later the Moabites and Ammonites, accompanied by Meunites, joined forces to make war on Jehoshaphat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Jehoshaphat received this intelligence report: "A huge force is on its way from beyond the Dead Sea to fight you. There's no time to waste--they're already at Hazazon Tamar, the oasis of En Gedi."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Shaken, Jehoshaphat prayed. He went to GOD for help and ordered a nationwide fast.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The country of Judah united in seeking GOD's help--they came from all the cities of Judah to pray to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then Jehoshaphat took a position before the assembled people of Judah and Jerusalem at The Temple of GOD in front of the new courtyard</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> and said, "O GOD, God of our ancestors, are you not God in heaven above and ruler of all kingdoms below? You hold all power and might in your fist--no one stands a chance against you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And didn't you make the natives of this land leave as you brought your people Israel in, turning it over permanently to your people Israel, the descendants of Abraham your friend?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They have lived here and built a holy house of worship to honor you,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> saying, 'When the worst happens--whether war or flood or disease or famine--and we take our place before this Temple (we know you are personally present in this place!) and pray out our pain and trouble, we know that you will listen and give victory.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "And now it's happened: men from Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir have shown up. You didn't let Israel touch them when we got here at first--we detoured around them and didn't lay a hand on them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And now they've come to kick us out of the country you gave us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> O dear God, won't you take care of them? We're helpless before this vandal horde ready to attack us. We don't know what to do; we're looking to you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Everyone in Judah was there--little children, wives, sons--all present and attentive to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Then Jahaziel was moved by the Spirit of GOD to speak from the midst of the congregation. (Jahaziel was the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah the Levite of the Asaph clan.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He said, "Attention everyone--all of you from out of town, all you from Jerusalem, and you King Jehoshaphat--GOD's word: Don't be afraid; don't pay any mind to this vandal horde. This is God's war, not yours.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Tomorrow you'll go after them; see, they're already on their way up the slopes of Ziz; you'll meet them at the end of the ravine near the wilderness of Jeruel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> You won't have to lift a hand in this battle; just stand firm, Judah and Jerusalem, and watch GOD's saving work for you take shape. Don't be afraid, don't waver. March out boldly tomorrow--GOD is with you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Then Jehoshaphat knelt down, bowing with his face to the ground. All Judah and Jerusalem did the same, worshiping GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The Levites (both Kohathites and Korahites) stood to their feet to praise GOD, the God of Israel; they praised at the top of their lungs!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> They were up early in the morning, ready to march into the wilderness of Tekoa. As they were leaving, Jehoshaphat stood up and said, "Listen Judah and Jerusalem! Listen to what I have to say! Believe firmly in GOD, your God, and your lives will be firm! Believe in your prophets and you'll come out on top!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> After talking it over with the people, Jehoshaphat appointed a choir for GOD; dressed in holy robes, they were to march ahead of the troops, singing, Give thanks to GOD, His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> As soon as they started shouting and praising, GOD set ambushes against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir as they were attacking Judah, and they all ended up dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The Ammonites and Moabites mistakenly attacked those from Mount Seir and massacred them. Then, further confused, they went at each other, and all ended up killed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> As Judah came up over the rise, looking into the wilderness for the horde of barbarians, they looked on a killing field of dead bodies--not a living soul among them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> When Jehoshaphat and his people came to carry off the plunder they found more loot than they could carry off--equipment, clothing, valuables. It took three days to cart it away!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> On the fourth day they came together at the Valley of Blessing (Beracah) and blessed GOD (that's how it got the name, Valley of Blessing).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Jehoshaphat then led all the men of Judah and Jerusalem back to Jerusalem--an exuberant parade. GOD had given them joyful relief from their enemies!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> They entered Jerusalem and came to The Temple of GOD with all the instruments of the band playing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> When the surrounding kingdoms got word that GOD had fought Israel's enemies, the fear of God descended on them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Jehoshaphat heard no more from them; as long as Jehoshaphat reigned, peace reigned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> That about sums up Jehoshaphat's reign over Judah. He was thirty-five years old when he became king and ruled as king in Jerusalem for twenty-five years. His mother was Azubah daughter of Shilhi.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> He continued the kind of life characteristic of his father Asa--no detours, no dead-ends--pleasing GOD with his life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> But he failed to get rid of the neighborhood sex-and-religion shrines--people continued to pray and worship at these idolatrous god shops.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The rest of Jehoshaphat's life, from start to finish, is written in the memoirs of Jehu son of Hanani, which are included in the Royal Annals of Israel's Kings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Late in life Jehoshaphat formed a trading syndicate with Ahaziah king of Israel--which was very wrong of him to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> He went in as partner with him to build ocean-going ships at Ezion Geber to trade with Tarshish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Eliezer son of Dodavahu of Mareshah preached against Jehoshaphat's venture: "Because you joined forces with Ahaziah, GOD has shipwrecked your work." The ships were smashed and nothing ever came of the trade partnership.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="21">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Jehoshaphat died and was buried in the family cemetery in the City of David. Jehoram his son was the next king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Jehoram's brothers were Azariah, Jehiel, Zechariah, Azariahu, Michael, and Shephatiah--the sons of Jehoshaphat king of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Their father had lavished them with gifts--silver, gold, and other valuables, plus the fortress cities in Judah. But Jehoram was his firstborn son and he gave him the kingdom of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But when Jehoram had taken over his father's kingdom and had secured his position, he killed all his brothers along with some of the government officials.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Jehoram was thirty-two years old when he became king and ruled in Jerusalem for eight years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He imitated Israel's kings and married into the Ahab dynasty. GOD considered him an evil man.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But despite that, because of his covenant with David, GOD was not yet ready to destroy the descendants of David; he had, after all, promised to keep a light burning for David and his sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> During Jehoram's reign, Edom revolted from Judah's rule and set up their own king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Jehoram responded by setting out with his officers and chariots. Edom surrounded him, but in the middle of the night he and his charioteers broke through the lines and hit Edom hard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Edom continues in revolt against Judah right up to the present. Even little Libnah revolted at that time. The evidence accumulated: Since Jehoram had abandoned GOD, the God of his ancestors, God was abandoning him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He even went so far as to build pagan sacred shrines in the mountains of Judah. He brazenly led Jerusalem away from God, seducing the whole country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> One day he got a letter from Elijah the prophet. It read, "From GOD, the God of your ancestor David--a message: Because you have not kept to the ways of Jehoshaphat your father and Asa your grandfather, kings of Judah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> but have taken up with the ways of the kings of Israel in the north, leading Judah and Jerusalem away from God, going step by step down the apostate path of Ahab and his crew--why, you even killed your own brothers, all of them better men than you!--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD is going to afflict your people, your wives, your sons, and everything you have with a terrible plague.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And you are going to come down with a terrible disease of the colon, painful and humiliating."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The trouble started with an invasion. GOD incited the Philistines and the Arabs who lived near the Ethiopians to attack Jehoram.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> They came to the borders of Judah, forced their way in, and plundered the place--robbing the royal palace of everything in it including his wives and sons. One son, his youngest, Ahaziah, was left behind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The terrible and fatal disease in his colon followed. After about two years he was totally incontinent and died writhing in pain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> His people didn't honor him by lighting a great bonfire, as was customary with his ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He was thirty-two years old when he became king and reigned for eight years in Jerusalem. There were no tears shed when he died--it was good riddance!--and they buried him in the City of David, but not in the royal cemetery.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="22">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The people of Jerusalem made Ahaziah, Jehoram's youngest son, king. Raiders from the desert, who had come with the Arabs against the settlement, had killed all the older sons. That's how Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah became king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king, but reigned only one year in Jerusalem. His mother was Athaliah, granddaughter of Omri.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He lived and ruled just like the Ahab family had done, his mother training him in evil ways.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD also considered him evil, related by both marriage and sin to the Ahab clan. After the death of his father, he attended the sin school of Ahab, and graduated with a degree in doom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He did what they taught him, went with Joram son of Ahab king of Israel in the war against Hazael king of Aram at Ramoth Gilead. Joram, wounded by the Arameans,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> retreated to Jezreel to recover from the wounds he received in Ramah in his war with Hazael king of Aram. Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah paid a visit to Joram son of Ahab on his sickbed at Jezreel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The fate of Ahaziah when he went to visit was God's judgment on him. When Ahaziah arrived at Jezreel, he and Joram met with Jehu son of Nimshi, whom GOD had already authorized to destroy the dynasty of Ahab.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Jehu, already at work, executing doom on the dynasty of Ahab, came upon the captains of Judah and Ahaziah's nephews, part of the Ahaziah delegation, and killed them outright.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then he sent out a search party looking for Ahaziah himself. They found him hiding out in Samaria and hauled him back to Jehu. And Jehu killed him. They didn't, though, just leave his body there. Out of respect for his grandfather Jehoshaphat, famous as a sincere seeker after GOD, they gave him a decent burial. But there was no one left in Ahaziah's family capable of ruling the kingdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When Ahaziah's mother Athaliah saw that her son was dead, she took over. She began by massacring the entire royal family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Jehosheba, daughter of King Jehoram, took Ahaziah's son Joash, and kidnapped him from among the king's sons slated for slaughter. She hid him and his nurse in a private room away from Athaliah. So Jehosheba, daughter of King Jehoram and Ahaziah's sister--she was also the wife of Jehoiada the priest--saved Joash from the murderous Queen Athaliah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He was there with her, hidden away for six years in The Temple of God. Athaliah, oblivious to his existence, ruled the country.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="23">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the seventh year the priest Jehoiada decided to make his move and worked out a strategy with certain influential officers in the army. He picked Azariah son of Jeroham, Ishmael son of Jehohanan, Azariah son of Obed, Maaseiah son of Adaiah, and Elishaphat son of Zicri as his associates.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They dispersed throughout Judah and called in the Levites from all the towns in Judah along with the heads of families. They met in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The gathering met in The Temple of God. They made a covenant there in The Temple. The priest Jehoiada showed them the young prince and addressed them: "Here he is--the son of the king. He is going to rule just as GOD promised regarding the sons of David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Now this is what you must do: A third of you priests and Levites who come on duty on the Sabbath are to be posted as security guards at the gates;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> another third will guard the palace; and the other third will guard the foundation gate. All the people will gather in the courtyards of The Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> No one may enter The Temple of GOD except the priests and designated Levites--they are permitted in because they've been consecrated, but all the people must do the work assigned them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The Levites are to form a ring around the young king, weapons at the ready. Kill anyone who tries to break through your ranks. Your job is to stay with the king at all times and places, coming and going."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> All the Levites and officers obeyed the orders of Jehoiada the priest. Each took charge of his men, both those who came on duty on the Sabbath and those who went off duty on the Sabbath, for Jehoiada the priest hadn't exempted any of them from duty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then the priest armed the officers with spears and the large and small shields originally belonging to King David that were stored in The Temple of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Well-armed, the guards took up their assigned positions for protecting the king, from one end of The Temple to the other, surrounding both Altar and Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then the priest brought the prince into view, crowned him, handed him the scroll of God's covenant, and made him king. As Jehoiada and his sons anointed him they shouted, "Long live the king!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Athaliah, hearing all the commotion, the people running around and praising the king, came to The Temple to see what was going on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Astonished, she saw the young king standing at the entrance flanked by the captains and heralds, with everybody beside themselves with joy, trumpets blaring, the choir and orchestra leading the praise. Athaliah ripped her robes in dismay and shouted, "Treason! Treason!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Jehoiada the priest ordered the military officers, "Drag her outside--and kill anyone who tries to follow her!" (The priest had said, "Don't kill her inside The Temple of GOD.")</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So they dragged her out to the palace's horse corral and there they killed her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Jehoiada now made a covenant between himself and the king and the people: they were to be GOD's special people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The people poured into the temple of Baal and tore it down, smashing altar and images to smithereens. They killed Mattan the priest of Baal in front of the altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Jehoiada turned the care of GOD's Temple over to the priests and Levites, the way David had directed originally. They were to offer the Whole-Burnt-Offerings of GOD as set out in The Revelation of Moses, and with praise and song as directed by David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He also assigned security guards at the gates of GOD's Temple so that no one who was unprepared could enter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Then he got everyone together--officers, nobles, governors, and the people themselves--and escorted the king down from The Temple of GOD, through the Upper Gate, and placed him on the royal throne.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Everybody celebrated the event. And the city was safe and undisturbed--Athaliah had been killed; no more Athaliah terror.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="24">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Joash was seven years old when he became king; he was king for forty years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Gazelle (Zibiah). She was from Beersheba.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Taught and trained by Jehoiada the priest, Joash did what pleased GOD throughout Jehoiada's lifetime.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Jehoiada picked out two wives for him; he had a family of both sons and daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The time came when Joash determined to renovate The Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He got the priests and Levites together and said, "Circulate through the towns of Judah every year and collect money from the people to repair The Temple of your God. You are in charge of carrying this out."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But the Levites dragged their feet and didn't do anything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Then the king called in Jehoiada the chief priest and said, "Why haven't you made the Levites bring in from Judah and Jerusalem the tax Moses, servant of GOD and the congregation, set for the upkeep of the place of worship? You can see how bad things are--wicked Queen Athaliah and her sons let The Temple of God go to ruin and took all its sacred artifacts for use in Baal worship."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Following the king's orders, they made a chest and placed it at the entrance to The Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then they sent out a tax notice throughout Judah and Jerusalem: "Pay the tax that Moses the servant of GOD set when Israel was in the wilderness."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The people and their leaders were glad to do it and cheerfully brought their money until the chest was full.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Whenever the Levites brought the chest in for a royal audit and found it to be full, the king's secretary and the official of the chief priest would empty the chest and put it back in its place. Day after day they did this and collected a lot of money.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The king and Jehoiada gave the money to the managers of The Temple project; they in turn paid the masons and carpenters for the repair work on The Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The construction workers kept at their jobs steadily until the restoration was complete--the house of GOD as good as new!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> When they had finished the work, they returned the surplus money to the king and Jehoiada, who used the money for making sacred vessels for Temple worship, vessels for the daily worship, for the Whole-Burnt-Offerings, bowls, and other gold and silver liturgical artifacts. Whole-Burnt-Offerings were made regularly in The Temple of GOD throughout Jehoiada's lifetime.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He died at a ripe old age--130 years old!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They buried him in the royal cemetery because he had such a distinguished life of service to Israel and God and God's Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But after the death of Jehoiada things fell apart. The leaders of Judah made a formal presentation to the king and he went along with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Things went from bad to worse; they deserted The Temple of GOD and took up with the cult of sex goddesses. An angry cloud hovered over Judah and Jerusalem because of this sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> GOD sent prophets to straighten them out, warning of judgment. But nobody paid attention.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Then the Spirit of God moved Zechariah son of Jehoiada the priest to speak up: "God's word: Why have you deliberately walked away from GOD's commandments? You can't live this way! If you walk out on GOD, he'll walk out on you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But they worked out a plot against Zechariah, and with the complicity of the king--he actually gave the order!--they murdered him, pelting him with rocks, right in the court of The Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> That's the thanks King Joash showed the loyal Jehoiada, the priest who had made him king. He murdered Jehoiada's son. Zechariah's last words were, "Look, GOD! Make them pay for this!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> A year or so later Aramean troops attacked Joash. They invaded Judah and Jerusalem, massacred the leaders, and shipped all their plunder back to the king in Damascus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The Aramean army was quite small, but GOD used them to wipe out Joash's large army--their punishment for deserting GOD, the God of their ancestors. Arameans implemented God's judgment against Joash.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> They left Joash badly wounded and his own servants finished him off--it was a palace conspiracy, avenging the murder of the son of Jehoiada the priest. They killed him in his bed. Afterward they buried him in the City of David, but he was not honored with a grave in the royal cemetery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The temple conspirators were Zabad, whose mother was Shimeath from Ammon, and Jehozabad, whose mother was Shimrith from Moab.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The story of his sons, the many sermons preached to Joash, and the account of his repairs on The Temple of God can be found contained in the commentary on the royal history. Amaziah, Joash's son, was the next king.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="25">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Amaziah was twenty-five years old when he became king and reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother was Jehoaddin from Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He lived well before GOD, doing the right thing for the most part. But he wasn't wholeheartedly devoted to God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When he had the affairs of the kingdom well in hand, he executed the palace guard who had assassinated his father the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But he didn't kill the sons of the assassins--he was mindful of what GOD commanded in The Revelation of Moses, that parents shouldn't be executed for their childrens' sins, nor children for their parents'. We each pay personally for our sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Amaziah organized Judah and sorted out Judah and Benjamin by families and by military units. Men twenty years and older had to register--they ended up with 300,000 judged capable of military service.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> In addition he hired 100,000 soldiers from Israel in the north at a cost of about four and a half tons of silver.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> A holy man showed up and said, "No, O king--don't let those northern Israelite soldiers into your army; GOD is not on their side, nor with any of the Ephraimites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Instead, you go by yourself and be strong. God and God only has the power to help or hurt your cause."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But Amaziah said to the holy man, "But what about all this money--these tons of silver I have already paid out to hire these men?" "GOD's help is worth far more to you than that," said the holy man.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So Amaziah fired the soldiers he had hired from the north and sent them home. They were very angry at losing their jobs and went home seething.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But Amaziah was optimistic. He led his troops into the Valley of Salt and killed 10,000 men of Seir.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They took another 10,000 as prisoners, led them to the top of the Rock, and pushed them off a cliff. They all died in the fall, smashed on the rocks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But the troops Amaziah had dismissed from his army, angry over their lost opportunity for plunder, rampaged through the towns of Judah all the way from Samaria to Beth Horon, killing 3,000 people and taking much plunder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> On his return from the destruction of the Edomites, Amaziah brought back the gods of the men of Seir and installed them as his own gods, worshiping them and burning incense to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> That ignited GOD's anger; a fiery blast of GOD's wrath put into words by a God-sent prophet: "What is this? Why on earth would you pray to inferior gods who couldn't so much as help their own people from you--gods weaker than Amaziah?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Amaziah interrupted him, "Did I ask for your opinion? Shut up or get thrown out!" The prophet quit speaking, but not before he got in one last word: "I have it on good authority: God has made up his mind to throw you out because of what you've done, and because you wouldn't listen to me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> One day Amaziah sent envoys to Jehoash son of Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, king of Israel, challenging him to a fight: "Come and meet with me, I dare you. Let's have it out face to face!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Jehoash king of Israel replied to Amaziah king of Judah, "One day a thistle in Lebanon sent word to a cedar in Lebanon, 'Give your daughter to my son in marriage.' But then a wild animal of Lebanon passed by and stepped on the thistle, crushing it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Just because you've defeated Edom in battle, you now think you're a big shot. Go ahead and be proud, but stay home. Why press your luck? Why bring defeat on yourself and Judah?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Amaziah wouldn't take no for an answer--God had already decided to let Jehoash defeat him because he had defected to the gods of Edom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> So Jehoash king of Israel came on ahead and confronted Amaziah king of Judah. They met at Beth Shemesh, a town of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Judah was thoroughly beaten by Israel--all the soldiers straggled home in defeat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Jehoash king of Israel captured Amaziah king of Judah, the son of Joash, the son of Ahaziah, at Beth Shemesh. But Jehoash didn't stop at that; he went on to attack Jerusalem. He demolished the Wall of Jerusalem all the way from the Ephraim Gate to the Corner Gate--a stretch of about six hundred feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He looted the gold, silver, and furnishings--anything he found that was worth taking--from both the palace and The Temple of God--and, for good measure, he took hostages. Then he returned to Samaria.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah continued as king fifteen years after the death of Jehoash son of Jehoahaz king of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The rest of the life and times of Amaziah from start to finish is written in the Royal Annals of the Kings of Judah and Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> During those last days, after Amaziah had defected from GOD, they cooked up a plot against Amaziah in Jerusalem, and he had to flee to Lachish. But they tracked him down in Lachish and killed him there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> They brought him back on horseback and buried him in Jerusalem with his ancestors in the City of David.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="26">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The people of Judah then took Uzziah, who was only sixteen years old, and made him king in place of his father Amaziah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The first thing he did after his father was dead and buried was to recover Elath for Judah and rebuild it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Uzziah was sixteen years old when he became king and reigned for fifty-two years in Jerusalem. His mother was Jecoliah from Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He behaved well in the eyes of GOD, following in the footsteps of his father Amaziah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He was a loyal seeker of God. He was well trained by his pastor and teacher Zechariah to live in reverent obedience before God, and for as long as Zechariah lived, Uzziah lived a godly life. And God prospered him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He ventured out and fought the Philistines, breaking into the fortress cities of Gath, Jabneh, and Ashdod. He also built settlements around Ashdod and other Philistine areas.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> God helped him in his wars with the Philistines, the Arabs in Gur Baal, and the Meunites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The Ammonites also paid tribute. Uzziah became famous, his reputation extending all the way to Egypt. He became quite powerful.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Uzziah constructed defense towers in Jerusalem at the Corner Gate, the Valley Gate, and at the corner of the wall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He also built towers and dug cisterns out in the country. He had herds of cattle down in the foothills and out on the plains, had farmers and vinedressers at work in the hills and fields--he loved growing things.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> On the military side, Uzziah had a well-prepared army ready to fight. They were organized by companies under the direction of Jeiel the secretary, Maaseiah the field captain, and Hananiah of the general staff.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The roster of family leaders over the fighting men accounted for 2,600.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Under them were reinforcement troops numbering 307,000, with 500 of them on constant alert--a strong royal defense against any attack.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Uzziah had them well-armed with shields, spears, helmets, armor, bows, and slingshots.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He also installed the latest in military technology on the towers and corners of Jerusalem for shooting arrows and hurling stones. He became well known for all this--a famous king. Everything seemed to go his way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But then the strength and success went to his head. Arrogant and proud, he fell. One day, contemptuous of GOD, he walked into The Temple of GOD like he owned it and took over, burning incense on the Incense Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The priest Azariah, backed up by eighty brave priests of GOD, tried to prevent him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They confronted Uzziah: "You must not, you cannot do this, Uzziah--only the Aaronite priests, especially consecrated for the work, are permitted to burn incense. Get out of God's Temple; you are unfaithful and a disgrace!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But Uzziah, censer in hand, was already in the middle of doing it and angrily rebuffed the priests. He lost his temper; angry words were exchanged--and then, even as they quarreled, a skin disease appeared on his forehead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> As soon as they saw it, the chief priest Azariah and the other priests got him out of there as fast as they could. He hurried out--he knew that GOD then and there had given him the disease.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Uzziah had his skin disease for the rest of his life and had to live in quarantine; he was not permitted to set foot in The Temple of GOD. His son Jotham, who managed the royal palace, took over the government of the country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The rest of the history of Uzziah, from start to finish, was written by the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> When Uzziah died, they buried him with his ancestors in a field next to the royal cemetery. His skin disease disqualified him from burial in the royal cemetery. His son Jotham became the next king.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="27">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Jotham was twenty-five years old when he became king; he reigned sixteen years at Jerusalem. His mother was Jerusha the daughter of Zadok.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> In GOD's eyes he lived a good life, following the path marked out by his father Uzziah. Unlike his father, though, he didn't desecrate The Temple of GOD. But the people pushed right on in their lives of corruption.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Jotham constructed the Upper Gate of The Temple of GOD, considerably extended the Wall of the Ophel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> and built cities in the high country of Judah and forts and towers down in the forests.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He fought and beat the king of the Ammonites--that year the Ammonites turned over three and a quarter tons of silver and about sixty-five bushels of wheat, and another sixty-five bushels of barley. They repeated this for the next two years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Jotham's strength was rooted in his steady and determined life of obedience to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The rest of the history of Jotham, including his wars and achievements, are all written in the Royal Annals of the Kings of Israel and Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He was twenty-five years old when he became king; he reigned for sixteen years at Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Jotham died and was buried in the City of David. His son Ahaz became the next king.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="28">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king and reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. He didn't live right in the eyes of GOD; he wasn't at all like his ancestor David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Instead he followed in the track of Israel in the north, even casting metal figurines for worshiping the pagan Baal gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He participated in the outlawed burning of incense in the Valley of Ben Hinnom and--incredibly!--indulged in the outrageous practice of "passing his sons through the fire," a truly abominable thing he picked up from the pagans GOD had earlier thrown out of the country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He also joined in the activities of the neighborhood sex-and-religion shrines that flourished all over the place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD, fed up, handed him over to the king of Aram, who beat him badly and took many prisoners to Damascus. God also let the king of Israel loose on him and that resulted in a terrible slaughter:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Pekah son of Remaliah killed 120,000 in one day, all of them first-class soldiers, and all because they had deserted GOD, the God of their ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Furthermore, Zicri, an Ephraimite hero, killed the king's son Maaseiah, Azrikam the palace steward, and Elkanah, second in command to the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And that wasn't the end of it--the Israelites captured 200,000 men, women, and children, besides huge cartloads of plunder that they took to Samaria.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD's prophet Oded was in the neighborhood. He met the army when it entered Samaria and said, "Stop right where you are and listen! GOD, the God of your ancestors, was angry with Judah and used you to punish them; but you took things into your own hands and used your anger, uncalled for and irrational,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> to turn your brothers and sisters from Judah and Jerusalem into slaves. Don't you see that this is a terrible sin against your GOD?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Careful now; do exactly what I say--return these captives, every last one of them. If you don't, you'll find out how real anger, GOD's anger, works."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Some of their Ephraimite leaders--Azariah son of Jehohanan, Berekiah son of Meshillemoth, Jehizkiah son of Shallum, and Amasa son of Hadlai--stood up against the returning army</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> and said, "Don't bring the captives here! We've already sinned against GOD; and now you are about to compound our sin and guilt. We're guilty enough as it is, enough to set off an explosion of divine anger."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> So the soldiers turned over both the captives and the plunder to the leaders and the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Personally designated men gathered the captives together, dressed the ones who were naked using clothing from the stores of plunder, put shoes on their feet, gave them all a square meal, provided first aid to the injured, put the weak ones on donkeys, and then escorted them to Jericho, the City of Palms, restoring them to their families. Then they went back to Samaria.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> At about that time King Ahaz sent to the king of Assyria asking for personal help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The Edomites had come back and given Judah a bad beating, taking off a bunch of captives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Adding insult to injury the Philistines raided the cities in the foothills to the west and the southern desert and captured Beth Shemesh, Aijalon, and Gederoth, along with Soco, Timnah, and Gimzo, with their surrounding villages, and moved in, making themselves at home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Arrogant King Ahaz, acting as if he could do without God's help, had unleashed an epidemic of depravity. Judah, brought to its knees by GOD, was now reduced to begging for a handout.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But the king of Assyria, Tiglath-Pileser, wouldn't help--he came instead and humiliated Ahaz even more by attacking and bullying him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Desperate, Ahaz ransacked The Temple of GOD, the royal palace, and every other place he could think of, scraping together everything he could, and gave it to the king of Assyria--and got nothing in return, not a bit of help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But King Ahaz didn't learn his lesson--at the very time that everyone was turning against him, he continued to be against GOD!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> He offered sacrifices to the gods of Damascus. He had just been defeated by Damascus; he thought, "If I worship the gods who helped Damascus, those gods just might help me too." But things only went from bad to worse: first Ahaz in ruins and then the country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He cleaned out The Temple of God of everything useful and valuable, boarded up the doors of The Temple, and then went out and set up pagan shrines for his own use all over Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> And not only in Jerusalem, but all over Judah--neighborhood shrines for worshiping any and every god on sale. And was GOD ever angry!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The rest of Ahaz's infamous life, all that he did from start to finish, is written in the Royal Annals of the Kings of Judah and Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> When Ahaz died, they buried him in Jerusalem, but he was not honored with a burial in the cemetery of the kings. His son Hezekiah was the next king.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="29">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Hezekiah became king when he was twenty-five years old and was king in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years. His mother was Abijah daughter of Zechariah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> In GOD's opinion he was a good king; he kept to the standards of his ancestor David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> In the first month of the first year of his reign, Hezekiah, having first repaired the doors of The Temple of GOD, threw them open to the public.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He assembled the priests and Levites in the court on the east side</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> and said, "Levites, listen! Consecrate yourselves and consecrate The Temple of GOD--give this much-defiled place a good housecleaning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Our ancestors went wrong and lived badly before GOD--they discarded him, turned away from this house where we meet with GOD, and walked off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They boarded up the doors, turned out the lights, and canceled all the acts of worship of the GOD of Israel in the holy Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And because of that, GOD's anger flared up and he turned those people into a public exhibit of disaster, a moral history lesson--look and read!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> This is why our ancestors were killed, and this is why our wives and sons and daughters were taken prisoner and made slaves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "I have decided to make a covenant with the GOD of Israel and turn history around so that GOD will no longer be angry with us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Children, don't drag your feet in this! GOD has chosen you to take your place before him to serve in conducting and leading worship--this is your life work; make sure you do it and do it well."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The Levites stood at attention: Mahath son of Amasai and Joel son of Azariah from the Kohathites; Kish son of Abdi and Azariah son of Jehallelel from the Merarites; Joah son of Zimmah and Eden son of Joah from the Gershonites;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Shimri and Jeiel sons of Elizaphan; Zechariah and Mattaniah sons of Asaph;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Jehiel and Shimei of the family of Heman; Shemaiah and Uzziel of the family of Jeduthun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They presented themselves and their brothers, consecrated themselves, and set to work cleaning up The Temple of GOD as the king had directed--as GOD directed!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The priests started from the inside and worked out; they emptied the place of the accumulation of defiling junk--pagan rubbish that had no business in that holy place--and the Levites hauled it off to the Kidron Valley.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> They began the Temple cleaning on the first day of the first month and by the eighth day they had worked their way out to the porch--eight days it took them to clean and consecrate The Temple itself, and in eight more days they had finished with the entire Temple complex.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Then they reported to Hezekiah the king, "We have cleaned up the entire Temple of GOD, including the Altar of Whole-Burnt-Offering and the Table of the Bread of the Presence with their furnishings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> We have also cleaned up and consecrated all the vessels which King Ahaz had gotten rid of during his misrule. Take a look; we have repaired them. They're all there in front of the Altar of GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Then Hezekiah the king went to work: He got all the leaders of the city together and marched to The Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They brought with them seven bulls, seven rams, seven lambs, and seven he-goats to sacrifice as an Absolution-Offering for the royal family, for the Sanctuary, and for Judah as a whole; he directed the Aaronite priests to sacrifice them on the Altar of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The priests butchered the bulls and then took the blood and sprinkled it on the Altar, and then the same with the rams and lambs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Finally they brought the goats up; the king and congregation laid their hands upon them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The priests butchered them and made an Absolution-Offering with their blood at the Altar to atone for the sin of all Israel--the king had ordered that the Whole-Burnt-Offering and the Absolution-Offering be for all Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The king ordered the Levites to take their places in The Temple of GOD with their musical instruments--cymbals, harps, zithers--following the original instructions of David, Gad the king's seer, and Nathan the prophet; this was GOD's command conveyed by his prophets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The Levites formed the orchestra of David, while the priests took up the trumpets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Then Hezekiah gave the signal to begin: The Whole-Burnt-Offering was offered on the Altar; at the same time the sacred choir began singing, backed up by the trumpets and the David orchestra</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> while the entire congregation worshiped. The singers sang and the trumpeters played all during the sacrifice of the Whole-Burnt-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> When the offering of the sacrifice was completed, the king and everyone there knelt to the ground and worshiped.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Then Hezekiah the king and the leaders told the Levites to finish things off with anthems of praise to GOD using lyrics by David and Asaph the seer. They sang their praises with joy and reverence, kneeling in worship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Hezekiah then made this response: "The dedication is complete--you're consecrated to GOD. Now you're ready: Come forward and bring your sacrifices and Thank-Offerings to The Temple of GOD." And come they did. Everyone in the congregation brought sacrifices and Thank-Offerings and some, overflowing with generosity, even brought Whole-Burnt-Offerings,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> a generosity expressed in seventy bulls, a hundred rams, and two hundred lambs--all for Whole-Burnt-Offerings for GOD!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> The total number of animals consecrated for sacrifice that day amounted to 600 bulls and 3,000 sheep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> They ran out of priests qualified to slaughter all the Whole-Burnt-Offerings so their brother Levites stepped in and helped out while other priests consecrated themselves for the work. It turned out that the Levites had been more responsible in making sure they were properly consecrated than the priests had been.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Besides the overflow of Whole-Burnt-Offerings there were also choice pieces for the Peace-Offerings and lavish libations that went with the Whole-Burnt-Offerings. The worship in The Temple of GOD was on a firm footing again!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Hezekiah and the congregation celebrated: God had established a firm foundation for the lives of the people--and so quickly!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="30">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then Hezekiah invited all of Israel and Judah, with personal letters to Ephraim and Manasseh, to come to The Temple of GOD in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover to Israel's God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The king and his officials and the congregation in Jerusalem had decided to celebrate Passover in the second month.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They hadn't been able to celebrate it at the regular time because not enough of the priests were yet personally prepared and the people hadn't had time to gather in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Under these circumstances, the revised date was approved by both king and people</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> and they sent out the invitation from one end of the country to the other, from Beersheba in the south to Dan in the north: "Come and celebrate the Passover to Israel's God in Jerusalem." No one living had ever celebrated it properly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The king gave the orders, and the couriers delivered the invitations from the king and his leaders throughout Israel and Judah. The invitation read: "O Israelites! Come back to GOD, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, so that he can return to you who have survived the predations of the kings of Assyria.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Don't repeat the sins of your ancestors who turned their backs on GOD, the God of their ancestors who then brought them to ruin--you can see the ruins all around you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Don't be pigheaded as your ancestors were. Clasp GOD's outstretched hand. Come to his Temple of holy worship, consecrated for all time. Serve GOD, your God. You'll no longer be in danger of his hot anger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> If you come back to GOD, your captive relatives and children will be treated compassionately and allowed to come home. Your GOD is gracious and kind and won't snub you--come back and he'll welcome you with open arms."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So the couriers set out, going from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, as far north as Zebulun. But the people poked fun at them, treated them as a joke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But not all; some from Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun weren't too proud to accept the invitation and come to Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> It was better in Judah--God worked powerfully among them to make it unanimous, responding to the orders sent out by the king and his officials, orders backed up by the word of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> It turned out that there was a tremendous crowd of people when the time came in the second month to celebrate the Passover (sometimes called the Feast of Unraised Bread).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> First they went to work and got rid of all the pagan altars that were in Jerusalem--hauled them off and dumped them in the Kidron Valley.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Then, on the fourteenth day of the second month, they slaughtered the Passover lambs. The priests and Levites weren't ready; but now, embarrassed in their laziness, they consecrated themselves and brought Whole-Burnt-Offerings to The Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Ready now, they stood at their posts as designated by The Revelation of Moses the holy man; the priests sprinkled the blood the Levites handed to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Because so many in the congregation had not properly prepared themselves by consecration and so were not qualified, the Levites took charge of the slaughter of the Passover lambs so that they would be properly consecrated to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> There were a lot of people, especially those from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, who did not eat the Passover meal because they had not prepared themselves adequately. Hezekiah prayed for these as follows: "May GOD who is all good, pardon and forgive</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> everyone who sincerely desires GOD, the God of our ancestors. Even--especially!--these who do not meet the literal conditions stated for access to The Temple."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> GOD responded to Hezekiah's prayer and healed the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> All the Israelites present in Jerusalem celebrated the Passover (Feast of Unraised Bread) for seven days, celebrated exuberantly. The Levites and priests praised GOD day after day, filling the air with praise sounds of percussion and brass.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Hezekiah commended the Levites for the superb way in which they had led the people in the worship of GOD. When the feast and festival--that glorious seven days of worship, the making of offerings, and the praising of GOD, the God of their ancestors--were over, the tables cleared and the floors swept,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> they all decided to keep going for another seven days! So they just kept on celebrating, and as joyfully as they began.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Hezekiah king of Judah gave 1,000 bulls and 7,000 sheep for the congregation's worship; the officials gave an additional 1,000 bulls and 10,000 sheep. And there turned out to be plenty of consecrated priests--qualified and well-prepared.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The whole congregation of Judah, the priests and Levites, the congregation that came in from Israel, and the resident aliens from both Israel and Judah, were all in on the joyous celebration.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Jerusalem was bursting with joy--nothing like this had taken place in Jerusalem since Solomon son of David king of Israel had built and dedicated The Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The priests and Levites had the last word: they stood and blessed the people. And God listened, listened as the ascending sound of their prayers entered his holy heaven.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="31">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> After the Passover celebration, they all took off for the cities of Judah and smashed the phallic stone monuments, chopped down the sacred Asherah groves, and demolished the neighborhood sex-and-religion shrines and local god shops. They didn't stop until they had been all through Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh. Then they all went back home and resumed their everyday lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Hezekiah organized the groups of priests and Levites for their respective tasks, handing out job descriptions for conducting the services of worship: making the various offerings, and making sure that thanks and praise took place wherever and whenever GOD was worshiped.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He also designated his personal contribution for the Whole-Burnt-Offerings for the morning and evening worship, for Sabbaths, for New Moon festivals, and for the special worship days set down in The Revelation of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> In addition, he asked the people who lived in Jerusalem to be responsible for providing for the priests and Levites so they, without distraction or concern, could give themselves totally to The Revelation of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> As soon as Hezekiah's orders had gone out, the Israelites responded generously: firstfruits of the grain harvest, new wine, oil, honey--everything they grew. They didn't hold back, turning over a tithe of everything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They also brought in a tithe of their cattle, sheep, and anything else they owned that had been dedicated to GOD. Everything was sorted and piled in mounds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They started doing this in the third month and didn't finish until the seventh month.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> When Hezekiah and his leaders came and saw the extent of the mounds of gifts, they praised GOD and commended God's people Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Hezekiah then consulted the priests and Levites on how to handle the abundance of offerings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Azariah, chief priest of the family of Zadok, answered, "From the moment of this huge outpouring of gifts to The Temple of GOD, there has been plenty to eat for everyone with food left over. GOD has blessed his people--just look at the evidence!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Hezekiah then ordered storerooms to be prepared in The Temple of GOD. When they were ready,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> they brought in all the offerings of tithes and sacred gifts. They put Conaniah the Levite in charge with his brother Shimei as assistant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Jehiel, Azaziah, Nahath, Asahel, Jerimoth, Jozabad, Eliel, Ismakiah, Mahath, and Benaiah were project managers under the direction of Conaniah and Shimei, carrying out the orders of King Hezekiah and Azariah the chief priest of The Temple of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Kore son of Imnah the Levite, security guard of the East Gate, was in charge of the Freewill-Offerings of God and responsible for distributing the offerings and sacred gifts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Faithful support out in the priestly cities was provided by Eden, Miniamin, Jeshua, Shemaiah, Amariah, and Shecaniah. They were even-handed in their distributions to their coworkers (all males thirty years and older) in each of their respective divisions</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> as they entered The Temple of GOD each day to do their assigned work (their work was all organized by divisions).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The divisions comprised officially registered priests by family and Levites twenty years and older by job description.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The official family tree included everyone in the entire congregation--their small children, wives, sons, and daughters. The ardent dedication they showed in bringing themselves and their gifts to worship was total--no one was left out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The Aaronites, the priests who lived out on the pastures that belonged to the priest-cities, had reputable men on hand to distribute regular rations to every priest--everyone listed in the official family tree of the Levites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Hezekiah carried out this work and kept it up everywhere in Judah. He was the very best--good, right, and true before his GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Everything he took up, whether it had to do with worship in God's Temple or the carrying out of God's Law and Commandments, he did well in a spirit of prayerful worship. He was a great success.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="32">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> And then, after this exemplary track record, this: Sennacherib king of Assyria came and attacked Judah. He put the fortified cities under siege, determined to take them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> When Hezekiah realized that Sennacherib's strategy was to take Jerusalem,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> he talked to his advisors and military leaders about eliminating all the water supplies outside the city; they thought it was a good idea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> There was a great turnout of people to plug the springs and tear down the aqueduct. They said, "Why should the kings of Assyria march in and be furnished with running water?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Hezekiah also went to work repairing every part of the city wall that was damaged, built defensive towers on it, built another wall of defense further out, and reinforced the defensive rampart (the Millo) of the old City of David. He also built up a large store of armaments--spears and shields.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He then appointed military officers to be responsible for the people and got them all together at the public square in front of the city gate. Hezekiah rallied the people, saying,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Be strong! Take courage! Don't be intimidated by the king of Assyria and his troops--there are more on our side than on their side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He only has a bunch of mere men; we have our GOD to help us and fight for us!" Morale surged. Hezekiah's words put steel in their spines.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Later on, Sennacherib, who had set up camp a few miles away at Lachish, sent messengers to Jerusalem, addressing Judah through Hezekiah:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "A proclamation of Sennacherib king of Assyria: You poor people--do you think you're safe in that so-called fortress of Jerusalem? You're sitting ducks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Do you think Hezekiah will save you? Don't be stupid--Hezekiah has fed you a pack of lies. When he says, 'GOD will save us from the power of the king of Assyria,' he's lying--you're all going to end up dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Wasn't it Hezekiah who cleared out all the neighborhood worship shrines and told you, 'There is only one legitimate place to worship'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Do you have any idea what I and my ancestors have done to all the countries around here? Has there been a single god anywhere strong enough to stand up against me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Can you name one god among all the nations that either I or my ancestors have ravaged that so much as lifted a finger against me? So what makes you think you'll make out any better with your god?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Don't let Hezekiah fool you; don't let him get by with his barefaced lies; don't trust him. No god of any country or kingdom ever has been one bit of help against me or my ancestors--what kind of odds does that give your god?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The messengers felt free to throw in their personal comments, putting down both GOD and God's servant Hezekiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Sennacherib continued to send letters insulting the GOD of Israel: "The gods of the nations were powerless to help their people; the god of Hezekiah is no better, probably worse."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The messengers would come up to the wall of Jerusalem and shout up to the people standing on the wall, shouting their propaganda in Hebrew, trying to scare them into demoralized submission.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They contemptuously lumped the God of Jerusalem in with the handmade gods of other peoples.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> King Hezekiah, joined by the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz, responded by praying, calling up to heaven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> GOD answered by sending an angel who wiped out everyone in the Assyrian camp, both warriors and officers. Sennacherib was forced to return home in disgrace, tail between his legs. When he went into the temple of his god, his own sons killed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> GOD saved Hezekiah and the citizens of Jerusalem from Sennacherib king of Assyria and everyone else. And he continued to take good care of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> People streamed into Jerusalem bringing offerings for the worship of GOD and expensive presents to Hezekiah king of Judah. All the surrounding nations were impressed--Hezekiah's stock soared.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Some time later Hezekiah became deathly sick. He prayed to GOD and was given a reassuring sign.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> But the sign, instead of making Hezekiah grateful, made him arrogant. This made GOD angry, and his anger spilled over on Judah and Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> But then Hezekiah, and Jerusalem with him, repented of his arrogance, and GOD withdrew his anger while Hezekiah lived.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Hezekiah ended up very wealthy and much honored. He built treasuries for all his silver, gold, precious stones, spices, shields, and valuables,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> barns for the grain, new wine, and olive oil, stalls for his various breeds of cattle, and pens for his flocks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> He founded royal cities for himself and built up huge stocks of sheep and cattle. God saw to it that he was extravagantly rich.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Hezekiah was also responsible for diverting the upper outlet of the Gihon spring and rerouting the water to the west side of the City of David. Hezekiah succeeded in everything he did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> But when the rulers of Babylon sent emissaries to find out about the sign from God that had taken place earlier, God left him on his own to see what he would do; he wanted to test his heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The rest of the history of Hezekiah and his life of loyal service, you can read for yourself--it's written in the vision of the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz in the Royal Annals of the Kings of Judah and Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> When Hezekiah died, they buried him in the upper part of the King David cemetery. Everyone in Judah and Jerusalem came to the funeral. He was buried in great honor. Manasseh his son was the next king.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="33">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king. He ruled for fifty-five years in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> In GOD's opinion he was a bad king--an evil king. He reintroduced all the moral rot and spiritual corruption that had been scoured from the country when GOD dispossessed the pagan nations in favor of the children of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He rebuilt the sex-and-religion shrines that his father Hezekiah had torn down, he built altars and phallic images for the sex god Baal and the sex goddess Asherah and worshiped the cosmic powers, taking orders from the constellations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He built shrines to the cosmic powers and placed them in both courtyards of The Temple of GOD,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> the very Jerusalem Temple dedicated exclusively by GOD's decree to GOD's Name ("in Jerusalem I place my Name").</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He burned his own sons in a sacrificial rite in the Valley of Ben Hinnom. He practiced witchcraft and fortunetelling. He held s�ances and consulted spirits from the underworld. Much evil--in GOD's view a career in evil. And GOD was angry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> As a last straw he placed a carved image of the sex goddess Asherah that he had commissioned in The Temple of God, a flagrant and provocative violation of God's well-known command to both David and Solomon, "In this Temple and in this city Jerusalem, my choice out of all the tribes of Israel, I place my Name--exclusively and forever."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He had promised, "Never again will I let my people Israel wander off from this land I've given to their ancestors. But on this condition, that they keep everything I've commanded in the instructions my servant Moses passed on to them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But Manasseh led Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem off the beaten path into practices of evil exceeding even the evil of the pagan nations that GOD had earlier destroyed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When GOD spoke to Manasseh and his people about this, they ignored him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then GOD directed the leaders of the troops of the king of Assyria to come after Manasseh. They put a hook in his nose, shackles on his feet, and took him off to Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Now that he was in trouble, he went to his knees in prayer asking for help--total repentance before the God of his ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> As he prayed, GOD was touched; GOD listened and brought him back to Jerusalem as king. That convinced Manasseh that GOD was in control.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> After that Manasseh rebuilt the outside defensive wall of the City of David to the west of the Gihon spring in the valley. It went from the Fish Gate and around the hill of Ophel. He also increased its height. He tightened up the defense system by posting army captains in all the fortress cities of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He also did a good spring cleaning on The Temple, carting out the pagan idols and the goddess statue. He took all the altars he had set up on The Temple hill and throughout Jerusalem and dumped them outside the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He put the Altar of GOD back in working order and restored worship, sacrificing Peace-Offerings and Thank-Offerings. He issued orders to the people: "You shall serve and worship GOD, the God of Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But the people didn't take him seriously--they used the name "GOD" but kept on going to the old pagan neighborhood shrines and doing the same old things.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The rest of the history of Manasseh--his prayer to his God, and the sermons the prophets personally delivered by authority of GOD, the God of Israel--this is all written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> His prayer and how God was touched by his prayer, a list of all his sins and the things he did wrong, the actual places where he built the pagan shrines, the installation of the sex-goddess Asherah sites, and the idolatrous images that he worshiped previous to his conversion--this is all described in the records of the prophets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> When Manasseh died, they buried him in the palace garden. His son Amon was the next king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king. He was king for two years in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> In GOD's opinion he lived an evil life, just like his father Manasseh,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> but he never did repent to GOD as Manasseh repented. He just kept at it, going from one thing to another.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> In the end Amon's servants revolted and assassinated him--killed the king right in his own palace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The citizens in their turn then killed the king's assassins. The citizens then crowned Josiah, Amon's son, as king.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="34">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Josiah was eight years old when he became king. He ruled for thirty-one years in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He behaved well before GOD. He kept straight on the path blazed by his ancestor David, not one step to the left or right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When he had been king for eight years--he was still only a teenager--he began to seek the God of David his ancestor. Four years later, the twelfth year of his reign, he set out to cleanse the neighborhood of sex-and-religion shrines, and get rid of the sacred Asherah groves and the god and goddess figurines, whether carved or cast, from Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He wrecked the Baal shrines, tore down the altars connected with them, and scattered the debris and ashes over the graves of those who had worshiped at them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He burned the bones of the priests on the same altars they had used when alive. He scrubbed the place clean, Judah and Jerusalem, clean inside and out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The clean-up campaign ranged outward to the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, Simeon, and the surrounding neighborhoods--as far north as Naphtali.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Throughout Israel he demolished the altars and Asherah groves, pulverized the god and goddess figures, chopped up the neighborhood shrines into firewood. With Israel once more intact, he returned to Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> One day in the eighteenth year of his kingship, with the cleanup of country and Temple complete, King Josiah sent Shaphan son of Azaliah, Maaseiah the mayor of the city, and Joah son of Joahaz the historian to renovate The Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> First they turned over to Hilkiah the high priest all the money collected by the Levitical security guards from Manasseh and Ephraim and the rest of Israel, and from Judah and Benjamin and the citizens of Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> It was then put into the hands of the foremen managing the work on The Temple of GOD</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> who then passed it on to the workers repairing GOD's Temple--the carpenters, construction workers, and masons--so they could buy the lumber and dressed stone for rebuilding the foundations the kings of Judah had allowed to fall to pieces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The workmen were honest and diligent. Their foremen were Jahath and Obadiah, the Merarite Levites, and Zechariah and Meshullam from the Kohathites--these managed the project. The Levites--they were all skilled musicians--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> were in charge of the common laborers and supervised the workers as they went from job to job. The Levites also served as accountants, managers, and security guards.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> While the money that had been given for The Temple of GOD was being received and dispersed, Hilkiah the high priest found a copy of The Revelation of Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He reported to Shaphan the royal secretary, "I've just found the Book of GOD's Revelation, instructing us in GOD's way--found it in The Temple!" He gave it to Shaphan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> who then gave it to the king. And along with the book, he gave this report: "The job is complete--everything you ordered done is done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> They took all the money that was collected in The Temple of GOD and handed it over to the managers and workers."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And then Shaphan told the king, "Hilkiah the priest gave me a book." Shaphan proceeded to read it out to the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> When the king heard what was written in the book, GOD's Revelation, he ripped his robes in dismay.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And then he called for Hilkiah, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Abdon son of Micah, Shaphan the royal secretary, and Asaiah the king's personal aide.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He ordered them all: "Go and pray to GOD for me and what's left of Israel and Judah. Find out what we must do in response to what is written in this book that has just been found! GOD's anger must be burning furiously against us--our ancestors haven't obeyed a thing written in this book of GOD, followed none of the instructions directed to us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Hilkiah and those picked by the king went straight to Huldah the prophetess. She was the wife of Shallum son of Tokhath, the son of Hasrah, who was in charge of the palace wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem in the Second Quarter. The men consulted with her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> In response to them she said, "GOD's word, the God of Israel: Tell the man who sent you here,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> 'GOD has spoken, I'm on my way to bring the doom of judgment on this place and this people. Every word written in the book read by the king of Judah will happen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> And why? Because they've deserted me and taken up with other gods; they've made me thoroughly angry by setting up their god-making businesses. My anger is raging white-hot against this place and nobody is going to put it out.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "And also tell the king of Judah, since he sent you to ask GOD for direction, GOD's comment on what he read in the book:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> 'Because you took seriously the doom of judgment I spoke against this place and people, and because you responded in humble repentance, tearing your robe in dismay and weeping before me, I'm taking you seriously. GOD's word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> I'll take care of you; you'll have a quiet death and be buried in peace. You won't be around to see the doom that I'm going to bring upon this place and people.'" The men took her message back to the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The king acted immediately, assembling all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> and then proceeding to The Temple of GOD bringing everyone in his train--priests and prophets and people ranging from the least to the greatest. Then he read out publicly everything written in the Book of the Covenant that was found in The Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The king stood by his pillar and before GOD solemnly committed himself to the covenant: to follow GOD believingly and obediently; to follow his instructions, heart and soul, on what to believe and do; to confirm with his life the entire covenant, all that was written in the book.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Then he made everyone in Jerusalem and Benjamin commit themselves. And they did it. They committed themselves to the covenant of God, the God of their ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Josiah did a thorough job of cleaning up the pollution that had spread throughout Israelite territory and got everyone started fresh again, serving and worshiping their GOD. All through Josiah's life the people kept to the straight and narrow, obediently following GOD, the God of their ancestors.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="35">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Josiah celebrated the Passover to GOD in Jerusalem. They killed the Passover lambs on the fourteenth day of the first month.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He gave the priests detailed instructions and encouraged them in the work of leading worship in The Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He also told the Levites who were in charge of teaching and guiding Israel in all matters of worship (they were especially consecrated for this), "Place the sacred Chest in The Temple that Solomon son of David, the king of Israel, built. You don't have to carry it around on your shoulders any longer! Serve GOD and God's people Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Organize yourselves by families for your respective responsibilities, following the instructions left by David king of Israel and Solomon his son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Take your place in the sanctuary--a team of Levites for every grouping of your fellow citizens, the laity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Your job is to kill the Passover lambs, then consecrate yourselves and prepare the lambs so that everyone will be able to keep the Passover exactly as GOD commanded through Moses."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Josiah personally donated 30,000 sheep, lambs, and goats and 3,000 bulls--everything needed for the Passover celebration was there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> His officials also pitched in on behalf of the people, including the priests and the Levites. Hilkiah, Zechariah, and Jehiel, leaders in The Temple of God, gave 2,600 lambs and 300 bulls to the priests for the Passover offerings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Conaniah, his brothers Shemaiah and Nethanel, along with the Levitical chiefs Hashabiah, Jeiel, and Jozabad, donated 5,000 lambs and 500 bulls to the Levites for the Passover offerings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Preparations were complete for the service of worship; the priests took up their positions and the Levites were at their posts as instructed by the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They killed the Passover lambs, and while the priests sprinkled the blood from the lambs, the Levites skinned them out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then they set aside the Whole-Burnt-Offering for presentation to the family groupings of the people so that each group could offer it to GOD following the instructions in the Book of Moses. They did the same with the cattle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They roasted the Passover lamb according to the instructions and boiled the consecrated offerings in pots and kettles and pans and promptly served the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> After the people had eaten the holy meal, the Levites served themselves and the Aaronite priests--the priests were busy late into the night making the offerings at the Altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The Asaph singers were all in their places following the instructions of David, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun the king's seer. The security guards were on duty at each gate--the Levites also served them because they couldn't leave their posts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Everything went without a hitch in the worship of GOD that day as they celebrated the Passover and the offering of the Whole-Burnt-Offering on the Altar of GOD. It went just as Josiah had ordered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The Israelites celebrated the Passover, also known as the Feast of Unraised Bread, for seven days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The Passover hadn't been celebrated like this since the days of Samuel the prophet. None of the kings had done it. But Josiah, the priests, the Levites, all Judah and Israel who were there that week, plus the citizens of Jerusalem--they did it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> In the eighteenth year of the rule of King Josiah, this Passover was celebrated.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Some time later, after Josiah's reformation of The Temple, Neco king of Egypt marched out toward Carchemish on the Euphrates River on his way to war. Josiah went out to fight him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Neco sent messengers to Josiah saying, "What do we have against each other, O king of Judah? I haven't come to fight against you but against the country with whom I'm at war. God commanded me to hurry, so don't get in my way; you'll only interfere with God, who is on my side in this, and he'll destroy you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But Josiah was spoiling for a fight and wouldn't listen to a thing Neco said (in actuality it was God who said it). Though King Josiah disguised himself when they met on the plain of Megiddo,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> archers shot him anyway. The king said to his servants, "Get me out of here--I'm badly wounded."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> So his servants took him out of his chariot and laid him down in an ambulance chariot and drove him back to Jerusalem. He died there and was buried in the family cemetery. Everybody in Judah and Jerusalem attended the funeral.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Jeremiah composed an anthem of lament for Josiah. The anthem is still sung by the choirs of Israel to this day. The anthem is written in the Laments.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The rest of the history of Josiah, his exemplary and devout life, conformed to The Revelation of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The whole story, from start to finish, is written in the Royal Annals of the Kings of Israel and Judah.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="36">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> By popular choice, Jehoahaz son of Josiah was made king at Jerusalem, succeeding his father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to rule. He was king in Jerusalem for a mere three months.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The king of Egypt dethroned him and forced the country to pay him nearly four tons of silver and seventy-five pounds of gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Neco king of Egypt then made Eliakim, Jehoahaz's brother, king of Judah and Jerusalem, but changed his name to Jehoiakim; then he took Jehoahaz back with him to Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to rule; he was king for eleven years in Jerusalem. In GOD's opinion he was an evil king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made war against him, and bound him in bronze chains, intending to take him prisoner to Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Nebuchadnezzar also took things from The Temple of GOD to Babylon and put them in his royal palace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The rest of the history of Jehoiakim, the outrageous sacrilege he committed and what happened to him as a consequence, is all written in the Royal Annals of the Kings of Israel and Judah. Jehoiachin his son became the next king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king. But he ruled for only three months and ten days in Jerusalem. In GOD's opinion he was an evil king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> In the spring King Nebuchadnezzar ordered him brought to Babylon along with the valuables remaining in The Temple of GOD. Then he made his uncle Zedekiah a puppet king over Judah and Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he started out as king. He was king in Jerusalem for eleven years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> As far as GOD was concerned, he was just one more evil king; there wasn't a trace of contrition in him when the prophet Jeremiah preached GOD's word to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then he compounded his troubles by rebelling against King Nebuchadnezzar, who earlier had made him swear in God's name that he would be loyal. He became set in his own stubborn ways--he never gave GOD a thought; repentance never entered his mind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The evil mindset spread to the leaders and priests and filtered down to the people--it kicked off an epidemic of evil, repeating the abominations of the pagans and polluting The Temple of GOD so recently consecrated in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> GOD, the God of their ancestors, repeatedly sent warning messages to them. Out of compassion for both his people and his Temple he wanted to give them every chance possible.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But they wouldn't listen; they poked fun at God's messengers, despised the message itself, and in general treated the prophets like idiots. GOD became more and more angry until there was no turning back--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> GOD called in Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who came and killed indiscriminately--and right in The Temple itself; it was a ruthless massacre: young men and virgins, the elderly and weak--they were all the same to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And then he plundered The Temple of everything valuable, cleaned it out completely; he emptied the treasuries of The Temple of God, the treasuries of the king and his officials, and hauled it all, people and possessions, off to Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He burned The Temple of God to the ground, knocked down the wall of Jerusalem, and set fire to all the buildings--everything valuable was burned up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Any survivor was taken prisoner into exile in Babylon and made a slave to Nebuchadnezzar and his family. The exile and slavery lasted until the kingdom of Persia took over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> This is exactly the message of GOD that Jeremiah had preached: the desolate land put to an extended sabbath rest, a seventy-year Sabbath rest making up for all the unkept Sabbaths.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia--this fulfilled the message of GOD preached by Jeremiah--GOD moved Cyrus king of Persia to make an official announcement throughout his kingdom; he wrote it out as follows:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "From Cyrus king of Persia a proclamation: GOD, the God of the heavens, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He has also assigned me to build him a Temple of worship at Jerusalem in Judah. All who belong to GOD's people are urged to return--and may your GOD be with you! Move forward!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="15" bname="Ezra">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia--this fulfilled the Message of GOD preached by Jeremiah--GOD prodded Cyrus king of Persia to make an official announcement throughout his kingdom. He wrote it out as follows:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> From Cyrus king of Persia, a Proclamation: GOD, the God of the heavens, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He has also assigned me to build him a Temple of worship in Jerusalem, Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Who among you belongs to his people? God be with you! Go to Jerusalem which is in Judah and build The Temple of GOD, the God of Israel, Jerusalem's God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Those who stay behind, wherever they happen to live, will support them with silver, gold, tools, and pack animals, along with Freewill-Offerings for The Temple of God in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The heads of the families of Judah and Benjamin, along with the priests and Levites--everyone, in fact, God prodded--set out to build The Temple of GOD in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Their neighbors rallied behind them enthusiastically with silver, gold, tools, pack animals, expensive gifts, and, over and above these, Freewill-Offerings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Also, King Cyrus turned over to them all the vessels and utensils from The Temple of GOD that Nebuchadnezzar had hauled from Jerusalem and put in the temple of his gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Cyrus king of Persia put Mithredath the treasurer in charge of the transfer; he provided a full inventory for Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah, including the following:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> 30 gold dishes, 1,000 silver dishes</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> 29 silver pans, 30 gold bowls, 410 duplicate silver bowls, 1,000 miscellaneous items.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> All told, there were 5,400 gold and silver articles that Sheshbazzar took with him when he brought the exiles back from Babylon to Jerusalem.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> These are the people from the province who now returned from the captivity, exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried off captive. They returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his hometown.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They came in company with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvai, Rehum, and Baanah. The numbers of the returning Israelites by families of origin were as follows:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Parosh, 2,172</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Shephatiah, 372</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Arah, 775</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Pahath-Moab (sons of Jeshua and Joab), 2,812</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Elam, 1,254</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Zattu, 945</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Zaccai, 760</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Bani, 642</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Bebai, 623</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Azgad, 1,222</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Adonikam, 666</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Bigvai, 2,056</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Adin, 454</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Ater (sons of Hezekiah), 98</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Bezai, 323</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Jorah, 112</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Hashum, 223</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Gibbar, 95.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Israelites identified by place of origin were as follows: Bethlehem, 123</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Netophah, 56</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Anathoth, 128</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Azmaveth, 42</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Kiriath Jearim, Kephirah, and Beeroth, 743</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Ramah and Geba, 621</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Micmash, 122</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Bethel and Ai, 223</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Nebo, 52</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Magbish, 156</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Elam (the other one), 1,254</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Harim, 320</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Lod, Hadid, and Ono, 725</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Jericho, 345</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Senaah, 3,630.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Priestly families: Jedaiah (sons of Jeshua), 973</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Immer, 1,052</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Pashhur, 1,247</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Harim, 1,017.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Levitical families: Jeshua and Kadmiel (sons of Hodaviah), 74.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Singers: Asaph's family line, 128.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Security guard families: Shallum, Ater, Talmon, Akkub, Hatita, and Shobai, 139.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Families of temple support staff: Ziha, Hasupha, Tabbaoth,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Keros, Siaha, Padon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> Lebanah, Hagabah, Akkub,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Hagab, Shalmai, Hanan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> Giddel, Gahar, Reaiah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> Rezin, Nekoda, Gazzam,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> Uzza, Paseah, Besai,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Asnah, Meunim, Nephussim,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> Bakbuk, Hakupha, Harhur,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> Bazluth, Mehida, Harsha,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> Barkos, Sisera, Temah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> Neziah, and Hatipha.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> Families of Solomon's servants: Sotai, Hassophereth, Peruda,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> Jaala, Darkon, Giddel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> Shephatiah, Hattil, Pokereth-Hazzebaim, and Ami.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> Temple support staff and Solomon's servants added up to 392.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="59"> These are those who came from Tel Melah, Tel Harsha, Kerub, Addon, and Immer. They weren't able to prove their ancestry, whether they were true Israelites or not:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="60"> Delaiah, Tobiah, and Nekoda, 652 in all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="61"> Likewise with these priestly families: Hobaiah, Hakkoz, and Barzillai, who had married a daughter of Barzillai the Gileadite and took that name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="62"> They had thoroughly searched for their family records but couldn't find them. And so they were barred from priestly work as ritually unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="63"> The governor ruled that they could not eat from the holy food until a priest could determine their status with the Urim and Thummim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="64"> The total count for the congregation was 42,360.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="65"> That did not include the male and female slaves, which numbered 7,337. There were also 200 male and female singers,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="66"> and they had 736 horses, 245 mules,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="67"> 435 camels, and 6,720 donkeys.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="68"> Some of the heads of families, on arriving at The Temple of GOD in Jerusalem, made Freewill-Offerings toward the rebuilding of The Temple of God on its site.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="69"> They gave to the building fund as they were able, about 1,100 pounds of gold, about three tons of silver, and 100 priestly robes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="70"> The priests, Levites, and some of the people lived in Jerusalem. The singers, security guards, and temple support staff found places in their hometowns. All the Israelites found a place to live.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When the seventh month came and the Israelites had settled into their towns, the people assembled together in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Jeshua son of Jozadak and his brother priests, along with Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, and his relatives, went to work and built the Altar of the God of Israel to offer Whole-Burnt-Offerings on it as written in The Revelation of Moses the man of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Even though they were afraid of what their non-Israelite neighbors might do, they went ahead anyway and set up the Altar on its foundations and offered Whole-Burnt-Offerings on it morning and evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They also celebrated the Festival of Booths as prescribed and the daily Whole-Burnt-Offerings set for each day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And they presented the regular Whole-Burnt-Offerings for Sabbaths, New Moons, and GOD's Holy Festivals, as well as Freewill-Offerings for GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They began offering Whole-Burnt-Offerings to GOD from the very first day of the seventh month, even though The Temple of GOD's foundation had not yet been laid.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They gave money to hire masons and carpenters. They gave food, drink, and oil to the Sidonians and Tyrians in exchange for the cedar lumber they had brought by sea from Lebanon to Joppa, a shipment authorized by Cyrus the king of Persia.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> In the second month of the second year after their arrival at The Temple of God in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua son of Jozadak, in company with their brother priests and Levites and everyone else who had come back to Jerusalem from captivity, got started. They appointed the Levites twenty years of age and older to direct the rebuilding of The Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Jeshua and his family joined Kadmiel, Binnui, and Hodaviah, along with the extended family of Henadad--all Levites--to direct the work crew on The Temple of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When the workers laid the foundation of The Temple of GOD, the priests in their robes stood up with trumpets, and the Levites, sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise GOD in the tradition of David king of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They sang antiphonally praise and thanksgiving to GOD: Yes! GOD is good! Oh yes--he'll never quit loving Israel! All the people boomed out hurrahs, praising GOD as the foundation of The Temple of GOD was laid.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> As many were noisily shouting with joy, many of the older priests, Levites, and family heads who had seen the first Temple, when they saw the foundations of this Temple laid, wept loudly for joy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> People couldn't distinguish the shouting from the weeping. The sound of their voices reverberated for miles around.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Old enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the exiles were building The Temple of the GOD of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They came to Zerubbabel and the family heads and said, "We'll help you build. We worship your God the same as you. We've been offering sacrifices to him since Esarhaddon king of Assyria brought us here."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the family heads of Israel said to them, "Nothing doing. Building The Temple of our God is not the same thing to you as to us. We alone will build for the GOD of Israel. We're the ones King Cyrus of Persia commanded to do it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> So these people started beating down the morale of the people of Judah, harassing them as they built.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They even hired propagandists to sap their resolve. They kept this up for about fifteen years, throughout the lifetime of Cyrus king of Persia and on into the reign of Darius king of Persia.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> In fact, in the reign of Xerxes, at the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against those living in Judah and Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Again later, in the time of Artaxerxes, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and their associates wrote regarding the Jerusalem business to Artaxerxes king of Persia. The letter was written in Aramaic and translated. (What follows is written in Aramaic.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Rehum the commanding officer and Shimshai the secretary wrote a letter against Jerusalem to Artaxerxes the king as follows:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> From: Rehum the commanding officer and Shimshai the secretary, backed by the rest of their associates, the judges and officials over the people from Tripolis, Persia, Erech, and Babylon, Elamites of Susa,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> and all the others whom the great and honorable Ashurbanipal deported and settled in the city of Samaria and other places in the land across the Euphrates.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> (This is the copy of the letter they sent to him.) To: King Artaxerxes from your servants from the land across the Euphrates.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> We are here to inform the king that the Jews who came from you to us have arrived in Jerusalem and have set about rebuilding that rebellious and evil city. They are busy at work finishing the walls and rebuilding the foundations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The king needs to know that once that city is rebuilt and the wall completed they will no longer pay a penny of tribute, tax, or duty. The royal treasury will feel the loss.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> We're loyal to the king and cannot sit idly by while our king is being insulted--that's why we are passing this information on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> We suggest that you look into the court records of your ancestors; you'll learn from those books that that city is a rebellious city, a thorn in the side to kings and provinces, an historic center of unrest and revolt. That's why the city was wiped out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> We are letting the king know that if that city gets rebuilt and its walls restored, you'll end up with nothing in your province beyond the Euphrates.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The king sent his reply to Rehum the commanding officer, Shimshai the secretary, and the rest of their associates who lived in Samaria and other places beyond the Euphrates. Peace be with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The letter that you sent has been translated and read to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I gave orders to search the records, and sure enough it turns out that this city has revolted against kings time and again--rebellion is an old story there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> I find that they've had their share of strong kings who have taken over beyond the Euphrates and exacted taxes, tribute, and duty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> So do this: Order these men to stop work immediately--not a lick of rebuilding in that city unless I order it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Act quickly and firmly; they've done enough damage to kings!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The letter of King Artaxerxes was read to Rehum and Shimshai the secretary and their associates. They lost no time. They went to the Jews in Jerusalem and made them quit work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> That put a stop to the work on The Temple of God in Jerusalem. Nothing more was done until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Meanwhile the prophets Haggai and Zechariah son of Iddo were preaching to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem in the authority of the God of Israel who ruled them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> And so Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Jeshua son of Jozadak started again, rebuilding The Temple of God in Jerusalem. The prophets of God were right there helping them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Tattenai was governor of the land beyond the Euphrates at this time. Tattenai, Shethar-Bozenai, and their associates came to the Israelites and asked, "Who issued you a permit to rebuild this Temple and restore it to use?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then we told them the names of the men responsible for this construction work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But God had his eye on the leaders of the Jews, and the work wasn't stopped until a report could reach Darius and an official reply be returned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Tattenai, governor of the land beyond the Euphrates, and Shethar-Bozenai and his associates--the officials of that land--sent a letter to Darius the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> This is what they wrote to him: To Darius the king. Peace and blessing!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> We want to report to the king that we went to the province of Judah, to The Temple of the great God that is being rebuilt with large stones. Timbers are being fitted into the walls; the work is going on with great energy and in good time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> We asked the leaders, "Who issued you the permit to rebuild this Temple and restore it to use?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> We also asked for their names so we could pass them on to you and have a record of the men at the head of the construction work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> This is what they told us: "We are servants of the God of the heavens and the earth. We are rebuilding The Temple that was built a long time ago. A great king of Israel built it, the entire structure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But our ancestors made the God of the heavens really angry and he turned them over to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who knocked this Temple down and took the people to Babylon in exile.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "But when Cyrus became king of Babylon, in his first year he issued a building permit to rebuild this Temple of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He also gave back the gold and silver vessels of The Temple of God that Nebuchadnezzar had carted off and put in the Babylon temple. Cyrus the king removed them from the temple of Babylon and turned them over to Sheshbazzar, the man he had appointed governor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He told him, 'Take these vessels and place them in The Temple of Jerusalem and rebuild The Temple of God on its original site.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> And Sheshbazzar did it. He laid the foundation of The Temple of God in Jerusalem. It has been under construction ever since but it is not yet finished."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> So now, if it please the king, look up the records in the royal archives in Babylon and see if it is indeed a fact that Cyrus the king issued an official building permit authorizing the rebuilding of The Temple of God in Jerusalem. And then send the king's ruling on this matter to us.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> So King Darius ordered a search through the records in the archives in Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Eventually a scroll was turned up in the fortress of Ecbatana over in the province of Media, with this writing on it: Memorandum</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> In his first year as king, Cyrus issued an official decree regarding The Temple of God in Jerusalem, as follows: The Temple where sacrifices are offered is to be rebuilt on new foundations. It is to be ninety feet high and ninety feet wide</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> with three courses of large stones topped with one course of timber. The cost is to be paid from the royal bank.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The gold and silver vessels from The Temple of God that Nebuchadnezzar carried to Babylon are to be returned to The Temple at Jerusalem, each to its proper place; place them in The Temple of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Now listen, Tattenai governor of the land beyond the Euphrates, Shethar-Bozenai, associates, and all officials of that land: Stay out of their way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Leave the governor and leaders of the Jews alone so they can work on that Temple of God as they rebuild it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I hereby give official orders on how you are to help the leaders of the Jews in the rebuilding of that Temple of God: 1. All construction costs are to be paid to these men from the royal bank out of the taxes coming in from the land beyond the Euphrates. And pay them on time, without delays.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> 2. Whatever is required for their worship--young bulls, rams, and lambs for Whole-Burnt-Offerings to the God-of-Heaven; and whatever wheat, salt, wine, and anointing oil the priests of Jerusalem request--is to be given to them daily without delay</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> so that they may make sacrifices to the God-of-Heaven and pray for the life of the king and his sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I've issued an official decree that anyone who violates this order is to be impaled on a timber torn out of his own house, and the house itself made a manure pit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And may the God who put his Name on that place wipe out any king or people who dares to defy this decree and destroy The Temple of God at Jerusalem. I, Darius, have issued an official decree. Carry it out precisely and promptly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Tattenai governor of the land across the Euphrates, Shethar-Bozenai, and their associates did it: They carried out the decree of Darius precisely and promptly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> So the leaders of the Jews continued to build; the work went well under the preaching of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah son of Iddo. They completed the rebuilding under orders of the God of Israel and authorization by Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes, kings of Persia.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The Temple was completed on the third day of the month Adar in the sixth year of the reign of King Darius.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> And then the Israelites celebrated--priests, Levites, every last exile, exuberantly celebrated the dedication of The Temple of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> At the dedication of this Temple of God they sacrificed a hundred bulls, two hundred rams, and four hundred lambs--and, as an Absolution-Offering for all Israel, twelve he-goats, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They placed the priests in their divisions and the Levites in their places for the service of God at Jerusalem--all as written out in the Book of Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> On the fourteenth day of the first month, the exiles celebrated the Passover.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> All the priests and Levites had purified themselves--all, no exceptions. They were all ritually clean. The Levites slaughtered the Passover lamb for the exiles, their brother priests, and themselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then the Israelites who had returned from exile, along with everyone who had removed themselves from the defilements of the nations to join them and seek GOD, the God of Israel, ate the Passover.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> With great joy they celebrated the Feast of Unraised Bread for seven days. GOD had plunged them into a sea of joy; he had changed the mind of the king of Assyria to back them in rebuilding The Temple of God, the God of Israel.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> After all this, Ezra. It was during the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia. Ezra was the son of Seraiah, son of Azariah, son of Hilkiah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> son of Shallum, son of Zadok, son of Ahitub,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> son of Amariah, son of Azariah, son of Meraioth,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> son of Zerahiah, son of Uzzi, son of Bukki,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> son of Abishua, son of Phinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the high priest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> That's Ezra. He arrived from Babylon, a scholar well-practiced in the Revelation of Moses that the GOD of Israel had given. Because GOD's hand was on Ezra, the king gave him everything he asked for.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Some of the Israelites--priests, Levites, singers, temple security guards, and temple slaves--went with him to Jerusalem. It was in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They arrived at Jerusalem in the fifth month of the seventh year of the king's reign.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Ezra had scheduled their departure from Babylon on the first day of the first month; they arrived in Jerusalem on the first day of the fifth month under the generous guidance of his God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Ezra had committed himself to studying the Revelation of GOD, to living it, and to teaching Israel to live its truths and ways.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> What follows is the letter that King Artaxerxes gave Ezra, priest and scholar, expert in matters involving the truths and ways of GOD concerning Israel:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Artaxerxes, King of Kings, to Ezra the priest, a scholar of the Teaching of the God-of-Heaven. Peace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I hereby decree that any of the people of Israel living in my kingdom who want to go to Jerusalem, including their priests and Levites, may go with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> You are being sent by the king and his seven advisors to carry out an investigation of Judah and Jerusalem in relation to the Teaching of your God that you are carrying with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> You are also authorized to take the silver and gold that the king and his advisors are giving for the God of Israel, whose residence is in Jerusalem,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> along with all the silver and gold that has been collected from the generously donated offerings all over Babylon, including that from the people and the priests, for The Temple of their God in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Use this money carefully to buy bulls, rams, lambs, and the ingredients for Grain-Offerings and Drink-Offerings and then offer them on the Altar of The Temple of your God in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> You are free to use whatever is left over from the silver and gold for what you and your brothers decide is in keeping with the will of your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Deliver to the God of Jerusalem the vessels given to you for the services of worship in The Temple of your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Whatever else you need for The Temple of your God you may pay for out of the royal bank.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I, Artaxerxes the king, have formally authorized and ordered all the treasurers of the land across the Euphrates to give Ezra the priest, scholar of the Teaching of the God-of-Heaven, the full amount of whatever he asks for</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> up to a hundred talents of silver, six hundred and fifty bushels of wheat, and six hundred and seven gallons each of wine and olive oil. There is no limit on the salt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Everything the God-of-Heaven requires for The Temple of God must be given without hesitation. Why would the king and his sons risk stirring up his wrath?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Also, let it be clear that no one is permitted to impose tribute, tax, or duty on any priest, Levite, singer, temple security guard, temple servant, or any other worker connected with The Temple of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> I authorize you, Ezra, exercising the wisdom of God that you have in your hands, to appoint magistrates and judges so they can administer justice among all the people of the land across the Euphrates who live by the Teaching of your God. Anyone who does not know the Teaching, you teach them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Anyone who does not obey the Teaching of your God and the king must be tried and sentenced at once--death, banishment, a fine, prison, whatever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Blessed be GOD, the God-of-Our-Fathers, who put it in the mind of the king to beautify The Temple of GOD in Jerusalem!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Not only that, he caused the king and all his advisors and influential officials actually to like me and back me. My God was on my side and I was ready to go. And I organized all the leaders of Israel to go with me.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> These are the family heads and those who signed up to go up with me from Babylon in the reign of Artaxerxes the king:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> From the family of Phinehas: Gershom; Family of Ithamar: Daniel; Family of David: Hattush;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Family of Shecaniah; Family of Parosh: Zechariah, and with him 150 men signed up</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Family of Pahath-Moab: Eliehoenai son of Zerahiah, and 200 men</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Family of Zattu: Shecaniah son of Jahaziel, and 300 men</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Family of Adin: Ebed son of Jonathan, and 50 men</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Family of Elam: Jeshaiah son of Athaliah, and 70 men</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Family of Shephatiah: Zebadiah son of Michael, and 80 men</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Family of Joab: Obadiah son of Jehiel, and 218 men</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Family of Bani: Shelomith son of Josiphiah, and 160 men</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Family of Bebai: Zechariah son of Bebai, and 28 men</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Family of Azgad: Johanan son of Hakkatan, and 110 men</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Family of Adonikam (bringing up the rear): their names were Eliphelet, Jeuel, Shemaiah, and 60 men</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Family of Bigvai: Uthai and Zaccur, and 70 men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I gathered them together at the canal that runs to Ahava. We camped there three days. I looked them over and found that they were all laymen and priests but no Levites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So I sent for the leaders Eliezer, Ariel, Shemaiah, Elnathan, Jarib, Elnathan, Nathan, Zechariah, and Meshullam, and for the teachers Joiarib and Elnathan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I then sent them to Iddo, who is head of the town of Casiphia, and told them what to say to Iddo and his relatives who lived there in Casiphia: "Send us ministers for The Temple of God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Well, the generous hand of our God was on us, and they brought back to us a wise man from the family of Mahli son of Levi, the son of Israel. His name was Sherebiah. With sons and brothers they numbered eighteen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They also brought Hashabiah and Jeshaiah of the family of Merari, with brothers and their sons, another twenty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And then there were 220 temple servants, descendants of the temple servants that David and the princes had assigned to help the Levites in their work. They were all signed up by name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I proclaimed a fast there beside the Ahava Canal, a fast to humble ourselves before our God and pray for wise guidance for our journey--all our people and possessions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I was embarrassed to ask the king for a cavalry bodyguard to protect us from bandits on the road. We had just told the king, "Our God lovingly looks after all those who seek him, but turns away in disgust from those who leave him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> So we fasted and prayed about these concerns. And he listened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Then I picked twelve of the leading priests--Sherebiah and Hashabiah with ten of their brothers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> I weighed out for them the silver, the gold, the vessels, and the offerings for The Temple of our God that the king, his advisors, and all the Israelites had given:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> 25 tons of silver, 100 vessels of silver valued at three and three-quarter tons, three and three-quarter tons of gold</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> 20 gold bowls weighing eighteen and a half pounds, 2 vessels of bright red copper, as valuable as gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> I said to them, "You are holy to GOD and these vessels are holy. The silver and gold are Freewill-Offerings to the GOD of your ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Guard them with your lives until you're able to weigh them out in a secure place in The Temple of our God for the priests and Levites and family heads who are in charge in Jerusalem."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The priests and Levites took charge of all that had been weighed out to them, and prepared to deliver it to Jerusalem to The Temple of our God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> We left the Ahava Canal on the twelfth day of the first month to travel to Jerusalem. God was with us all the way and kept us safe from bandits and highwaymen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> We arrived in Jerusalem and waited there three days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> On the fourth day the silver and gold and vessels were weighed out in The Temple of our God into the hands of Meremoth son of Uriah, the priest. Eleazar son of Phinehas was there with him, also the Levites Jozabad son of Jeshua and Noadiah son of Binnui.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Everything was counted and weighed and the totals recorded.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> When they arrived, the exiles, now returned from captivity, offered Whole-Burnt-Offerings to the God of Israel: 12 bulls, representing all Israel, 96 rams, 77 lambs, 12 he-goats as an Absolution-Offering. All of this was sacrificed as a Whole-Burnt-Offering to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> They also delivered the king's orders to the king's provincial administration assigned to the land beyond the Euphrates. They, in turn, gave their support to the people and The Temple of God.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> After all this was done, the leaders came to me and said, "The People of Israel, priests and Levites included, have not kept themselves separate from the neighboring people around here with all their vulgar obscenities--Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, Amorites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They have given some of their daughters in marriage to them and have taken some of their daughters for marriage to their sons. The holy seed is now all mixed in with these other peoples. And our leaders have led the way in this betrayal."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When I heard all this, I ripped my clothes and my cape; I pulled hair from my head and out of my beard; I slumped to the ground, appalled.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Many were in fear and trembling because of what God was saying about the betrayal by the exiles. They gathered around me as I sat there in despair, waiting for the evening sacrifice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> At the evening sacrifice I picked myself up from my utter devastation, and in my ripped clothes and cape fell to my knees and stretched out my hands to GOD, my God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And I prayed: "My dear God, I'm so totally ashamed, I can't bear to face you. O my God--our iniquities are piled up so high that we can't see out; our guilt touches the skies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> We've been stuck in a muck of guilt since the time of our ancestors until right now; we and our kings and priests, because of our sins, have been turned over to foreign kings, to killing, to captivity, to looting, and to public shame--just as you see us now.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Now for a brief time GOD, our God, has allowed us, this battered band, to get a firm foothold in his holy place so that our God may brighten our eyes and lighten our burdens as we serve out this hard sentence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> We were slaves; yet even as slaves, our God didn't abandon us. He has put us in the good graces of the kings of Persia and given us the heart to build The Temple of our God, restore its ruins, and construct a defensive wall in Judah and Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "And now, our God, after all this what can we say for ourselves? For we have thrown your commands to the wind,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> the commands you gave us through your servants the prophets. They told us, 'The land you're taking over is a polluted land, polluted with the obscene vulgarities of the people who live there; they've filled it with their moral rot from one end to the other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Whatever you do, don't give your daughters in marriage to their sons nor marry your sons to their daughters. Don't cultivate their good opinion; don't make over them and get them to like you so you can make a lot of money and build up a tidy estate to hand down to your children.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "And now this, on top of all we've already suffered because of our evil ways and accumulated guilt, even though you, dear God, punished us far less than we deserved and even went ahead and gave us this pres- ent escape.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Yet here we are, at it again, breaking your commandments by intermarrying with the people who practice all these obscenities! Are you angry to the point of wiping us out completely, without even a few stragglers, with no way out at all?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> You are the righteous GOD of Israel. We are, right now, a small band of escapees. Look at us, openly standing here, guilty before you. No one can last long like this."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Ezra wept, prostrate in front of The Temple of God. As he prayed and confessed, a huge number of the men, women, and children of Israel gathered around him. All the people were now weeping as if their hearts would break.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Shecaniah son of Jehiel of the family of Elam, acting as spokesman, said to Ezra: "We betrayed our God by marrying foreign wives from the people around here. But all is not lost; there is still hope for Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Let's make a covenant right now with our God, agreeing to get rid of all these wives and their children, just as my master and those who honor God's commandment are saying. It's what The Revelation says, so let's do it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Now get up, Ezra. Take charge--we're behind you. Don't back down."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> So Ezra stood up and had the leaders of the priests, the Levites, and all Israel solemnly swear to do what Shecaniah proposed. And they did it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then Ezra left the plaza in front of The Temple of God and went to the home of Jehohanan son of Eliashib where he stayed, still fasting from food and drink, continuing his mourning over the betrayal by the exiles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> A notice was then sent throughout Judah and Jerusalem ordering all the exiles to meet in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Anyone who failed to show up in three days, in compliance with the ruling of the leaders and elders, would have all his possessions confiscated and be thrown out of the congregation of the returned exiles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> All the men of Judah and Benjamin met in Jerusalem within the three days. It was the twentieth day of the ninth month. They all sat down in the plaza in front of The Temple of God. Because of the business before them, and aggravated by the buckets of rain coming down on them, they were restless, uneasy, and anxious.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Ezra the priest stood up and spoke: "You've broken trust. You've married foreign wives. You've piled guilt on Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Now make your confession to GOD, the God of your ancestors, and do what he wants you to do: Separate yourselves from the people of the land and from your foreign wives."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The whole congregation responded with a shout, "Yes, we'll do it--just the way you said it!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They also said, "But look, do you see how many people there are out here? And it's the rainy season; you can't expect us to stand out here soaking wet until this is done--why, it will take days! A lot of us are deeply involved in this transgression.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Let our leaders act on behalf of the whole congregation. Have everybody who lives in cities and who has married a foreign wife come at an appointed time, accompanied by the elders and judges of each city. We'll keep at this until the hot anger of our God over this thing is turned away."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Only Jonathan son of Asahel and Jahzeiah son of Tikvah, supported by Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite, opposed this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So the exiles went ahead with the plan. Ezra the priest picked men who were family heads, each one by name. They sat down together on the first day of the tenth month to pursue the matter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> By the first day of the first month they had finished dealing with every man who had married a foreign wife.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Among the families of priests, the following were found to have married foreign wives: The family of Jeshua son of Jozadak and his brothers: Maaseiah, Eliezer, Jarib, and Gedaliah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They all promised to divorce their wives and sealed it with a handshake. For their guilt they brought a ram from the flock as a Compensation-Offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The family of Immer: Hanani and Zebadiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The family of Harim: Maaseiah, Elijah, Shemaiah, Jehiel, and Uzziah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The family of Pashhur: Elioenai, Maaseiah, Ishmael, Nethanel, Jozabad, and Elasah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> From the Levites: Jozabad, Shimei, Kelaiah--that is, Kelita--Pethahiah, Judah, and Eliezer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> From the singers: Eliashib. From the temple security guards: Shallum, Telem, and Uri.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> And from the other Israelites: The family of Parosh: Ramiah, Izziah, Malkijah, Mijamin, Eleazar, Malkijah, and Benaiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The family of Elam: Mattaniah, Zechariah, Jehiel, Abdi, Jeremoth, and Elijah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The family of Zattu: Elioenai, Eliashib, Mattaniah, Jeremoth, Zabad, and Aziza.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The family of Bebai: Jehohanan, Hananiah, Zabbai, and Athlai.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The family of Bani: Meshullam, Malluch, Adaiah, Jashub, Sheal, and Jeremoth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The family of Pahath-Moab: Adna, Kelal, Benaiah, Maaseiah, Mattaniah, Bezalel, Binnui, and Manasseh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The family of Harim: Eliezer, Ishijah, Malkijah, Shemaiah, Shimeon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Benjamin, Malluch, and Shemariah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> The family of Hashum: Mattenai, Mattattah, Zabad, Eliphelet, Jeremai, Manasseh, and Shimei.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The family of Bani: Maadai, Amram, Uel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Benaiah, Bedeiah, Keluhi,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Vaniah, Meremoth, Eliashib,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Mattaniah, Mattenai, and Jaasu.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> The family of Binnui: Shimei,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Shelemiah, Nathan, Adaiah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Macnadebai, Shashai, Sharai,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Azarel, Shelemiah, Shemariah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Shallum, Amariah, and Joseph.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> The family of Nebo: Jeiel, Mattithiah, Zabad, Zebina, Jaddai, Joel, and Benaiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> All these had married foreign wives and some had also had children by them.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="16" bname="Nehemiah">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The memoirs of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah. It was the month of Kislev in the twentieth year. At the time I was in the palace complex at Susa.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Hanani, one of my brothers, had just arrived from Judah with some fellow Jews. I asked them about the conditions among the Jews there who had survived the exile, and about Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They told me, "The exile survivors who are left there in the province are in bad shape. Conditions are appalling. The wall of Jerusalem is still rubble; the city gates are still cinders."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When I heard this, I sat down and wept. I mourned for days, fasting and praying before the God-of-Heaven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I said, "GOD, God-of-Heaven, the great and awesome God, loyal to his covenant and faithful to those who love him and obey his commands:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Look at me, listen to me. Pay attention to this prayer of your servant that I'm praying day and night in intercession for your servants, the People of Israel, confessing the sins of the People of Israel. And I'm including myself, I and my ancestors, among those who have sinned against you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "We've treated you like dirt: We haven't done what you told us, haven't followed your commands, and haven't respected the decisions you gave to Moses your servant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> All the same, remember the warning you posted to your servant Moses: 'If you betray me, I'll scatter you to the four winds,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> but if you come back to me and do what I tell you, I'll gather up all these scattered peoples from wherever they ended up and put them back in the place I chose to mark with my Name.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Well, there they are--your servants, your people whom you so powerfully and impressively redeemed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> O Master, listen to me, listen to your servant's prayer--and yes, to all your servants who delight in honoring you--and make me successful today so that I get what I want from the king." I was cupbearer to the king.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> It was the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king. At the hour for serving wine I brought it in and gave it to the king. I had never been hangdog in his presence before,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> so he asked me, "Why the long face? You're not sick are you? Or are you depressed?" That made me all the more agitated.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I said, "Long live the king! And why shouldn't I be depressed when the city, the city where all my family is buried, is in ruins and the city gates have been reduced to cinders?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The king then asked me, "So what do you want?" Praying under my breath to the God-of-Heaven,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I said, "If it please the king, and if the king thinks well of me, send me to Judah, to the city where my family is buried, so that I can rebuild it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The king, with the queen sitting alongside him, said, "How long will your work take and when would you expect to return?" I gave him a time, and the king gave his approval to send me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Then I said, "If it please the king, provide me with letters to the governors across the Euphrates that authorize my travel through to Judah;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> and also an order to Asaph, keeper of the king's forest, to supply me with timber for the beams of The Temple fortress, the wall of the city, and the house where I'll be living." The generous hand of my God was with me in this and the king gave them to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When I met the governors across The River (the Euphrates) I showed them the king's letters. The king even sent along a cavalry escort.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard about this, they were very upset, angry that anyone would come to look after the interests of the People of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And so I arrived in Jerusalem. After I had been there three days,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I got up in the middle of the night, I and a few men who were with me. I hadn't told anyone what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem. The only animal with us was the one I was riding.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Under cover of night I went past the Valley Gate toward the Dragon's Fountain to the Dung Gate looking over the walls of Jerusalem, which had been broken through and whose gates had been burned up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I then crossed to the Fountain Gate and headed for the King's Pool but there wasn't enough room for the donkey I was riding to get through.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So I went up the valley in the dark continuing my inspection of the wall. I came back in through the Valley Gate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The local officials had no idea where I'd gone or what I was doing--I hadn't breathed a word to the Jews, priests, nobles, local officials, or anyone else who would be working on the job.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then I gave them my report: "Face it: we're in a bad way here. Jerusalem is a wreck; its gates are burned up. Come--let's build the wall of Jerusalem and not live with this disgrace any longer."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I told them how God was supporting me and how the king was backing me up. They said, "We're with you. Let's get started." They rolled up their sleeves, ready for the good work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> When Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard about it, they laughed at us, mocking, "Ha! What do you think you're doing? Do you think you can cross the king?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> I shot back, "The God-of-Heaven will make sure we succeed. We're his servants and we're going to work, rebuilding. You can keep your nose out of it. You get no say in this--Jerusalem's none of your business!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The high priest Eliashib and his fellow priests were up and at it: They went to work on the Sheep Gate; they repaired it and hung its doors, continuing on as far as the Tower of the Hundred and the Tower of Hananel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The men of Jericho worked alongside them; and next to them, Zaccur son of Imri.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The Fish Gate was built by the Hassenaah brothers; they repaired it, hung its doors, and installed its bolts and bars.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Meremoth son of Uriah, the son of Hakkoz, worked; next to him Meshullam son of Berekiah, the son of Meshezabel; next to him Zadok son of Baana;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> and next to him the Tekoites (except for their nobles, who wouldn't work with their master and refused to get their hands dirty with such work).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The Jeshanah Gate was rebuilt by Joiada son of Paseah and Meshullam son of Besodeiah; they repaired it, hung its doors, and installed its bolts and bars.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Melatiah the Gibeonite, Jadon the Meronothite, and the men of Gibeon and Mizpah, which was under the rule of the governor from across the Euphrates, worked alongside them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Uzziel son of Harhaiah of the goldsmiths' guild worked next to him, and next to him Hananiah, one of the perfumers. They rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem as far as the Broad Wall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The next section was worked on by Rephaiah son of Hur, mayor of a half-district of Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Next to him Jedaiah son of Harumaph rebuilt the front of his house; Hattush son of Hashabneiah worked next to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Malkijah son of Harim and Hasshub son of Pahath-Moab rebuilt another section that included the Tower of Furnaces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Working next to him was Shallum son of Hallohesh, mayor of the other half-district of Jerusalem, along with his daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The Valley Gate was rebuilt by Hanun and villagers of Zanoah; they repaired it, hung its doors, and installed its bolts and bars. They went on to repair 1,500 feet of the wall, as far as the Dung Gate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The Dung Gate itself was rebuilt by Malkijah son of Recab, the mayor of the district of Beth Hakkerem; he repaired it, hung its doors, and installed its bolts and bars.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The Fountain Gate was rebuilt by Shallun son of Col-Hozeh, mayor of the Mizpah district; he repaired it, roofed it, hung its doors, and installed its bolts and bars. He also rebuilt the wall of the Pool of Siloam at the King's Garden as far as the steps that go down from the City of David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> After him came Nehemiah son of Azbuk, mayor of half the district of Beth Zur. He worked from just in front of the Tomb of David as far as the Pool and the House of Heroes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Levites under Rehum son of Bani were next in line. Alongside them, Hashabiah, mayor of half the district of Keilah, represented his district in the rebuilding.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Next to him their brothers continued the rebuilding under Binnui son of Henadad, mayor of the other half-district of Keilah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The section from in front of the Ascent to the Armory as far as the Angle was rebuilt by Ezer son of Jeshua, the mayor of Mizpah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> From the Angle to the door of the house of Eliashib the high priest was done by Baruch son of Zabbai.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Meremoth son of Uriah, the son of Hakkoz, took it from the door of Eliashib's house to the end of Eliashib's house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Priests from the neighborhood went on from there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Benjamin and Hasshub worked on the wall in front of their house, and Azariah son of Maaseiah, the son of Ananiah, did the work alongside his house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The section from the house of Azariah to the Angle at the Corner was rebuilt by Binnui son of Henadad.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Palal son of Uzai worked opposite the Angle and the tower that projects from the Upper Palace of the king near the Court of the Guard. Next to him Pedaiah son of Parosh</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> and The Temple support staff who lived on the hill of Ophel worked up to the point opposite the Water Gate eastward and the projecting tower.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The men of Tekoa did the section from the great projecting tower as far as the wall of Ophel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Above the Horse Gate the priests worked, each priest repairing the wall in front of his own house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> After them Zadok son of Immer rebuilt in front of his house and after him Shemaiah son of Shecaniah, the keeper of the East Gate;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> then Hananiah son of Shelemiah and Hanun, the sixth son of Zalaph; then Meshullam son of Berekiah rebuilt the wall in front of his storage shed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Malkijah the goldsmith repaired the wall as far as the house of The Temple support staff and merchants, up to the Inspection Gate, and the Upper Room at the Corner.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The goldsmiths and the merchants made the repairs between the Upper Room at the Corner and the Sheep Gate.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall he exploded in anger, vilifying the Jews.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> In the company of his Samaritan cronies and military he let loose: "What are these miserable Jews doing? Do they think they can get everything back to normal overnight? Make building stones out of make-believe?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> At his side, Tobiah the Ammonite jumped in and said, "That's right! What do they think they're building? Why, if a fox climbed that wall, it would fall to pieces under his weight."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Nehemiah prayed, "Oh listen to us, dear God. We're so despised: Boomerang their ridicule on their heads; have their enemies cart them off as war trophies to a land of no return;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> don't forgive their iniquity, don't wipe away their sin--they've insulted the builders!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> We kept at it, repairing and rebuilding the wall. The whole wall was soon joined together and halfway to its intended height because the people had a heart for the work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites heard that the repairs of the walls of Jerusalem were going so well--that the breaks in the wall were being fixed--they were absolutely furious.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They put their heads together and decided to fight against Jerusalem and create as much trouble as they could.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> We countered with prayer to our God and set a round-the-clock guard against them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But soon word was going around in Judah, The builders are pooped, the rubbish piles up; We're in over our heads, we can't build this wall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And all this time our enemies were saying, "They won't know what hit them. Before they know it we'll be at their throats, killing them right and left. That will put a stop to the work!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The Jews who were their neighbors kept reporting, "They have us surrounded; they're going to attack!" If we heard it once, we heard it ten times.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> So I stationed armed guards at the most vulnerable places of the wall and assigned people by families with their swords, lances, and bows.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> After looking things over I stood up and spoke to the nobles, officials, and everyone else: "Don't be afraid of them. Put your minds on the Master, great and awesome, and then fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Our enemies learned that we knew all about their plan and that God had frustrated it. And we went back to the wall and went to work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> From then on half of my young men worked while the other half stood guard with lances, shields, bows, and mail armor. Military officers served as backup for everyone in Judah who was at work rebuilding the wall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The common laborers held a tool in one hand and a spear in the other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Each of the builders had a sword strapped to his side as he worked. I kept the trumpeter at my side to sound the alert.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Then I spoke to the nobles and officials and everyone else: "There's a lot of work going on and we are spread out all along the wall, separated from each other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> When you hear the trumpet call, join us there; our God will fight for us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And so we kept working, from first light until the stars came out, half of us holding lances.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I also instructed the people, "Each person and his helper is to stay inside Jerusalem--guards by night and workmen by day."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> We all slept in our clothes--I, my brothers, my workmen, and the guards backing me up. And each one kept his spear in his hand, even when getting water.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A great protest was mounted by the people, including the wives, against their fellow Jews.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Some said, "We have big families, and we need food just to survive."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Others said, "We're having to mortgage our fields and vineyards and homes to get enough grain to keep from starving."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> And others said, "We're having to borrow money to pay the royal tax on our fields and vineyards.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Look: We're the same flesh and blood as our brothers here; our children are just as good as theirs. Yet here we are having to sell our children off as slaves--some of our daughters have already been sold--and we can't do anything about it because our fields and vineyards are owned by somebody else."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I got really angry when I heard their protest and complaints.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> After thinking it over, I called the nobles and officials on the carpet. I said, "Each one of you is gouging his brother." Then I called a big meeting to deal with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I told them, "We did everything we could to buy back our Jewish brothers who had to sell themselves as slaves to foreigners. And now you're selling these same brothers back into debt slavery! Does that mean that we have to buy them back again?" They said nothing. What could they say?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "What you're doing is wrong. Is there no fear of God left in you? Don't you care what the nations around here, our enemies, think of you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "I and my brothers and the people working for me have also loaned them money. But this gouging them with interest has to stop.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Give them back their foreclosed fields, vineyards, olive groves, and homes right now. And forgive your claims on their money, grain, new wine, and olive oil."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They said, "We'll give it all back. We won't make any more demands on them. We'll do everything you say." Then I called the priests together and made them promise to keep their word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then I emptied my pockets, turning them inside out, and said, "So may God empty the pockets and house of everyone who doesn't keep this promise--turned inside out and emptied." Everyone gave a wholehearted "Yes, we'll do it!" and praised GOD. And the people did what they promised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> From the time King Artaxerxes appointed me as their governor in the land of Judah--from the twentieth to the thirty-second year of his reign, twelve years--neither I nor my brothers used the governor's food allowance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Governors who had preceded me had oppressed the people by taxing them forty shekels of silver (about a pound) a day for food and wine while their underlings bullied the people unmercifully. But out of fear of God I did none of that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I had work to do; I worked on this wall. All my men were on the job to do the work. We didn't have time to line our own pockets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I fed one hundred and fifty Jews and officials at my table in addition to those who showed up from the surrounding nations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> One ox, six choice sheep, and some chickens were prepared for me daily, and every ten days a large supply of wine was delivered. Even so, I didn't use the food allowance provided for the governor--the people had it hard enough as it was.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Remember in my favor, O my God, Everything I've done for these people.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies heard that I had rebuilt the wall and that there were no more breaks in it--even though I hadn't yet installed the gates--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Sanballat and Geshem sent this message: "Come and meet with us at Kephirim in the valley of Ono." I knew they were scheming to hurt me</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> so I sent messengers back with this: "I'm doing a great work; I can't come down. Why should the work come to a standstill just so I can come down to see you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Four times they sent this message and four times I gave them my answer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The fifth time--same messenger, same message--Sanballat sent an unsealed letter</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> with this message: "The word is out among the nations--and Geshem says it's true--that you and the Jews are planning to rebel. That's why you are rebuilding the wall. The word is that you want to be king</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> and that you have appointed prophets to announce in Jerusalem, 'There's a king in Judah!' The king is going to be told all this--don't you think we should sit down and have a talk?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I sent him back this: "There's nothing to what you're saying. You've made it all up."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They were trying to intimidate us into quitting. They thought, "They'll give up; they'll never finish it." I prayed, "Give me strength."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then I met secretly with Shemaiah son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel, at his house. He said: Let's meet at the house of God, inside The Temple; Let's find safety behind locked doors because they're coming to kill you, Yes, coming by night to kill you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I said, "Why would a man like me run for cover? And why would a man like me use The Temple as a hideout? I won't do it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I sensed that God hadn't sent this man. The so-called prophecy he spoke to me was the work of Tobiah and Sanballat; they had hired him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He had been hired to scare me off--trick me--a layman, into desecrating The Temple and ruining my good reputation so they could accuse me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "O my God, don't let Tobiah and Sanballat get by with all the mischief they've done. And the same goes for the prophetess Noadiah and the other prophets who have been trying to undermine my confidence."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of Elul. It had taken fifty-two days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When all our enemies heard the news and all the surrounding nations saw it, our enemies totally lost their nerve. They knew that God was behind this work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> All during this time letters were going back and forth constantly between the nobles of Judah and Tobiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Many of the nobles had ties to him because he was son-in-law to Shecaniah son of Arah and his son Jehohanan had married the daughter of Meshullam son of Berekiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They kept telling me all the good things he did and then would report back to him anything I would say. And then Tobiah would send letters to intimidate me.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> After the wall was rebuilt and I had installed the doors, and the security guards, the singers, and the Levites were appointed,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I put my brother Hanani, along with Hananiah the captain of the citadel, in charge of Jerusalem because he was an honest man and feared God more than most men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I gave them this order: "Don't open the gates of Jerusalem until the sun is up. And shut and bar the gates while the guards are still on duty. Appoint the guards from the citizens of Jerusalem and assign them to posts in front of their own homes."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The city was large and spacious with only a few people in it and the houses not yet rebuilt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> God put it in my heart to gather the nobles, the officials, and the people in general to be registered. I found the genealogical record of those who were in the first return from exile. This is the record I found:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> These are the people of the province who returned from the captivity of the Exile, the ones Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried off captive; they came back to Jerusalem and Judah, each going to his own town.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They came back in the company of Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Azariah, Raamiah, Nahamani, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispereth, Bigvai, Nehum, and Baanah. The numbers of the men of the People of Israel by families of origin:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Parosh, 2,172</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Shephatiah, 372</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Arah, 652</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Pahath-Moab (sons of Jeshua and Joab), 2,818</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Elam, 1,254</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Zattu, 845</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Zaccai, 760</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Binnui, 648</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Bebai, 628</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Azgad, 2,322</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Adonikam, 667</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Bigvai, 2,067</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Adin, 655</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Ater (sons of Hezekiah), 98</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Hashum, 328</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Bezai, 324</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Hariph, 112</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Gibeon, 95.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Israelites identified by place of origin: Bethlehem and Netophah, 188</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Anathoth, 128</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Beth Azmaveth, 42</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Kiriath Jearim, Kephirah, and Beeroth, 743</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Ramah and Geba, 621</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Micmash, 122</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Bethel and Ai, 123</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Nebo (the other one), 52</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Elam (the other one), 1,254</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Harim, 320</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Jericho, 345</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Lod, Hadid, and Ono, 721</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Senaah, 3,930.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Priestly families: Jedaiah (sons of Jeshua), 973</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Immer, 1,052</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Pashhur, 1,247</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Harim, 1,017.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Levitical families: Jeshua (sons of Kadmiel and of Hodaviah), 74.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Singers: Asaph's family line, 148.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> Security guard families: Shallum, Ater, Talmon, Akkub, Hatita, and Shobai, 138.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Families of support staff: Ziha, Hasupha, Tabbaoth,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> Keros, Sia, Padon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> Lebana, Hagaba, Shalmai,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> Hanan, Giddel, Gahar,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Reaiah, Rezin, Nekoda,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> Gazzam, Uzza, Paseah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> Besai, Meunim, Nephussim,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> Bakbuk, Hakupha, Harhur,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> Bazluth, Mehida, Harsha,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> Barkos, Sisera, Temah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> Neziah, and Hatipha.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> Families of Solomon's servants: Sotai, Sophereth, Perida,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> Jaala, Darkon, Giddel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="59"> Shephatiah, Hattil, Pokereth-Hazzebaim, and Amon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="60"> The Temple support staff and Solomon's servants added up to 392.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="61"> These are those who came from Tel Melah, Tel Harsha, Kerub, Addon, and Immer. They weren't able to prove their ancestry, whether they were true Israelites or not:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="62"> The sons of Delaiah, Tobiah, and Nekoda, 642.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="63"> Likewise with these priestly families: -The sons of Hobaiah, Hakkoz, and Barzillai, who had married a daughter of Barzillai the Gileadite and took that name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="64"> They looked high and low for their family records but couldn't find them. And so they were barred from priestly work as ritually unclean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="65"> The governor ruled that they could not eat from the holy food until a priest could determine their status by using the Urim and Thummim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="66"> The total count for the congregation was 42,360.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="67"> That did not include the male and female slaves who numbered 7,337. There were also 245 male and female singers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="68"> And there were 736 horses, 245 mules,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="69"> 435 camels, and 6,720 donkeys.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="70"> Some of the heads of families made voluntary offerings for the work. The governor made a gift to the treasury of 1,000 drachmas of gold (about nineteen pounds), 50 bowls, and 530 garments for the priests.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="71"> Some of the heads of the families made gifts to the treasury for the work; it came to 20,000 drachmas of gold and 2,200 minas of silver (about one and a third tons).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="72"> Gifts from the rest of the people totaled 20,000 drachmas of gold (about 375 pounds), 2,000 minas of silver, and 67 garments for the priests.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="73"> The priests, Levites, security guards, singers, and Temple support staff, along with some others, and the rest of the People of Israel, all found a place to live in their own towns.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> By the time the seventh month arrived, the People of Israel were settled in their towns. Then all the people gathered as one person in the town square in front of the Water Gate and asked the scholar Ezra to bring the Book of The Revelation of Moses that GOD had commanded for Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> So Ezra the priest brought The Revelation to the congregation, which was made up of both men and women--everyone capable of understanding. It was the first day of the seventh month.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He read it facing the town square at the Water Gate from early dawn until noon in the hearing of the men and women, all who could understand it. And all the people listened--they were all ears--to the Book of The Revelation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The scholar Ezra stood on a wooden platform constructed for the occasion. He was flanked on the right by Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah, and on the left by Pedaiah, Mishael, Malkijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Ezra opened the book. Every eye was on him (he was standing on the raised platform) and as he opened the book everyone stood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then Ezra praised GOD, the great God, and all the people responded, "Oh Yes! Yes!" with hands raised high. And then they fell to their knees in worship of GOD, their faces to the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, and Pelaiah, all Levites, explained The Revelation while people stood, listening respectfully.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They translated the Book of The Revelation of God so the people could understand it and then explained the reading.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Nehemiah the governor, along with Ezra the priest and scholar and the Levites who were teaching the people, said to all the people, "This day is holy to GOD, your God. Don't weep and carry on." They said this because all the people were weeping as they heard the words of The Revelation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He continued, "Go home and prepare a feast, holiday food and drink; and share it with those who don't have anything: This day is holy to God. Don't feel bad. The joy of GOD is your strength!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The Levites calmed the people, "Quiet now. This is a holy day. Don't be upset."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> So the people went off to feast, eating and drinking and including the poor in a great celebration. Now they got it; they understood the reading that had been given to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> On the second day of the month the family heads of all the people, the priests, and the Levites gathered around Ezra the scholar to get a deeper understanding of the words of The Revelation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They found written in The Revelation that GOD commanded through Moses that the People of Israel are to live in booths during the festival of the seventh month.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So they published this decree and had it posted in all their cities and in Jerusalem: "Go into the hills and collect olive branches, pine branches, myrtle branches, palm branches, and any other leafy branches to make booths, as it is written."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So the people went out, brought in branches, and made themselves booths on their roofs, courtyards, the courtyards of The Temple of God, the Water Gate plaza, and the Ephraim Gate plaza.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The entire congregation that had come back from exile made booths and lived in them. The People of Israel hadn't done this from the time of Joshua son of Nun until that very day--a terrific day! Great joy!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Ezra read from the Book of The Revelation of God each day, from the first to the last day--they celebrated the feast for seven days. On the eighth day they held a solemn assembly in accordance with the decree.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then on the twenty-fourth day of this month, the People of Israel gathered for a fast, wearing burlap and faces smudged with dirt as signs of repentance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The Israelites broke off all relations with foreigners, stood up, and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their parents.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> While they stood there in their places, they read from the Book of The Revelation of GOD, their God, for a quarter of the day. For another quarter of the day they confessed and worshiped their GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> A group of Levites--Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Kenani--stood on the platform and cried out to GOD, their God, in a loud voice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The Levites Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah said, "On your feet! Bless GOD, your God, for ever and ever!" Blessed be your glorious name, exalted above all blessing and praise!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> You're the one, GOD, you alone; You made the heavens, the heavens of heavens, and all angels; The earth and everything on it, the seas and everything in them; You keep them all alive; heaven's angels worship you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You're the one, GOD, the God who chose Abram And brought him from Ur of the Chaldees and changed his name to Abraham.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You found his heart to be steady and true to you and signed a covenant with him, A covenant to give him the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, and the Amorites, The Perizzites, Jebusites, and Girgashites, --to give it to his descendants. And you kept your word because you are righteous.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You saw the anguish of our parents in Egypt. You heard their cries at the Red Sea;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You amazed Pharaoh, his servants, and the people of his land with wonders and miracle-signs. You knew their bullying arrogance against your people; you made a name for yourself that lasts to this day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> You split the sea before them; they crossed through and never got their feet wet; You pitched their pursuers into the deep; they sank like a rock in the storm-tossed sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> By day you led them with a Pillar of Cloud, and by night with a Pillar of Fire To show them the way they were to travel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You came down onto Mount Sinai, you spoke to them out of heaven; You gave them instructions on how to live well, true teaching, sound rules and commands;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> You introduced them to your Holy Sabbath; Through your servant Moses you decreed commands, rules, and instruction.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> You gave bread from heaven for their hunger, you sent water from the rock for their thirst. You told them to enter and take the land, which you promised to give them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But they, our ancestors, were arrogant; bullheaded, they wouldn't obey your commands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> They turned a deaf ear, they refused to remember the miracles you had done for them; They turned stubborn, got it into their heads to return to their Egyptian slavery. And you, a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, Incredibly patient, with tons of love-- you didn't dump them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Yes, even when they cast a sculpted calf and said, "This is your god Who brought you out of Egypt," and continued from bad to worse,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> You in your amazing compassion didn't walk off and leave them in the desert. The Pillar of Cloud didn't leave them; daily it continued to show them their route; The Pillar of Fire did the same by night, showed them the right way to go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> You gave them your good Spirit to teach them to live wisely. You never stinted with your manna, gave them plenty of water to drink.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> You supported them forty years in that desert; they had everything they needed; Their clothes didn't wear out and their feet never blistered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> You gave them kingdoms and peoples, establishing generous boundaries. They took over the country of Sihon king of Heshbon and the country of Og king of Bashan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> You multiplied children for them, rivaling the stars in the night skies, And you brought them into the land that you promised their ancestors they would get and own.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Well, they entered all right, they took it and settled in. The Canaanites who lived there you brought to their knees before them. You turned over their land, kings, and peoples to do with as they pleased.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> They took strong cities and fertile fields, they took over well-furnished houses, Cisterns, vineyards, olive groves, and lush, extensive orchards. And they ate, grew fat on the fat of the land; they reveled in your bountiful goodness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> But then they mutinied, rebelled against you, threw out your laws and killed your prophets, The very prophets who tried to get them back on your side-- and then things went from bad to worse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> You turned them over to their enemies, who made life rough for them. But when they called out for help in their troubles you listened from heaven; And in keeping with your bottomless compassion you gave them saviors: Saviors who saved them from the cruel abuse of their enemies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> But as soon as they had it easy again they were right back at it--more evil. So you turned away and left them again to their fate, to the enemies who came right back. They cried out to you again; in your great compassion you heard and helped them again. This went on over and over and over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> You warned them to return to your Revelation, they responded with haughty arrogance: They flouted your commands, spurned your rules --the very words by which men and women live! They set their jaws in defiance, they turned their backs on you and didn't listen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> You put up with them year after year and warned them by your spirit through your prophets; But when they refused to listen you abandoned them to foreigners.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Still, because of your great compassion, you didn't make a total end to them. You didn't walk out and leave them for good; yes, you are a God of grace and compassion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> And now, our God, the great God, God majestic and terrible, loyal in covenant and love, Don't treat lightly the trouble that has come to us, to our kings and princes, our priests and prophets, Our ancestors, and all your people from the time of the Assyrian kings right down to today.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> You are not to blame for all that has come down on us; You did everything right, we did everything wrong.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> None of our kings, princes, priests, or ancestors followed your Revelation; They ignored your commands, dismissed the warnings you gave them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Even when they had their own kingdom and were enjoying your generous goodness, Living in that spacious and fertile land that you spread out before them, They didn't serve you or turn their backs on the practice of evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> And here we are, slaves again today; and here's the land you gave our ancestors So they could eat well and enjoy a good life, and now look at us--no better than slaves on this land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Its wonderful crops go to the kings you put over us because of our sins; They act like they own our bodies and do whatever they like with our cattle. We're in deep trouble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> "Because of all this we are drawing up a binding pledge, a sealed document signed by our princes, our Levites, and our priests."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The sealed document bore these signatures: Nehemiah the governor, son of Hacaliah, Zedekiah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Seraiah, Azariah, Jeremiah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Pashhur, Amariah, Malkijah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Hattush, Shebaniah, Malluch,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Harim, Meremoth, Obadiah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Daniel, Ginnethon, Baruch,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Meshullam, Abijah, Mijamin,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Maaziah, Bilgai, and Shemaiah. These were the priests.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The Levites: Jeshua son of Azaniah, Binnui of the sons of Henadad, Kadmiel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> and their kinsmen: Shebaniah, Hodiah, Kelita, Pelaiah, Hanan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Mica, Rehob, Hashabiah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Zaccur, Sherebiah, Shebaniah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Hodiah, Bani, and Beninu.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The heads of the people: Parosh, Pahath-Moab, Elam, Zattu, Bani,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Bunni, Azgad, Bebai,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Adonijah, Bigvai, Adin,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Ater, Hezekiah, Azzur,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Hodiah, Hashum, Bezai,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Hariph, Anathoth, Nebai,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Magpiash, Meshullam, Hezir,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Meshezabel, Zadok, Jaddua,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Pelatiah, Hanan, Anaiah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Hoshea, Hananiah, Hasshub,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Hallohesh, Pilha, Shobek,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Rehum, Hashabnah, Maaseiah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Ahiah, Hanan, Anan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Malluch, Harim, and Baanah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The rest of the people, priests, Levites, security guards, singers, Temple staff, and all who separated themselves from the foreign neighbors to keep The Revelation of God, together with their wives, sons, daughters--everyone old enough to understand--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> all joined their noble kinsmen in a binding oath to follow The Revelation of God given through Moses the servant of God, to keep and carry out all the commandments of GOD our Master, all his decisions and standards.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Thus: We will not marry our daughters to our foreign neighbors nor let our sons marry their daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> When the foreign neighbors bring goods or grain to sell on the Sabbath we won't trade with them--not on the Sabbath or any other holy day. Every seventh year we will leave the land fallow and cancel all debts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> We accept the responsibility for paying an annual tax of one-third of a shekel (about an eighth ounce) for providing The Temple of our God with</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> bread for the Table regular Grain-Offerings regular Whole-Burnt-Offerings offerings for the Sabbaths, New Moons, and appointed feasts, Dedication-Offerings, Absolution-Offerings to atone for Israel maintenance of The Temple of our God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> We--priests, Levites, and the people--have cast lots to see when each of our families will bring wood for burning on the Altar of our GOD, following the yearly schedule set down in The Revelation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> We take responsibility for delivering annually to The Temple of GOD the firstfruits of our crops and our orchards,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> our firstborn sons and cattle, and the firstborn from our herds and flocks for the priests who serve in The Temple of our God--just as it is set down in The Revelation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> We will bring the best of our grain, of our contributions, of the fruit of every tree, of wine, and of oil to the priests in the storerooms of The Temple of our God. We will bring the tithes from our fields to the Levites, since the Levites are appointed to collect the tithes in the towns where we work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> We'll see to it that a priest descended from Aaron will supervise the Levites as they collect the tithes and make sure that they take a tenth of the tithes to the treasury in The Temple of our God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> We'll see to it that the People of Israel and Levites bring the grain, wine, and oil to the storage rooms where the vessels of the Sanctuary are kept and where the priests who serve, the security guards, and the choir meet. We will not neglect The Temple of our God.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The leaders of the people were already living in Jerusalem, so the rest of the people drew lots to get one out of ten to move to Jerusalem, the holy city, while the other nine remained in their towns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The people applauded those who voluntarily offered to live in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> These are the leaders in the province who resided in Jerusalem (some Israelites, priests, Levites, Temple staff, and descendants of Solomon's slaves lived in the towns of Judah on their own property in various towns;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> others from both Judah and Benjamin lived in Jerusalem): From the family of Judah: Athaiah son of Uzziah, the son of Zechariah, the son of Amariah, the son of Shephatiah, the son of Mahalalel, from the family line of Perez;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Maaseiah son of Baruch, the son of Col-Hozeh, the son of Hazaiah, the son of Adaiah, the son of Joiarib, the son of Zechariah, the son of the Shilonite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The descendants of Perez who lived in Jerusalem numbered 468 valiant men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> From the family of Benjamin: Sallu son of Meshullam, the son of Joed, the son of Pedaiah, the son of Kolaiah, the son of Maaseiah, the son of Ithiel, the son of Jeshaiah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> and his brothers Gabbai and Sallai: 928 men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Joel son of Zicri was their chief and Judah son of Hassenuah was second in command over the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> From the priests: Jedaiah son of Joiarib; Jakin;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Seraiah son of Hilkiah, the son of Meshullam, the son of Zadok, the son of Meraioth, the son of Ahitub, supervisor of The Temple of God,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> along with their associates responsible for work in The Temple: 822 men. Also Adaiah son of Jeroham, the son of Pelaliah, the son of Amzi, the son of Zechariah, the son of Pashhur, the son of Malkijah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> and his associates who were heads of families: 242 men; Amashsai son of Azarel, the son of Ahzai, the son of Meshillemoth, the son of Immer,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> and his associates, all valiant men: 128 men. Their commander was Zabdiel son of Haggedolim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> From the Levites: Shemaiah son of Hasshub, the son of Azrikam, the son of Hashabiah, the son of Bunni;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Shabbethai and Jozabad, two of the leaders of the Levites who were in charge of the outside work of The Temple of God;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Mattaniah son of Mica, the son of Zabdi, the son of Asaph, the director who led in thanksgiving and prayer; Bakbukiah, second among his associates; and Abda son of Shammua, the son of Galal, the son of Jeduthun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The Levites in the holy city totaled 284.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> From the security guards: Akkub, Talmon, and their associates who kept watch over the gates: 172 men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The rest of the Israelites, priests, and Levites were in all the towns of Judah, each on his own family property.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The Temple staff lived on the hill Ophel. Ziha and Gishpa were responsible for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The chief officer over the Levites in Jerusalem was Uzzi son of Bani, the son of Hashabiah, the son of Mattaniah, the son of Mica. Uzzi was one of Asaph's descendants, singers who led worship in The Temple of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The singers got their orders from the king, who drew up their daily schedule.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Pethahiah son of Meshezabel, a descendant of Zerah son of Judah, represented the people's concerns at the royal court.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Some of the Judeans lived in the villages near their farms: Kiriath Arba (Hebron) and suburbs, Dibon and suburbs, Jekabzeel and suburbs</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Jeshua, Moladah, Beth Pelet</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Hazar Shual, Beersheba and suburbs</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Ziklag, Meconah and suburbs</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> En Rimmon, Zorah, Jarmuth</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Zanoah, Adullam and their towns, Lachish and its fields, Azekah and suburbs. They were living all the way from Beersheba to the Valley of Hinnom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The Benjaminites from Geba lived in: Micmash, Aijah, Bethel and its suburbs</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Anathoth, Nob and Ananiah</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Hazor, Ramah and Gittaim</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Hadid, Zeboim, and Neballat</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Lod and Ono and the Valley of the Craftsmen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Also some of the Levitical groups of Judah were assigned to Benjamin.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> These are the priests and Levites who came up with Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and with Jeshua: Seraiah, Jeremiah, Ezra,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Amariah, Malluch, Hattush,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Shecaniah, Rehum, Meremoth,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Iddo, Ginnethon, Abijah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Mijamin, Moadiah, Bilgah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Shemaiah, Joiarib, Jedaiah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Sallu, Amok, Hilkiah, and Jedaiah. These were the leaders of the priests during the time of Jeshua.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And the Levites: Jeshua, Binnui, Kadmiel, Sherebiah, Judah; Mattaniah, with his brothers, was in charge of songs of praise,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> and their brothers Bakbukiah and Unni stood opposite them in the services of worship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Jeshua fathered Joiakim, Joiakim fathered Eliashib, Eliashib fathered Joiada,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Joiada fathered Jonathan, and Jonathan fathered Jaddua.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> During the time of Joiakim, these were the heads of the priestly families: of the family of Seraiah, Meraiah; of Jeremiah, Hananiah;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> of Ezra, Meshullam; of Amariah, Jehohanan;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> of Malluch, Jonathan; of Shecaniah, Joseph;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> of Harim, Adna; of Meremoth, Helkai;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> of Iddo, Zechariah; of Ginnethon, Meshullam;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> of Abijah, Zicri; of Miniamin and Moadiah, Piltai;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> of Bilgah, Shammua; of Shemaiah, Jehonathan;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> of Joiarib, Mattenai; of Jedaiah, Uzzi;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> of Sallu, Kallai; of Amok, Eber;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> of Hilkiah, Hashabiah; and of Jedaiah, Nethanel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> During the time of Eliashib, Joiada, Johanan, and Jaddua, the Levites were registered as heads of families. During the reign of Darius the Persian, the priests were registered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The Levites who were heads of families were registered in the Book of the Chronicles until the time of Johanan son of Eliashib. These were:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Hashabiah, Sherebiah, and Jeshua son of Kadmiel. Their brothers stood opposite them to give praise and thanksgiving, one side responding to the other, as had been directed by David the man of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The security guards included: Mattaniah, Bakbukiah, Obadiah, Meshullam, Talmon, and Akkub. They guarded the storerooms at the gates.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> They lived during the time of Joiakim son of Jeshua, the son of Jozadak, the time of Nehemiah the governor and of Ezra the priest and scholar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> When it came time for the dedication of the wall, they tracked down and brought in the Levites from all their homes in Jerusalem to carry out the dedication exuberantly: thanksgiving hymns, songs, cymbals, harps, and lutes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The singers assembled from all around Jerusalem, from the villages of the Netophathites,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> from Beth Gilgal, from the farms at Geba and Azmaveth--the singers had built villages for themselves all around Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The priests and Levites ceremonially purified themselves; then they did the same for the people, the gates, and the wall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> I had the leaders of Judah come up on the wall, and I appointed two large choirs. One proceeded on the wall to the right toward the Dung Gate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Hashaiah and half the leaders of Judah followed them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> including Azariah, Ezra, Meshullam,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Judah, Benjamin, Shemaiah, and Jeremiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Some of the young priests had trumpets. Next, playing the musical instruments of David the man of God, came Zechariah son of Jonathan, the son of Shemaiah, the son of Mattaniah, the son of Micaiah, the son of Zaccur, the son of Asaph,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> and his brothers Shemaiah, Azarel, Milalai, Gilalai, Maai, Nethanel, Judah, and Hanani. Ezra the scholar led them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> At the Fountain Gate they went straight ahead, up the steps of the City of David using the wall stairway above the house of David to the Water Gate on the east.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> The other choir proceeded to the left. I and half of the people followed them on the wall from the Tower of Furnaces to the Broad Wall,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> over the Ephraim Gate, the Jeshanah Gate, the Fish Gate, the Tower of Hananel, and the Tower of the Hundred as far as the Sheep Gate, stopping at the Prison Gate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> The two choirs then took their places in The Temple of God. I was there with half of the officials,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> along with the priests Eliakim, Maaseiah, Miniamin, Micaiah, Elioenai, Zechariah, and Hananiah with their trumpets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Also Maaseiah, Shemaiah, Eleazar, Uzzi, Jehohanan, Malkijah, Elam, and Ezer. The singers, directed by Jezrahiah, made the rafters ring.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> That day they offered great sacrifices, an exuberant celebration because God had filled them with great joy. The women and children raised their happy voices with all the rest. Jerusalem's jubilation was heard far and wide.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> That same day men were appointed to be responsible for the storerooms for the offerings, the firstfruits, and the tithes. They saw to it that the portion directed by The Revelation for the priests and Levites was brought in from the farms connected to the towns. Judah was so appreciative of the priests and Levites and their service;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> they, along with the singers and security guards, had done everything so well, conducted the worship of their God and the ritual of ceremonial cleansing in a way that would have made David and his son Solomon proud.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> That's the way it was done in the olden days, the days of David and Asaph, when they had choir directors for singing songs of praise and thanksgiving to God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> During the time of Zerubbabel and Nehemiah, all Israel contributed the daily allowances for the singers and security guards. They also set aside what was dedicated to the Levites, and the Levites did the same for the Aaronites.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Also on that same day there was a reading from the Book of Moses in the hearing of the people. It was found written there that no Ammonite or Moabite was permitted to enter the congregation of God,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> because they hadn't welcomed the People of Israel with food and drink; they even hired Balaam to work against them by cursing them, but our God turned the curse into a blessing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When they heard the reading of The Revelation, they excluded all foreigners from Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Some time before this, Eliashib the priest had been put in charge of the storerooms of The Temple of God. He was close to Tobiah</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> and had made available to him a large storeroom that had been used to store Grain-Offerings, incense, worship vessels, and the tithes of grain, wine, and oil for the Levites, singers, and security guards, and the offerings for the priests.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When this was going on I wasn't there in Jerusalem; in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon, I had traveled back to the king. But later I asked for his permission to leave again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I arrived in Jerusalem and learned of the wrong that Eliashib had done in turning over to him a room in the courts of The Temple of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I was angry, really angry, and threw everything in the room out into the street, all of Tobiah's stuff.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then I ordered that they ceremonially cleanse the room. Only then did I put back the worship vessels of The Temple of God, along with the Grain-Offerings and the incense.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And then I learned that the Levites hadn't been given their regular food allotments. So the Levites and singers who led the services of worship had all left and gone back to their farms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I called the officials on the carpet, "Why has The Temple of God been abandoned?" I got everyone back again and put them back on their jobs</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> so that all Judah was again bringing in the tithe of grain, wine, and oil to the storerooms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I put Shelemiah the priest, Zadok the scribe, and a Levite named Pedaiah in charge of the storerooms. I made Hanan son of Zaccur, the son of Mattaniah, their right-hand man. These men had a reputation for honesty and hard work. They were responsible for distributing the rations to their brothers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Remember me, O my God, for this. Don't ever forget the devoted work I have done for The Temple of God and its worship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> During those days, while back in Judah, I also noticed that people treaded wine presses, brought in sacks of grain, and loaded up their donkeys on the Sabbath. They brought wine, grapes, figs, and all kinds of stuff to sell on the Sabbath. So I spoke up and warned them about selling food on that day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Tyrians living there brought in fish and whatever else, selling it to Judeans--in Jerusalem, mind you!--on the Sabbath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I confronted the leaders of Judah: "What's going on here? This evil! Profaning the Sabbath!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Isn't this exactly what your ancestors did? And because of it didn't God bring down on us and this city all this misery? And here you are adding to it--accumulating more wrath on Jerusalem by profaning the Sabbath."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> As the gates of Jerusalem were darkened by the shadows of the approaching Sabbath, I ordered the doors shut and not to be opened until the Sabbath was over. I placed some of my servants at the gates to make sure that nothing to be sold would get in on the Sabbath day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Traders and dealers in various goods camped outside the gates once or twice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But I took them to task. I said, "You have no business camping out here by the wall. If I find you here again, I'll use force to drive you off." And that did it; they didn't come back on the Sabbath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Then I directed the Levites to ceremonially cleanse themselves and take over as guards at the gates to keep the sanctity of the Sabbath day. Remember me also for this, my God. Treat me with mercy according to your great and steadfast love.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Also in those days I saw Jews who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Half the children couldn't even speak the language of Judah; all they knew was the language of Ashdod or some other tongue.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> So I took those men to task, gave them a piece of my mind, even slapped some of them and jerked them by the hair. I made them swear to God: "Don't marry your daughters to their sons; and don't let their daughters marry your sons--and don't you yourselves marry them!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Didn't Solomon the king of Israel sin because of women just like these? Even though there was no king quite like him, and God loved him and made him king over all Israel, foreign women were his downfall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Do you call this obedience--engaging in this extensive evil, showing yourselves faithless to God by marrying foreign wives?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> One of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was a son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite; I drove him out of my presence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Remember them, O my God, how they defiled the priesthood and the covenant of the priests and Levites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> All in all I cleansed them from everything foreign. I organized the orders of service for the priests and Levites so that each man knew his job.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> I arranged for a regular supply of altar wood at the appointed times and for the firstfruits. Remember me, O my God, for good.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="17" bname="Esther">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> This is the story of something that happened in the time of Xerxes, the Xerxes who ruled from India to Ethiopia--127 provinces in all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> King Xerxes ruled from his royal throne in the palace complex of Susa.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> In the third year of his reign he gave a banquet for all his officials and ministers. The military brass of Persia and Media were also there, along with the princes and governors of the provinces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> For six months he put on exhibit the huge wealth of his empire and its stunningly beautiful royal splendors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> At the conclusion of the exhibit, the king threw a weeklong party for everyone living in Susa, the capital--important and unimportant alike. The party was in the garden courtyard of the king's summer house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The courtyard was elaborately decorated with white and blue cotton curtains tied with linen and purple cords to silver rings on marble columns. Silver and gold couches were arranged on a mosaic pavement of porphyry, marble, mother-of-pearl, and colored stones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Drinks were served in gold chalices, each chalice one-of-a-kind. The royal wine flowed freely--a generous king!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The guests could drink as much as they liked--king's orders!--with waiters at their elbows to refill the drinks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Meanwhile, Queen Vashti was throwing a separate party for women inside King Xerxes' royal palace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> On the seventh day of the party, the king, high on the wine, ordered the seven eunuchs who were his personal servants (Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, Abagtha, Zethar, and Carcas)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> to bring him Queen Vashti resplendent in her royal crown. He wanted to show off her beauty to the guests and officials. She was extremely good-looking.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But Queen Vashti refused to come, refused the summons delivered by the eunuchs. The king lost his temper. Seething with anger over her insolence,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> the king called in his counselors, all experts in legal matters. It was the king's practice to consult his expert advisors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Those closest to him were Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena, and Memucan, the seven highest-ranking princes of Persia and Media, the inner circle with access to the king's ear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He asked them what legal recourse they had against Queen Vashti for not obeying King Xerxes' summons delivered by the eunuchs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Memucan spoke up in the council of the king and princes: "It's not only the king Queen Vashti has insulted, it's all of us, leaders and people alike in every last one of King Xerxes' provinces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The word's going to get out: 'Did you hear the latest about Queen Vashti? King Xerxes ordered her to be brought before him and she wouldn't do it!' When the women hear it, they'll start treating their husbands with contempt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The day the wives of the Persian and Mede officials get wind of the queen's insolence, they'll be out of control. Is that what we want, a country of angry women who don't know their place?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "So, if the king agrees, let him pronounce a royal ruling and have it recorded in the laws of the Persians and Medes so that it cannot be revoked, that Vashti is permanently banned from King Xerxes' presence. And then let the king give her royal position to a woman who knows her place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> When the king's ruling becomes public knowledge throughout the kingdom, extensive as it is, every woman, regardless of her social position, will show proper respect to her husband."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The king and the princes liked this. The king did what Memucan proposed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> He sent bulletins to every part of the kingdom, to each province in its own script, to each people in their own language: "Every man is master of his own house; whatever he says, goes."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Later, when King Xerxes' anger had cooled and he was having second thoughts about what Vashti had done and what he had ordered against her,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> the king's young attendants stepped in and got the ball rolling: "Let's begin a search for beautiful young virgins for the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Let the king appoint officials in every province of his kingdom to bring every beautiful young virgin to the palace complex of Susa and to the harem run by Hegai, the king's eunuch who oversees the women; he will put them through their beauty treatments.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then let the girl who best pleases the king be made queen in place of Vashti." The king liked this advice and took it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Now there was a Jew who lived in the palace complex in Susa. His name was Mordecai the son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish--a Benjaminite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> His ancestors had been taken from Jerusalem with the exiles and carried off with King Jehoiachin of Judah by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon into exile.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Mordecai had reared his cousin Hadassah, otherwise known as Esther, since she had no father or mother. The girl had a good figure and a beautiful face. After her parents died, Mordecai had adopted her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> When the king's order had been publicly posted, many young girls were brought to the palace complex of Susa and given over to Hegai who was overseer of the women. Esther was among them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Hegai liked Esther and took a special interest in her. Right off he started her beauty treatments, ordered special food, assigned her seven personal maids from the palace, and put her and her maids in the best rooms in the harem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Esther didn't say anything about her family and racial background because Mordecai had told her not to.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Every day Mordecai strolled beside the court of the harem to find out how Esther was and get news of what she was doing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Each girl's turn came to go in to King Xerxes after she had completed the twelve months of prescribed beauty treatments--six months' treatment with oil of myrrh followed by six months with perfumes and various cosmetics.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> When it was time for the girl to go to the king, she was given whatever she wanted to take with her when she left the harem for the king's quarters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> She would go there in the evening; in the morning she would return to a second harem overseen by Shaashgaz, the king's eunuch in charge of the concubines. She never again went back to the king unless the king took a special liking to her and asked for her by name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> When it was Esther's turn to go to the king (Esther the daughter of Abihail the uncle of Mordecai, who had adopted her as his daughter), she asked for nothing other than what Hegai, the king's eunuch in charge of the harem, had recommended. Esther, just as she was, won the admiration of everyone who saw her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> She was taken to King Xerxes in the royal palace in the tenth month, the month of Tebeth, in the seventh year of the king's reign.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The king fell in love with Esther far more than with any of his other women or any of the other virgins--he was totally smitten by her. He placed a royal crown on her head and made her queen in place of Vashti.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Then the king gave a great banquet for all his nobles and officials--"Esther's Banquet." He proclaimed a holiday for all the provinces and handed out gifts with royal generosity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> On one of the occasions when the virgins were being gathered together, Mordecai was sitting at the King's Gate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> All this time, Esther had kept her family background and race a secret as Mordecai had ordered; Esther still did what Mordecai told her, just as when she was being raised by him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> On this day, with Mordecai sitting at the King's Gate, Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king's eunuchs who guarded the entrance, had it in for the king and were making plans to kill King Xerxes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But Mordecai learned of the plot and told Queen Esther, who then told King Xerxes, giving credit to Mordecai.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> When the thing was investigated and confirmed as true, the two men were hanged on a gallows. This was all written down in a logbook kept for the king's use.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Some time later, King Xerxes promoted Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, making him the highest-ranking official in the government.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> All the king's servants at the King's Gate used to honor him by bowing down and kneeling before Haman--that's what the king had commanded. Except Mordecai. Mordecai wouldn't do it, wouldn't bow down and kneel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The king's servants at the King's Gate asked Mordecai about it: "Why do you cross the king's command?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Day after day they spoke to him about this but he wouldn't listen, so they went to Haman to see whether something shouldn't be done about it. Mordecai had told them that he was a Jew.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When Haman saw for himself that Mordecai didn't bow down and kneel before him, he was outraged.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Meanwhile, having learned that Mordecai was a Jew, Haman hated to waste his fury on just one Jew; he looked for a way to eliminate not just Mordecai but all Jews throughout the whole kingdom of Xerxes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> In the first month, the month of Nisan, of the twelfth year of Xerxes, the pur--that is, the lot--was cast under Haman's charge to determine the propitious day and month. The lot turned up the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Haman then spoke with King Xerxes: "There is an odd set of people scattered through the provinces of your kingdom who don't fit in. Their customs and ways are different from those of everybody else. Worse, they disregard the king's laws. They're an affront; the king shouldn't put up with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> If it please the king, let orders be given that they be destroyed. I'll pay for it myself. I'll deposit 375 tons of silver in the royal bank to finance the operation."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The king slipped his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, archenemy of the Jews.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Go ahead," the king said to Haman. "It's your money--do whatever you want with those people."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The king's secretaries were brought in on the thirteenth day of the first month. The orders were written out word for word as Haman had addressed them to the king's satraps, the governors of every province, and the officials of every people. They were written in the script of each province and the language of each people in the name of King Xerxes and sealed with the royal signet ring.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Bulletins were sent out by couriers to all the king's provinces with orders to massacre, kill, and eliminate all the Jews--youngsters and old men, women and babies--on a single day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month Adar, and to plunder their goods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Copies of the bulletin were to be posted in each province, publicly available to all peoples, to get them ready for that day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> At the king's command, the couriers took off; the order was also posted in the palace complex of Susa. The king and Haman sat back and had a drink while the city of Susa reeled from the news.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When Mordecai learned what had been done, he ripped his clothes to shreds and put on sackcloth and ashes. Then he went out in the streets of the city crying out in loud and bitter cries.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He came only as far as the King's Gate, for no one dressed in sackcloth was allowed to enter the King's Gate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> As the king's order was posted in every province, there was loud lament among the Jews--fasting, weeping, wailing. And most of them stretched out on sackcloth and ashes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Esther's maids and eunuchs came and told her. The queen was stunned. She sent fresh clothes to Mordecai so he could take off his sackcloth but he wouldn't accept them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Esther called for Hathach, one of the royal eunuchs whom the king had assigned to wait on her, and told him to go to Mordecai and get the full story of what was happening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So Hathach went to Mordecai in the town square in front of the King's Gate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Mordecai told him everything that had happened to him. He also told him the exact amount of money that Haman had promised to deposit in the royal bank to finance the massacre of the Jews.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Mordecai also gave him a copy of the bulletin that had been posted in Susa ordering the massacre so he could show it to Esther when he reported back with instructions to go to the king and intercede and plead with him for her people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Hathach came back and told Esther everything Mordecai had said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Esther talked it over with Hathach and then sent him back to Mordecai with this message:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Everyone who works for the king here, and even the people out in the provinces, knows that there is a single fate for every man or woman who approaches the king without being invited: death. The one exception is if the king extends his gold scepter; then he or she may live. And it's been thirty days now since I've been invited to come to the king."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When Hathach told Mordecai what Esther had said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Mordecai sent her this message: "Don't think that just because you live in the king's house you're the one Jew who will get out of this alive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> If you persist in staying silent at a time like this, help and deliverance will arrive for the Jews from someplace else; but you and your family will be wiped out. Who knows? Maybe you were made queen for just such a time as this."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Esther sent back her answer to Mordecai:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Go and get all the Jews living in Susa together. Fast for me. Don't eat or drink for three days, either day or night. I and my maids will fast with you. If you will do this, I'll go to the king, even though it's forbidden. If I die, I die."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Mordecai left and carried out Esther's instructions.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Three days later Esther dressed in her royal robes and took up a position in the inner court of the palace in front of the king's throne room. The king was on his throne facing the entrance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> When he noticed Queen Esther standing in the court, he was pleased to see her; the king extended the gold scepter in his hand. Esther approached and touched the tip of the scepter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The king asked, "And what's your desire, Queen Esther? What do you want? Ask and it's yours--even if it's half my kingdom!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "If it please the king," said Esther, "let the king come with Haman to a dinner I've prepared for him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Get Haman at once," said the king, "so we can go to dinner with Esther." So the king and Haman joined Esther at the dinner she had arranged.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> As they were drinking the wine, the king said, "Now, what is it you want? Half of my kingdom isn't too much to ask! Just ask."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Esther answered, "Here's what I want.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> If the king favors me and is pleased to do what I desire and ask, let the king and Haman come again tomorrow to the dinner that I will fix for them. Then I'll give a straight answer to the king's question."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Haman left the palace that day happy, beaming. And then he saw Mordecai sitting at the King's Gate ignoring him, oblivious to him. Haman was furious with Mordecai.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But he held himself in and went on home. He got his friends together with his wife Zeresh</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> and started bragging about how much money he had, his many sons, all the times the king had honored him, and his promotion to the highest position in the government.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "On top of all that," Haman continued, "Queen Esther invited me to a private dinner she gave for the king, just the three of us. And she's invited me to another one tomorrow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But I can't enjoy any of it when I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the King's Gate."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> His wife Zeresh and all his friends said, "Build a gallows seventy-five feet high. First thing in the morning speak with the king; get him to order Mordecai hanged on it. Then happily go with the king to dinner." Haman liked that. He had the gallows built.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> That night the king couldn't sleep. He ordered the record book, the day-by-day journal of events, to be brought and read to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They came across the story there about the time that Mordecai had exposed the plot of Bigthana and Teresh--the two royal eunuchs who guarded the entrance and who had conspired to assassinate King Xerxes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The king asked, "What great honor was given to Mordecai for this?" "Nothing," replied the king's servants who were in attendance. "Nothing has been done for him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The king said, "Is there anybody out in the court?" Now Haman had just come into the outer court of the king's palace to talk to the king about hanging Mordecai on the gallows he had built for him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The king's servants said, "Haman is out there, waiting in the court." "Bring him in," said the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When Haman entered, the king said, "What would be appropriate for the man the king especially wants to honor?" Haman thought to himself, "He must be talking about honoring me--who else?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So he answered the king, "For the man the king delights to honor, do this:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Bring a royal robe that the king has worn and a horse the king has ridden, one with a royal crown on its head.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then give the robe and the horse to one of the king's most noble princes. Have him robe the man whom the king especially wants to honor; have the prince lead him on horseback through the city square, proclaiming before him, 'This is what is done for the man whom the king especially wants to honor!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Go and do it," the king said to Haman. "Don't waste another minute. Take the robe and horse and do what you have proposed to Mordecai the Jew who sits at the King's Gate. Don't leave out a single detail of your plan."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> So Haman took the robe and horse; he robed Mordecai and led him through the city square, proclaiming before him, "This is what is done for the man whom the king especially wants to honor!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then Mordecai returned to the King's Gate, but Haman fled to his house, thoroughly mortified, hiding his face.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> When Haman had finished telling his wife Zeresh and all his friends everything that had happened to him, his knowledgeable friends who were there and his wife Zeresh said, "If this Mordecai is in fact a Jew, your bad luck has only begun. You don't stand a chance against him--you're as good as ruined."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> While they were still talking, the king's eunuchs arrived and hurried Haman off to the dinner that Esther had prepared.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> So the king and Haman went to dinner with Queen Esther.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> At this second dinner, while they were drinking wine the king again asked, "Queen Esther, what would you like? Half of my kingdom! Just ask and it's yours."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Queen Esther answered, "If I have found favor in your eyes, O King, and if it please the king, give me my life, and give my people their lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "We've been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed--sold to be massacred, eliminated. If we had just been sold off into slavery, I wouldn't even have brought it up; our troubles wouldn't have been worth bothering the king over."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> King Xerxes exploded, "Who? Where is he? This is monstrous!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "An enemy. An adversary. This evil Haman," said Esther. Haman was terror-stricken before the king and queen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The king, raging, left his wine and stalked out into the palace garden. Haman stood there pleading with Queen Esther for his life--he could see that the king was finished with him and that he was doomed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> As the king came back from the palace garden into the banquet hall, Haman was groveling at the couch on which Esther reclined. The king roared out, "Will he even molest the queen while I'm just around the corner?" When that word left the king's mouth, all the blood drained from Haman's face.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Harbona, one of the eunuchs attending the king, spoke up: "Look over there! There's the gallows that Haman had built for Mordecai, who saved the king's life. It's right next to Haman's house--seventy-five feet high!" The king said, "Hang him on it!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So Haman was hanged on the very gallows that he had built for Mordecai. And the king's hot anger cooled.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> That same day King Xerxes gave Queen Esther the estate of Haman, archenemy of the Jews. And Mordecai came before the king because Esther had explained their relationship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The king took off his signet ring, which he had taken back from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai. Esther appointed Mordecai over Haman's estate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then Esther again spoke to the king, falling at his feet, begging with tears to counter the evil of Haman the Agagite and revoke the plan that he had plotted against the Jews.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The king extended his gold scepter to Esther. She got to her feet and stood before the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> She said, "If it please the king and he regards me with favor and thinks this is right, and if he has any affection for me at all, let an order be written that cancels the bulletins authorizing the plan of Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite to annihilate the Jews in all the king's provinces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> How can I stand to see this catastrophe wipe out my people? How can I bear to stand by and watch the massacre of my own relatives?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> King Xerxes said to Queen Esther and Mordecai the Jew: "I've given Haman's estate to Esther and he's been hanged on the gallows because he attacked the Jews.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> So go ahead now and write whatever you decide on behalf of the Jews; then seal it with the signet ring." (An order written in the king's name and sealed with his signet ring is irrevocable.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So the king's secretaries were brought in on the twenty-third day of the third month, the month of Sivan, and the order regarding the Jews was written word for word as Mordecai dictated and was addressed to the satraps, governors, and officials of the provinces from India to Ethiopia, 127 provinces in all, to each province in its own script and each people in their own language, including the Jews in their script and language.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He wrote under the name of King Xerxes and sealed the order with the royal signet ring; he sent out the bulletins by couriers on horseback, riding the fastest royal steeds bred from the royal stud.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The king's order authorized the Jews in every city to arm and defend themselves to the death, killing anyone who threatened them or their women and children, and confiscating for themselves anything owned by their enemies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The day set for this in all King Xerxes' provinces was the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The order was posted in public places in each province so everyone could read it, authorizing the Jews to be prepared on that day to avenge themselves on their enemies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The couriers, fired up by the king's order, raced off on their royal horses. At the same time, the order was posted in the palace complex of Susa.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Mordecai walked out of the king's presence wearing a royal robe of violet and white, a huge gold crown, and a purple cape of fine linen. The city of Susa exploded with joy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> For Jews it was all sunshine and laughter: they celebrated, they were honored.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> It was that way all over the country, in every province, every city when the king's bulletin was posted: the Jews took to the streets in celebration, cheering, and feasting. Not only that, but many non-Jews became Jews--now it was dangerous not to be a Jew!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> On the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, the king's order came into effect. This was the very day that the enemies of the Jews had planned to overpower them, but the tables were now turned: the Jews overpowered those who hated them!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The Jews had gathered in the cities throughout King Xerxes' provinces to lay hands on those who were seeking their ruin. Not one man was able to stand up against them--fear made cowards of them all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> What's more, all the government officials, satraps, governors--everyone who worked for the king--actually helped the Jews because of Mordecai; they were afraid of him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Mordecai by now was a power in the palace. As Mordecai became more and more powerful, his reputation had grown in all the provinces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> So the Jews finished off all their enemies with the sword, slaughtering them right and left, and did as they pleased to those who hated them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> In the palace complex of Susa the Jews massacred five hundred men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They also killed the ten sons of Haman son of Hammedatha, the archenemy of the Jews: Parshandatha, Dalphon, Aspatha</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Poratha, Adalia, Aridatha</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Parmashta, Arisai, Aridai, Vaizatha</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But they took no plunder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> That day, when it was all over, the number of those killed in the palace complex was given to the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The king told Queen Esther, "In the palace complex alone here in Susa the Jews have killed five hundred men, plus Haman's ten sons. Think of the killing that must have been done in the rest of the provinces! What else do you want? Name it and it's yours. Your wish is my command."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "If it please the king," Queen Esther responded, "give the Jews of Susa permission to extend the terms of the order another day. And have the bodies of Haman's ten sons hanged in public display on the gallows."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The king commanded it: The order was extended; the bodies of Haman's ten sons were publicly hanged.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The Jews in Susa went at it again. On the fourteenth day of Adar they killed another three hundred men in Susa. But again they took no plunder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Meanwhile in the rest of the king's provinces, the Jews had organized and defended themselves, freeing themselves from oppression. On the thirteenth day of the month of Adar, they killed 75,000 of those who hated them but did not take any plunder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The next day, the fourteenth, they took it easy and celebrated with much food and laughter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But in Susa, since the Jews had banded together on both the thirteenth and fourteenth days, they made the fifteenth their holiday for laughing and feasting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> (This accounts for why Jews living out in the country in the rural villages remember the fourteenth day of Adar for celebration, their day for parties and the exchange of gifts.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Mordecai wrote all this down and sent copies to all the Jews in all King Xerxes' provinces, regardless of distance,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> calling for an annual celebration on the fourteenth and fifteenth days of Adar</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> as the occasion when Jews got relief from their enemies, the month in which their sorrow turned to joy, mourning somersaulted into a holiday for parties and fun and laughter, the sending and receiving of presents and of giving gifts to the poor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> And they did it. What started then became a tradition, continuing the practice of what Mordecai had written to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the archenemy of all Jews, had schemed to destroy all Jews. He had cast the pur (the lot) to throw them into a panic and destroy them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> But when Queen Esther intervened with the king, he gave written orders that the evil scheme that Haman had worked out should boomerang back on his own head. He and his sons were hanged on the gallows.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> That's why these days are called "Purim," from the word pur or "lot." Therefore, because of everything written in this letter and because of all that they had been through,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> the Jews agreed to continue. It became a tradition for them, their children, and all future converts to remember these two days every year on the specified dates set down in the letter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> These days are to be remembered and kept by every single generation, every last family, every province and city. These days of Purim must never be neglected among the Jews; the memory of them must never die out among their descendants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Queen Esther, the daughter of Abihail, backed Mordecai the Jew, using her full queenly authority in this second Purim letter</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> to endorse and ratify what he wrote. Calming and reassuring letters went out to all the Jews throughout the 127 provinces of Xerxes' kingdom</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> to fix these days of Purim their assigned place on the calendar, dates set by Mordecai the Jew--what they had agreed to for themselves and their descendants regarding their fasting and mourning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Esther's word confirmed the tradition of Purim and was written in the book.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> King Xerxes imposed taxes from one end of his empire to the other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> For the rest of it, King Xerxes' extensive accomplishments, along with a detailed account of the brilliance of Mordecai, whom the king had promoted, that's all written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Media and Persia.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Mordecai the Jew ranked second in command to King Xerxes. He was popular among the Jews and greatly respected by them. He worked hard for the good of his people; he cared for the peace and prosperity of his race.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="18" bname="Job">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Job was a man who lived in Uz. He was honest inside and out, a man of his word, who was totally devoted to God and hated evil with a passion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He had seven sons and three daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He was also very wealthy--seven thousand head of sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred teams of oxen, five hundred donkeys, and a huge staff of servants--the most influential man in all the East!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> His sons used to take turns hosting parties in their homes, always inviting their three sisters to join them in their merrymaking.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When the parties were over, Job would get up early in the morning and sacrifice a burnt offering for each of his children, thinking, "Maybe one of them sinned by defying God inwardly." Job made a habit of this sacrificial atonement, just in case they'd sinned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> One day when the angels came to report to GOD, Satan, who was the Designated Accuser, came along with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD singled out Satan and said, "What have you been up to?" Satan answered GOD, "Going here and there, checking things out on earth."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD said to Satan, "Have you noticed my friend Job? There's no one quite like him--honest and true to his word, totally devoted to God and hating evil."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Satan retorted, "So do you think Job does all that out of the sheer goodness of his heart?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Why, no one ever had it so good! You pamper him like a pet, make sure nothing bad ever happens to him or his family or his possessions, bless everything he does--he can't lose!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "But what do you think would happen if you reached down and took away everything that is his? He'd curse you right to your face, that's what."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> GOD replied, "We'll see. Go ahead--do what you want with all that is his. Just don't hurt him." Then Satan left the presence of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Sometime later, while Job's children were having one of their parties at the home of the oldest son,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> a messenger came to Job and said, "The oxen were plowing and the donkeys grazing in the field next to us</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> when Sabeans attacked. They stole the animals and killed the field hands. I'm the only one to get out alive and tell you what happened."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> While he was still talking, another messenger arrived and said, "Bolts of lightning struck the sheep and the shepherds and fried them--burned them to a crisp. I'm the only one to get out alive and tell you what happened."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> While he was still talking, another messenger arrived and said, "Chaldeans coming from three directions raided the camels and massacred the camel drivers. I'm the only one to get out alive and tell you what happened."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> While he was still talking, another messenger arrived and said, "Your children were having a party at the home of the oldest brother</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> when a tornado swept in off the desert and struck the house. It collapsed on the young people and they died. I'm the only one to get out alive and tell you what happened."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Job got to his feet, ripped his robe, shaved his head, then fell to the ground and worshiped:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Naked I came from my mother's womb, naked I'll return to the womb of the earth. GOD gives, GOD takes. God's name be ever blessed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Not once through all this did Job sin; not once did he blame God.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> One day when the angels came to report to GOD, Satan also showed up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD singled out Satan, saying, "And what have you been up to?" Satan answered GOD, "Oh, going here and there, checking things out."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then GOD said to Satan, "Have you noticed my friend Job? There's no one quite like him, is there--honest and true to his word, totally devoted to God and hating evil? He still has a firm grip on his integrity! You tried to trick me into destroying him, but it didn't work."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Satan answered, "A human would do anything to save his life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But what do you think would happen if you reached down and took away his health? He'd curse you to your face, that's what."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD said, "All right. Go ahead--you can do what you like with him. But mind you, don't kill him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Satan left GOD and struck Job with terrible sores. Job was ulcers and scabs from head to foot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They itched and oozed so badly that he took a piece of broken pottery to scrape himself, then went and sat on a trash heap, among the ashes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> His wife said, "Still holding on to your precious integrity, are you? Curse God and be done with it!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He told her, "You're talking like an empty-headed fool. We take the good days from God--why not also the bad days?" Not once through all this did Job sin. He said nothing against God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Three of Job's friends heard of all the trouble that had fallen on him. Each traveled from his own country--Eliphaz from Teman, Bildad from Shuhah, Zophar from Naamath--and went together to Job to keep him company and comfort him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When they first caught sight of him, they couldn't believe what they saw--they hardly recognized him! They cried out in lament, ripped their robes, and dumped dirt on their heads as a sign of their grief.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then they sat with him on the ground. Seven days and nights they sat there without saying a word. They could see how rotten he felt, how deeply he was suffering.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then Job broke the silence. He spoke up and cursed his fate:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> (SEE 3:1)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Obliterate the day I was born. Blank out the night I was conceived!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Let it be a black hole in space. May God above forget it ever happened. Erase it from the books!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> May the day of my birth be buried in deep darkness, shrouded by the fog, swallowed by the night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And the night of my conception--the devil take it! Rip the date off the calendar, delete it from the almanac.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Oh, turn that night into pure nothingness-- no sounds of pleasure from that night, ever!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> May those who are good at cursing curse that day. Unleash the sea beast, Leviathan, on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> May its morning stars turn to black cinders, waiting for a daylight that never comes, never once seeing the first light of dawn.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And why? Because it released me from my mother's womb into a life with so much trouble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Why didn't I die at birth, my first breath out of the womb my last?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Why were there arms to rock me, and breasts for me to drink from?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I could be resting in peace right now, asleep forever, feeling no pain,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> In the company of kings and statesmen in their royal ruins,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Or with princes resplendent in their gold and silver tombs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Why wasn't I stillborn and buried with all the babies who never saw light,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Where the wicked no longer trouble anyone and bone-weary people get a long-deserved rest?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Prisoners sleep undisturbed, never again to wake up to the bark of the guards.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The small and the great are equals in that place, and slaves are free from their masters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "Why does God bother giving light to the miserable, why bother keeping bitter people alive,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Those who want in the worst way to die, and can't, who can't imagine anything better than death,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Who count the day of their death and burial the happiest day of their life?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> What's the point of life when it doesn't make sense, when God blocks all the roads to meaning?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "Instead of bread I get groans for my supper, then leave the table and vomit my anguish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The worst of my fears has come true, what I've dreaded most has happened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> My repose is shattered, my peace destroyed. No rest for me, ever--death has invaded life."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then Eliphaz from Teman spoke up:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Would you mind if I said something to you? Under the circumstances it's hard to keep quiet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You yourself have done this plenty of times, spoken words that clarify, encouraged those who were about to quit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Your words have put stumbling people on their feet, put fresh hope in people about to collapse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But now you're the one in trouble--you're hurting! You've been hit hard and you're reeling from the blow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But shouldn't your devout life give you confidence now? Shouldn't your exemplary life give you hope?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Think! Has a truly innocent person ever ended up on the scrap heap? Do genuinely upright people ever lose out in the end?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> It's my observation that those who plow evil and sow trouble reap evil and trouble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> One breath from God and they fall apart, one blast of his anger and there's nothing left of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The mighty lion, king of the beasts, roars mightily, but when he's toothless he's useless--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> No teeth, no prey--and the cubs wander off to fend for themselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "A word came to me in secret-- a mere whisper of a word, but I heard it clearly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> It came in a scary dream one night, after I had fallen into a deep, deep sleep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Dread stared me in the face, and Terror. I was scared to death--I shook from head to foot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> A spirit glided right in front of me-- the hair on my head stood on end.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I couldn't tell what it was that appeared there-- a blur . . . and then I heard a muffled voice:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "'How can mere mortals be more righteous than God? How can humans be purer than their Creator?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Why, God doesn't even trust his own servants, doesn't even cheer his angels,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> So how much less these bodies composed of mud, fragile as moths?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> These bodies of ours are here today and gone tomorrow, and no one even notices--gone without a trace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> When the tent stakes are ripped up, the tent collapses-- we die and are never the wiser for having lived.'</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Call for help, Job, if you think anyone will answer! To which of the holy angels will you turn?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The hot temper of a fool eventually kills him, the jealous anger of a simpleton does her in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I've seen it myself--seen fools putting down roots, and then, suddenly, their houses are cursed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Their children out in the cold, abused and exploited, with no one to stick up for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Hungry people off the street plunder their harvests, cleaning them out completely, taking thorns and all, insatiable for everything they have.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Don't blame fate when things go wrong-- trouble doesn't come from nowhere.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> It's human! Mortals are born and bred for trouble, as certainly as sparks fly upward.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "If I were in your shoes, I'd go straight to God, I'd throw myself on the mercy of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> After all, he's famous for great and unexpected acts; there's no end to his surprises.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He gives rain, for instance, across the wide earth, sends water to irrigate the fields.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He raises up the down-and-out, gives firm footing to those sinking in grief.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He aborts the schemes of conniving crooks, so that none of their plots come to term.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He catches the know-it-alls in their conspiracies-- all that intricate intrigue swept out with the trash!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Suddenly they're disoriented, plunged into darkness; they can't see to put one foot in front of the other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But the downtrodden are saved by God, saved from the murderous plots, saved from the iron fist.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> And so the poor continue to hope, while injustice is bound and gagged.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "So, what a blessing when God steps in and corrects you! Mind you, don't despise the discipline of Almighty God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> True, he wounds, but he also dresses the wound; the same hand that hurts you, heals you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> From one disaster after another he delivers you; no matter what the calamity, the evil can't touch you--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "In famine, he'll keep you from starving, in war, from being gutted by the sword.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> You'll be protected from vicious gossip and live fearless through any catastrophe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> You'll shrug off disaster and famine, and stroll fearlessly among wild animals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> You'll be on good terms with rocks and mountains; wild animals will become your good friends.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> You'll know that your place on earth is safe, you'll look over your goods and find nothing amiss.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> You'll see your children grow up, your family lovely and lissome as orchard grass.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> You'll arrive at your grave ripe with many good years, like sheaves of golden grain at harvest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "Yes, this is the way things are--my word of honor! Take it to heart and you won't go wrong."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Job answered:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "If my misery could be weighed, if you could pile the whole bitter load on the scales,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> It would be heavier than all the sand of the sea! Is it any wonder that I'm screaming like a caged cat?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The arrows of God Almighty are in me, poison arrows--and I'm poisoned all through! God has dumped the whole works on me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Donkeys bray and cows moo when they run out of pasture-- so don't expect me to keep quiet in this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Do you see what God has dished out for me? It's enough to turn anyone's stomach!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Everything in me is repulsed by it-- it makes me sick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "All I want is an answer to one prayer, a last request to be honored:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Let God step on me--squash me like a bug, and be done with me for good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I'd at least have the satisfaction of not having blasphemed the Holy God, before being pressed past the limits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Where's the strength to keep my hopes up? What future do I have to keep me going?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Do you think I have nerves of steel? Do you think I'm made of iron?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Do you think I can pull myself up by my bootstraps? Why, I don't even have any boots!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "When desperate people give up on God Almighty, their friends, at least, should stick with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But my brothers are fickle as a gulch in the desert-- one day they're gushing with water</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> From melting ice and snow cascading out of the mountains,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But by midsummer they're dry, gullies baked dry in the sun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Travelers who spot them and go out of their way for a drink, end up in a waterless gulch and die of thirst.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Merchant caravans from Tema see them and expect water, tourists from Sheba hope for a cool drink.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> They arrive so confident--but what a disappointment! They get there, and their faces fall!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And you, my so-called friends, are no better-- there's nothing to you! One look at a hard scene and you shrink in fear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> It's not as though I asked you for anything-- I didn't ask you for one red cent--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Nor did I beg you to go out on a limb for me. So why all this dodging and shuffling?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "Confront me with the truth and I'll shut up, show me where I've gone off the track.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Honest words never hurt anyone, but what's the point of all this pious bluster?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> You pretend to tell me what's wrong with my life, but treat my words of anguish as so much hot air.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Are people mere things to you? Are friends just items of profit and loss?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "Look me in the eyes! Do you think I'd lie to your face?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Think it over--no double-talk! Think carefully--my integrity is on the line!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Can you detect anything false in what I say? Don't you trust me to discern good from evil?</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Human life is a struggle, isn't it? It's a life sentence to hard labor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Like field hands longing for quitting time and working stiffs with nothing to hope for but payday,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I'm given a life that meanders and goes nowhere-- months of aimlessness, nights of misery!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I go to bed and think, 'How long till I can get up?' I toss and turn as the night drags on--and I'm fed up!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I'm covered with maggots and scabs. My skin gets scaly and hard, then oozes with pus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> My days come and go swifter than the click of knitting needles, and then the yarn runs out--an unfinished life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "God, don't forget that I'm only a puff of air! These eyes have had their last look at goodness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And your eyes have seen the last of me; even while you're looking, there'll be nothing left to look at.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When a cloud evaporates, it's gone for good; those who go to the grave never come back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They don't return to visit their families; never again will friends drop in for coffee.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "And so I'm not keeping one bit of this quiet, I'm laying it all out on the table; my complaining to high heaven is bitter, but honest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Are you going to put a muzzle on me, the way you quiet the sea and still the storm?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> If I say, 'I'm going to bed, then I'll feel better. A little nap will lift my spirits,'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> You come and so scare me with nightmares and frighten me with ghosts</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> That I'd rather strangle in the bedclothes than face this kind of life any longer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I hate this life! Who needs any more of this? Let me alone! There's nothing to my life--it's nothing but smoke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "What are mortals anyway, that you bother with them, that you even give them the time of day?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> That you check up on them every morning, looking in on them to see how they're doing?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Let up on me, will you? Can't you even let me spit in peace?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Even suppose I'd sinned--how would that hurt you? You're responsible for every human being. Don't you have better things to do than pick on me? Why make a federal case out of me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Why don't you just forgive my sins and start me off with a clean slate? The way things are going, I'll soon be dead. You'll look high and low, but I won't be around."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Bildad from Shuhah was next to speak:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "How can you keep on talking like this? You're talking nonsense, and noisy nonsense at that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Does God mess up? Does God Almighty ever get things backwards?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> It's plain that your children sinned against him-- otherwise, why would God have punished them?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Here's what you must do--and don't put it off any longer: Get down on your knees before God Almighty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> If you're as innocent and upright as you say, it's not too late--he'll come running; he'll set everything right again, reestablish your fortunes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Even though you're not much right now, you'll end up better than ever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Put the question to our ancestors, study what they learned from their ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> For we're newcomers at this, with a lot to learn, and not too long to learn it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So why not let the ancients teach you, tell you what's what, instruct you in what they knew from experience?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Can mighty pine trees grow tall without soil? Can luscious tomatoes flourish without water?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Blossoming flowers look great before they're cut or picked, but without soil or water they wither more quickly than grass.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> That's what happens to all who forget God-- all their hopes come to nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They hang their life from one thin thread, they hitch their fate to a spider web.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> One jiggle and the thread breaks, one jab and the web collapses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Or they're like weeds springing up in the sunshine, invading the garden,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Spreading everywhere, overtaking the flowers, getting a foothold even in the rocks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But when the gardener rips them out by the roots, the garden doesn't miss them one bit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The sooner the godless are gone, the better; then good plants can grow in their place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "There's no way that God will reject a good person, and there is no way he'll help a bad one.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> God will let you laugh again; you'll raise the roof with shouts of joy,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> With your enemies thoroughly discredited, their house of cards collapsed."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Job continued by saying:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "So what's new? I know all this. The question is, 'How can mere mortals get right with God?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> If we wanted to bring our case before him, what chance would we have? Not one in a thousand!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> God's wisdom is so deep, God's power so immense, who could take him on and come out in one piece?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He moves mountains before they know what's happened, flips them on their heads on a whim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He gives the earth a good shaking up, rocks it down to its very foundations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He tells the sun, 'Don't shine,' and it doesn't; he pulls the blinds on the stars.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> All by himself he stretches out the heavens and strides on the waves of the sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He designed the Big Dipper and Orion, the Pleiades and Alpha Centauri.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> We'll never comprehend all the great things he does; his miracle-surprises can't be counted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Somehow, though he moves right in front of me, I don't see him; quietly but surely he's active, and I miss it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> If he steals you blind, who can stop him? Who's going to say, 'Hey, what are you doing?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> God doesn't hold back on his anger; even dragon-bred monsters cringe before him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "So how could I ever argue with him, construct a defense that would influence God?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Even though I'm innocent I could never prove it; I can only throw myself on the Judge's mercy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> If I called on God and he himself answered me, then, and only then, would I believe that he'd heard me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> As it is, he knocks me about from pillar to post, beating me up, black and blue, for no good reason.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> He won't even let me catch my breath, piles bitterness upon bitterness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> If it's a question of who's stronger, he wins, hands down! If it's a question of justice, who'll serve him the subpoena?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Even though innocent, anything I say incriminates me; blameless as I am, my defense just makes me sound worse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Believe me, I'm blameless. I don't understand what's going on. I hate my life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Since either way it ends up the same, I can only conclude that God destroys the good right along with the bad.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> When calamity hits and brings sudden death, he folds his arms, aloof from the despair of the innocent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He lets the wicked take over running the world, he installs judges who can't tell right from wrong. If he's not responsible, who is?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "My time is short--what's left of my life races off too fast for me to even glimpse the good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> My life is going fast, like a ship under full sail, like an eagle plummeting to its prey.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Even if I say, 'I'll put all this behind me, I'll look on the bright side and force a smile,'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> All these troubles would still be like grit in my gut since it's clear you're not going to let up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The verdict has already been handed down--'Guilty!'-- so what's the use of protests or appeals?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Even if I scrub myself all over and wash myself with the strongest soap I can find,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> It wouldn't last--you'd push me into a pigpen, or worse, so nobody could stand me for the stink.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "God and I are not equals; I can't bring a case against him. We'll never enter a courtroom as peers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> How I wish we had an arbitrator to step in and let me get on with life--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> To break God's death grip on me, to free me from this terror so I could breathe again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Then I'd speak up and state my case boldly. As things stand, there is no way I can do it.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "I can't stand my life--I hate it! -I'm putting it all out on the table, all the bitterness of my life--I'm holding back nothing."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Job prayed: "Here's what I want to say: Don't, God, bring in a verdict of guilty without letting me know the charges you're bringing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> How does this fit into what you once called 'good'-- giving me a hard time, spurning me, a life you shaped by your very own hands, and then blessing the plots of the wicked?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You don't look at things the way we mortals do. You're not taken in by appearances, are you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Unlike us, you're not working against a deadline. You have all eternity to work things out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So what's this all about, anyway--this compulsion to dig up some dirt, to find some skeleton in my closet?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You know good and well I'm not guilty. You also know no one can help me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "You made me like a handcrafted piece of pottery-- and now are you going to smash me to pieces?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Don't you remember how beautifully you worked my clay? Will you reduce me now to a mud pie?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Oh, that marvel of conception as you stirred together semen and ovum--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> What a miracle of skin and bone, muscle and brain!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> You gave me life itself, and incredible love. You watched and guarded every breath I took.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "But you never told me about this part. I should have known that there was more to it--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> That if I so much as missed a step, you'd notice and pounce, wouldn't let me get by with a thing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> If I'm truly guilty, I'm doomed. But if I'm innocent, it's no better--I'm still doomed. My belly is full of bitterness. I'm up to my ears in a swamp of affliction.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I try to make the best of it, try to brave it out, but you're too much for me, relentless, like a lion on the prowl.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> You line up fresh witnesses against me. You compound your anger and pile on the grief and pain!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "So why did you have me born? I wish no one had ever laid eyes on me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I wish I'd never lived--a stillborn, buried without ever having breathed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Isn't it time to call it quits on my life? Can't you let up, and let me smile just once</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Before I die and am buried, before I'm nailed into my coffin, sealed in the ground,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> And banished for good to the land of the dead, blind in the final dark?"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Now it was the turn of Zophar from Naamath:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "What a flood of words! Shouldn't we put a stop to it? Should this kind of loose talk be permitted?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Job, do you think you can carry on like this and we'll say nothing? That we'll let you rail and mock and not step in?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You claim, 'My doctrine is sound and my conduct impeccable.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> How I wish God would give you a piece of his mind, tell you what's what!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I wish he'd show you how wisdom looks from the inside, for true wisdom is mostly 'inside.' But you can be sure of this, you haven't gotten half of what you deserve.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Do you think you can explain the mystery of God? Do you think you can diagram God Almighty?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> God is far higher than you can imagine, far deeper than you can comprehend,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Stretching farther than earth's horizons, far wider than the endless ocean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> If he happens along, throws you in jail then hauls you into court, can you do anything about it?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He sees through vain pretensions, spots evil a long way off-- no one pulls the wool over his eyes!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Hollow men, hollow women, will wise up about the same time mules learn to talk.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Still, if you set your heart on God and reach out to him,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> If you scrub your hands of sin and refuse to entertain evil in your home,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> You'll be able to face the world unashamed and keep a firm grip on life, guiltless and fearless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> You'll forget your troubles; they'll be like old, faded photographs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Your world will be washed in sunshine, every shadow dispersed by dayspring.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Full of hope, you'll relax, confident again; you'll look around, sit back, and take it easy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Expansive, without a care in the world, you'll be hunted out by many for your blessing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But the wicked will see none of this. They're headed down a dead-end road with nothing to look forward to--nothing."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Job answered:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "I'm sure you speak for all the experts, and when you die there'll be no one left to tell us how to live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But don't forget that I also have a brain-- I don't intend to play second fiddle to you. It doesn't take an expert to know these things.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "I'm ridiculed by my friends: 'So that's the man who had conversations with God!' Ridiculed without mercy: 'Look at the man who never did wrong!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> It's easy for the well-to-do to point their fingers in blame, for the well-fixed to pour scorn on the strugglers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Crooks reside safely in high-security houses, insolent blasphemers live in luxury; they've bought and paid for a god who'll protect them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "But ask the animals what they think--let them teach you; let the birds tell you what's going on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Put your ear to the earth--learn the basics. Listen--the fish in the ocean will tell you their stories.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Isn't it clear that they all know and agree that GOD is sovereign, that he holds all things in his hand--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Every living soul, yes, every breathing creature?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Isn't this all just common sense, as common as the sense of taste?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Do you think the elderly have a corner on wisdom, that you have to grow old before you understand life?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "True wisdom and real power belong to God; from him we learn how to live, and also what to live for.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> If he tears something down, it's down for good; if he locks people up, they're locked up for good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> If he holds back the rain, there's a drought; if he lets it loose, there's a flood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Strength and success belong to God; both deceived and deceiver must answer to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He strips experts of their vaunted credentials, exposes judges as witless fools.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> He divests kings of their royal garments, then ties a rag around their waists.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He strips priests of their robes, and fires high officials from their jobs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He forces trusted sages to keep silence, deprives elders of their good sense and wisdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He dumps contempt on famous people, disarms the strong and mighty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> He shines a spotlight into caves of darkness, hauls deepest darkness into the noonday sun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> He makes nations rise and then fall, builds up some and abandons others.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He robs world leaders of their reason, and sends them off into no man's land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> They grope in the dark without a clue, lurching and staggering like drunks.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Yes, I've seen all this with my own eyes, heard and understood it with my very own ears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Everything you know, I know, so I'm not taking a back seat to any of you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I'm taking my case straight to God Almighty; I've had it with you--I'm going directly to God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You graffiti my life with lies. You're a bunch of pompous quacks!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I wish you'd shut your mouths-- silence is your only claim to wisdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Listen now while I make my case, consider my side of things for a change.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Or are you going to keep on lying 'to do God a service'? to make up stories 'to get him off the hook'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Why do you always take his side? Do you think he needs a lawyer to defend himself?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> How would you fare if you were in the dock? Your lies might convince a jury--but would they convince God?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He'd reprimand you on the spot if he detected a bias in your witness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Doesn't his splendor put you in awe? Aren't you afraid to speak cheap lies before him?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Your wise sayings are knickknack wisdom, good for nothing but gathering dust.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "So hold your tongue while I have my say, then I'll take whatever I have coming to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Why do I go out on a limb like this and take my life in my hands?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Because even if he killed me, I'd keep on hoping. I'd defend my innocence to the very end.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Just wait, this is going to work out for the best--my salvation! If I were guilt-stricken do you think I'd be doing this-- laying myself on the line before God?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> You'd better pay attention to what I'm telling you, listen carefully with both ears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Now that I've laid out my defense, I'm sure that I'll be acquitted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Can anyone prove charges against me? I've said my piece. I rest my case.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "Please, God, I have two requests; grant them so I'll know I count with you:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> First, lay off the afflictions; the terror is too much for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Second, address me directly so I can answer you, or let me speak and then you answer me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> How many sins have been charged against me? Show me the list--how bad is it?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Why do you stay hidden and silent? Why treat me like I'm your enemy?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Why kick me around like an old tin can? Why beat a dead horse?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> You compile a long list of mean things about me, even hold me accountable for the sins of my youth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> You hobble me so I can't move about. You watch every move I make, and brand me as a dangerous character.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "Like something rotten, human life fast decomposes, like a moth-eaten shirt or a mildewed blouse.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "We're all adrift in the same boat: too few days, too many troubles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> We spring up like wildflowers in the desert and then wilt, transient as the shadow of a cloud.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Do you occupy your time with such fragile wisps? Why even bother hauling me into court?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> There's nothing much to us to start with; how do you expect us to amount to anything?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Mortals have a limited life span. You've already decided how long we'll live-- you set the boundary and no one can cross it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So why not give us a break? Ease up! Even ditchdiggers get occasional days off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> For a tree there is always hope. Chop it down and it still has a chance-- its roots can put out fresh sprouts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Even if its roots are old and gnarled, its stump long dormant,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> At the first whiff of water it comes to life, buds and grows like a sapling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But men and women? They die and stay dead. They breathe their last, and that's it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Like lakes and rivers that have dried up, parched reminders of what once was,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> So mortals lie down and never get up, never wake up again--never.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Why don't you just bury me alive, get me out of the way until your anger cools? But don't leave me there! Set a date when you'll see me again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> If we humans die, will we live again? That's my question. All through these difficult days I keep hoping, waiting for the final change--for resurrection!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Homesick with longing for the creature you made, you'll call--and I'll answer!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> You'll watch over every step I take, but you won't keep track of my missteps.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> My sins will be stuffed in a sack and thrown into the sea--sunk in deep ocean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Meanwhile, mountains wear down and boulders break up,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Stones wear smooth and soil erodes, as you relentlessly grind down our hope.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> You're too much for us. As always, you get the last word. We don't like it and our faces show it, but you send us off anyway.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> If our children do well for themselves, we never know it; if they do badly, we're spared the hurt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Body and soul, that's it for us-- a lifetime of pain, a lifetime of sorrow."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Eliphaz of Teman spoke a second time:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "If you were truly wise, would you sound so much like a windbag, belching hot air?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Would you talk nonsense in the middle of a serious argument, babbling baloney?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Look at you! You trivialize religion, turn spiritual conversation into empty gossip.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> It's your sin that taught you to talk this way. You chose an education in fraud.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Your own words have exposed your guilt. It's nothing I've said--you've incriminated yourself!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Do you think you're the first person to have to deal with these things? Have you been around as long as the hills?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Were you listening in when God planned all this? Do you think you're the only one who knows anything?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> What do you know that we don't know? What insights do you have that we've missed?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Gray beards and white hair back us up-- old folks who've been around a lot longer than you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Are God's promises not enough for you, spoken so gently and tenderly?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Why do you let your emotions take over, lashing out and spitting fire,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Pitting your whole being against God by letting words like this come out of your mouth?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Do you think it's possible for any mere mortal to be sinless in God's sight, for anyone born of a human mother to get it all together?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Why, God can't even trust his holy angels. He sees the flaws in the very heavens themselves,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So how much less we humans, smelly and foul, who lap up evil like water?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "I've a thing or two to tell you, so listen up! I'm letting you in on my views;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> It's what wise men and women have always taught, holding nothing back from what they were taught</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> By their parents, back in the days when they had this land all to themselves:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Those who live by their own rules, not God's, can expect nothing but trouble, and the longer they live, the worse it gets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Every little sound terrifies them. Just when they think they have it made, disaster strikes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> They despair of things ever getting better-- they're on the list of people for whom things always turn out for the worst.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They wander here and there, never knowing where the next meal is coming from-- every day is doomsday!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> They live in constant terror, always with their backs up against the wall</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Because they insist on shaking their fists at God, defying God Almighty to his face,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Always and ever at odds with God, always on the defensive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "Even if they're the picture of health, trim and fit and youthful,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> They'll end up living in a ghost town sleeping in a hovel not fit for a dog, a ramshackle shack.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> They'll never get ahead, never amount to a hill of beans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> And then death--don't think they'll escape that! They'll end up shriveled weeds, brought down by a puff of God's breath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> There's a lesson here: Whoever invests in lies, gets lies for interest,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Paid in full before the due date. Some investment!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> They'll be like fruit frost-killed before it ripens, like buds sheared off before they bloom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The godless are fruitless--a barren crew; a life built on bribes goes up in smoke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> They have sex with sin and give birth to evil. Their lives are wombs for breeding deceit."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then Job defended himself:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "I've had all I can take of your talk. What a bunch of miserable comforters!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Is there no end to your windbag speeches? What's your problem that you go on and on like this?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> If you were in my shoes, I could talk just like you. I could put together a terrific harangue and really let you have it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But I'd never do that. I'd console and comfort, make things better, not worse!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "When I speak up, I feel no better; if I say nothing, that doesn't help either.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I feel worn down. God, you have wasted me totally--me and my family!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You've shriveled me like a dried prune, showing the world that you're against me. My gaunt face stares back at me from the mirror, a mute witness to your treatment of me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Your anger tears at me, your teeth rip me to shreds, your eyes burn holes in me--God, my enemy!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> People take one look at me and gasp. Contemptuous, they slap me around and gang up against me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And God just stands there and lets them do it, lets wicked people do what they want with me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I was contentedly minding my business when God beat me up. He grabbed me by the neck and threw me around. He set me up as his target,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> then rounded up archers to shoot at me. Merciless, they shot me full of arrows; bitter bile poured from my gut to the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He burst in on me, onslaught after onslaught, charging me like a mad bull.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "I sewed myself a shroud and wore it like a shirt; I lay face down in the dirt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Now my face is blotched red from weeping; look at the dark shadows under my eyes,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Even though I've never hurt a soul and my prayers are sincere!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "O Earth, don't cover up the wrong done to me! Don't muffle my cry!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> There must be Someone in heaven who knows the truth about me, in highest heaven, some Attorney who can clear my name--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> My Champion, my Friend, while I'm weeping my eyes out before God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I appeal to the One who represents mortals before God as a neighbor stands up for a neighbor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Only a few years are left before I set out on the road of no return.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="17">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "My spirit is broken, my days used up, my grave dug and waiting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> See how these mockers close in on me? How long do I have to put up with their insolence?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "O God, pledge your support for me. Give it to me in writing, with your signature. You're the only one who can do it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> These people are so useless! You know firsthand how stupid they can be. You wouldn't let them have the last word, would you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Those who betray their own friends leave a legacy of abuse to their children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "God, you've made me the talk of the town-- people spit in my face;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I can hardly see from crying so much; I'm nothing but skin and bones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Decent people can't believe what they're seeing; the good-hearted wake up and insist I've given up on God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "But principled people hold tight, keep a firm grip on life, sure that their clean, pure hands will get stronger and stronger!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Maybe you'd all like to start over, to try it again, the bunch of you. So far I haven't come across one scrap of wisdom in anything you've said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> My life's about over. All my plans are smashed, all my hopes are snuffed out--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> My hope that night would turn into day, my hope that dawn was about to break.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> If all I have to look forward to is a home in the graveyard, if my only hope for comfort is a well-built coffin,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> If a family reunion means going six feet under, and the only family that shows up is worms,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Do you call that hope? Who on earth could find any hope in that?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> No. If hope and I are to be buried together, I suppose you'll all come to the double funeral!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="18">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Bildad from Shuhah chimed in:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "How monotonous these word games are getting! Get serious! We need to get down to business.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Why do you treat your friends like slow-witted animals? You look down on us as if we don't know anything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Why are you working yourself up like this? Do you want the world redesigned to suit you? Should reality be suspended to accommodate you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Here's the rule: The light of the wicked is put out. Their flame dies down and is extinguished.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Their house goes dark-- every lamp in the place goes out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Their strong strides weaken, falter; they stumble into their own traps.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They get all tangled up in their own red tape,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Their feet are grabbed and caught, their necks in a noose.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They trip on ropes they've hidden, and fall into pits they've dug themselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Terrors come at them from all sides. They run helter-skelter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The hungry grave is ready to gobble them up for supper,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> To lay them out for a gourmet meal, a treat for ravenous Death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They are snatched from their home sweet home and marched straight to the death house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Their lives go up in smoke; acid rain soaks their ruins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Their roots rot and their branches wither.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> They'll never again be remembered-- nameless in unmarked graves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They are plunged from light into darkness, banished from the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And they leave empty-handed--not one single child-- nothing to show for their life on this earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Westerners are aghast at their fate, easterners are horrified:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> 'Oh no! So this is what happens to perverse people. This is how the God-ignorant end up!'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="19">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Job answered:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "How long are you going to keep battering away at me, pounding me with these harangues?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Time after time after time you jump all over me. Do you have no conscience, abusing me like this?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Even if I have, somehow or other, gotten off the track, what business is that of yours?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Why do you insist on putting me down, using my troubles as a stick to beat me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Tell it to God--he's the one behind all this, he's the one who dragged me into this mess.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Look at me--I shout 'Murder!' and I'm ignored; I call for help and no one bothers to stop.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> God threw a barricade across my path--I'm stymied; he turned out all the lights--I'm stuck in the dark.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He destroyed my reputation, robbed me of all self-respect.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He tore me apart piece by piece--I'm ruined! Then he yanked out hope by the roots.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He's angry with me--oh, how he's angry! He treats me like his worst enemy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He has launched a major campaign against me, using every weapon he can think of, coming at me from all sides at once.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "God alienated my family from me;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> everyone who knows me avoids me. My relatives and friends have all left; houseguests forget I ever existed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The servant girls treat me like a bum off the street, look at me like they've never seen me before.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I call my attendant and he ignores me, ignores me even though I plead with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> My wife can't stand to be around me anymore. I'm repulsive to my family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Even street urchins despise me; when I come out, they taunt and jeer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Everyone I've ever been close to abhors me; my dearest loved ones reject me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> I'm nothing but a bag of bones; my life hangs by a thread.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Oh, friends, dear friends, take pity on me. God has come down hard on me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Do you have to be hard on me too? Don't you ever tire of abusing me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "If only my words were written in a book--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> better yet, chiseled in stone!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Still, I know that God lives--the One who gives me back my life-- and eventually he'll take his stand on earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> And I'll see him--even though I get skinned alive!--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> see God myself, with my very own eyes. Oh, how I long for that day!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "If you're thinking, 'How can we get through to him, get him to see that his trouble is all his own fault?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Forget it. Start worrying about yourselves. Worry about your own sins and God's coming judgment, for judgment is most certainly on the way."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="20">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Zophar from Naamath again took his turn:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "I can't believe what I'm hearing! You've put my teeth on edge, my stomach in a knot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> How dare you insult my intelligence like this! Well, here's a piece of my mind!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Don't you even know the basics, how things have been since the earliest days, when Adam and Eve were first placed on earth?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The good times of the wicked are short-lived; godless joy is only momentary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The evil might become world famous, strutting at the head of the celebrity parade,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But still end up in a pile of dung. Acquaintances look at them with disgust and say, 'What's that?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They fly off like a dream that can't be remembered, like a shadowy illusion that vanishes in the light.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Though once notorious public figures, now they're nobodies, unnoticed, whether they come or go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Their children will go begging on skid row, and they'll have to give back their ill-gotten gain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Right in the prime of life, and youthful and vigorous, they'll die.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "They savor evil as a delicacy, roll it around on their tongues,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Prolong the flavor, a dalliance in decadence-- real gourmets of evil!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But then they get stomach cramps, a bad case of food poisoning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They gag on all that rich food; God makes them vomit it up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They gorge on evil, make a diet of that poison-- a deadly diet--and it kills them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> No quiet picnics for them beside gentle streams with fresh-baked bread and cheese, and tall, cool drinks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They spit out their food half-chewed, unable to relax and enjoy anything they've worked for.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And why? Because they exploited the poor, took what never belonged to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "Such God-denying people are never content with what they have or who they are; their greed drives them relentlessly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They plunder everything but they can't hold on to any of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Just when they think they have it all, disaster strikes; they're served up a plate full of misery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> When they've filled their bellies with that, God gives them a taste of his anger, and they get to chew on that for a while.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> As they run for their lives from one disaster, they run smack into another.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> They're knocked around from pillar to post, beaten to within an inch of their lives. They're trapped in a house of horrors,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> and see their loot disappear down a black hole. Their lives are a total loss-- not a penny to their name, not so much as a bean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> God will strip them of their sin-soaked clothes and hang their dirty laundry out for all to see.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Life is a complete wipeout for them, nothing surviving God's wrath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> There! That's God's blueprint for the wicked-- what they have to look forward to."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="21">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Job replied:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Now listen to me carefully, please listen, at least do me the favor of listening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Put up with me while I have my say-- then you can mock me later to your heart's content.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "It's not you I'm complaining to--it's God. Is it any wonder I'm getting fed up with his silence?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Take a good look at me. Aren't you appalled by what's happened? No! Don't say anything. I can do without your comments.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When I look back, I go into shock, my body is racked with spasms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Why do the wicked have it so good, live to a ripe old age and get rich?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They get to see their children succeed, get to watch and enjoy their grandchildren.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Their homes are peaceful and free from fear; they never experience God's disciplining rod.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Their bulls breed with great vigor and their cows calve without fail.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They send their children out to play and watch them frolic like spring lambs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They make music with fiddles and flutes, have good times singing and dancing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They have a long life on easy street, and die painlessly in their sleep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They say to God, 'Get lost! We've no interest in you or your ways.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Why should we have dealings with God Almighty? What's there in it for us?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But they're wrong, dead wrong--they're not gods. It's beyond me how they can carry on like this!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Still, how often does it happen that the wicked fail, or disaster strikes, or they get their just deserts?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> How often are they blown away by bad luck? Not very often.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> You might say, 'God is saving up the punishment for their children.' I say, 'Give it to them right now so they'll know what they've done!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> They deserve to experience the effects of their evil, feel the full force of God's wrath firsthand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> What do they care what happens to their families after they're safely tucked away in the grave?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "But who are we to tell God how to run his affairs? He's dealing with matters that are way over our heads.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Some people die in the prime of life, with everything going for them--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> fat and sassy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Others die bitter and bereft, never getting a taste of happiness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> They're laid out side by side in the cemetery, where the worms can't tell one from the other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "I'm not deceived. I know what you're up to, the plans you're cooking up to bring me down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Naively you claim that the castles of tyrants fall to pieces, that the achievements of the wicked collapse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Have you ever asked world travelers how they see it? Have you not listened to their stories</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Of evil men and women who got off scot-free, who never had to pay for their wickedness?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Did anyone ever confront them with their crimes? Did they ever have to face the music?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Not likely--they're given fancy funerals with all the trimmings,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Gently lowered into expensive graves, with everyone telling lies about how wonderful they were.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "So how do you expect me to get any comfort from your nonsense? Your so-called comfort is a tissue of lies."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="22">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Once again Eliphaz the Temanite took up his theme:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Are any of us strong enough to give God a hand, or smart enough to give him advice?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> So what if you were righteous--would God Almighty even notice? Even if you gave a perfect performance, do you think he'd applaud?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Do you think it's because he cares about your purity that he's disciplining you, putting you on the spot?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Hardly! It's because you're a first-class moral failure, because there's no end to your sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When people came to you for help, you took the shirts off their backs, exploited their helplessness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You wouldn't so much as give a drink to the thirsty, or food, not even a scrap, to the hungry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And there you sat, strong and honored by everyone, surrounded by immense wealth!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You turned poor widows away from your door; heartless, you crushed orphans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Now you're the one trapped in terror, paralyzed by fear. Suddenly the tables have turned!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> How do you like living in the dark, sightless, up to your neck in flood waters?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "You agree, don't you, that God is in charge? He runs the universe--just look at the stars!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Yet you dare raise questions: 'What does God know? From that distance and darkness, how can he judge?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He roams the heavens wrapped in clouds, so how can he see us?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Are you going to persist in that tired old line that wicked men and women have always used?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Where did it get them? They died young, flash floods sweeping them off to their doom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> They told God, 'Get lost! What good is God Almighty to us?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And yet it was God who gave them everything they had. It's beyond me how they can carry on like this!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Good people see bad people crash, and call for a celebration. Relieved, they crow,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> 'At last! Our enemies--wiped out. Everything they had and stood for is up in smoke!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Give in to God, come to terms with him and everything will turn out just fine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Let him tell you what to do; take his words to heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Come back to God Almighty and he'll rebuild your life. Clean house of everything evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Relax your grip on your money and abandon your gold-plated luxury.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> God Almighty will be your treasure, more wealth than you can imagine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "You'll take delight in God, the Mighty One, and look to him joyfully, boldly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> You'll pray to him and he'll listen; he'll help you do what you've promised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> You'll decide what you want and it will happen; your life will be bathed in light.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> To those who feel low you'll say, 'Chin up! Be brave!' and God will save them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Yes, even the guilty will escape, escape through God's grace in your life."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="23">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Job replied:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "I'm not letting up--I'm standing my ground. My complaint is legitimate. God has no right to treat me like this-- it isn't fair!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> If I knew where on earth to find him, I'd go straight to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'd lay my case before him face-to-face, give him all my arguments firsthand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I'd find out exactly what he's thinking, discover what's going on in his head.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Do you think he'd dismiss me or bully me? No, he'd take me seriously.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He'd see a straight-living man standing before him; my Judge would acquit me for good of all charges.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "I travel East looking for him--I find no one; then West, but not a trace;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I go North, but he's hidden his tracks; then South, but not even a glimpse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "But he knows where I am and what I've done. He can cross-examine me all he wants, and I'll pass the test with honors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I've followed him closely, my feet in his footprints, not once swerving from his way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I've obeyed every word he's spoken, and not just obeyed his advice--I've treasured it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "But he is singular and sovereign. Who can argue with him? He does what he wants, when he wants to.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He'll complete in detail what he's decided about me, and whatever else he determines to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Is it any wonder that I dread meeting him? Whenever I think about it, I get scared all over again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> God makes my heart sink! God Almighty gives me the shudders!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I'm completely in the dark, I can't see my hand in front of my face.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="24">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "But if Judgment Day isn't hidden from the Almighty, why are we kept in the dark?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> There are people out there getting by with murder-- stealing and lying and cheating.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They rip off the poor and exploit the unfortunate,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Push the helpless into the ditch, bully the weak so that they fear for their lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The poor, like stray dogs and cats, scavenge for food in back alleys.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They sort through the garbage of the rich, eke out survival on handouts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Homeless, they shiver through cold nights on the street; they've no place to lay their heads.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Exposed to the weather, wet and frozen, they huddle in makeshift shelters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Nursing mothers have their babies snatched from them; the infants of the poor are kidnapped and sold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They go about patched and threadbare; even the hard workers go hungry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> No matter how back-breaking their labor, they can never make ends meet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> People are dying right and left, groaning in torment. The wretched cry out for help and God does nothing, acts like nothing's wrong!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Then there are those who avoid light at all costs, who scorn the light-filled path.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> When the sun goes down, the murderer gets up-- kills the poor and robs the defenseless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Sexual predators can't wait for nightfall, thinking, 'No one can see us now.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Burglars do their work at night, but keep well out of sight through the day. They want nothing to do with light.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Deep darkness is morning for that bunch; they make the terrors of darkness their companions in crime.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "They are scraps of wood floating on the water-- useless, cursed junk, good for nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> As surely as snow melts under the hot, summer sun, sinners disappear in the grave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The womb has forgotten them, worms have relished them-- nothing that is evil lasts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Unscrupulous, they prey on those less fortunate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> However much they strut and flex their muscles, there's nothing to them. They're hollow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They may have an illusion of security, but God has his eye on them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> They may get their brief successes, but then it's over, nothing to show for it. Like yesterday's newspaper, they're used to wrap up the garbage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> You're free to try to prove me a liar, but you won't be able to do it."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="25">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Bildad the Shuhite again attacked Job:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "God is sovereign, God is fearsome-- everything in the cosmos fits and works in his plan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Can anyone count his angel armies? Is there any place where his light doesn't shine?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> How can a mere mortal presume to stand up to God? How can an ordinary person pretend to be guiltless?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Why, even the moon has its flaws, even the stars aren't perfect in God's eyes,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So how much less, plain men and women-- slugs and maggots by comparison!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="26">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Job answered:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Well, you've certainly been a great help to a helpless man! You came to the rescue just in the nick of time!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> What wonderful advice you've given to a mixed-up man! What amazing insights you've provided!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Where in the world did you learn all this? How did you become so inspired?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "All the buried dead are in torment, and all who've been drowned in the deep, deep sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Hell is ripped open before God, graveyards dug up and exposed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He spreads the skies over unformed space, hangs the earth out in empty space.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He pours water into cumulus cloud-bags and the bags don't burst.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He makes the moon wax and wane, putting it through its phases.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He draws the horizon out over the ocean, sets a boundary between light and darkness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Thunder crashes and rumbles in the skies. Listen! It's God raising his voice!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> By his power he stills sea storms, by his wisdom he tames sea monsters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> With one breath he clears the sky, with one finger he crushes the sea serpent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And this is only the beginning, a mere whisper of his rule. Whatever would we do if he really raised his voice!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="27">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Having waited for Zophar, Job now resumed his defense:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "God-Alive! He's denied me justice! God Almighty! He's ruined my life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But for as long as I draw breath, and for as long as God breathes life into me,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I refuse to say one word that isn't true. I refuse to confess to any charge that's false.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> There is no way I'll ever agree to your accusations. I'll not deny my integrity even if it costs me my life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I'm holding fast to my integrity and not loosening my grip-- and, believe me, I'll never regret it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Let my enemy be exposed as wicked! Let my adversary be proven guilty!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> What hope do people without God have when life is cut short? when God puts an end to life?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Do you think God will listen to their cry for help when disaster hits?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> What interest have they ever shown in the Almighty? Have they ever been known to pray before?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "I've given you a clear account of God in action, suppressed nothing regarding God Almighty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The evidence is right before you. You can all see it for yourselves, so why do you keep talking nonsense?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "I'll quote your own words back to you: "'This is how God treats the wicked, this is what evil people can expect from God Almighty:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Their children--all of them--will die violent deaths; they'll never have enough bread to put on the table.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They'll be wiped out by the plague, and none of the widows will shed a tear when they're gone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Even if they make a lot of money and are resplendent in the latest fashions,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> It's the good who will end up wearing the clothes and the decent who will divide up the money.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They build elaborate houses that won't survive a single winter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They go to bed wealthy and wake up poor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Terrors pour in on them like flash floods-- a tornado snatches them away in the middle of the night,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> A cyclone sweeps them up--gone! Not a trace of them left, not even a footprint.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Catastrophes relentlessly pursue them; they run this way and that, but there's no place to hide--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Pummeled by the weather, blown to kingdom come by the storm.'</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="28">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "We all know how silver seams the rocks, we've seen the stuff from which gold is refined,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> We're aware of how iron is dug out of the ground and copper is smelted from rock.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Miners penetrate the earth's darkness, searching the roots of the mountains for ore, digging away in the suffocating darkness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Far from civilization, far from the traffic, they cut a shaft, and are lowered into it by ropes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Earth's surface is a field for grain, but its depths are a forge</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Firing sapphires from stones and chiseling gold from rocks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Vultures are blind to its riches, hawks never lay eyes on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Wild animals are oblivious to it, lions don't know it's there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Miners hammer away at the rock, they uproot the mountains.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They tunnel through the rock and find all kinds of beautiful gems.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They discover the origins of rivers, and bring earth's secrets to light.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "But where, oh where, will they find Wisdom? Where does Insight hide?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Mortals don't have a clue, haven't the slightest idea where to look.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Earth's depths say, 'It's not here'; ocean deeps echo, 'Never heard of it.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> It can't be bought with the finest gold; no amount of silver can get it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Even famous Ophir gold can't buy it, not even diamonds and sapphires.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Neither gold nor emeralds are comparable; extravagant jewelry can't touch it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Pearl necklaces and ruby bracelets--why bother? None of this is even a down payment on Wisdom!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Pile gold and African diamonds as high as you will, they can't hold a candle to Wisdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "So where does Wisdom come from? And where does Insight live?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> It can't be found by looking, no matter how deep you dig, no matter how high you fly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> If you search through the graveyard and question the dead, they say, 'We've only heard rumors of it.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "God alone knows the way to Wisdom, he knows the exact place to find it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He knows where everything is on earth, he sees everything under heaven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> After he commanded the winds to blow and measured out the waters,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Arranged for the rain and set off explosions of thunder and lightning,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> He focused on Wisdom, made sure it was all set and tested and ready.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Then he addressed the human race: 'Here it is! Fear-of-the-Lord--that's Wisdom, and Insight means shunning evil.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="29">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Job now resumed his response:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Oh, how I long for the good old days, when God took such very good care of me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He always held a lamp before me and I walked through the dark by its light.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Oh, how I miss those golden years when God's friendship graced my home,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When the Mighty One was still by my side and my children were all around me,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When everything was going my way, and nothing seemed too difficult.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "When I walked downtown and sat with my friends in the public square,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Young and old greeted me with respect; I was honored by everyone in town.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When I spoke, everyone listened;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> they hung on my every word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> People who knew me spoke well of me; my reputation went ahead of me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I was known for helping people in trouble and standing up for those who were down on their luck.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The dying blessed me, and the bereaved were cheered by my visits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> All my dealings with people were good. I was known for being fair to everyone I met.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Father to the needy, and champion of abused aliens.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I grabbed street thieves by the scruff of the neck and made them give back what they'd stolen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I thought, 'I'll die peacefully in my own bed, grateful for a long and full life,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> A life deep-rooted and well-watered, a life limber and dew-fresh,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> My soul suffused with glory and my body robust until the day I die.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Men and women listened when I spoke, hung expectantly on my every word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> After I spoke, they'd be quiet, taking it all in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They welcomed my counsel like spring rain, drinking it all in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> When I smiled at them, they could hardly believe it; their faces lit up, their troubles took wing!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> I was their leader, establishing the mood and setting the pace by which they lived. Where I led, they followed.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="30">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "But no longer. Now I'm the butt of their jokes-- young ruffians! whippersnappers!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Why, I considered their fathers mere inexperienced pups. But they are worse than dogs--good for nothing, stray, mangy animals,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Half-starved, scavenging the back alleys, howling at the moon;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Homeless guttersnipes chewing on old bones and licking old tin cans;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Outcasts from the community, cursed as dangerous delinquents.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Nobody would put up with them; they were driven from the neighborhood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You could hear them out there at the edge of town, yelping and barking, huddled in junkyards,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> A gang of beggars and no-names, thrown out on their ears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "But now I'm the one they're after, mistreating me, taunting and mocking.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They abhor me, they abuse me. How dare those scoundrels--they spit in my face!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Now that God has undone me and left me in a heap, they hold nothing back. Anything goes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They come at me from my blind side, trip me up, then jump on me while I'm down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They throw every kind of obstacle in my path, determined to ruin me-- and no one lifts a finger to help me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They violate my broken body, trample through the rubble of my ruined life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Terrors assault me-- my dignity in shreds, salvation up in smoke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "And now my life drains out, as suffering seizes and grips me hard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Night gnaws at my bones; the pain never lets up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I am tied hand and foot, my neck in a noose. I twist and turn.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Thrown facedown in the muck, I'm a muddy mess, inside and out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "I shout for help, God, and get nothing, no answer! I stand to face you in protest, and you give me a blank stare!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> You've turned into my tormenter-- you slap me around, knock me about.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> You raised me up so I was riding high and then dropped me, and I crashed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> I know you're determined to kill me, to put me six feet under.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "What did I do to deserve this? Did I ever hit anyone who was calling for help?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Haven't I wept for those who live a hard life, been heartsick over the lot of the poor?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> But where did it get me? I expected good but evil showed up. I looked for light but darkness fell.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> My stomach's in a constant churning, never settles down. Each day confronts me with more suffering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> I walk under a black cloud. The sun is gone. I stand in the congregation and protest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> I howl with the jackals, I hoot with the owls.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> I'm black and blue all over, burning up with fever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> My fiddle plays nothing but the blues; my mouth harp wails laments.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="31">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "I made a solemn pact with myself never to undress a girl with my eyes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> So what can I expect from God? What do I deserve from God Almighty above?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Isn't calamity reserved for the wicked? Isn't disaster supposed to strike those who do wrong?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Isn't God looking, observing how I live? Doesn't he mark every step I take?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Have I walked hand in hand with falsehood, or hung out in the company of deceit?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Weigh me on a set of honest scales so God has proof of my integrity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> If I've strayed off the straight and narrow, wanted things I had no right to, messed around with sin,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Go ahead, then-- give my portion to someone who deserves it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "If I've let myself be seduced by a woman and conspired to go to bed with her,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Fine, my wife has every right to go ahead and sleep with anyone she wants to.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> For disgusting behavior like that, I'd deserve the worst punishment you could hand out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Adultery is a fire that burns the house down; I wouldn't expect anything I count dear to survive it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Have I ever been unfair to my employees when they brought a complaint to me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> What, then, will I do when God confronts me? When God examines my books, what can I say?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Didn't the same God who made me, make them? Aren't we all made of the same stuff, equals before God?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Have I ignored the needs of the poor, turned my back on the indigent,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Taken care of my own needs and fed my own face while they languished?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Wasn't my home always open to them? Weren't they always welcome at my table?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Have I ever left a poor family shivering in the cold when they had no warm clothes?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Didn't the poor bless me when they saw me coming, knowing I'd brought coats from my closet?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "If I've ever used my strength and influence to take advantage of the unfortunate,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Go ahead, break both my arms, cut off all my fingers!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The fear of God has kept me from these things-- how else could I ever face him? If Only Someone Would Give Me a Hearing!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "Did I set my heart on making big money or worship at the bank?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Did I boast about my wealth, show off because I was well-off?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Was I ever so awed by the sun's brilliance and moved by the moon's beauty</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> That I let myself become seduced by them and worshiped them on the sly?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> If so, I would deserve the worst of punishments, for I would be betraying God himself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "Did I ever crow over my enemy's ruin? Or gloat over my rival's bad luck?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> No, I never said a word of detraction, never cursed them, even under my breath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "Didn't those who worked for me say, 'He fed us well. There were always second helpings'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> And no stranger ever had to spend a night in the street; my doors were always open to travelers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Did I hide my sin the way Adam did, or conceal my guilt behind closed doors</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Because I was afraid what people would say, fearing the gossip of the neighbors so much That I turned myself into a recluse? You know good and well that I didn't.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> "Oh, if only someone would give me a hearing! I've signed my name to my defense--let the Almighty One answer! I want to see my indictment in writing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Anyone's welcome to read my defense; I'll write it on a poster and carry it around town.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> I'm prepared to account for every move I've ever made-- to anyone and everyone, prince or pauper.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> "If the very ground that I farm accuses me, if even the furrows fill with tears from my abuse,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> If I've ever raped the earth for my own profit or dispossessed its rightful owners,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Then curse it with thistles instead of wheat, curse it with weeds instead of barley." The words of Job to his three friends were finished.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="32">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Job's three friends now fell silent. They were talked out, stymied because Job wouldn't budge an inch--wouldn't admit to an ounce of guilt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Then Elihu lost his temper. (Elihu was the son of Barakel the Buzite from the clan of Ram.) He blazed out in anger against Job for pitting his righteousness against God's.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He was also angry with the three friends because they had neither come up with an answer nor proved Job wrong.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Elihu had waited with Job while they spoke because they were all older than he.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But when he saw that the three other men had exhausted their arguments, he exploded with pent-up anger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> This is what Elihu, son of Barakel the Buzite, said: "I'm a young man, and you are all old and experienced. That's why I kept quiet and held back from joining the discussion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I kept thinking, 'Experience will tell. The longer you live, the wiser you become.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But I see I was wrong--it's God's Spirit in a person, the breath of the Almighty One, that makes wise human insight possible.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The experts have no corner on wisdom; getting old doesn't guarantee good sense.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So I've decided to speak up. Listen well! I'm going to tell you exactly what I think.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "I hung on your words while you spoke, listened carefully to your arguments. While you searched for the right words,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I was all ears. And now what have you proved? Nothing. Nothing you say has even touched Job.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And don't excuse yourselves by saying, 'We've done our best. Now it's up to God to talk sense into him.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Job has yet to contend with me. And rest assured, I won't be using your arguments!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Do you three have nothing else to say? Of course you don't! You're total frauds!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Why should I wait any longer, now that you're stopped dead in your tracks?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I'm ready to speak my piece. That's right! It's my turn--and it's about time!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I've got a lot to say, and I'm bursting to say it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The pressure has built up, like lava beneath the earth. I'm a volcano ready to blow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> I have to speak--I have no choice. I have to say what's on my heart,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And I'm going to say it straight-- the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I was never any good at bootlicking; my Maker would make short work of me if I started in now!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="33">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "So please, Job, hear me out, honor me by listening to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> What I'm about to say has been carefully thought out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I have no ulterior motives in this; I'm speaking honestly from my heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The Spirit of God made me what I am, the breath of God Almighty gave me life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "And if you think you can prove me wrong, do it. Lay out your arguments. Stand up for yourself!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Look, I'm human--no better than you; we're both made of the same kind of mud.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So let's work this through together; don't let my aggressiveness overwhelm you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Here's what you said. I heard you say it with my own ears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You said, 'I'm pure--I've done nothing wrong. Believe me, I'm clean--my conscience is clear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But God keeps picking on me; he treats me like I'm his enemy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He's thrown me in jail; he keeps me under constant surveillance.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "But let me tell you, Job, you're wrong, dead wrong! God is far greater than any human.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> So how dare you haul him into court, and then complain that he won't answer your charges?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> God always answers, one way or another, even when people don't recognize his presence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "In a dream, for instance, a vision at night, when men and women are deep in sleep, fast asleep in their beds--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> God opens their ears and impresses them with warnings</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> To turn them back from something bad they're planning, from some reckless choice,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And keep them from an early grave, from the river of no return.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Or, God might get their attention through pain, by throwing them on a bed of suffering,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> So they can't stand the sight of food, have no appetite for their favorite treats.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They lose weight, wasting away to nothing, reduced to a bag of bones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> They hang on the cliff-edge of death, knowing the next breath may be their last.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "But even then an angel could come, a champion--there are thousands of them!-- to take up your cause,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> A messenger who would mercifully intervene, canceling the death sentence with the words: 'I've come up with the ransom!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Before you know it, you're healed, the very picture of health!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "Or, you may fall on your knees and pray--to God's delight! You'll see God's smile and celebrate, finding yourself set right with God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> You'll sing God's praises to everyone you meet, testifying, 'I messed up my life-- and let me tell you, it wasn't worth it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> But God stepped in and saved me from certain death. I'm alive again! Once more I see the light!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "This is the way God works. Over and over again</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> He pulls our souls back from certain destruction so we'll see the light--and live in the light!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "Keep listening, Job. Don't interrupt--I'm not finished yet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> But if you think of anything I should know, tell me. There's nothing I'd like better than to see your name cleared.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Meanwhile, keep listening. Don't distract me with interruptions. I'm going to teach you the basics of wisdom."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="34">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Elihu continued:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "So, my fine friends--listen to me, and see what you think of this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Isn't it just common sense-- as common as the sense of taste--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> To put our heads together and figure out what's going on here?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "We've all heard Job say, 'I'm in the right, but God won't give me a fair trial.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When I defend myself, I'm called a liar to my face. I've done nothing wrong, and I get punished anyway.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Have you ever heard anything to beat this? Does nothing faze this man Job?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Do you think he's spent too much time in bad company, hanging out with the wrong crowd,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So that now he's parroting their line: 'It doesn't pay to try to please God'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "You're veterans in dealing with these matters; certainly we're of one mind on this. It's impossible for God to do anything evil; no way can the Mighty One do wrong.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He makes us pay for exactly what we've done--no more, no less. Our chickens always come home to roost.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> It's impossible for God to do anything wicked, for the Mighty One to subvert justice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He's the one who runs the earth! He cradles the whole world in his hand!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> If he decided to hold his breath,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> every man, woman, and child would die for lack of air.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "So, Job, use your head; this is all pretty obvious.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Can someone who hates order, keep order? Do you dare condemn the righteous, mighty God?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Doesn't God always tell it like it is, exposing corrupt rulers as scoundrels and criminals?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Does he play favorites with the rich and famous and slight the poor? Isn't he equally responsible to everybody?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Don't people who deserve it die without notice? Don't wicked rulers tumble to their doom? When the so-called great ones are wiped out, we know God is working behind the scenes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "He has his eyes on every man and woman. He doesn't miss a trick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> There is no night dark enough, no shadow deep enough, to hide those who do evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> God doesn't need to gather any more evidence; their sin is an open-and-shut case.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He deposes the so-called high and mighty without asking questions, and replaces them at once with others.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Nobody gets by with anything; overnight, judgment is signed, sealed, and delivered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> He punishes the wicked for their wickedness out in the open where everyone can see it,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Because they quit following him, no longer even thought about him or his ways.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Their apostasy was announced by the cry of the poor; the cry of the afflicted got God's attention.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "If God is silent, what's that to you? If he turns his face away, what can you do about it? But whether silent or hidden, he's there, ruling,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> so that those who hate God won't take over and ruin people's lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "So why don't you simply confess to God? Say, 'I sinned, but I'll sin no more.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Teach me to see what I still don't see. Whatever evil I've done, I'll do it no more.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Just because you refuse to live on God's terms, do you think he should start living on yours? You choose. I can't do it for you. Tell me what you decide.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "All right-thinking people say-- and the wise who have listened to me concur--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> 'Job is an ignoramus. He talks utter nonsense.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Job, you need to be pushed to the wall and called to account for wickedly talking back to God the way you have.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> You've compounded your original sin by rebelling against God's discipline, Defiantly shaking your fist at God, piling up indictments against the Almighty One."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="35">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Elihu lit into Job again:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Does this kind of thing make any sense? First you say, 'I'm perfectly innocent before God.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And then you say, 'It doesn't make a bit of difference whether I've sinned or not.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Well, I'm going to show you that you don't know what you're talking about, neither you nor your friends.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Look up at the sky. Take a long hard look. See those clouds towering above you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> If you sin, what difference could that make to God? No matter how much you sin, will it matter to him?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Even if you're good, what would God get out of that? Do you think he's dependent on your accomplishments?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The only ones who care whether you're good or bad are your family and friends and neighbors. God's not dependent on your behavior.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "When times get bad, people cry out for help. They cry for relief from being kicked around,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But never give God a thought when things go well, when God puts spontaneous songs in their hearts,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> When God sets out the entire creation as a science classroom, using birds and beasts to teach wisdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> People are arrogantly indifferent to God-- until, of course, they're in trouble, and then God is indifferent to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> There's nothing behind such prayers except panic; the Almighty pays them no mind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> So why would he notice you just because you say you're tired of waiting to be heard,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Or waiting for him to get good and angry and do something about the world's problems?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Job, you talk sheer nonsense-- nonstop nonsense!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="36">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Here Elihu took a deep breath, but kept going:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Stay with me a little longer. I'll convince you. There's still more to be said on God's side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I learned all this firsthand from the Source; everything I know about justice I owe to my Maker himself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Trust me, I'm giving you undiluted truth; believe me, I know these things inside and out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "It's true that God is all-powerful, but he doesn't bully innocent people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> For the wicked, though, it's a different story-- he doesn't give them the time of day, but champions the rights of their victims.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He never takes his eyes off the righteous; he honors them lavishly, promotes them endlessly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> When things go badly, when affliction and suffering descend,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> God tells them where they've gone wrong, shows them how their pride has caused their trouble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He forces them to heed his warning, tells them they must repent of their bad life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> If they obey and serve him, they'll have a good, long life on easy street.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But if they disobey, they'll be cut down in their prime and never know the first thing about life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Angry people without God pile grievance upon grievance, always blaming others for their troubles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Living it up in sexual excesses, virility wasted, they die young.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But those who learn from their suffering, God delivers from their suffering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Oh, Job, don't you see how God's wooing you from the jaws of danger? How he's drawing you into wide-open places-- inviting you to feast at a table laden with blessings?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And here you are laden with the guilt of the wicked, obsessed with putting the blame on God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Don't let your great riches mislead you; don't think you can bribe your way out of this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Did you plan to buy your way out of this? Not on your life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And don't think that night, when people sleep off their troubles, will bring you any relief.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Above all, don't make things worse with more evil-- that's what's behind your suffering as it is!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Do you have any idea how powerful God is? Have you ever heard of a teacher like him?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Has anyone ever had to tell him what to do, or correct him, saying, 'You did that all wrong!'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Remember, then, to praise his workmanship, which is so often celebrated in song.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Everybody sees it; nobody is too far away to see it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "Take a long, hard look. See how great he is--infinite, greater than anything you could ever imagine or figure out!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "He pulls water up out of the sea, distills it, and fills up his rain-cloud cisterns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Then the skies open up and pour out soaking showers on everyone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Does anyone have the slightest idea how this happens? How he arranges the clouds, how he speaks in thunder?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Just look at that lightning, his sky-filling light show illumining the dark depths of the sea!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> These are the symbols of his sovereignty, his generosity, his loving care.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> He hurls arrows of light, taking sure and accurate aim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> The High God roars in the thunder, angry against evil.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="37">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Whenever this happens, my heart stops-- I'm stunned, I can't catch my breath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Listen to it! Listen to his thunder, the rolling, rumbling thunder of his voice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He lets loose his lightnings from horizon to horizon, lighting up the earth from pole to pole.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> In their wake, the thunder echoes his voice, powerful and majestic. He lets out all the stops, he holds nothing back. No one can mistake that voice--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> His word thundering so wondrously, his mighty acts staggering our understanding.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He orders the snow, 'Blanket the earth!' and the rain, 'Soak the whole countryside!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> No one can escape the weather--it's there. And no one can escape from God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Wild animals take shelter, crawling into their dens,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When blizzards roar out of the north and freezing rain crusts the land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> It's God's breath that forms the ice, it's God's breath that turns lakes and rivers solid.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And yes, it's God who fills clouds with rainwater and hurls lightning from them every which way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He puts them through their paces--first this way, then that-- commands them to do what he says all over the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Whether for discipline or grace or extravagant love, he makes sure they make their mark.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Job, are you listening? Have you noticed all this? Stop in your tracks! Take in God's miracle-wonders!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Do you have any idea how God does it all, how he makes bright lightning from dark storms,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> How he piles up the cumulus clouds-- all these miracle-wonders of a perfect Mind?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Why, you don't even know how to keep cool on a sweltering hot day,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> So how could you even dream of making a dent in that hot-tin-roof sky?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "If you're so smart, give us a lesson in how to address God. We're in the dark and can't figure it out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Do you think I'm dumb enough to challenge God? Wouldn't that just be asking for trouble?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> No one in his right mind stares straight at the sun on a clear and cloudless day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> As gold comes from the northern mountains, so a terrible beauty streams from God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "Mighty God! Far beyond our reach! Unsurpassable in power and justice! It's unthinkable that he'd treat anyone unfairly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> So bow to him in deep reverence, one and all! If you're wise, you'll most certainly worship him."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="38">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> And now, finally, GOD answered Job from the eye of a violent storm. He said:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Why do you confuse the issue? Why do you talk without knowing what you're talking about?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Pull yourself together, Job! Up on your feet! Stand tall! I have some questions for you, and I want some straight answers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Where were you when I created the earth? Tell me, since you know so much!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Who decided on its size? Certainly you'll know that! Who came up with the blueprints and measurements?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> How was its foundation poured, and who set the cornerstone,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> While the morning stars sang in chorus and all the angels shouted praise?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And who took charge of the ocean when it gushed forth like a baby from the womb?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> That was me! I wrapped it in soft clouds, and tucked it in safely at night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then I made a playpen for it, a strong playpen so it couldn't run loose,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And said, 'Stay here, this is your place. Your wild tantrums are confined to this place.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "And have you ever ordered Morning, 'Get up!' told Dawn, 'Get to work!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> So you could seize Earth like a blanket and shake out the wicked like cockroaches?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> As the sun brings everything to light, brings out all the colors and shapes,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The cover of darkness is snatched from the wicked-- they're caught in the very act!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Have you ever gotten to the true bottom of things, explored the labyrinthine caves of deep ocean?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Do you know the first thing about death? Do you have one clue regarding death's dark mysteries?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And do you have any idea how large this earth is? Speak up if you have even the beginning of an answer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Do you know where Light comes from and where Darkness lives</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> So you can take them by the hand and lead them home when they get lost?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Why, of course you know that. You've known them all your life, grown up in the same neighborhood with them!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Have you ever traveled to where snow is made, seen the vault where hail is stockpiled,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The arsenals of hail and snow that I keep in readiness for times of trouble and battle and war?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Can you find your way to where lightning is launched, or to the place from which the wind blows?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Who do you suppose carves canyons for the downpours of rain, and charts the route of thunderstorms</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> That bring water to unvisited fields, deserts no one ever lays eyes on,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Drenching the useless wastelands so they're carpeted with wildflowers and grass?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> And who do you think is the father of rain and dew,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> the mother of ice and frost?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> You don't for a minute imagine these marvels of weather just happen, do you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "Can you catch the eye of the beautiful Pleiades sisters, or distract Orion from his hunt?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Can you get Venus to look your way, or get the Great Bear and her cubs to come out and play?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Do you know the first thing about the sky's constellations and how they affect things on Earth?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "Can you get the attention of the clouds, and commission a shower of rain?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Can you take charge of the lightning bolts and have them report to you for orders?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> "Who do you think gave weather-wisdom to the ibis, and storm-savvy to the rooster?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Does anyone know enough to number all the clouds or tip over the rain barrels of heaven</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> When the earth is cracked and dry, the ground baked hard as a brick?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> "Can you teach the lioness to stalk her prey and satisfy the appetite of her cubs</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> As they crouch in their den, waiting hungrily in their cave?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> And who sets out food for the ravens when their young cry to God, fluttering about because they have no food?</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="39">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Do you know the month when mountain goats give birth? Have you ever watched a doe bear her fawn?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Do you know how many months she is pregnant? Do you know the season of her delivery,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> when she crouches down and drops her offspring?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Her young ones flourish and are soon on their own; they leave and don't come back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Who do you think set the wild donkey free, opened the corral gates and let him go?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I gave him the whole wilderness to roam in, the rolling plains and wide-open places.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He laughs at his city cousins, who are harnessed and harried. He's oblivious to the cries of teamsters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He grazes freely through the hills, nibbling anything that's green.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Will the wild buffalo condescend to serve you, volunteer to spend the night in your barn?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Can you imagine hitching your plow to a buffalo and getting him to till your fields?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He's hugely strong, yes, but could you trust him, would you dare turn the job over to him?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> You wouldn't for a minute depend on him, would you, to do what you said when you said it?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "The ostrich flaps her wings futilely-- all those beautiful feathers, but useless!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> She lays her eggs on the hard ground, leaves them there in the dirt, exposed to the weather,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Not caring that they might get stepped on and cracked or trampled by some wild animal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> She's negligent with her young, as if they weren't even hers. She cares nothing about anything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> She wasn't created very smart, that's for sure, wasn't given her share of good sense.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But when she runs, oh, how she runs, laughing, leaving horse and rider in the dust.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Are you the one who gave the horse his prowess and adorned him with a shimmering mane?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Did you create him to prance proudly and strike terror with his royal snorts?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He paws the ground fiercely, eager and spirited, then charges into the fray.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> He laughs at danger, fearless, doesn't shy away from the sword.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The banging and clanging of quiver and lance don't faze him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He quivers with excitement, and at the trumpet blast races off at a gallop.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> At the sound of the trumpet he neighs mightily, smelling the excitement of battle from a long way off, catching the rolling thunder of the war cries.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "Was it through your know how that the hawk learned to fly, soaring effortlessly on thermal updrafts?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Did you command the eagle's flight, and teach her to build her nest in the heights,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Perfectly at home on the high cliff-face, invulnerable on pinnacle and crag?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> From her perch she searches for prey, spies it at a great distance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Her young gorge themselves on carrion; wherever there's a roadkill, you'll see her circling."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="40">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD then confronted Job directly:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Now what do you have to say for yourself? Are you going to haul me, the Mighty One, into court and press charges?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Job answered:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "I'm speechless, in awe--words fail me. I should never have opened my mouth!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I've talked too much, way too much. I'm ready to shut up and listen."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD addressed Job next from the eye of the storm, and this is what he said:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "I have some more questions for you, and I want straight answers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Do you presume to tell me what I'm doing wrong? Are you calling me a sinner so you can be a saint?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Do you have an arm like my arm? Can you shout in thunder the way I can?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Go ahead, show your stuff. Let's see what you're made of, what you can do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Unleash your outrage. Target the arrogant and lay them flat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Target the arrogant and bring them to their knees. Stop the wicked in their tracks--make mincemeat of them!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Dig a mass grave and dump them in it-- faceless corpses in an unmarked grave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'll gladly step aside and hand things over to you-- you can surely save yourself with no help from me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Look at the land beast, Behemoth. I created him as well as you. Grazing on grass, docile as a cow--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Just look at the strength of his back, the powerful muscles of his belly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> His tail sways like a cedar in the wind; his huge legs are like beech trees.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> His skeleton is made of steel, every bone in his body hard as steel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Most magnificent of all my creatures, but I still lead him around like a lamb!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The grass-covered hills serve him meals, while field mice frolic in his shadow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He takes afternoon naps under shade trees, cools himself in the reedy swamps,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Lazily cool in the leafy shadows as the breeze moves through the willows.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> And when the river rages he doesn't budge, stolid and unperturbed even when the Jordan goes wild.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> But you'd never want him for a pet-- you'd never be able to housebreak him!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="41">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Or can you pull in the sea beast, Leviathan, with a fly rod and stuff him in your creel?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Can you lasso him with a rope, or snag him with an anchor?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Will he beg you over and over for mercy, or flatter you with flowery speech?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Will he apply for a job with you to run errands and serve you the rest of your life?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Will you play with him as if he were a pet goldfish? Will you make him the mascot of the neighborhood children?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Will you put him on display in the market and have shoppers haggle over the price?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Could you shoot him full of arrows like a pin cushion, or drive harpoons into his huge head?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> If you so much as lay a hand on him, you won't live to tell the story.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> What hope would you have with such a creature? Why, one look at him would do you in!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> If you can't hold your own against his glowering visage, how, then, do you expect to stand up to me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Who could confront me and get by with it? I'm in charge of all this--I run this universe!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "But I've more to say about Leviathan, the sea beast, his enormous bulk, his beautiful shape.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Who would even dream of piercing that tough skin or putting those jaws into bit and bridle?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And who would dare knock at the door of his mouth filled with row upon row of fierce teeth?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> His pride is invincible; nothing can make a dent in that pride.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Nothing can get through that proud skin-- impervious to weapons and weather,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The thickest and toughest of hides, impenetrable!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "He snorts and the world lights up with fire, he blinks and the dawn breaks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Comets pour out of his mouth, fireworks arc and branch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Smoke erupts from his nostrils like steam from a boiling pot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He blows and fires blaze; flames of fire stream from his mouth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> All muscle he is--sheer and seamless muscle. To meet him is to dance with death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Sinewy and lithe, there's not a soft spot in his entire body--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> As tough inside as out, rock-hard, invulnerable.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Even angels run for cover when he surfaces, cowering before his tail-thrashing turbulence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Javelins bounce harmlessly off his hide, harpoons ricochet wildly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Iron bars are so much straw to him, bronze weapons beneath notice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Arrows don't even make him blink; bullets make no more impression than raindrops.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> A battle ax is nothing but a splinter of kindling; he treats a brandished harpoon as a joke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> His belly is armor-plated, inexorable-- unstoppable as a barge.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> He roils deep ocean the way you'd boil water, he whips the sea like you'd whip an egg into batter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> With a luminous trail stretching out behind him, you might think Ocean had grown a gray beard!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> There's nothing on this earth quite like him, not an ounce of fear in that creature!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> He surveys all the high and mighty-- king of the ocean, king of the deep!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="42">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Job answered GOD:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "I'm convinced: You can do anything and everything. Nothing and no one can upset your plans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You asked, 'Who is this muddying the water, ignorantly confusing the issue, second-guessing my purposes?' I admit it. I was the one. I babbled on about things far beyond me, made small talk about wonders way over my head.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You told me, 'Listen, and let me do the talking. Let me ask the questions. You give the answers.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I admit I once lived by rumors of you; now I have it all firsthand--from my own eyes and ears!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I'm sorry--forgive me. I'll never do that again, I promise! I'll never again live on crusts of hearsay, crumbs of rumor."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> After GOD had finished addressing Job, he turned to Eliphaz the Temanite and said, "I've had it with you and your two friends. I'm fed up! You haven't been honest either with me or about me--not the way my friend Job has.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> So here's what you must do. Take seven bulls and seven rams, and go to my friend Job. Sacrifice a burnt offering on your own behalf. My friend Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer. He will ask me not to treat you as you deserve for talking nonsense about me, and for not being honest with me, as he has."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They did it. Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite did what GOD commanded. And GOD accepted Job's prayer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> After Job had interceded for his friends, GOD restored his fortune--and then doubled it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> All his brothers and sisters and friends came to his house and celebrated. They told him how sorry they were, and consoled him for all the trouble GOD had brought him. Each of them brought generous housewarming gifts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> GOD blessed Job's later life even more than his earlier life. He ended up with fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand teams of oxen, and one thousand donkeys.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He also had seven sons and three daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He named the first daughter Dove, the second, Cinnamon, and the third, Darkeyes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> There was not a woman in that country as beautiful as Job's daughters. Their father treated them as equals with their brothers, providing the same inheritance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Job lived on another hundred and forty years, living to see his children and grandchildren--four generations of them!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then he died--an old man, a full life.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="19" bname="Psalm">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> How well God must like you-- you don't hang out at Sin Saloon, you don't slink along Dead-End Road, you don't go to Smart-Mouth College.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Instead you thrill to GOD's Word, you chew on Scripture day and night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You're a tree replanted in Eden, bearing fresh fruit every month, Never dropping a leaf, always in blossom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You're not at all like the wicked, who are mere windblown dust--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Without defense in court, unfit company for innocent people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD charts the road you take. The road they take is Skid Row.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Why the big noise, nations? Why the mean plots, peoples?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Earth-leaders push for position, Demagogues and delegates meet for summit talks, The God-deniers, the Messiah-defiers:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Let's get free of God! Cast loose from Messiah!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Heaven-throned God breaks out laughing. At first he's amused at their presumption;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then he gets good and angry. Furiously, he shuts them up:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Don't you know there's a King in Zion? A coronation banquet Is spread for him on the holy summit."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Let me tell you what GOD said next. He said, "You're my son, And today is your birthday.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> What do you want? Name it: Nations as a present? continents as a prize?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You can command them all to dance for you, Or throw them out with tomorrow's trash."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So, rebel-kings, use your heads; Upstart-judges, learn your lesson:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Worship GOD in adoring embrace, Celebrate in trembling awe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Kiss Messiah! Your very lives are in danger, you know; His anger is about to explode, But if you make a run for God--you won't regret it! A David psalm, when he escaped for his life from Absalom, his son.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD! Look! Enemies past counting! Enemies sprouting like mushrooms,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Mobs of them all around me, roaring their mockery: "Hah! No help for him from God!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But you, GOD, shield me on all sides; You ground my feet, you lift my head high;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> With all my might I shout up to GOD, His answers thunder from the holy mountain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I stretch myself out. I sleep. Then I'm up again--rested, tall and steady,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Fearless before the enemy mobs Coming at me from all sides.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Up, GOD! My God, help me! Slap their faces, First this cheek, then the other, Your fist hard in their teeth!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Real help comes from GOD. Your blessing clothes your people!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. When I call, give me answers. God, take my side! Once, in a tight place, you gave me room; Now I'm in trouble again: grace me! hear me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> You rabble--how long do I put up with your scorn? How long will you lust after lies? How long will you live crazed by illusion?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Look at this: look Who got picked by GOD! He listens the split second I call to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Complain if you must, but don't lash out. Keep your mouth shut, and let your heart do the talking.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Build your case before God and wait for his verdict.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Why is everyone hungry for more? "More, more," they say. "More, more." I have God's more-than-enough,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> More joy in one ordinary day Than they get in all their shopping sprees.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> At day's end I'm ready for sound sleep, For you, GOD, have put my life back together.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. Listen, GOD! Please, pay attention! Can you make sense of these ramblings,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> my groans and cries? King-God, I need your help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Every morning you'll hear me at it again. Every morning I lay out the pieces of my life on your altar and watch for fire to descend.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You don't socialize with Wicked, or invite Evil over as your houseguest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Hot-Air-Boaster collapses in front of you; you shake your head over Mischief-Maker.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD destroys Lie-Speaker; Blood-Thirsty and Truth-Bender disgust you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And here I am, your invited guest-- it's incredible! I enter your house; here I am, prostrate in your inner sanctum,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Waiting for directions to get me safely through enemy lines.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Every word they speak is a land mine; their lungs breathe out poison gas. Their throats are gaping graves, their tongues slick as mudslides.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Pile on the guilt, God! Let their so-called wisdom wreck them. Kick them out! They've had their chance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But you'll welcome us with open arms when we run for cover to you. Let the party last all night! Stand guard over our celebration.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> You are famous, GOD, for welcoming God-seekers, for decking us out in delight.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. Please, GOD, no more yelling, no more trips to the woodshed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Treat me nice for a change; I'm so starved for affection. Can't you see I'm black and blue, beat up badly in bones</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> and soul? GOD, how long will it take for you to let up?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Break in, GOD, and break up this fight; if you love me at all, get me out of here.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I'm no good to you dead, am I? I can't sing in your choir if I'm buried in some tomb!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I'm tired of all this--so tired. My bed has been floating forty days and nights On the flood of my tears. My mattress is soaked, soggy with tears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The sockets of my eyes are black holes; nearly blind, I squint and grope.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Get out of here, you Devil's crew: at last GOD has heard my sobs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> My requests have all been granted, my prayers are answered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Cowards, my enemies disappear. Disgraced, they turn tail and run.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. GOD! GOD! I am running to you for dear life; the chase is wild.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> If they catch me, I'm finished: ripped to shreds by foes fierce as lions, dragged into the forest and left unlooked for, unremembered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> GOD, if I've done what they say--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> betrayed my friends, ripped off my enemies-- If my hands are really that dirty,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> let them get me, walk all over me, leave me flat on my face in the dirt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Stand up, GOD; pit your holy fury against my furious enemies. Wake up, God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> My accusers have packed the courtroom; it's judgment time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Take your place on the bench, reach for your gavel, throw out the false charges against me. I'm ready, confident in your verdict: "Innocent."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Close the book on Evil, GOD, but publish your mandate for us. You get us ready for life: you probe for our soft spots, you knock off our rough edges.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And I'm feeling so fit, so safe: made right, kept right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> God in solemn honor does things right, but his nerves are sandpapered raw. Nobody gets by with anything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> God is already in action-- Sword honed on his whetstone, bow strung, arrow on the string,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Lethal weapons in hand, each arrow a flaming missile.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Look at that guy! He had sex with sin, he's pregnant with evil. Oh, look! He's having the baby--a Lie-Baby!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> See that man shoveling day after day, digging, then concealing, his man-trap down that lonely stretch of road? Go back and look again--you'll see him in it headfirst, legs waving in the breeze.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> That's what happens: mischief backfires; violence boomerangs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I'm thanking God, who makes things right. I'm singing the fame of heaven-high GOD.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. GOD, brilliant Lord, yours is a household name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you; toddlers shout the songs That drown out enemy talk, and silence atheist babble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous, your handmade sky-jewelry, Moon and stars mounted in their settings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then I look at my micro-self and wonder, Why do you bother with us? Why take a second look our way?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Yet we've so narrowly missed being gods, bright with Eden's dawn light.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> You put us in charge of your handcrafted world, repeated to us your Genesis-charge,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Made us lords of sheep and cattle, even animals out in the wild,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Birds flying and fish swimming, whales singing in the ocean deeps.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD, brilliant Lord, your name echoes around the world.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. I'm thanking you, GOD, from a full heart, I'm writing the book on your wonders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I'm whistling, laughing, and jumping for joy; I'm singing your song, High God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The day my enemies turned tail and ran, they stumbled on you and fell on their faces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You took over and set everything right; when I needed you, you were there, taking charge.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You blow the whistle on godless nations; you throw dirty players out of the game, wipe their names right off the roster.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Enemies disappear from the sidelines, their reputation trashed, their names erased from the halls of fame.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD holds the high center, he sees and sets the world's mess right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He decides what is right for us earthlings, gives people their just deserts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD's a safe-house for the battered, a sanctuary during bad times.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The moment you arrive, you relax; you're never sorry you knocked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Sing your songs to Zion-dwelling GOD, tell his stories to everyone you meet:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> How he tracks down killers yet keeps his eye on us, registers every whimper and moan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Be kind to me, GOD; I've been kicked around long enough. Once you've pulled me back from the gates of death,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'll write the book on Hallelujahs; on the corner of Main and First I'll hold a street meeting; I'll be the song leader; we'll fill the air with salvation songs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They're trapped, those godless countries, in the very snares they set, Their feet all tangled in the net they spread.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They have no excuse; the way God works is well-known. The cunning machinery made by the wicked has maimed their own hands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The wicked bought a one-way ticket to hell.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> No longer will the poor be nameless-- no more humiliation for the humble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Up, GOD! Aren't you fed up with their empty strutting? Expose these grand pretensions!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Shake them up, GOD! Show them how silly they look.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD, are you avoiding me? Where are you when I need you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Full of hot air, the wicked are hot on the trail of the poor. Trip them up, tangle them up in their fine-tuned plots.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The wicked are windbags, the swindlers have foul breath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The wicked snub GOD, their noses stuck high in the air. Their graffiti are scrawled on the walls: "Catch us if you can!" "God is dead."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They care nothing for what you think; if you get in their way, they blow you off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They live (they think) a charmed life: "We can't go wrong. This is our lucky year!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They carry a mouthful of hexes, their tongues spit venom like adders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They hide behind ordinary people, then pounce on their victims.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They mark the luckless, then wait like a hunter in a blind; When the poor wretch wanders too close, they stab him in the back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The hapless fool is kicked to the ground, the unlucky victim is brutally axed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He thinks God has dumped him, he's sure that God is indifferent to his plight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Time to get up, GOD--get moving. The luckless think they're Godforsaken.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They wonder why the wicked scorn God and get away with it, Why the wicked are so cocksure they'll never come up for audit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But you know all about it-- the contempt, the abuse. I dare to believe that the luckless will get lucky someday in you. You won't let them down: orphans won't be orphans forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Break the wicked right arms, break all the evil left arms. Search and destroy every sign of crime.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> GOD's grace and order wins; godlessness loses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The victim's faint pulse picks up; the hearts of the hopeless pump red blood as you put your ear to their lips.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Orphans get parents, the homeless get homes. The reign of terror is over, the rule of the gang lords is ended.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. I've already run for dear life straight to the arms of GOD. So why would I run away now when you say, "Run to the mountains;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> the evil bows are bent, the wicked arrows Aimed to shoot under cover of darkness at every heart open to God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The bottom's dropped out of the country; good people don't have a chance"?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But GOD hasn't moved to the mountains; his holy address hasn't changed. He's in charge, as always, his eyes taking everything in, his eyelids Unblinking, examining Adam's unruly brood inside and out, not missing a thing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He tests the good and the bad alike; if anyone cheats, God's outraged.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Fail the test and you're out, out in a hail of firestones, Drinking from a canteen filled with hot desert wind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD's business is putting things right; he loves getting the lines straight, Setting us straight. Once we're standing tall, we can look him straight in the eye.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. Quick, GOD, I need your helping hand! The last decent person just went down, All the friends I depended on gone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Everyone talks in lie language; Lies slide off their oily lips. They doubletalk with forked tongues.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Slice their lips off their faces! Pull The braggart tongues from their mouths!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'm tired of hearing, "We can talk anyone into anything! Our lips manage the world."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Into the hovels of the poor, Into the dark streets where the homeless groan, God speaks: "I've had enough; I'm on my way To heal the ache in the heart of the wretched."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> God's words are pure words, Pure silver words refined seven times In the fires of his word-kiln, Pure on earth as well as in heaven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD, keep us safe from their lies, From the wicked who stalk us with lies,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> From the wicked who collect honors For their wonderful lies.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. Long enough, GOD-- you've ignored me long enough. I've looked at the back of your head long enough.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Long enough I've carried this ton of trouble, lived with a stomach full of pain. Long enough my arrogant enemies have looked down their noses at me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Take a good look at me, GOD, my God; I want to look life in the eye,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> So no enemy can get the best of me or laugh when I fall on my face.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I've thrown myself headlong into your arms-- I'm celebrating your rescue.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I'm singing at the top of my lungs, I'm so full of answered prayers.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. Bilious and bloated, they gas, "God is gone." Their words are poison gas, fouling the air; they poison Rivers and skies; thistles are their cash crop.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD sticks his head out of heaven. He looks around. He's looking for someone not stupid-- one man, even, God-expectant, just one God-ready woman.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He comes up empty. A string of zeros. Useless, unshepherded Sheep, taking turns pretending to be Shepherd. The ninety and nine follow their fellow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Don't they know anything, all these impostors? Don't they know they can't get away with this-- Treating people like a fast-food meal over which they're too busy to pray?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Night is coming for them, and nightmares, for God takes the side of victims.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Do you think you can mess with the dreams of the poor? You can't, for God makes their dreams come true.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Is there anyone around to save Israel? Yes. God is around; GOD turns life around. Turned-around Jacob skips rope, turned-around Israel sings laughter.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. GOD, who gets invited to dinner at your place? How do we get on your guest list?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Walk straight, act right, tell the truth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Don't hurt your friend, don't blame your neighbor;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> despise the despicable. "Keep your word even when it costs you,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> make an honest living, never take a bribe. "You'll never get blacklisted if you live like this."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David song. Keep me safe, O God, I've run for dear life to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I say to GOD, "Be my Lord!" Without you, nothing makes sense.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And these God-chosen lives all around-- what splendid friends they make!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Don't just go shopping for a god. Gods are not for sale. I swear I'll never treat god-names like brand-names.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> My choice is you, GOD, first and only. And now I find I'm your choice!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> You set me up with a house and yard. And then you made me your heir!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The wise counsel GOD gives when I'm awake is confirmed by my sleeping heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Day and night I'll stick with GOD; I've got a good thing going and I'm not letting go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'm happy from the inside out, and from the outside in, I'm firmly formed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You canceled my ticket to hell-- that's not my destination!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Now you've got my feet on the life path, all radiant from the shining of your face. Ever since you took my hand, I'm on the right way.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="17">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David prayer. Listen while I build my case, GOD, the most honest prayer you'll ever hear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Show the world I'm innocent-- in your heart you know I am.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Go ahead, examine me from inside out, surprise me in the middle of the night-- You'll find I'm just what I say I am. My words don't run loose.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'm not trying to get my way in the world's way. I'm trying to get your way, your Word's way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I'm staying on your trail; I'm putting one foot In front of the other. I'm not giving up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I call to you, God, because I'm sure of an answer. So--answer! bend your ear! listen sharp!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Paint grace-graffiti on the fences; take in your frightened children who Are running from the neighborhood bullies straight to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Keep your eye on me; hide me under your cool wing feathers</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> From the wicked who are out to get me, from mortal enemies closing in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Their hearts are hard as nails, their mouths blast hot air.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They are after me, nipping my heels, determined to bring me down,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Lions ready to rip me apart, young lions poised to pounce.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Up, GOD: beard them! break them! By your sword, free me from their clutches;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Barehanded, GOD, break these mortals, these flat-earth people who can't think beyond today. I'd like to see their bellies swollen with famine food, The weeds they've sown harvested and baked into famine bread, With second helpings for their children and crusts for their babies to chew on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And me? I plan on looking you full in the face. When I get up, I'll see your full stature and live heaven on earth. A David song, which he sang to God after being saved from all his enemies and from Saul.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="18">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I love you, GOD-- you make me strong.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD is bedrock under my feet, the castle in which I live, my rescuing knight. My God--the high crag where I run for dear life, hiding behind the boulders, safe in the granite hideout.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I sing to GOD, the Praise-Lofty, and find myself safe and saved.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The hangman's noose was tight at my throat; devil waters rushed over me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Hell's ropes cinched me tight; death traps barred every exit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> A hostile world! I call to GOD, I cry to God to help me. From his palace he hears my call; my cry brings me right into his presence-- a private audience!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Earth wobbles and lurches; huge mountains shake like leaves, Quake like aspen leaves because of his rage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> His nostrils flare, bellowing smoke; his mouth spits fire. Tongues of fire dart in and out;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> he lowers the sky. He steps down; under his feet an abyss opens up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He's riding a winged creature, swift on wind-wings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Now he's wrapped himself in a trenchcoat of black-cloud darkness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But his cloud-brightness bursts through, spraying hailstones and fireballs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then GOD thundered out of heaven; the High God gave a great shout, spraying hailstones and fireballs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> God shoots his arrows--pandemonium! He hurls his lightnings--a rout!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The secret sources of ocean are exposed, the hidden depths of earth lie uncovered The moment you roar in protest, let loose your hurricane anger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But me he caught--reached all the way from sky to sea; he pulled me out Of that ocean of hate,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> that enemy chaos, the void in which I was drowning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They hit me when I was down, but GOD stuck by me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He stood me up on a wide-open field; I stood there saved--surprised to be loved!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> GOD made my life complete when I placed all the pieces before him. When I got my act together, he gave me a fresh start.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Now I'm alert to GOD's ways; I don't take God for granted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Every day I review the ways he works; I try not to miss a trick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> I feel put back together, and I'm watching my step.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> GOD rewrote the text of my life when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The good people taste your goodness, The whole people taste your health,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The true people taste your truth, The bad ones can't figure you out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> You take the side of the down-and-out, But the stuck-up you take down a peg.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Suddenly, GOD, you floodlight my life; I'm blazing with glory, God's glory!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> I smash the bands of marauders, I vault the highest fences.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> What a God! His road stretches straight and smooth. Every GOD-direction is road-tested. Everyone who runs toward him Makes it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Is there any god like GOD? Are we not at bedrock?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Is not this the God who armed me, then aimed me in the right direction?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Now I run like a deer; I'm king of the mountain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> He shows me how to fight; I can bend a bronze bow!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> You protect me with salvation-armor; you hold me up with a firm hand, caress me with your gentle ways.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> You cleared the ground under me so my footing was firm.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> When I chased my enemies I caught them; I didn't let go till they were dead men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> I nailed them; they were down for good; then I walked all over them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> You armed me well for this fight, you smashed the upstarts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> You made my enemies turn tail, and I wiped out the haters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> They cried "uncle" but Uncle didn't come; They yelled for GOD and got no for an answer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> I ground them to dust; they gusted in the wind. I threw them out, like garbage in the gutter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> You rescued me from a squabbling people; you made me a leader of nations. People I'd never heard of served me;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> the moment they got wind of me they listened. The foreign devils gave up;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> they came on their bellies, crawling from their hideouts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Live, GOD! Blessings from my Rock, my free and freeing God, towering!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> This God set things right for me and shut up the people who talked back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> He rescued me from enemy anger, he pulled me from the grip of upstarts, He saved me from the bullies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> That's why I'm thanking you, GOD, all over the world. That's why I'm singing songs that rhyme your name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> God's king takes the trophy; God's chosen is beloved. I mean David and all his children-- always.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="19">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. God's glory is on tour in the skies, God-craft on exhibit across the horizon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Madame Day holds classes every morning, Professor Night lectures each evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Their words aren't heard, their voices aren't recorded,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But their silence fills the earth: unspoken truth is spoken everywhere. God makes a huge dome for the sun--a superdome!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The morning sun's a new husband leaping from his honeymoon bed, The daybreaking sun an athlete racing to the tape.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> That's how God's Word vaults across the skies from sunrise to sunset, Melting ice, scorching deserts, warming hearts to faith.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The revelation of GOD is whole and pulls our lives together. The signposts of GOD are clear and point out the right road.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The life-maps of GOD are right, showing the way to joy. The directions of GOD are plain and easy on the eyes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD's reputation is twenty-four-carat gold, with a lifetime guarantee. The decisions of GOD are accurate down to the nth degree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> God's Word is better than a diamond, better than a diamond set between emeralds. You'll like it better than strawberries in spring, better than red, ripe strawberries.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> There's more: God's Word warns us of danger and directs us to hidden treasure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Otherwise how will we find our way? Or know when we play the fool?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Clean the slate, God, so we can start the day fresh! Keep me from stupid sins, from thinking I can take over your work; Then I can start this day sun-washed, scrubbed clean of the grime of sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> These are the words in my mouth; these are what I chew on and pray. Accept them when I place them on the morning altar, O God, my Altar-Rock, God, Priest-of-My-Altar.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="20">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. GOD answer you on the day you crash, The name God-of-Jacob put you out of harm's reach,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Send reinforcements from Holy Hill, Dispatch from Zion fresh supplies,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Exclaim over your offerings, Celebrate your sacrifices,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Give you what your heart desires, Accomplish your plans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When you win, we plan to raise the roof and lead the parade with our banners. May all your wishes come true!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> That clinches it--help's coming, an answer's on the way, everything's going to work out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> See those people polishing their chariots, and those others grooming their horses? But we're making garlands for GOD our God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The chariots will rust, those horses pull up lame-- and we'll be on our feet, standing tall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Make the king a winner, GOD; the day we call, give us your answer.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="21">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. Your strength, GOD, is the king's strength. Helped, he's hollering Hosannas.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> You gave him exactly what he wanted; you didn't hold back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You filled his arms with gifts; you gave him a right royal welcome.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He wanted a good life; you gave it to him, and then made it a long life as a bonus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You lifted him high and bright as a cumulus cloud, then dressed him in rainbow colors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> You pile blessings on him; you make him glad when you smile.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Is it any wonder the king loves GOD? that he's sticking with the Best?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> With a fistful of enemies in one hand and a fistful of haters in the other,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You radiate with such brilliance that they cringe as before a furnace. Now the furnace swallows them whole, the fire eats them alive!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You purge the earth of their progeny, you wipe the slate clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> All their evil schemes, the plots they cook up, have fizzled--every one.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> You sent them packing; they couldn't face you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Show your strength, GOD, so no one can miss it. We are out singing the good news!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="22">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. God, God . . . my God! Why did you dump me miles from nowhere?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Doubled up with pain, I call to God all the day long. No answer. Nothing. I keep at it all night, tossing and turning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And you! Are you indifferent, above it all, leaning back on the cushions of Israel's praise?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> We know you were there for our parents:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> they cried for your help and you gave it; they trusted and lived a good life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And here I am, a nothing--an earthworm, something to step on, to squash.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Everyone pokes fun at me; they make faces at me, they shake their heads:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Let's see how GOD handles this one; since God likes him so much, let him help him!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And to think you were midwife at my birth, setting me at my mother's breasts!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When I left the womb you cradled me; since the moment of birth you've been my God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then you moved far away and trouble moved in next-door. I need a neighbor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Herds of bulls come at me, the raging bulls stampede,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Horns lowered, nostrils flaring, like a herd of buffalo on the move.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'm a bucket kicked over and spilled, every joint in my body has been pulled apart. My heart is a blob of melted wax in my gut.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I'm dry as a bone, my tongue black and swollen. They have laid me out for burial in the dirt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Now packs of wild dogs come at me; thugs gang up on me. They pin me down hand and foot,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> and lock me in a cage--a bag Of bones in a cage, stared at by every passerby.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They take my wallet and the shirt off my back, and then throw dice for my clothes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> You, GOD--don't put off my rescue! Hurry and help me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Don't let them cut my throat; don't let those mongrels devour me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> If you don't show up soon, I'm done for--gored by the bulls, meat for the lions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Here's the story I'll tell my friends when they come to worship, and punctuate it with Hallelujahs:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Shout Hallelujah, you God-worshipers; give glory, you sons of Jacob; adore him, you daughters of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He has never let you down, never looked the other way when you were being kicked around. He has never wandered off to do his own thing; he has been right there, listening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Here in this great gathering for worship I have discovered this praise-life. And I'll do what I promised right here in front of the God-worshipers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Down-and-outers sit at GOD's table and eat their fill. Everyone on the hunt for God is here, praising him. "Live it up, from head to toe. Don't ever quit!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> From the four corners of the earth people are coming to their senses, are running back to GOD. Long-lost families are falling on their faces before him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> GOD has taken charge; from now on he has the last word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> All the power-mongers are before him --worshiping! All the poor and powerless, too --worshiping! Along with those who never got it together --worshiping!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Our children and their children will get in on this As the word is passed along from parent to child.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Babies not yet conceived will hear the good news-- that God does what he says.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="23">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. GOD, my shepherd! I don't need a thing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> You have bedded me down in lush meadows, you find me quiet pools to drink from.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> True to your word, you let me catch my breath and send me in the right direction.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Even when the way goes through Death Valley, I'm not afraid when you walk at my side. Your trusty shepherd's crook makes me feel secure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You serve me a six-course dinner right in front of my enemies. You revive my drooping head; my cup brims with blessing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life. I'm back home in the house of GOD for the rest of my life.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="24">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. GOD claims Earth and everything in it, God claims World and all who live on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He built it on Ocean foundations, laid it out on River girders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Who can climb Mount GOD? Who can scale the holy north-face?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Only the clean-handed, only the pure-hearted; Men who won't cheat, women who won't seduce.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD is at their side; with GOD's help they make it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> This, Jacob, is what happens to God-seekers, God-questers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Wake up, you sleepyhead city! Wake up, you sleepyhead people! King-Glory is ready to enter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Who is this King-Glory? GOD, armed and battle-ready.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Wake up, you sleepyhead city! Wake up, you sleepyhead people! King-Glory is ready to enter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Who is this King-Glory? GOD of the angel armies: he is King-Glory.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="25">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. My head is high, GOD, held high;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I'm looking to you, GOD; No hangdog skulking for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I've thrown in my lot with you; You won't embarrass me, will you? Or let my enemies get the best of me? Don't embarrass any of us Who went out on a limb for you. It's the traitors who should be humiliated.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Show me how you work, GOD; School me in your ways.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Take me by the hand; Lead me down the path of truth. You are my Savior, aren't you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Mark the milestones of your mercy and love, GOD; Rebuild the ancient landmarks!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Forget that I sowed wild oats; Mark me with your sign of love. Plan only the best for me, GOD!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD is fair and just; He corrects the misdirected, Sends them in the right direction.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He gives the rejects his hand, And leads them step-by-step.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> From now on every road you travel Will take you to GOD. Follow the Covenant signs; Read the charted directions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Keep up your reputation, GOD; Forgive my bad life; It's been a very bad life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> My question: What are God-worshipers like? Your answer: Arrows aimed at God's bull's-eye.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They settle down in a promising place; Their kids inherit a prosperous farm.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> God-friendship is for God-worshipers; They are the ones he confides in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> If I keep my eyes on GOD, I won't trip over my own feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Look at me and help me! I'm all alone and in big trouble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> My heart and kidneys are fighting each other; Call a truce to this civil war.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Take a hard look at my life of hard labor, Then lift this ton of sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Do you see how many people Have it in for me? How viciously they hate me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Keep watch over me and keep me out of trouble; Don't let me down when I run to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Use all your skill to put me together; I wait to see your finished product.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> GOD, give your people a break From this run of bad luck.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="26">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. Clear my name, GOD; I've kept an honest shop. I've thrown in my lot with you, GOD, and I'm not budging.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Examine me, GOD, from head to foot, order your battery of tests. Make sure I'm fit inside and out</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> So I never lose sight of your love, But keep in step with you, never missing a beat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I don't hang out with tricksters, I don't pal around with thugs;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I hate that pack of gangsters, I don't deal with double-dealers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I scrub my hands with purest soap, then join hands with the others in the great circle, dancing around your altar, GOD,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Singing God-songs at the top of my lungs, telling God-stories.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD, I love living with you; your house glows with your glory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When it's time for spring cleaning, don't sweep me out with the quacks and crooks,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Men with bags of dirty tricks, women with purses stuffed with bribe-money.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> You know I've been aboveboard with you; now be aboveboard with me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I'm on the level with you, GOD; I bless you every chance I get.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="27">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. Light, space, zest-- that's GOD! So, with him on my side I'm fearless, afraid of no one and nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> When vandal hordes ride down ready to eat me alive, Those bullies and toughs fall flat on their faces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When besieged, I'm calm as a baby. When all hell breaks loose, I'm collected and cool.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'm asking GOD for one thing, only one thing: To live with him in his house my whole life long. I'll contemplate his beauty; I'll study at his feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> That's the only quiet, secure place in a noisy world, The perfect getaway, far from the buzz of traffic.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> God holds me head and shoulders above all who try to pull me down. I'm headed for his place to offer anthems that will raise the roof! Already I'm singing God-songs; I'm making music to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Listen, GOD, I'm calling at the top of my lungs: "Be good to me! Answer me!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> When my heart whispered, "Seek God," my whole being replied, "I'm seeking him!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Don't hide from me now! You've always been right there for me; don't turn your back on me now. Don't throw me out, don't abandon me; you've always kept the door open.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> My father and mother walked out and left me, but GOD took me in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Point me down your highway, GOD; direct me along a well-lighted street; show my enemies whose side you're on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Don't throw me to the dogs, those liars who are out to get me, filling the air with their threats.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I'm sure now I'll see God's goodness in the exuberant earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Stay with GOD! Take heart. Don't quit. I'll say it again: Stay with GOD.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="28">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. Don't turn a deaf ear when I call you, GOD. If all I get from you is deafening silence, I'd be better off in the Black Hole.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I'm letting you know what I need, calling out for help And lifting my arms toward your inner sanctum.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Don't shove me into the same jail cell with those crooks, With those who are full-time employees of evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They talk a good line of "peace," then moonlight for the Devil. Pay them back for what they've done, for how bad they've been. Pay them back for their long hours in the Devil's workshop; Then cap it with a huge bonus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Because they have no idea how God works or what he is up to, God will smash them to smithereens and walk away from the ruins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Blessed be GOD-- he heard me praying.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He proved he's on my side; I've thrown my lot in with him. Now I'm jumping for joy, and shouting and singing my thanks to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD is all strength for his people, ample refuge for his chosen leader;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Save your people and bless your heritage. Care for them; carry them like a good shepherd.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="29">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. Bravo, GOD, bravo! Gods and all angels shout, "Encore!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> In awe before the glory, in awe before God's visible power. Stand at attention! Dress your best to honor him!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> GOD thunders across the waters, Brilliant, his voice and his face, streaming brightness--GOD, across the flood waters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD's thunder tympanic, GOD's thunder symphonic.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD's thunder smashes cedars, GOD topples the northern cedars.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The mountain ranges skip like spring colts, The high ridges jump like wild kid goats.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD's thunder spits fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD thunders, the wilderness quakes; He makes the desert of Kadesh shake.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD's thunder sets the oak trees dancing A wild dance, whirling; the pelting rain strips their branches. We fall to our knees--we call out, "Glory!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Above the floodwaters is GOD's throne from which his power flows, from which he rules the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD makes his people strong. GOD gives his people peace.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="30">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. I give you all the credit, GOD-- you got me out of that mess, you didn't let my foes gloat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD, my God, I yelled for help and you put me together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> GOD, you pulled me out of the grave, gave me another chance at life when I was down-and-out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> All you saints! Sing your hearts out to GOD! Thank him to his face!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He gets angry once in a while, but across a lifetime there is only love. The nights of crying your eyes out give way to days of laughter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When things were going great I crowed, "I've got it made.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I'm GOD's favorite. He made me king of the mountain." Then you looked the other way and I fell to pieces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I called out to you, GOD; I laid my case before you:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Can you sell me for a profit when I'm dead? auction me off at a cemetery yard sale? When I'm 'dust to dust' my songs and stories of you won't sell.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So listen! and be kind! Help me out of this!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> You did it: you changed wild lament into whirling dance; You ripped off my black mourning band and decked me with wildflowers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I'm about to burst with song; I can't keep quiet about you. GOD, my God, I can't thank you enough.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="31">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. I run to you, GOD; I run for dear life. Don't let me down! Take me seriously this time!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Get down on my level and listen, and please--no procrastination! Your granite cave a hiding place, your high cliff aerie a place of safety.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You're my cave to hide in, my cliff to climb. Be my safe leader, be my true mountain guide.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Free me from hidden traps; I want to hide in you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I've put my life in your hands. You won't drop me, you'll never let me down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I hate all this silly religion, but you, GOD, I trust.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I'm leaping and singing in the circle of your love; you saw my pain, you disarmed my tormentors,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You didn't leave me in their clutches but gave me room to breathe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Be kind to me, GOD-- I'm in deep, deep trouble again. I've cried my eyes out; I feel hollow inside.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> My life leaks away, groan by groan; my years fade out in sighs. My troubles have worn me out, turned my bones to powder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> To my enemies I'm a monster; I'm ridiculed by the neighbors. My friends are horrified; they cross the street to avoid me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They want to blot me from memory, forget me like a corpse in a grave, discard me like a broken dish in the trash.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The street-talk gossip has me "criminally insane"! Behind locked doors they plot how to ruin me for good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Desperate, I throw myself on you: you are my God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Hour by hour I place my days in your hand, safe from the hands out to get me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Warm me, your servant, with a smile; save me because you love me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Don't embarrass me by not showing up; I've given you plenty of notice. Embarrass the wicked, stand them up, leave them stupidly shaking their heads as they drift down to hell.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Gag those loudmouthed liars who heckle me, your follower, with jeers and catcalls.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> What a stack of blessing you have piled up for those who worship you, Ready and waiting for all who run to you to escape an unkind world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> You hide them safely away from the opposition. As you slam the door on those oily, mocking faces, you silence the poisonous gossip.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Blessed GOD! His love is the wonder of the world. Trapped by a siege,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I panicked. "Out of sight, out of mind," I said. But you heard me say it, you heard and listened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Love GOD, all you saints; GOD takes care of all who stay close to him, But he pays back in full those arrogant enough to go it alone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Be brave. Be strong. Don't give up. Expect GOD to get here soon.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="32">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. Count yourself lucky, how happy you must be-- you get a fresh start, your slate's wiped clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Count yourself lucky-- GOD holds nothing against you and you're holding nothing back from him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When I kept it all inside, my bones turned to powder, my words became daylong groans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The pressure never let up; all the juices of my life dried up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then I let it all out; I said, "I'll make a clean breast of my failures to GOD." Suddenly the pressure was gone-- my guilt dissolved, my sin disappeared.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> These things add up. Every one of us needs to pray; when all hell breaks loose and the dam bursts we'll be on high ground, untouched.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD's my island hideaway, keeps danger far from the shore, throws garlands of hosannas around my neck.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Let me give you some good advice; I'm looking you in the eye and giving it to you straight:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Don't be ornery like a horse or mule that needs bit and bridle to stay on track."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> God-defiers are always in trouble; GOD-affirmers find themselves loved every time they turn around.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Celebrate GOD. Sing together--everyone! All you honest hearts, raise the roof!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="33">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Good people, cheer GOD! Right-living people sound best when praising.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Use guitars to reinforce your Hallelujahs! Play his praise on a grand piano!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Invent your own new song to him; give him a trumpet fanfare.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> For GOD's Word is solid to the core; everything he makes is sound inside and out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He loves it when everything fits, when his world is in plumb-line true. Earth is drenched in GOD's affectionate satisfaction.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The skies were made by GOD's command; he breathed the word and the stars popped out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He scooped Sea into his jug, put Ocean in his keg.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Earth-creatures, bow before GOD; world-dwellers--down on your knees!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Here's why: he spoke and there it was, in place the moment he said so.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> GOD takes the wind out of Babel pretense, he shoots down the world's power-schemes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD's plan for the world stands up, all his designs are made to last.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Blessed is the country with GOD for God; blessed are the people he's put in his will.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> From high in the skies GOD looks around, he sees all Adam's brood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> From where he sits he overlooks all us earth-dwellers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He has shaped each person in turn; now he watches everything we do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> No king succeeds with a big army alone, no warrior wins by brute strength.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Horsepower is not the answer; no one gets by on muscle alone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Watch this: God's eye is on those who respect him, the ones who are looking for his love.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He's ready to come to their rescue in bad times; in lean times he keeps body and soul together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> We're depending on GOD; he's everything we need.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> What's more, our hearts brim with joy since we've taken for our own his holy name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Love us, GOD, with all you've got-- that's what we're depending on. A David psalm, when he outwitted Abimelech and got away.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="34">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I bless GOD every chance I get; my lungs expand with his praise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I live and breathe GOD; if things aren't going well, hear this and be happy:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Join me in spreading the news; together let's get the word out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD met me more than halfway, he freed me from my anxious fears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Look at him; give him your warmest smile. Never hide your feelings from him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When I was desperate, I called out, and GOD got me out of a tight spot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD's angel sets up a circle of protection around us while we pray.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Open your mouth and taste, open your eyes and see-- how good GOD is. Blessed are you who run to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Worship GOD if you want the best; worship opens doors to all his goodness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Young lions on the prowl get hungry, but GOD-seekers are full of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Come, children, listen closely; I'll give you a lesson in GOD worship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Who out there has a lust for life? Can't wait each day to come upon beauty?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Guard your tongue from profanity, and no more lying through your teeth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Turn your back on sin; do something good. Embrace peace--don't let it get away!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> GOD keeps an eye on his friends, his ears pick up every moan and groan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> GOD won't put up with rebels; he'll cull them from the pack.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Is anyone crying for help? GOD is listening, ready to rescue you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> If your heart is broken, you'll find GOD right there; if you're kicked in the gut, he'll help you catch your breath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Disciples so often get into trouble; still, GOD is there every time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He's your bodyguard, shielding every bone; not even a finger gets broken.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The wicked commit slow suicide; they waste their lives hating the good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> GOD pays for each slave's freedom; no one who runs to him loses out.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="35">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. Harass these hecklers, GOD, punch these bullies in the nose.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Grab a weapon, anything at hand; stand up for me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Get ready to throw the spear, aim the javelin, at the people who are out to get me. Reassure me; let me hear you say, "I'll save you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When those thugs try to knife me in the back, make them look foolish. Frustrate all those who are plotting my downfall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Make them like cinders in a high wind, with GOD's angel working the bellows.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Make their road lightless and mud-slick, with GOD's angel on their tails.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Out of sheer cussedness they set a trap to catch me; for no good reason they dug a ditch to stop me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Surprise them with your ambush-- catch them in the very trap they set, the disaster they planned for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But let me run loose and free, celebrating GOD's great work,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Every bone in my body laughing, singing, "GOD, there's no one like you. You put the down-and-out on their feet and protect the unprotected from bullies!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Hostile accusers appear out of nowhere, they stand up and badger me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They pay me back misery for mercy, leaving my soul empty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> When they were sick, I dressed in black; instead of eating, I prayed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> My prayers were like lead in my gut, like I'd lost my best friend, my brother. I paced, distraught as a motherless child, hunched and heavyhearted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But when I was down they threw a party! All the nameless riffraff of the town came chanting insults about me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Like barbarians desecrating a shrine, they destroyed my reputation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> GOD, how long are you going to stand there doing nothing? Save me from their brutalities; everything I've got is being thrown to the lions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I will give you full credit when everyone gathers for worship; When the people turn out in force I will say my Hallelujahs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Don't let these liars, my enemies, have a party at my expense, Those who hate me for no reason, winking and rolling their eyes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> No good is going to come from that crowd; They spend all their time cooking up gossip against those who mind their own business.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They open their mouths in ugly grins, Mocking, "Ha-ha, ha-ha, thought you'd get away with it? We've caught you hands down!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Don't you see what they're doing, GOD? You're not going to let them Get by with it, are you? Not going to walk off without doing something, are you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Please get up--wake up! Tend to my case. My God, my Lord--my life is on the line.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Do what you think is right, GOD, my God, but don't make me pay for their good time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Don't let them say to themselves, "Ha-ha, we got what we wanted." Don't let them say, "We've chewed him up and spit him out."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Let those who are being hilarious at my expense Be made to look ridiculous. Make them wear donkey's ears; Pin them with the donkey's tail, who made themselves so high and mighty!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> But those who want the best for me, Let them have the last word--a glad shout!-- and say, over and over and over, "GOD is great--everything works together for good for his servant."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> I'll tell the world how great and good you are, I'll shout Hallelujah all day, every day.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="36">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. The God-rebel tunes in to sedition-- all ears, eager to sin. He has no regard for God, he stands insolent before him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He has smooth-talked himself into believing That his evil will never be noticed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Words gutter from his mouth, dishwater dirty. Can't remember when he did anything decent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Every time he goes to bed, he fathers another evil plot. When he's loose on the streets, nobody's safe. He plays with fire and doesn't care who gets burned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> God's love is meteoric, his loyalty astronomic,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> His purpose titanic, his verdicts oceanic. Yet in his largeness nothing gets lost; Not a man, not a mouse, slips through the cracks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> How exquisite your love, O God! How eager we are to run under your wings,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> To eat our fill at the banquet you spread as you fill our tankards with Eden spring water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You're a fountain of cascading light, and you open our eyes to light.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Keep on loving your friends; do your work in welcoming hearts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Don't let the bullies kick me around, the moral midgets slap me down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Send the upstarts sprawling flat on their faces in the mud.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="37">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. Don't bother your head with braggarts or wish you could succeed like the wicked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> In no time they'll shrivel like grass clippings and wilt like cut flowers in the sun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Get insurance with GOD and do a good deed, settle down and stick to your last.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Keep company with GOD, get in on the best.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Open up before GOD, keep nothing back; he'll do whatever needs to be done:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He'll validate your life in the clear light of day and stamp you with approval at high noon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Quiet down before GOD, be prayerful before him. Don't bother with those who climb the ladder, who elbow their way to the top.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Bridle your anger, trash your wrath, cool your pipes--it only makes things worse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Before long the crooks will be bankrupt; GOD-investors will soon own the store.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Before you know it, the wicked will have had it; you'll stare at his once famous place and--nothing!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Down-to-earth people will move in and take over, relishing a huge bonanza.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Bad guys have it in for the good guys, obsessed with doing them in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But GOD isn't losing any sleep; to him they're a joke with no punch line.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Bullies brandish their swords, pull back on their bows with a flourish. They're out to beat up on the harmless, or mug that nice man out walking his dog.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> A banana peel lands them flat on their faces-- slapstick figures in a moral circus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Less is more and more is less. One righteous will outclass fifty wicked,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> For the wicked are moral weaklings but the righteous are GOD-strong.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> GOD keeps track of the decent folk; what they do won't soon be forgotten.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> In hard times, they'll hold their heads high; when the shelves are bare, they'll be full.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> God-despisers have had it; GOD's enemies are finished-- Stripped bare like vineyards at harvest time, vanished like smoke in thin air.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Wicked borrows and never returns; Righteous gives and gives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Generous gets it all in the end; Stingy is cut off at the pass.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Stalwart walks in step with GOD; his path blazed by GOD, he's happy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> If he stumbles, he's not down for long; GOD has a grip on his hand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> I once was young, now I'm a graybeard-- not once have I seen an abandoned believer, or his kids out roaming the streets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Every day he's out giving and lending, his children making him proud.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Turn your back on evil, work for the good and don't quit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> GOD loves this kind of thing, never turns away from his friends. Live this way and you've got it made, but bad eggs will be tossed out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The good get planted on good land and put down healthy roots.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Righteous chews on wisdom like a dog on a bone, rolls virtue around on his tongue.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> His heart pumps God's Word like blood through his veins; his feet are as sure as a cat's.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Wicked sets a watch for Righteous, he's out for the kill.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> GOD, alert, is also on watch-- Wicked won't hurt a hair of his head.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Wait passionately for GOD, don't leave the path. He'll give you your place in the sun while you watch the wicked lose it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> I saw Wicked bloated like a toad, croaking pretentious nonsense.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> The next time I looked there was nothing-- a punctured bladder, vapid and limp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Keep your eye on the healthy soul, scrutinize the straight life; There's a future in strenuous wholeness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> But the willful will soon be discarded; insolent souls are on a dead-end street.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> The spacious, free life is from GOD, it's also protected and safe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> GOD-strengthened, we're delivered from evil-- when we run to him, he saves us.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="38">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. Take a deep breath, GOD; calm down-- don't be so hasty with your punishing rod.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Your sharp-pointed arrows of rebuke draw blood; my backside smarts from your caning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I've lost twenty pounds in two months because of your accusation. My bones are brittle as dry sticks because of my sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'm swamped by my bad behavior, collapsed under gunnysacks of guilt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The cuts in my flesh stink and grow maggots because I've lived so badly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And now I'm flat on my face feeling sorry for myself morning to night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> All my insides are on fire, my body is a wreck.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I'm on my last legs; I've had it-- my life is a vomit of groans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Lord, my longings are sitting in plain sight, my groans an old story to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> My heart's about to break; I'm a burned-out case. Cataracts blind me to God and good;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> old friends avoid me like the plague. My cousins never visit, my neighbors stab me in the back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> My competitors blacken my name, devoutly they pray for my ruin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But I'm deaf and mute to it all, ears shut, mouth shut.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I don't hear a word they say, don't speak a word in response.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> What I do, GOD, is wait for you, wait for my Lord, my God--you will answer!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I wait and pray so they won't laugh me off, won't smugly strut off when I stumble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I'm on the edge of losing it-- the pain in my gut keeps burning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I'm ready to tell my story of failure, I'm no longer smug in my sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> My enemies are alive and in action, a lynch mob after my neck.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> I give out good and get back evil from God-haters who can't stand a God-lover.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Don't dump me, GOD; my God, don't stand me up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Hurry and help me; I want some wide-open space in my life!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="39">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. I'm determined to watch steps and tongue so they won't land me in trouble. I decided to hold my tongue as long as Wicked is in the room.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Mum's the word," I said, and kept quiet. But the longer I kept silence The worse it got--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> my insides got hotter and hotter. My thoughts boiled over; I spilled my guts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Tell me, what's going on, GOD? How long do I have to live? Give me the bad news!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You've kept me on pretty short rations; my life is string too short to be saved.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Oh! we're all puffs of air. Oh! we're all shadows in a campfire. Oh! we're just spit in the wind. We make our pile, and then we leave it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "What am I doing in the meantime, Lord? Hoping, that's what I'm doing--hoping</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You'll save me from a rebel life, save me from the contempt of dunces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'll say no more, I'll shut my mouth, since you, Lord, are behind all this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But I can't take it much longer. When you put us through the fire</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> to purge us from our sin, our dearest idols go up in smoke. Are we also nothing but smoke?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Ah, GOD, listen to my prayer, my cry--open your ears. Don't be callous; just look at these tears of mine. I'm a stranger here. I don't know my way-- a migrant like my whole family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Give me a break, cut me some slack before it's too late and I'm out of here."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="40">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. I waited and waited and waited for GOD. At last he looked; finally he listened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He lifted me out of the ditch, pulled me from deep mud. He stood me up on a solid rock to make sure I wouldn't slip.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He taught me how to sing the latest God-song, a praise-song to our God. More and more people are seeing this: they enter the mystery, abandoning themselves to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Blessed are you who give yourselves over to GOD, turn your backs on the world's "sure thing," ignore what the world worships;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The world's a huge stockpile of GOD-wonders and God-thoughts. Nothing and no one comes close to you! I start talking about you, telling what I know, and quickly run out of words. Neither numbers nor words account for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Doing something for you, bringing something to you-- that's not what you're after. Being religious, acting pious-- that's not what you're asking for. You've opened my ears so I can listen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So I answered, "I'm coming. I read in your letter what you wrote about me,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And I'm coming to the party you're throwing for me." That's when God's Word entered my life, became part of my very being.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I've preached you to the whole congregation, I've kept back nothing, GOD--you know that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I didn't keep the news of your ways a secret, didn't keep it to myself. I told it all, how dependable you are, how thorough. I didn't hold back pieces of love and truth For myself alone. I told it all, let the congregation know the whole story.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Now GOD, don't hold out on me, don't hold back your passion. Your love and truth are all that keeps me together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When troubles ganged up on me, a mob of sins past counting, I was so swamped by guilt I couldn't see my way clear. More guilt in my heart than hair on my head, so heavy the guilt that my heart gave out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Soften up, GOD, and intervene; hurry and get me some help,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> So those who are trying to kidnap my soul will be embarrassed and lose face, So anyone who gets a kick out of making me miserable will be heckled and disgraced,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So those who pray for my ruin will be booed and jeered without mercy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But all who are hunting for you-- oh, let them sing and be happy. Let those who know what you're all about tell the world you're great and not quitting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And me? I'm a mess. I'm nothing and have nothing: make something of me. You can do it; you've got what it takes-- but God, don't put it off.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="41">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. Dignify those who are down on their luck; you'll feel good--that's what GOD does.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD looks after us all, makes us robust with life-- Lucky to be in the land, we're free from enemy worries.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Whenever we're sick and in bed, GOD becomes our nurse, nurses us back to health.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I said, "GOD, be gracious! Put me together again-- my sins have torn me to pieces."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> My enemies are wishing the worst for me; they make bets on what day I will die.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> If someone comes to see me, he mouths empty platitudes, All the while gathering gossip about me to entertain the street-corner crowd.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> These "friends" who hate me whisper slanders all over town. They form committees to plan misery for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The rumor goes out, "He's got some dirty, deadly disease. The doctors have given up on him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Even my best friend, the one I always told everything --he ate meals at my house all the time!-- has bitten my hand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> GOD, give grace, get me up on my feet. I'll show them a thing or two.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Meanwhile, I'm sure you're on my side-- no victory shouts yet from the enemy camp!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> You know me inside and out, you hold me together, you never fail to stand me tall in your presence so I can look you in the eye.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Blessed is GOD, Israel's God, always, always, always. Yes. Yes. Yes.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="42">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A psalm of the sons of Korah. A white-tailed deer drinks from the creek; I want to drink God, deep draughts of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I'm thirsty for God-alive. I wonder, "Will I ever make it-- arrive and drink in God's presence?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I'm on a diet of tears-- tears for breakfast, tears for supper. All day long people knock at my door, Pestering, "Where is this God of yours?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> These are the things I go over and over, emptying out the pockets of my life. I was always at the head of the worshiping crowd, right out in front, Leading them all, eager to arrive and worship, Shouting praises, singing thanksgiving-- celebrating, all of us, God's feast!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Why are you down in the dumps, dear soul? Why are you crying the blues? Fix my eyes on God-- soon I'll be praising again. He puts a smile on my face. He's my God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When my soul is in the dumps, I rehearse everything I know of you, From Jordan depths to Hermon heights, including Mount Mizar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Chaos calls to chaos, to the tune of whitewater rapids. Your breaking surf, your thundering breakers crash and crush me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then GOD promises to love me all day, sing songs all through the night! My life is God's prayer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Sometimes I ask God, my rock-solid God, "Why did you let me down? Why am I walking around in tears, harassed by enemies?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They're out for the kill, these tormentors with their obscenities, Taunting day after day, "Where is this God of yours?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Why are you down in the dumps, dear soul? Why are you crying the blues? Fix my eyes on God-- soon I'll be praising again. He puts a smile on my face. He's my God.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="43">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Clear my name, God; stick up for me against these loveless, immoral people. Get me out of here, away from these lying degenerates.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I counted on you, God. Why did you walk out on me? Why am I pacing the floor, wringing my hands over these outrageous people?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Give me your lantern and compass, give me a map, So I can find my way to the sacred mountain, to the place of your presence,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> To enter the place of worship, meet my exuberant God, Sing my thanks with a harp, magnificent God, my God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Why are you down in the dumps, dear soul? Why are you crying the blues? Fix my eyes on God-- soon I'll be praising again. He puts a smile on my face. He's my God.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="44">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A psalm of the sons of Korah. We've been hearing about this, God, all our lives. Our fathers told us the stories their fathers told them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> How single-handedly you weeded out the godless from the fields and planted us, How you sent those people packing but gave us a fresh start.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> We didn't fight for this land; we didn't work for it--it was a gift! You gave it, smiling as you gave it, delighting as you gave it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You're my King, O God-- command victories for Jacob!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> With your help we'll wipe out our enemies, in your name we'll stomp them to dust.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I don't trust in weapons; my sword won't save me--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But it's you, you who saved us from the enemy; you made those who hate us lose face.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> All day we parade God's praise-- we thank you by name over and over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But now you've walked off and left us, you've disgraced us and won't fight for us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You made us turn tail and run; those who hate us have cleaned us out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> You delivered us as sheep to the butcher, you scattered us to the four winds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> You sold your people at a discount-- you made nothing on the sale.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You made people on the street, urchins, poke fun and call us names.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> You made us a joke among the godless, a cheap joke among the rabble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Every day I'm up against it, my nose rubbed in my shame--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Gossip and ridicule fill the air, people out to get me crowd the street.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> All this came down on us, and we've done nothing to deserve it. We never betrayed your Covenant:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> our hearts were never false, our feet never left your path.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Do we deserve torture in a den of jackals? or lockup in a black hole?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> If we had forgotten to pray to our God or made fools of ourselves with store-bought gods,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Wouldn't God have figured this out? We can't hide things from him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> No, you decided to make us martyrs, lambs assigned for sacrifice each day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Get up, GOD! Are you going to sleep all day? Wake up! Don't you care what happens to us?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Why do you bury your face in the pillow? Why pretend things are just fine with us?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> And here we are--flat on our faces in the dirt, held down with a boot on our necks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Get up and come to our rescue. If you love us so much, Help us!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="45">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A wedding song of the sons of Korah. My heart bursts its banks, spilling beauty and goodness. I pour it out in a poem to the king, shaping the river into words:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "You're the handsomest of men; every word from your lips is sheer grace, and God has blessed you, blessed you so much.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Strap your sword to your side, warrior! Accept praise! Accept due honor! Ride majestically! Ride triumphantly!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Ride on the side of truth! Ride for the righteous meek! "Your instructions are glow-in-the-dark;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> you shoot sharp arrows Into enemy hearts; the king's foes lie down in the dust, beaten.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Your throne is God's throne, ever and always; The scepter of your royal rule measures right living.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You love the right and hate the wrong. And that is why God, your very own God, poured fragrant oil on your head, Marking you out as king from among your dear companions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Your ozone-drenched garments are fragrant with mountain breeze. Chamber music--from the throne room-- makes you want to dance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Kings' daughters are maids in your court, the Bride glittering with golden jewelry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Now listen, daughter, don't miss a word: forget your country, put your home behind you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Be here--the king is wild for you. Since he's your lord, adore him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Wedding gifts pour in from Tyre; rich guests shower you with presents."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> (Her wedding dress is dazzling, lined with gold by the weavers;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> All her dresses and robes are woven with gold. She is led to the king, followed by her virgin companions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> A procession of joy and laughter! a grand entrance to the king's palace!)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Set your mind now on sons-- don't dote on father and grandfather. You'll set your sons up as princes all over the earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I'll make you famous for generations; you'll be the talk of the town for a long, long time."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="46">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A song of the sons of Korah. God is a safe place to hide, ready to help when we need him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom, courageous in seastorm and earthquake,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Before the rush and roar of oceans, the tremors that shift mountains. Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, GOD of angel armies protects us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> River fountains splash joy, cooling God's city, this sacred haunt of the Most High.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> God lives here, the streets are safe, God at your service from crack of dawn.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Godless nations rant and rave, kings and kingdoms threaten, but Earth does anything he says.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, GOD of angel armies protects us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Attention, all! See the marvels of GOD! He plants flowers and trees all over the earth,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Bans war from pole to pole, breaks all the weapons across his knee.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Step out of the traffic! Take a long, loving look at me, your High God, above politics, above everything."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, GOD of angel armies protects us.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="47">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A psalm of the sons of Korah. Applause, everyone. Bravo, bravissimo! Shout God-songs at the top of your lungs!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD Most High is stunning, astride land and ocean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He crushes hostile people, puts nations at our feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He set us at the head of the line, prize-winning Jacob, his favorite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Loud cheers as God climbs the mountain, a ram's horn blast at the summit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Sing songs to God, sing out! Sing to our King, sing praise!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He's Lord over earth, so sing your best songs to God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> God is Lord of godless nations-- sovereign, he's King of the mountain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Princes from all over are gathered, people of Abraham's God. The powers of earth are God's-- he soars over all.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="48">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A psalm of the sons of Korah. GOD majestic, praise abounds in our God-city! His sacred mountain,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> breathtaking in its heights--earth's joy. Zion Mountain looms in the North, city of the world-King.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> God in his citadel peaks impregnable.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The kings got together, they united and came.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They took one look and shook their heads, they scattered and ran away.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They doubled up in pain like a woman having a baby.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You smashed the ships of Tarshish with a storm out of the East.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> We heard about it, then we saw it with our eyes-- In GOD's city of angel armies, in the city our God Set on firm foundations, firm forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> We pondered your love-in-action, God, waiting in your temple:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Your name, God, evokes a train of Hallelujahs wherever It is spoken, near and far; your arms are heaped with goodness-in-action.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Be glad, Zion Mountain; Dance, Judah's daughters! He does what he said he'd do!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Circle Zion, take her measure, count her fortress peaks,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Gaze long at her sloping bulwark, climb her citadel heights-- Then you can tell the next generation detail by detail the story of God,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Our God forever, who guides us till the end of time.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="49">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A psalm of the sons of Korah. Listen, everyone, listen-- earth-dwellers, don't miss this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> All you haves and have-nots, All together now: listen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I set plainspoken wisdom before you, my heart-seasoned understandings of life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I fine-tuned my ear to the sayings of the wise, I solve life's riddle with the help of a harp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> So why should I fear in bad times, hemmed in by enemy malice,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Shoved around by bullies, demeaned by the arrogant rich?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Really! There's no such thing as self-rescue, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The cost of rescue is beyond our means, and even then it doesn't guarantee</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Life forever, or insurance against the Black Hole.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Anyone can see that the brightest and best die, wiped out right along with fools and dunces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They leave all their prowess behind, move into their new home, The Coffin, The cemetery their permanent address. And to think they named counties after themselves!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> We aren't immortal. We don't last long. Like our dogs, we age and weaken. And die.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> This is what happens to those who live for the moment, who only look out for themselves:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Death herds them like sheep straight to hell; they disappear down the gullet of the grave; They waste away to nothing-- nothing left but a marker in a cemetery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But me? God snatches me from the clutch of death, he reaches down and grabs me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So don't be impressed with those who get rich and pile up fame and fortune.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> They can't take it with them; fame and fortune all get left behind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Just when they think they've arrived and folks praise them because they've made good,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They enter the family burial plot where they'll never see sunshine again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> We aren't immortal. We don't last long. Like our dogs, we age and weaken. And die.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="50">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> An Asaph psalm. The God of gods--it's GOD!--speaks out, shouts, "Earth!" welcomes the sun in the east, farewells the disappearing sun in the west.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> From the dazzle of Zion, God blazes into view.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Our God makes his entrance, he's not shy in his coming. Starbursts of fireworks precede him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He summons heaven and earth as a jury, he's taking his people to court:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Round up my saints who swore on the Bible their loyalty to me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The whole cosmos attests to the fairness of this court, that here God is judge.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Are you listening, dear people? I'm getting ready to speak; Israel, I'm about ready to bring you to trial. This is God, your God, speaking to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I don't find fault with your acts of worship, the frequent burnt sacrifices you offer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But why should I want your blue-ribbon bull, or more and more goats from your herds?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Every creature in the forest is mine, the wild animals on all the mountains.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I know every mountain bird by name; the scampering field mice are my friends.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> If I get hungry, do you think I'd tell you? All creation and its bounty are mine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Do you think I feast on venison? or drink draughts of goats' blood?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Spread for me a banquet of praise, serve High God a feast of kept promises,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And call for help when you're in trouble-- I'll help you, and you'll honor me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Next, God calls up the wicked: "What are you up to, quoting my laws, talking like we are good friends?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> You never answer the door when I call; you treat my words like garbage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> If you find a thief, you make him your buddy; adulterers are your friends of choice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Your mouth drools filth; lying is a serious art form with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> You stab your own brother in the back, rip off your little sister.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I kept a quiet patience while you did these things; you thought I went along with your game. I'm calling you on the carpet, now, laying your wickedness out in plain sight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Time's up for playing fast and loose with me. I'm ready to pass sentence, and there's no help in sight!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> It's the praising life that honors me. As soon as you set your foot on the Way, I'll show you my salvation." A David psalm, after he was confronted by Nathan about the affair with Bathsheba.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="51">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Generous in love--God, give grace! Huge in mercy--wipe out my bad record.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Scrub away my guilt, soak out my sins in your laundry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I know how bad I've been; my sins are staring me down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You're the One I've violated, and you've seen it all, seen the full extent of my evil. You have all the facts before you; whatever you decide about me is fair.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I've been out of step with you for a long time, in the wrong since before I was born.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> What you're after is truth from the inside out. Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Soak me in your laundry and I'll come out clean, scrub me and I'll have a snow-white life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Tune me in to foot-tapping songs, set these once-broken bones to dancing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Don't look too close for blemishes, give me a clean bill of health.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Don't throw me out with the trash, or fail to breathe holiness in me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Bring me back from gray exile, put a fresh wind in my sails!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Give me a job teaching rebels your ways so the lost can find their way home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God, and I'll sing anthems to your life-giving ways.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Unbutton my lips, dear God; I'll let loose with your praise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Going through the motions doesn't please you, a flawless performance is nothing to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I learned God-worship when my pride was shattered. Heart-shattered lives ready for love don't for a moment escape God's notice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Make Zion the place you delight in, repair Jerusalem's broken-down walls.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Then you'll get real worship from us, acts of worship small and large, Including all the bulls they can heave onto your altar! A David psalm, when Doeg the Edomite reported to Saul,"David's at Ahimelech's house."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="52">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Why do you brag of evil, "Big Man"? God's mercy carries the day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> You scheme catastrophe; your tongue cuts razor-sharp, artisan in lies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You love evil more than good, you call black white.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You love malicious gossip, you foul-mouth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> God will tear you limb from limb, sweep you up and throw you out, Pull you up by the roots from the land of life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Good people will watch and worship. They'll laugh in relief:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Big Man bet on the wrong horse, trusted in big money, made his living from catastrophe."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And I'm an olive tree, growing green in God's house. I trusted in the generous mercy of God then and now.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I thank you always that you went into action. And I'll stay right here, your good name my hope, in company with your faithful friends.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="53">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. Bilious and bloated, they gas, "God is gone." It's poison gas-- they foul themselves, they poison Rivers and skies; thistles are their cash crop.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> God sticks his head out of heaven. He looks around. He's looking for someone not stupid-- one man, even, God-expectant, just one God-ready woman.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He comes up empty. A string of zeros. Useless, unshepherded Sheep, taking turns pretending to be Shepherd. The ninety and nine follow the one.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Don't they know anything, all these impostors? Don't they know they can't get away with this, Treating people like a fast-food meal over which they're too busy to pray?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Night is coming for them, and nightmare-- a nightmare they'll never wake up from. God will make hash of these squatters, send them packing for good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Is there anyone around to save Israel? God turns life around. Turned-around Jacob skips rope, turned-around Israel sings laughter. A David psalm, when the Ziphites reported to Saul, "David is hiding out with us."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="54">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> God, for your sake, help me! Use your influence to clear me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Listen, God--I'm desperate. Don't be too busy to hear me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Outlaws are out to get me, hit men are trying to kill me. Nothing will stop them; God means nothing to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Oh, look! God's right here helping! GOD's on my side,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Evil is looping back on my enemies. Don't let up! Finish them off!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I'm ready now to worship, so ready. I thank you, GOD--you're so good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You got me out of every scrape, and I saw my enemies get it.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="55">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. Open your ears, God, to my prayer; don't pretend you don't hear me knocking.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Come close and whisper your answer. I really need you. I shudder</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> at the mean voice, quail before the evil eye, As they pile on the guilt, stockpile angry slander.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> My insides are turned inside out; specters of death have me down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I shake with fear, I shudder from head to foot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Who will give me wings," I ask-- "wings like a dove?" Get me out of here on dove wings;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I want some peace and quiet. I want a walk in the country,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I want a cabin in the woods. I'm desperate for a change from rage and stormy weather.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Come down hard, Lord--slit their tongues. I'm appalled how they've split the city Into rival gangs prowling the alleys</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Day and night spoiling for a fight, trash piled in the streets,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Even shopkeepers gouging and cheating in broad daylight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> This isn't the neighborhood bully mocking me--I could take that. This isn't a foreign devil spitting invective--I could tune that out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> It's you! We grew up together! You! My best friend!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Those long hours of leisure as we walked arm in arm, God a third party to our conversation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Haul my betrayers off alive to hell--let them experience the horror, let them feel every desolate detail of a damned life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I call to God; GOD will help me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> At dusk, dawn, and noon I sigh deep sighs--he hears, he rescues.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> My life is well and whole, secure in the middle of danger Even while thousands are lined up against me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> God hears it all, and from his judge's bench puts them in their place. But, set in their ways, they won't change; they pay him no mind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And this, my best friend, betrayed his best friends; his life betrayed his word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> All my life I've been charmed by his speech, never dreaming he'd turn on me. His words, which were music to my ears, turned to daggers in my heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Pile your troubles on GOD's shoulders-- he'll carry your load, he'll help you out. He'll never let good people topple into ruin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But you, God, will throw the others into a muddy bog, Cut the lifespan of assassins and traitors in half. And I trust in you. A David psalm, when he was captured by the Philistines in Gath.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="56">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Take my side, God--I'm getting kicked around, stomped on every day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Not a day goes by but somebody beats me up; They make it their duty to beat me up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When I get really afraid I come to you in trust.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'm proud to praise God; fearless now, I trust in God. What can mere mortals do?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They don't let up-- they smear my reputation and huddle to plot my collapse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They gang up, sneak together through the alleys To take me by surprise, wait their chance to get me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Pay them back in evil! Get angry, God! Down with these people!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You've kept track of my every toss and turn through the sleepless nights, Each tear entered in your ledger, each ache written in your book.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> If my enemies run away, turn tail when I yell at them, Then I'll know that God is on my side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I'm proud to praise God, proud to praise GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Fearless now, I trust in God; what can mere mortals do to me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> God, you did everything you promised, and I'm thanking you with all my heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You pulled me from the brink of death, my feet from the cliff-edge of doom. Now I stroll at leisure with God in the sunlit fields of life. A David psalm, when he hid in a cave from Saul.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="57">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Be good to me, God--and now! I've run to you for dear life. I'm hiding out under your wings until the hurricane blows over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I call out to High God, the God who holds me together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He sends orders from heaven and saves me, he humiliates those who kick me around. God delivers generous love, he makes good on his word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I find myself in a pride of lions who are wild for a taste of human flesh; Their teeth are lances and arrows, their tongues are sharp daggers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Soar high in the skies, O God! Cover the whole earth with your glory!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They booby trapped my path; I thought I was dead and done for. They dug a mantrap to catch me, and fell in headlong themselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I'm ready, God, so ready, ready from head to toe, Ready to sing, ready to raise a tune:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Wake up, soul! Wake up, harp! wake up, lute! Wake up, you sleepyhead sun!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'm thanking you, GOD, out loud in the streets, singing your praises in town and country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The deeper your love, the higher it goes; every cloud is a flag to your faithfulness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Soar high in the skies, O God! Cover the whole earth with your glory!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="58">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. Is this any way to run a country? Is there an honest politician in the house?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Behind the scenes you brew cauldrons of evil, behind closed doors you make deals with demons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The wicked crawl from the wrong side of the cradle; their first words out of the womb are lies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Poison, lethal rattlesnake poison, drips from their forked tongues--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Deaf to threats, deaf to charm, decades of wax built up in their ears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> God, smash their teeth to bits, leave them toothless tigers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Let their lives be buckets of water spilled, all that's left, a damp stain in the sand. Let them be trampled grass worn smooth by the traffic.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Let them dissolve into snail slime, be a miscarried fetus that never sees sunlight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Before what they cook up is half-done, God, throw it out with the garbage!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The righteous will call up their friends when they see the wicked get their reward, Serve up their blood in goblets as they toast one another,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Everyone cheering, "It's worth it to play by the rules! God's handing out trophies and tending the earth!" A David psalm, when Saul set a watch on David's house in order to kill him.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="59">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> My God! Rescue me from my enemies, defend me from these mutineers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Rescue me from their dirty tricks, save me from their hit men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Desperadoes have ganged up on me, they're hiding in ambush for me. I did nothing to deserve this, GOD,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> crossed no one, wronged no one. All the same, they're after me, determined to get me. Wake up and see for yourself!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You're GOD, God of angel armies, Israel's God! Get on the job and take care of these pagans, don't be soft on these hard cases.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They return when the sun goes down, They howl like coyotes, ringing the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Then suddenly they're all at the gate, Snarling invective, drawn daggers in their teeth. They think they'll never get caught.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But you, GOD, break out laughing; you treat the godless nations like jokes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Strong God, I'm watching you do it, I can always count on you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> God in dependable love shows up on time, shows me my enemies in ruin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Don't make quick work of them, GOD, lest my people forget. Bring them down in slow motion, take them apart piece by piece.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Let all their mean-mouthed arrogance catch up with them, Catch them out and bring them down --every muttered curse --every barefaced lie.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Finish them off in fine style! Finish them off for good! Then all the world will see that God rules well in Jacob, everywhere that God's in charge.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They return when the sun goes down, They howl like coyotes, ringing the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They scavenge for bones, And bite the hand that feeds them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> And me? I'm singing your prowess, shouting at cockcrow your largesse, For you've been a safe place for me, a good place to hide.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Strong God, I'm watching you do it, I can always count on you-- God, my dependable love. A David psalm, when he fought against Aram-naharaim and Aram-zobah and Joab killed twelve thousand Edomites at the Valley of Salt.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="60">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> God! you walked off and left us, kicked our defenses to bits And stalked off angry. Come back. Oh please, come back!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> You shook earth to the foundations, ripped open huge crevasses. Heal the breaks! Everything's coming apart at the seams.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You made your people look doom in the face, then gave us cheap wine to drown our troubles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then you planted a flag to rally your people, an unfurled flag to look to for courage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Now do something quickly, answer right now, so the one you love best is saved.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> That's when God spoke in holy splendor, "Bursting with joy, I make a present of Shechem, I hand out Succoth Valley as a gift.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Gilead's in my pocket, to say nothing of Manasseh. Ephraim's my hard hat, Judah my hammer;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Moab's a scrub bucket, I mop the floor with Moab, Spit on Edom, rain fireworks all over Philistia."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Who will take me to the thick of the fight? Who'll show me the road to Edom?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You aren't giving up on us, are you, God? refusing to go out with our troops?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Give us help for the hard task; human help is worthless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> In God we'll do our very best; he'll flatten the opposition for good.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="61">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. God, listen to me shout, bend an ear to my prayer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> When I'm far from anywhere, down to my last gasp, I call out, "Guide me up High Rock Mountain!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You've always given me breathing room, a place to get away from it all,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> A lifetime pass to your safe-house, an open invitation as your guest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You've always taken me seriously, God, made me welcome among those who know and love you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Let the days of the king add up to years and years of good rule.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Set his throne in the full light of God; post Steady Love and Good Faith as lookouts,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And I'll be the poet who sings your glory-- and live what I sing every day.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="62">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. God, the one and only-- I'll wait as long as he says. Everything I need comes from him, so why not?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He's solid rock under my feet, breathing room for my soul, An impregnable castle: I'm set for life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> How long will you gang up on me? How long will you run with the bullies? There's nothing to you, any of you-- rotten floorboards, worm-eaten rafters,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Anthills plotting to bring down mountains, far gone in make-believe. You talk a good line, but every "blessing" breathes a curse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> God, the one and only-- I'll wait as long as he says. Everything I hope for comes from him, so why not?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He's solid rock under my feet, breathing room for my soul, An impregnable castle: I'm set for life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> My help and glory are in God --granite-strength and safe-harbor-God--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> So trust him absolutely, people; lay your lives on the line for him. God is a safe place to be.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Man as such is smoke, woman as such, a mirage. Put them together, they're nothing; two times nothing is nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And a windfall, if it comes-- don't make too much of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> God said this once and for all; how many times Have I heard it repeated? "Strength comes Straight from God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Love to you, Lord God! You pay a fair wage for a good day's work! A David psalm, when he was out in the Judean wilderness.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="63">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> God--you're my God! I can't get enough of you! I've worked up such hunger and thirst for God, traveling across dry and weary deserts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> So here I am in the place of worship, eyes open, drinking in your strength and glory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> In your generous love I am really living at last! My lips brim praises like fountains.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I bless you every time I take a breath; My arms wave like banners of praise to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I eat my fill of prime rib and gravy; I smack my lips. It's time to shout praises!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> If I'm sleepless at midnight, I spend the hours in grateful reflection.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Because you've always stood up for me, I'm free to run and play.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I hold on to you for dear life, and you hold me steady as a post.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Those who are out to get me are marked for doom, marked for death, bound for hell.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They'll die violent deaths; jackals will tear them limb from limb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But the king is glad in God; his true friends spread the joy, While small-minded gossips are gagged for good.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="64">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. Listen and help, O God. I'm reduced to a whine And a whimper, obsessed with feelings of doomsday.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Don't let them find me-- the conspirators out to get me,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Using their tongues as weapons, flinging poison words, poison-tipped arrow-words.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They shoot from ambush, shoot without warning, not caring who they hit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They keep fit doing calisthenics of evil purpose, They keep lists of the traps they've secretly set. They say to each other, "No one can catch us,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> no one can detect our perfect crime." The Detective detects the mystery in the dark of the cellar heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The God of the Arrow shoots! They double up in pain,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Fall flat on their faces in full view of the grinning crowd.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Everyone sees it. God's work is the talk of the town.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Be glad, good people! Fly to GOD! Good-hearted people, make praise your habit.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="65">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. Silence is praise to you, Zion-dwelling God, And also obedience.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> You hear the prayer in it all. We all arrive at your doorstep sooner or later, loaded with guilt,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Our sins too much for us-- but you get rid of them once and for all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Blessed are the chosen! Blessed the guest at home in your place! We expect our fill of good things in your house, your heavenly manse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> All your salvation wonders are on display in your trophy room. Earth-Tamer, Ocean-Pourer,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Mountain-Maker, Hill-Dresser,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Muzzler of sea storm and wave crash, of mobs in noisy riot--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Far and wide they'll come to a stop, they'll stare in awe, in wonder. Dawn and dusk take turns calling, "Come and worship."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Oh, visit the earth, ask her to join the dance! Deck her out in spring showers, fill the God-River with living water. Paint the wheat fields golden. Creation was made for this!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Drench the plowed fields, soak the dirt clods With rainfall as harrow and rake bring her to blossom and fruit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Snow-crown the peaks with splendor, scatter rose petals down your paths,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> All through the wild meadows, rose petals. Set the hills to dancing,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Dress the canyon walls with live sheep, a drape of flax across the valleys. Let them shout, and shout, and shout! Oh, oh, let them sing!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="66">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> All together now--applause for God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Sing songs to the tune of his glory, set glory to the rhythms of his praise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Say of God, "We've never seen anything like him!" When your enemies see you in action, they slink off like scolded dogs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The whole earth falls to its knees-- it worships you, sings to you, can't stop enjoying your name and fame.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Take a good look at God's wonders-- they'll take your breath away.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He converted sea to dry land; travelers crossed the river on foot. Now isn't that cause for a song?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Ever sovereign in his high tower, he keeps his eye on the godless nations. Rebels don't dare raise a finger against him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Bless our God, O peoples! Give him a thunderous welcome!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Didn't he set us on the road to life? Didn't he keep us out of the ditch?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He trained us first, passed us like silver through refining fires,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Brought us into hardscrabble country, pushed us to our very limit,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Road-tested us inside and out, took us to hell and back; Finally he brought us to this well-watered place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I'm bringing my prizes and presents to your house. I'm doing what I said I'd do,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> What I solemnly swore I'd do that day when I was in so much trouble:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The choicest cuts of meat for the sacrificial meal; Even the fragrance of roasted lamb is like a meal! Or make it an ox garnished with goat meat!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> All believers, come here and listen, let me tell you what God did for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I called out to him with my mouth, my tongue shaped the sounds of music.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> If I had been cozy with evil, the Lord would never have listened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But he most surely did listen, he came on the double when he heard my prayer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Blessed be God: he didn't turn a deaf ear, he stayed with me, loyal in his love.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="67">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> God, mark us with grace and blessing! Smile!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The whole country will see how you work, all the godless nations see how you save.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> God! Let people thank and enjoy you. Let all people thank and enjoy you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Let all far-flung people become happy and shout their happiness because You judge them fair and square, you tend the far-flung peoples.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> God! Let people thank and enjoy you. Let all people thank and enjoy you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Earth, display your exuberance! You mark us with blessing, O God, our God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You mark us with blessing, O God. Earth's four corners--honor him!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="68">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. Up with God! Down with his enemies! Adversaries, run for the hills!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Gone like a puff of smoke, like a blob of wax in the fire-- one look at God and the wicked vanish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When the righteous see God in action they'll laugh, they'll sing, they'll laugh and sing for joy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Sing hymns to God; all heaven, sing out; clear the way for the coming of Cloud-Rider. Enjoy GOD, cheer when you see him!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Father of orphans, champion of widows, is God in his holy house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> God makes homes for the homeless, leads prisoners to freedom, but leaves rebels to rot in hell.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> God, when you took the lead with your people, when you marched out into the wild,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Earth shook, sky broke out in a sweat; God was on the march. Even Sinai trembled at the sight of God on the move, at the sight of Israel's God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You pour out rain in buckets, O God; thorn and cactus become an oasis</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> For your people to camp in and enjoy. You set them up in business; they went from rags to riches.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The Lord gave the word; thousands called out the good news:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Kings of the armies are on the run, on the run!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> While housewives, safe and sound back home, divide up the plunder, the plunder of Canaanite silver and gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> On that day that Shaddai scattered the kings, snow fell on Black Mountain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> You huge mountains, Bashan mountains, mighty mountains, dragon mountains.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> All you mountains not chosen, sulk now, and feel sorry for yourselves, For this is the mountain God has chosen to live on; he'll rule from this mountain forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The chariots of God, twice ten thousand, and thousands more besides, The Lord in the lead, riding down Sinai-- straight to the Holy Place!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> You climbed to the High Place, captives in tow, your arms full of booty from rebels, And now you sit there in state, GOD, sovereign GOD!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Blessed be the Lord-- day after day he carries us along.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He's our Savior, our God, oh yes! He's God-for-us, he's God-who-saves-us. Lord GOD knows all death's ins and outs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> What's more, he made heads roll, split the skulls of the enemy As he marched out of heaven,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> saying, "I tied up the Dragon in knots, put a muzzle on the Deep Blue Sea."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> You can wade through your enemies' blood, and your dogs taste of your enemies from your boots.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> See God on parade to the sanctuary, my God, my King on the march!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Singers out front, the band behind, maidens in the middle with castanets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The whole choir blesses God. Like a fountain of praise, Israel blesses GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Look--little Benjamin's out front and leading Princes of Judah in their royal robes, princes of Zebulon, princes of Naphtali.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Parade your power, O God, the power, O God, that made us what we are.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Your temple, High God, is Jerusalem; kings bring gifts to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Rebuke that old crocodile, Egypt, with her herd of wild bulls and calves, Rapacious in her lust for silver, crushing peoples, spoiling for a fight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Let Egyptian traders bring blue cloth and Cush come running to God, her hands outstretched.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Sing, O kings of the earth! Sing praises to the Lord!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> There he is: Sky-Rider, striding the ancient skies. Listen--he's calling in thunder, rumbling, rolling thunder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Call out "Bravo!" to God, the High God of Israel. His splendor and strength rise huge as thunderheads.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> A terrible beauty, O God, streams from your sanctuary. It's Israel's strong God! He gives power and might to his people! O you, his people--bless God!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="69">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. God, God, save me! I'm in over my head,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Quicksand under me, swamp water over me; I'm going down for the third time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I'm hoarse from calling for help, Bleary-eyed from searching the sky for God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I've got more enemies than hairs on my head; Sneaks and liars are out to knife me in the back. What I never stole Must I now give back?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> God, you know every sin I've committed; My life's a wide-open book before you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Don't let those who look to you in hope Be discouraged by what happens to me, Dear Lord! GOD of the armies! Don't let those out looking for you Come to a dead end by following me-- Please, dear God of Israel!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Because of you I look like an idiot, I walk around ashamed to show my face.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> My brothers shun me like a bum off the street; My family treats me like an unwanted guest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I love you more than I can say. Because I'm madly in love with you, They blame me for everything they dislike about you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When I poured myself out in prayer and fasting, All it got me was more contempt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> When I put on a sad face, They treated me like a clown.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Now drunks and gluttons Make up drinking songs about me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And me? I pray. GOD, it's time for a break! God, answer in love! Answer with your sure salvation!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Rescue me from the swamp, Don't let me go under for good, Pull me out of the clutch of the enemy; This whirlpool is sucking me down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Don't let the swamp be my grave, the Black Hole Swallow me, its jaws clenched around me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Now answer me, GOD, because you love me; Let me see your great mercy full-face.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Don't look the other way; your servant can't take it. I'm in trouble. Answer right now!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Come close, God; get me out of here. Rescue me from this deathtrap.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> You know how they kick me around-- Pin on me the donkey's ears, the dunce's cap.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> I'm broken by their taunts, Flat on my face, reduced to a nothing. I looked in vain for one friendly face. Not one. I couldn't find one shoulder to cry on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They put poison in my soup, Vinegar in my drink.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Let their supper be bait in a trap that snaps shut; May their best friends be trappers who'll skin them alive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Make them become blind as bats, Give them the shakes from morning to night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Let them know what you think of them, Blast them with your red-hot anger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Burn down their houses, Leave them desolate with nobody at home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> They gossiped about the one you disciplined, Made up stories about anyone wounded by God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Pile on the guilt, Don't let them off the hook.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Strike their names from the list of the living; No rock-carved honor for them among the righteous.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> I'm hurt and in pain; Give me space for healing, and mountain air.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Let me shout God's name with a praising song, Let me tell his greatness in a prayer of thanks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> For GOD, this is better than oxen on the altar, Far better than blue-ribbon bulls.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The poor in spirit see and are glad-- Oh, you God-seekers, take heart!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> For GOD listens to the poor, He doesn't walk out on the wretched.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> You heavens, praise him; praise him, earth; Also ocean and all things that swim in it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> For God is out to help Zion, Rebuilding the wrecked towns of Judah. Guess who will live there-- The proud owners of the land?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> No, the children of his servants will get it, The lovers of his name will live in it.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="70">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David prayer. God! Please hurry to my rescue! God, come quickly to my side!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Those who are out to get me-- let them fall all over themselves. Those who relish my downfall-- send them down a blind alley.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Give them a taste of their own medicine, those gossips off clucking their tongues.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Let those on the hunt for you sing and celebrate. Let all who love your saving way say over and over, "God is mighty!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But I've lost it. I'm wasted. God--quickly, quickly! Quick to my side, quick to my rescue! GOD, don't lose a minute.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="71">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I run for dear life to GOD, I'll never live to regret it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Do what you do so well: get me out of this mess and up on my feet. Put your ear to the ground and listen, give me space for salvation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Be a guest room where I can retreat; you said your door was always open! You're my salvation--my vast, granite fortress.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> My God, free me from the grip of Wicked, from the clutch of Bad and Bully.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You keep me going when times are tough-- my bedrock, GOD, since my childhood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I've hung on you from the day of my birth, the day you took me from the cradle; I'll never run out of praise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Many gasp in alarm when they see me, but you take me in stride.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Just as each day brims with your beauty, my mouth brims with praise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But don't turn me out to pasture when I'm old or put me on the shelf when I can't pull my weight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> My enemies are talking behind my back, watching for their chance to knife me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The gossip is: "God has abandoned him. Pounce on him now; no one will help him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> God, don't just watch from the sidelines. Come on! Run to my side!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> My accusers--make them lose face. Those out to get me--make them look Like idiots,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> while I stretch out, reaching for you, and daily add praise to praise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I'll write the book on your righteousness, talk up your salvation the livelong day, never run out of good things to write or say.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I come in the power of the Lord GOD, I post signs marking his right-of-way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> You got me when I was an unformed youth, God, and taught me everything I know. Now I'm telling the world your wonders;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I'll keep at it until I'm old and gray. God, don't walk off and leave me until I get out the news Of your strong right arm to this world, news of your power to the world yet to come,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Your famous and righteous ways, O God. God, you've done it all! Who is quite like you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> You, who made me stare trouble in the face, Turn me around; Now let me look life in the face. I've been to the bottom; Bring me up,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> streaming with honors; turn to me, be tender to me,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> And I'll take up the lute and thank you to the tune of your faithfulness, God. I'll make music for you on a harp, Holy One of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> When I open up in song to you, I let out lungsful of praise, my rescued life a song.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> All day long I'm chanting about you and your righteous ways, While those who tried to do me in slink off looking ashamed.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="72">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A Solomon psalm. Give the gift of wise rule to the king, O God, the gift of just rule to the crown prince.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> May he judge your people rightly, be honorable to your meek and lowly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Let the mountains give exuberant witness; shape the hills with the contours of right living.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Please stand up for the poor, help the children of the needy, come down hard on the cruel tyrants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Outlast the sun, outlive the moon-- age after age after age.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Be rainfall on cut grass, earth-refreshing rain showers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Let righteousness burst into blossom and peace abound until the moon fades to nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Rule from sea to sea, from the River to the Rim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Foes will fall on their knees before God, his enemies lick the dust.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Kings remote and legendary will pay homage, kings rich and resplendent will turn over their wealth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> All kings will fall down and worship, and godless nations sign up to serve him,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Because he rescues the poor at the first sign of need, the destitute who have run out of luck.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He opens a place in his heart for the down-and-out, he restores the wretched of the earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He frees them from tyranny and torture-- when they bleed, he bleeds; when they die, he dies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And live! Oh, let him live! Deck him out in Sheba gold. Offer prayers unceasing to him, bless him from morning to night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Fields of golden grain in the land, cresting the mountains in wild exuberance, Cornucopias of praise, praises springing from the city like grass from the earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> May he never be forgotten, his fame shine on like sunshine. May all godless people enter his circle of blessing and bless the One who blessed them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Blessed GOD, Israel's God, the one and only wonder-working God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Blessed always his blazing glory! All earth brims with his glory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Yes and Yes and Yes.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="73">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> An Asaph psalm. No doubt about it! God is good-- good to good people, good to the good-hearted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> But I nearly missed it, missed seeing his goodness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I was looking the other way, looking up to the people</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> At the top, envying the wicked who have it made,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Who have nothing to worry about, not a care in the whole wide world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Pretentious with arrogance, they wear the latest fashions in violence,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Pampered and overfed, decked out in silk bows of silliness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They jeer, using words to kill; they bully their way with words.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They're full of hot air, loudmouths disturbing the peace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> People actually listen to them--can you believe it? Like thirsty puppies, they lap up their words.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> What's going on here? Is God out to lunch? Nobody's tending the store.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The wicked get by with everything; they have it made, piling up riches</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I've been stupid to play by the rules; what has it gotten me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> A long run of bad luck, that's what-- a slap in the face every time I walk out the door.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> If I'd have given in and talked like this, I would have betrayed your dear children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Still, when I tried to figure it out, all I got was a splitting headache . . .</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Until I entered the sanctuary of God. Then I saw the whole picture:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The slippery road you've put them on, with a final crash in a ditch of delusions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> In the blink of an eye, disaster! A blind curve in the dark, and--nightmare!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> We wake up and rub our eyes. . . . Nothing. There's nothing to them. And there never was.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> When I was beleaguered and bitter, totally consumed by envy,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I was totally ignorant, a dumb ox in your very presence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> I'm still in your presence, but you've taken my hand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> You wisely and tenderly lead me, and then you bless me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> You're all I want in heaven! You're all I want on earth!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> When my skin sags and my bones get brittle, GOD is rock-firm and faithful.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Look! Those who left you are falling apart! Deserters, they'll never be heard from again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> But I'm in the very presence of God-- oh, how refreshing it is! I've made Lord GOD my home. God, I'm telling the world what you do!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="74">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> An Asaph psalm. You walked off and left us, and never looked back. God, how could you do that? We're your very own sheep; how can you stomp off in anger?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Refresh your memory of us--you bought us a long time ago. Your most precious tribe--you paid a good price for us! Your very own Mount Zion--you actually lived here once!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Come and visit the site of disaster, see how they've wrecked the sanctuary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> While your people were at worship, your enemies barged in, brawling and scrawling graffiti.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They set fire to the porch; axes swinging, they chopped up the woodwork,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Beat down the doors with sledgehammers, then split them into kindling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They burned your holy place to the ground, violated the place of worship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They said to themselves, "We'll wipe them all out," and burned down all the places of worship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> There's not a sign or symbol of God in sight, nor anyone to speak in his name, no one who knows what's going on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> How long, God, will barbarians blaspheme, enemies curse and get by with it?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Why don't you do something? How long are you going to sit there with your hands folded in your lap?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> God is my King from the very start; he works salvation in the womb of the earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> With one blow you split the sea in two, you made mincemeat of the dragon Tannin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> You lopped off the heads of Leviathan, then served them up in a stew for the animals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> With your finger you opened up springs and creeks, and dried up the wild floodwaters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> You own the day, you own the night; you put stars and sun in place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> You laid out the four corners of earth, shaped the seasons of summer and winter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Mark and remember, GOD, all the enemy taunts, each idiot desecration.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Don't throw your lambs to the wolves; after all we've been through, don't forget us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Remember your promises; the city is in darkness, the countryside violent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Don't leave the victims to rot in the street; make them a choir that sings your praises.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> On your feet, O God-- stand up for yourself! Do you hear what they're saying about you, all the vile obscenities?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Don't tune out their malicious filth, the brawling invective that never lets up.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="75">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> An Asaph psalm. We thank you, God, we thank you-- your Name is our favorite word; your mighty works are all we talk about.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> You say, "I'm calling this meeting to order, I'm ready to set things right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When the earth goes topsy-turvy And nobody knows which end is up, I nail it all down, I put everything in place again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I say to the smart alecks, 'That's enough,' to the bullies, 'Not so fast.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Don't raise your fist against High God. Don't raise your voice against Rock of Ages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He's the One from east to west; from desert to mountains, he's the One.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> God rules: he brings this one down to his knees, pulls that one up on her feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD has a cup in his hand, a bowl of wine, full to the brim. He draws from it and pours; it's drained to the dregs. Earth's wicked ones drink it all, drink it down to the last bitter drop!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And I'm telling the story of God Eternal, singing the praises of Jacob's God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The fists of the wicked are bloody stumps, The arms of the righteous are lofty green branches.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="76">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> An Asaph psalm. God is well-known in Judah; in Israel, he's a household name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He keeps a house in Salem, his own suite of rooms in Zion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> That's where, using arrows for kindling, he made a bonfire of weapons of war.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Oh, how bright you shine! Outshining their huge piles of loot!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The warriors were plundered and left there impotent. And now there's nothing to them, nothing to show for their swagger and threats.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Your sudden roar, God of Jacob, knocked the wind out of horse and rider.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Fierce you are, and fearsome! Who can stand up to your rising anger?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> From heaven you thunder judgment; earth falls to her knees and holds her breath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> God stands tall and makes things right, he saves all the wretched on earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Instead of smoldering rage--God-praise! All that sputtering rage--now a garland for God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Do for GOD what you said you'd do-- he is, after all, your God. Let everyone in town bring offerings to the One Who Watches our every move.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Nobody gets by with anything, no one plays fast and loose with him.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="77">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> An Asaph psalm. I yell out to my God, I yell with all my might, I yell at the top of my lungs. He listens.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I found myself in trouble and went looking for my Lord; my life was an open wound that wouldn't heal. When friends said, "Everything will turn out all right," I didn't believe a word they said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I remember God--and shake my head. I bow my head--then wring my hands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'm awake all night--not a wink of sleep; I can't even say what's bothering me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I go over the days one by one, I ponder the years gone by.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I strum my lute all through the night, wondering how to get my life together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Will the Lord walk off and leave us for good? Will he never smile again?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Is his love worn threadbare? Has his salvation promise burned out?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Has God forgotten his manners? Has he angrily stalked off and left us?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Just my luck," I said. "The High God goes out of business just the moment I need him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Once again I'll go over what GOD has done, lay out on the table the ancient wonders;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I'll ponder all the things you've accomplished, and give a long, loving look at your acts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> O God! Your way is holy! No god is great like God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> You're the God who makes things happen; you showed everyone what you can do--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> You pulled your people out of the worst kind of trouble, rescued the children of Jacob and Joseph.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Ocean saw you in action, God, saw you and trembled with fear; Deep Ocean was scared to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Clouds belched buckets of rain, Sky exploded with thunder, your arrows flashing this way and that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> From Whirlwind came your thundering voice, Lightning exposed the world, Earth reeled and rocked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> You strode right through Ocean, walked straight through roaring Ocean, but nobody saw you come or go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Hidden in the hands of Moses and Aaron, You led your people like a flock of sheep.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="78">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> An Asaph psalm. Listen, dear friends, to God's truth, bend your ears to what I tell you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I'm chewing on the morsel of a proverb; I'll let you in on the sweet old truths,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Stories we heard from our fathers, counsel we learned at our mother's knee.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> We're not keeping this to ourselves, we're passing it along to the next generation-- GOD's fame and fortune, the marvelous things he has done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He planted a witness in Jacob, set his Word firmly in Israel, Then commanded our parents to teach it to their children</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So the next generation would know, and all the generations to come-- Know the truth and tell the stories so their children</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> can trust in God, Never forget the works of God but keep his commands to the letter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Heaven forbid they should be like their parents, bullheaded and bad, A fickle and faithless bunch who never stayed true to God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The Ephraimites, armed to the teeth, ran off when the battle began.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They were cowards to God's Covenant, refused to walk by his Word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They forgot what he had done-- marvels he'd done right before their eyes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He performed miracles in plain sight of their parents in Egypt, out on the fields of Zoan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He split the Sea and they walked right through it; he piled the waters to the right and the left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He led them by day with a cloud, led them all the night long with a fiery torch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He split rocks in the wilderness, gave them all they could drink from underground springs;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He made creeks flow out from sheer rock, and water pour out like a river.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> All they did was sin even more, rebel in the desert against the High God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They tried to get their own way with God, clamored for favors, for special attention.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They whined like spoiled children, "Why can't God give us a decent meal in this desert?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Sure, he struck the rock and the water flowed, creeks cascaded from the rock. But how about some fresh-baked bread? How about a nice cut of meat?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> When GOD heard that, he was furious-- his anger flared against Jacob, he lost his temper with Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> It was clear they didn't believe God, had no intention of trusting in his help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But God helped them anyway, commanded the clouds and gave orders that opened the gates of heaven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He rained down showers of manna to eat, he gave them the Bread of Heaven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> They ate the bread of the mighty angels; he sent them all the food they could eat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> He let East Wind break loose from the skies, gave a strong push to South Wind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> This time it was birds that rained down-- succulent birds, an abundance of birds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> He aimed them right for the center of their camp; all round their tents there were birds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> They ate and had their fill; he handed them everything they craved on a platter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> But their greed knew no bounds; they stuffed their mouths with more and more.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Finally, God was fed up, his anger erupted-- he cut down their brightest and best, he laid low Israel's finest young men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> And--can you believe it?--they kept right on sinning; all those wonders and they still wouldn't believe!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> So their lives dribbled off to nothing-- nothing to show for their lives but a ghost town.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> When he cut them down, they came running for help; they turned and pled for mercy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> They gave witness that God was their rock, that High God was their redeemer,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> But they didn't mean a word of it; they lied through their teeth the whole time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> They could not have cared less about him, wanted nothing to do with his Covenant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> And God? Compassionate! Forgave the sin! Didn't destroy! Over and over he reined in his anger, restrained his considerable wrath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> He knew what they were made of; he knew there wasn't much to them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> How often in the desert they had spurned him, tried his patience in those wilderness years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Time and again they pushed him to the limit, provoked Israel's Holy God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> How quickly they forgot what he'd done, forgot their day of rescue from the enemy,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> When he did miracles in Egypt, wonders on the plain of Zoan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> He turned the River and its streams to blood-- not a drop of water fit to drink.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> He sent flies, which ate them alive, and frogs, which bedeviled them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> He turned their harvest over to caterpillars, everything they had worked for to the locusts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> He flattened their grapevines with hail; a killing frost ruined their orchards.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> He pounded their cattle with hail, let thunderbolts loose on their herds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> His anger flared, a wild firestorm of havoc, An advance guard of disease-carrying angels</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> to clear the ground, preparing the way before him. He didn't spare those people, he let the plague rage through their lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> He killed all the Egyptian firstborns, lusty infants, offspring of Ham's virility.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> Then he led his people out like sheep, took his flock safely through the wilderness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> He took good care of them; they had nothing to fear. The Sea took care of their enemies for good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> He brought them into his holy land, this mountain he claimed for his own.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> He scattered everyone who got in their way; he staked out an inheritance for them-- the tribes of Israel all had their own places.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> But they kept on giving him a hard time, rebelled against God, the High God, refused to do anything he told them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> They were worse, if that's possible, than their parents: traitors--crooked as a corkscrew.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> Their pagan orgies provoked God's anger, their obscene idolatries broke his heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="59"> When God heard their carryings-on, he was furious; he posted a huge No over Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="60"> He walked off and left Shiloh empty, abandoned the shrine where he had met with Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="61"> He let his pride and joy go to the dogs, turned his back on the pride of his life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="62"> He turned them loose on fields of battle; angry, he let them fend for themselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="63"> Their young men went to war and never came back; their young women waited in vain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="64"> Their priests were massacred, and their widows never shed a tear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="65"> Suddenly the Lord was up on his feet like someone roused from deep sleep, shouting like a drunken warrior.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="66"> He hit his enemies hard, sent them running, yelping, not daring to look back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="67"> He disqualified Joseph as leader, told Ephraim he didn't have what it takes,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="68"> And chose the Tribe of Judah instead, Mount Zion, which he loves so much.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="69"> He built his sanctuary there, resplendent, solid and lasting as the earth itself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="70"> Then he chose David, his servant, handpicked him from his work in the sheep pens.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="71"> One day he was caring for the ewes and their lambs, the next day God had him shepherding Jacob, his people Israel, his prize possession.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="72"> His good heart made him a good shepherd; he guided the people wisely and well.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="79">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> An Asaph psalm. God! Barbarians have broken into your home, violated your holy temple, left Jerusalem a pile of rubble!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They've served up the corpses of your servants as carrion food for birds of prey, Threw the bones of your holy people out to the wild animals to gnaw on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They dumped out their blood like buckets of water. All around Jerusalem, their bodies were left to rot, unburied.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> We're nothing but a joke to our neighbors, graffiti scrawled on the city walls.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> How long do we have to put up with this, GOD? Do you have it in for us for good? Will your smoldering rage never cool down?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> If you're going to be angry, be angry with the pagans who care nothing about you, or your rival kingdoms who ignore you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They're the ones who ruined Jacob, who wrecked and looted the place where he lived.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Don't blame us for the sins of our parents. Hurry up and help us; we're at the end of our rope.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You're famous for helping; God, give us a break. Your reputation is on the line. Pull us out of this mess, forgive us our sins-- do what you're famous for doing!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Don't let the heathen get by with their sneers: "Where's your God? Is he out to lunch?" Go public and show the godless world that they can't kill your servants and get by with it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Give groaning prisoners a hearing; pardon those on death row from their doom--you can do it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Give our jeering neighbors what they've got coming to them; let their God-taunts boomerang and knock them flat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then we, your people, the ones you love and care for, will thank you over and over and over. We'll tell everyone we meet how wonderful you are, how praiseworthy you are!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="80">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> An Asaph psalm. Listen, Shepherd, Israel's Shepherd-- get all your Joseph sheep together. Throw beams of light from your dazzling throne</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> So Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh can see where they're going. Get out of bed--you've slept long enough! Come on the run before it's too late.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> God, come back! Smile your blessing smile: That will be our salvation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD, God of the angel armies, how long will you smolder like a sleeping volcano while your people call for fire and brimstone?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You put us on a diet of tears, bucket after bucket of salty tears to drink.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> You make us look ridiculous to our friends; our enemies poke fun day after day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> God of the angel armies, come back! Smile your blessing smile: That will be our salvation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Remember how you brought a young vine from Egypt, cleared out the brambles and briers and planted your very own vineyard?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You prepared the good earth, you planted her roots deep; the vineyard filled the land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Your vine soared high and shaded the mountains, even dwarfing the giant cedars.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Your vine ranged west to the Sea, east to the River.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> So why do you no longer protect your vine? Trespassers pick its grapes at will;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Wild pigs crash through and crush it, and the mice nibble away at what's left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> God of the angel armies, turn our way! Take a good look at what's happened and attend to this vine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Care for what you once tenderly planted-- the vine you raised from a shoot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> And those who dared to set it on fire-- give them a look that will kill!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then take the hand of your once-favorite child, the child you raised to adulthood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> We will never turn our back on you; breathe life into our lungs so we can shout your name!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> GOD, God of the angel armies, come back! Smile your blessing smile: That will be our salvation.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="81">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> An Asaph psalm. A song to our strong God! a shout to the God of Jacob!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Anthems from the choir, music from the band, sweet sounds from lute and harp,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Trumpets and trombones and horns: it's festival day, a feast to God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> A day decreed by God, solemnly ordered by the God of Jacob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He commanded Joseph to keep this day so we'd never forget what he did in Egypt. I hear this most gentle whisper from One I never guessed would speak to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "I took the world off your shoulders, freed you from a life of hard labor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You called to me in your pain; I got you out of a bad place. I answered you from where the thunder hides, I proved you at Meribah Fountain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Listen, dear ones--get this straight; O Israel, don't take this lightly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Don't take up with strange gods, don't worship the latest in gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I'm GOD, your God, the very God who rescued you from doom in Egypt, Then fed you all you could eat, filled your hungry stomachs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "But my people didn't listen, Israel paid no attention;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> So I let go of the reins and told them, 'Run! Do it your own way!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Oh, dear people, will you listen to me now? Israel, will you follow my map?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'll make short work of your enemies, give your foes the back of my hand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I'll send the GOD-haters cringing like dogs, never to be heard from again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> You'll feast on my fresh-baked bread spread with butter and rock-pure honey."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="82">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> An Asaph psalm. God calls the judges into his courtroom, he puts all the judges in the dock.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Enough! You've corrupted justice long enough, you've let the wicked get away with murder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You're here to defend the defenseless, to make sure that underdogs get a fair break;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Your job is to stand up for the powerless, and prosecute all those who exploit them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Ignorant judges! Head-in-the-sand judges! They haven't a clue to what's going on. And now everything's falling apart, the world's coming unglued.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "I commissioned you judges, each one of you, deputies of the High God,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But you've betrayed your commission and now you're stripped of your rank, busted."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> O God, give them their just deserts! You've got the whole world in your hands!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="83">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> An Asaph psalm. GOD, don't shut me out; don't give me the silent treatment, O God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Your enemies are out there whooping it up, the God-haters are living it up;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They're plotting to do your people in, conspiring to rob you of your precious ones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Let's wipe this nation from the face of the earth," they say; "scratch Israel's name off the books."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And now they're putting their heads together, making plans to get rid of you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Edom and the Ishmaelites, Moab and the Hagrites,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Gebal and Ammon and Amalek, Philistia and the Tyrians,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And now Assyria has joined up, Giving muscle to the gang of Lot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Do to them what you did to Midian, to Sisera and Jabin at Kishon Brook;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They came to a bad end at Endor, nothing but dung for the garden.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Cut down their leaders as you did Oreb and Zeeb, their princes to nothings like Zebah and Zalmunna,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> With their empty brags, "We're grabbing it all, grabbing God's gardens for ourselves."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> My God! I've had it with them! Blow them away! Tumbleweeds in the desert waste,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> charred sticks in the burned-over ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Knock the breath right out of them, so they're gasping</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> for breath, gasping, "GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Bring them to the end of their rope, and leave them there dangling, helpless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Then they'll learn your name: "GOD," the one and only High God on earth.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="84">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A Korah psalm. What a beautiful home, GOD of the Angel Armies! I've always longed to live in a place like this,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Always dreamed of a room in your house, where I could sing for joy to God-alive!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Birds find nooks and crannies in your house, sparrows and swallows make nests there. They lay their eggs and raise their young, singing their songs in the place where we worship. GOD of the Angel Armies! King! God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> How blessed they are to live and sing there!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And how blessed all those in whom you live, whose lives become roads you travel;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They wind through lonesome valleys, come upon brooks, discover cool springs and pools brimming with rain!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> God-traveled, these roads curve up the mountain, and at the last turn--Zion! God in full view!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> God of the Angel Armies, listen: O God of Jacob, open your ears--I'm praying!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Look at our shields, glistening in the sun, our faces, shining with your gracious anointing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> One day spent in your house, this beautiful place of worship, beats thousands spent on Greek island beaches. I'd rather scrub floors in the house of my God than be honored as a guest in the palace of sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> All sunshine and sovereign is GOD, generous in gifts and glory. He doesn't scrimp with his traveling companions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> It's smooth sailing all the way with GOD of the Angel Armies.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="85">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A Korah psalm. GOD, you smiled on your good earth! You brought good times back to Jacob!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> You lifted the cloud of guilt from your people, you put their sins far out of sight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You took back your sin-provoked threats, you cooled your hot, righteous anger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Help us again, God of our help; don't hold a grudge against us forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You aren't going to keep this up, are you? scowling and angry, year after year?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Why not help us make a fresh start--a resurrection life? Then your people will laugh and sing!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Show us how much you love us, GOD! Give us the salvation we need!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I can't wait to hear what he'll say. GOD's about to pronounce his people well, The holy people he loves so much, so they'll never again live like fools.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> See how close his salvation is to those who fear him? Our country is home base for Glory!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Love and Truth meet in the street, Right Living and Whole Living embrace and kiss!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Truth sprouts green from the ground, Right Living pours down from the skies!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Oh yes! GOD gives Goodness and Beauty; our land responds with Bounty and Blessing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Right Living strides out before him, and clears a path for his passage.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="86">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. Bend an ear, GOD; answer me. I'm one miserable wretch!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Keep me safe--haven't I lived a good life? Help your servant--I'm depending on you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You're my God; have mercy on me. I count on you from morning to night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Give your servant a happy life; I put myself in your hands!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You're well-known as good and forgiving, bighearted to all who ask for help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Pay attention, GOD, to my prayer; bend down and listen to my cry for help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Every time I'm in trouble I call on you, confident that you'll answer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> There's no one quite like you among the gods, O Lord, and nothing to compare with your works.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> All the nations you made are on their way, ready to give honor to you, O Lord, Ready to put your beauty on display,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> parading your greatness, And the great things you do-- God, you're the one, there's no one but you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Train me, GOD, to walk straight; then I'll follow your true path. Put me together, one heart and mind; then, undivided, I'll worship in joyful fear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> From the bottom of my heart I thank you, dear Lord; I've never kept secret what you're up to.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You've always been great toward me--what love! You snatched me from the brink of disaster!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> God, these bullies have reared their heads! A gang of thugs is after me-- and they don't care a thing about you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But you, O God, are both tender and kind, not easily angered, immense in love, and you never, never quit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So look me in the eye and show kindness, give your servant the strength to go on, save your dear, dear child!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Make a show of how much you love me so the bullies who hate me will stand there slack-jawed, As you, GOD, gently and powerfully put me back on my feet.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="87">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A Korah psalm. He founded Zion on the Holy Mountain--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> and oh, how GOD loves his home! Loves it far better than all the homes of Jacob put together!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> God's hometown--oh! everyone there is talking about you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I name them off, those among whom I'm famous: Egypt and Babylon, also Philistia, even Tyre, along with Cush. Word's getting around; they point them out: "This one was born again here!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The word's getting out on Zion: "Men and women, right and left, get born again in her!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD registers their names in his book: "This one, this one, and this one-- born again, right here."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Singers and dancers give credit to Zion: "All my springs are in you!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="88">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A Korah prayer of Heman. GOD, you're my last chance of the day. I spend the night on my knees before you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Put me on your salvation agenda; take notes on the trouble I'm in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I've had my fill of trouble; I'm camped on the edge of hell.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'm written off as a lost cause, one more statistic, a hopeless case.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Abandoned as already dead, one more body in a stack of corpses, And not so much as a gravestone-- I'm a black hole in oblivion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> You've dropped me into a bottomless pit, sunk me in a pitch-black abyss.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I'm battered senseless by your rage, relentlessly pounded by your waves of anger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You turned my friends against me, made me horrible to them. I'm caught in a maze and can't find my way out,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> blinded by tears of pain and frustration. I call to you, GOD; all day I call. I wring my hands, I plead for help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Are the dead a live audience for your miracles? Do ghosts ever join the choirs that praise you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Does your love make any difference in a graveyard? Is your faithful presence noticed in the corridors of hell?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Are your marvelous wonders ever seen in the dark, your righteous ways noticed in the Land of No Memory?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I'm standing my ground, GOD, shouting for help, at my prayers every morning, on my knees each daybreak.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Why, GOD, do you turn a deaf ear? Why do you make yourself scarce?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> For as long as I remember I've been hurting; I've taken the worst you can hand out, and I've had it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Your wildfire anger has blazed through my life; I'm bleeding, black and blue.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> You've attacked me fiercely from every side, raining down blows till I'm nearly dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> You made lover and neighbor alike dump me; the only friend I have left is Darkness.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="89">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> An Ethan prayer. Your love, GOD, is my song, and I'll sing it! I'm forever telling everyone how faithful you are.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I'll never quit telling the story of your love-- how you built the cosmos and guaranteed everything in it. Your love has always been our lives' foundation, your fidelity has been the roof over our world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You once said, "I joined forces with my chosen leader, I pledged my word to my servant, David, saying,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> 'Everyone descending from you is guaranteed life; I'll make your rule as solid and lasting as rock.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD! Let the cosmos praise your wonderful ways, the choir of holy angels sing anthems to your faithful ways!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Search high and low, scan skies and land, you'll find nothing and no one quite like GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The holy angels are in awe before him; he looms immense and august over everyone around him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD of the Angel Armies, who is like you, powerful and faithful from every angle?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You put the arrogant ocean in its place and calm its waves when they turn unruly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You gave that old hag Egypt the back of your hand, you brushed off your enemies with a flick of your wrist.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> You own the cosmos--you made everything in it, everything from atom to archangel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> You positioned the North and South Poles; the mountains Tabor and Hermon sing duets to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> With your well-muscled arm and your grip of steel-- nobody trifles with you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The Right and Justice are the roots of your rule; Love and Truth are its fruits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Blessed are the people who know the passwords of praise, who shout on parade in the bright presence of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Delighted, they dance all day long; they know who you are, what you do--they can't keep it quiet!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Your vibrant beauty has gotten inside us-- you've been so good to us! We're walking on air!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> All we are and have we owe to GOD, Holy God of Israel, our King!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> A long time ago you spoke in a vision, you spoke to your faithful beloved: "I've crowned a hero, I chose the best I could find;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> I found David, my servant, poured holy oil on his head,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And I'll keep my hand steadily on him, yes, I'll stick with him through thick and thin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> No enemy will get the best of him, no scoundrel will do him in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> I'll weed out all who oppose him, I'll clean out all who hate him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> I'm with him for good and I'll love him forever; I've set him on high--he's riding high!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> I've put Ocean in his one hand, River in the other;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> he'll call out, 'Oh, my Father--my God, my Rock of Salvation!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Yes, I'm setting him apart as the First of the royal line, High King over all of earth's kings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> I'll preserve him eternally in my love, I'll faithfully do all I so solemnly promised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> I'll guarantee his family tree and underwrite his rule.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> If his children refuse to do what I tell them, if they refuse to walk in the way I show them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> If they spit on the directions I give them and tear up the rules I post for them--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> I'll rub their faces in the dirt of their rebellion and make them face the music.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> But I'll never throw them out, never abandon or disown them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Do you think I'd withdraw my holy promise? or take back words I'd already spoken?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> I've given my word, my whole and holy word; do you think I would lie to David?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> His family tree is here for good, his sovereignty as sure as the sun,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Dependable as the phases of the moon, inescapable as weather."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> But GOD, you did walk off and leave us, you lost your temper with the one you anointed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> You tore up the promise you made to your servant, you stomped his crown in the mud.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> You blasted his home to kingdom come, reduced his city to a pile of rubble</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Picked clean by wayfaring strangers, a joke to all the neighbors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> You declared a holiday for all his enemies, and they're celebrating for all they're worth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Angry, you opposed him in battle, refused to fight on his side;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> You robbed him of his splendor, humiliated this warrior, ground his kingly honor in the dirt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> You took the best years of his life and left him an impotent, ruined husk.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> How long do we put up with this, GOD? Are you gone for good? Will you hold this grudge forever?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> Remember my sorrow and how short life is. Did you create men and women for nothing but this?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> We'll see death soon enough. Everyone does. And there's no back door out of hell.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> So where is the love you're so famous for, Lord? What happened to your promise to David?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Take a good look at your servant, dear Lord; I'm the butt of the jokes of all nations,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> The taunting jokes of your enemies, GOD, as they dog the steps of your dear anointed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> Blessed be GOD forever and always! Yes. Oh, yes.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="90">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A prayer of Moses, man of God. God, it seems you've been our home forever;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> long before the mountains were born, Long before you brought earth itself to birth, from "once upon a time" to "kingdom come"--you are God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> So don't return us to mud, saying, "Back to where you came from!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Patience! You've got all the time in the world--whether a thousand years or a day, it's all the same to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Are we no more to you than a wispy dream, no more than a blade of grass</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> That springs up gloriously with the rising sun and is cut down without a second thought?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Your anger is far and away too much for us; we're at the end of our rope.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You keep track of all our sins; every misdeed since we were children is entered in your books.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> All we can remember is that frown on your face. Is that all we're ever going to get?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> We live for seventy years or so (with luck we might make it to eighty), And what do we have to show for it? Trouble. Toil and trouble and a marker in the graveyard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Who can make sense of such rage, such anger against the very ones who fear you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Oh! Teach us to live well! Teach us to live wisely and well!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Come back, GOD--how long do we have to wait?-- and treat your servants with kindness for a change.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Surprise us with love at daybreak; then we'll skip and dance all the day long.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Make up for the bad times with some good times; we've seen enough evil to last a lifetime.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Let your servants see what you're best at-- the ways you rule and bless your children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And let the loveliness of our Lord, our God, rest on us, confirming the work that we do. Oh, yes. Affirm the work that we do!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="91">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> You who sit down in the High God's presence, spend the night in Shaddai's shadow,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Say this: "GOD, you're my refuge. I trust in you and I'm safe!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> That's right--he rescues you from hidden traps, shields you from deadly hazards.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> His huge outstretched arms protect you-- under them you're perfectly safe; his arms fend off all harm.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Fear nothing--not wild wolves in the night, not flying arrows in the day,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Not disease that prowls through the darkness, not disaster that erupts at high noon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Even though others succumb all around, drop like flies right and left, no harm will even graze you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You'll stand untouched, watch it all from a distance, watch the wicked turn into corpses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Yes, because GOD's your refuge, the High God your very own home,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Evil can't get close to you, harm can't get through the door.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He ordered his angels to guard you wherever you go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> If you stumble, they'll catch you; their job is to keep you from falling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You'll walk unharmed among lions and snakes, and kick young lions and serpents from the path.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "If you'll hold on to me for dear life," says GOD, "I'll get you out of any trouble. I'll give you the best of care if you'll only get to know and trust me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Call me and I'll answer, be at your side in bad times; I'll rescue you, then throw you a party.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I'll give you a long life, give you a long drink of salvation!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="92">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A Sabbath song. What a beautiful thing, GOD, to give thanks, to sing an anthem to you, the High God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> To announce your love each daybreak, sing your faithful presence all through the night,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Accompanied by dulcimer and harp, the full-bodied music of strings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You made me so happy, GOD. I saw your work and I shouted for joy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> How magnificent your work, GOD! How profound your thoughts!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Dullards never notice what you do; fools never do get it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When the wicked popped up like weeds and all the evil men and women took over, You mowed them down, finished them off once and for all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You, GOD, are High and Eternal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Look at your enemies, GOD! Look at your enemies--ruined! Scattered to the winds, all those hirelings of evil!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But you've made me strong as a charging bison, you've honored me with a festive parade.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The sight of my critics going down is still fresh, the rout of my malicious detractors. My ears are filled with the sounds of promise:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Good people will prosper like palm trees, Grow tall like Lebanon cedars;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> transplanted to GOD's courtyard, They'll grow tall in the presence of God,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> lithe and green, virile still in old age."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Such witnesses to upright GOD! My Mountain, my huge, holy Mountain!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="93">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD is King, robed and ruling, GOD is robed and surging with strength. And yes, the world is firm, immovable,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Your throne ever firm--you're Eternal!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Sea storms are up, GOD, Sea storms wild and roaring, Sea storms with thunderous breakers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Stronger than wild sea storms, Mightier than sea-storm breakers, Mighty GOD rules from High Heaven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> What you say goes--it always has. "Beauty" and "Holy" mark your palace rule, GOD, to the very end of time.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="94">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD, put an end to evil; avenging God, show your colors!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Judge of the earth, take your stand; throw the book at the arrogant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> GOD, the wicked get away with murder-- how long will you let this go on?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They brag and boast and crow about their crimes!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They walk all over your people, GOD, exploit and abuse your precious people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They take out anyone who gets in their way; if they can't use them, they kill them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They think, "GOD isn't looking, Jacob's God is out to lunch."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Well, think again, you idiots, fools--how long before you get smart?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Do you think Ear-Maker doesn't hear, Eye-Shaper doesn't see?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Do you think the trainer of nations doesn't correct, the teacher of Adam doesn't know?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD knows, all right-- knows your stupidity, sees your shallowness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> How blessed the man you train, GOD, the woman you instruct in your Word,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Providing a circle of quiet within the clamor of evil, while a jail is being built for the wicked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD will never walk away from his people, never desert his precious people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Rest assured that justice is on its way and every good heart put right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Who stood up for me against the wicked? Who took my side against evil workers?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> If GOD hadn't been there for me, I never would have made it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The minute I said, "I'm slipping, I'm falling," your love, GOD, took hold and held me fast.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> When I was upset and beside myself, you calmed me down and cheered me up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Can Misrule have anything in common with you? Can Troublemaker pretend to be on your side?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They ganged up on good people, plotted behind the backs of the innocent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But GOD became my hideout, God was my high mountain retreat,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Then boomeranged their evil back on them: for their evil ways he wiped them out, our GOD cleaned them out for good.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="95">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Come, let's shout praises to GOD, raise the roof for the Rock who saved us!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Let's march into his presence singing praises, lifting the rafters with our hymns!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And why? Because GOD is the best, High King over all the gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> In one hand he holds deep caves and caverns, in the other hand grasps the high mountains.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He made Ocean--he owns it! His hands sculpted Earth!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So come, let us worship: bow before him, on your knees before GOD, who made us!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Oh yes, he's our God, and we're the people he pastures, the flock he feeds. Drop everything and listen, listen as he speaks:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Don't turn a deaf ear as in the Bitter Uprising, As on the day of the Wilderness Test,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> when your ancestors turned and put me to the test.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> For forty years they watched me at work among them, as over and over they tried my patience. And I was provoked--oh, was I provoked! 'Can't they keep their minds on God for five minutes? Do they simply refuse to walk down my road?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Exasperated, I exploded, 'They'll never get where they're headed, never be able to sit down and rest.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="96">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Sing GOD a brand-new song! Earth and everyone in it, sing!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Sing to GOD--worship GOD! Shout the news of his victory from sea to sea,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Take the news of his glory to the lost, News of his wonders to one and all!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> For GOD is great, and worth a thousand Hallelujahs. His terrible beauty makes the gods look cheap;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Pagan gods are mere tatters and rags. GOD made the heavens--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Royal splendor radiates from him, A powerful beauty sets him apart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Bravo, GOD, Bravo! Everyone join in the great shout: Encore! In awe before the beauty, in awe before the might.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Bring gifts and celebrate,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Bow before the beauty of GOD, Then to your knees--everyone worship!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Get out the message--GOD Rules! He put the world on a firm foundation; He treats everyone fair and square.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Let's hear it from Sky, With Earth joining in, And a huge round of applause from Sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Let Wilderness turn cartwheels, Animals, come dance, Put every tree of the forest in the choir--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> An extravaganza before GOD as he comes, As he comes to set everything right on earth, Set everything right, treat everyone fair.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="97">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD rules: there's something to shout over! On the double, mainlands and islands--celebrate!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Bright clouds and storm clouds circle 'round him; Right and justice anchor his rule.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Fire blazes out before him, Flaming high up the craggy mountains.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> His lightnings light up the world; Earth, wide-eyed, trembles in fear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The mountains take one look at GOD And melt, melt like wax before earth's Lord.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The heavens announce that he'll set everything right, And everyone will see it happen--glorious!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> All who serve handcrafted gods will be sorry-- And they were so proud of their ragamuffin gods! On your knees, all you gods--worship him!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And Zion, you listen and take heart! Daughters of Zion, sing your hearts out: GOD has done it all, has set everything right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You, GOD, are High God of the cosmos, Far, far higher than any of the gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> GOD loves all who hate evil, And those who love him he keeps safe, Snatches them from the grip of the wicked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Light-seeds are planted in the souls of God's people, Joy-seeds are planted in good heart-soil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> So, God's people, shout praise to GOD, Give thanks to our Holy God!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="98">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Sing to GOD a brand-new song. He's made a world of wonders! He rolled up his sleeves, He set things right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD made history with salvation, He showed the world what he could do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He remembered to love us, a bonus To his dear family, Israel--indefatigable love. The whole earth comes to attention. Look--God's work of salvation!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Shout your praises to GOD, everybody! Let loose and sing! Strike up the band!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Round up an orchestra to play for GOD, Add on a hundred-voice choir.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Feature trumpets and big trombones, Fill the air with praises to King GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Let the sea and its fish give a round of applause, With everything living on earth joining in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Let ocean breakers call out, "Encore!" And mountains harmonize the finale--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> A tribute to GOD when he comes, When he comes to set the earth right. He'll straighten out the whole world, He'll put the world right, and everyone in it.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="99">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD rules. On your toes, everybody! He rules from his angel throne--take notice!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD looms majestic in Zion, He towers in splendor over all the big names.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Great and terrible your beauty: let everyone praise you! Holy. Yes, holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Strong King, lover of justice, You laid things out fair and square; You set down the foundations in Jacob, Foundation stones of just and right ways.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Honor GOD, our God; worship his rule! Holy. Yes, holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Moses and Aaron were his priests, Samuel among those who prayed to him. They prayed to GOD and he answered them;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He spoke from the pillar of cloud. And they did what he said; they kept the law he gave them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And then GOD, our God, answered them (But you were never soft on their sins).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Lift high GOD, our God; worship at his holy mountain. Holy. Yes, holy is GOD our God.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="100">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A thanksgiving psalm. On your feet now--applaud GOD!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Bring a gift of laughter, sing yourselves into his presence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Know this: GOD is God, and God, GOD. He made us; we didn't make him. We're his people, his well-tended sheep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Enter with the password: "Thank you!" Make yourselves at home, talking praise. Thank him. Worship him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> For GOD is sheer beauty, all-generous in love, loyal always and ever.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="101">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. My theme song is God's love and justice, and I'm singing it right to you, GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I'm finding my way down the road of right living, but how long before you show up? I'm doing the very best I can, and I'm doing it at home, where it counts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I refuse to take a second look at corrupting people and degrading things. I reject made-in-Canaan gods, stay clear of contamination.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The crooked in heart keep their distance; I refuse to shake hands with those who plan evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I put a gag on the gossip who bad-mouths his neighbor; I can't stand arrogance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But I have my eye on salt-of-the-earth people-- they're the ones I want working with me; Men and women on the straight and narrow-- these are the ones I want at my side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But no one who traffics in lies gets a job with me; I have no patience with liars. I've rounded up all the wicked like cattle and herded them right out of the country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I purged GOD's city of all who make a business of evil. A prayer of one whose life is falling to pieces, and who lets God know just how bad it is.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="102">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD, listen! Listen to my prayer, listen to the pain in my cries.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Don't turn your back on me just when I need you so desperately. Pay attention! This is a cry for help! And hurry--this can't wait!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I'm wasting away to nothing, I'm burning up with fever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'm a ghost of my former self, half-consumed already by terminal illness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> My jaws ache from gritting my teeth; I'm nothing but skin and bones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I'm like a buzzard in the desert, a crow perched on the rubble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Insomniac, I twitter away, mournful as a sparrow in the gutter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> All day long my enemies taunt me, while others just curse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They bring in meals--casseroles of ashes! I draw drink from a barrel of my tears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And all because of your furious anger; you swept me up and threw me out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> There's nothing left of me-- a withered weed, swept clean from the path.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Yet you, GOD, are sovereign still, always and ever sovereign.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You'll get up from your throne and help Zion-- it's time for compassionate help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Oh, how your servants love this city's rubble and weep with compassion over its dust!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The godless nations will sit up and take notice --see your glory, worship your name--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When GOD rebuilds Zion, when he shows up in all his glory,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When he attends to the prayer of the wretched. He won't dismiss their prayer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Write this down for the next generation so people not yet born will praise GOD:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "GOD looked out from his high holy place; from heaven he surveyed the earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He listened to the groans of the doomed, he opened the doors of their death cells."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Write it so the story can be told in Zion, so GOD's praise will be sung in Jerusalem's streets</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> And wherever people gather together along with their rulers to worship him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> GOD sovereignly brought me to my knees, he cut me down in my prime.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "Oh, don't," I prayed, "please don't let me die. You have more years than you know what to do with!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> You laid earth's foundations a long time ago, and handcrafted the very heavens;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> You'll still be around when they're long gone, threadbare and discarded like an old suit of clothes. You'll throw them away like a worn-out coat,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> but year after year you're as good as new.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Your servants' children will have a good place to live and their children will be at home with you."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="103">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. O my soul, bless GOD. From head to toe, I'll bless his holy name!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> O my soul, bless GOD, don't forget a single blessing!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He forgives your sins--every one. He heals your diseases--every one.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He redeems you from hell--saves your life! He crowns you with love and mercy--a paradise crown.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He wraps you in goodness--beauty eternal. He renews your youth--you're always young in his presence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD makes everything come out right; he puts victims back on their feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He showed Moses how he went about his work, opened up his plans to all Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD is sheer mercy and grace; not easily angered, he's rich in love.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He doesn't endlessly nag and scold, nor hold grudges forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He doesn't treat us as our sins deserve, nor pay us back in full for our wrongs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> As high as heaven is over the earth, so strong is his love to those who fear him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And as far as sunrise is from sunset, he has separated us from our sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> As parents feel for their children, GOD feels for those who fear him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He knows us inside and out, keeps in mind that we're made of mud.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Men and women don't live very long; like wildflowers they spring up and blossom,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But a storm snuffs them out just as quickly, leaving nothing to show they were here.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> GOD's love, though, is ever and always, eternally present to all who fear him, Making everything right for them and their children</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> as they follow his Covenant ways and remember to do whatever he said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> GOD has set his throne in heaven; he rules over us all. He's the King!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> So bless GOD, you angels, ready and able to fly at his bidding, quick to hear and do what he says.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Bless GOD, all you armies of angels, alert to respond to whatever he wills.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Bless GOD, all creatures, wherever you are-- everything and everyone made by GOD. And you, O my soul, bless GOD!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="104">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> O my soul, bless GOD! GOD, my God, how great you are! beautifully, gloriously robed,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Dressed up in sunshine, and all heaven stretched out for your tent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You built your palace on the ocean deeps, made a chariot out of clouds and took off on wind-wings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You commandeered winds as messengers, appointed fire and flame as ambassadors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You set earth on a firm foundation so that nothing can shake it, ever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> You blanketed earth with ocean, covered the mountains with deep waters;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Then you roared and the water ran away-- your thunder crash put it to flight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Mountains pushed up, valleys spread out in the places you assigned them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You set boundaries between earth and sea; never again will earth be flooded.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You started the springs and rivers, sent them flowing among the hills.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> All the wild animals now drink their fill, wild donkeys quench their thirst.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Along the riverbanks the birds build nests, ravens make their voices heard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You water the mountains from your heavenly cisterns; earth is supplied with plenty of water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> You make grass grow for the livestock, hay for the animals that plow the ground. Oh yes, God brings grain from the land,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> wine to make people happy, Their faces glowing with health, a people well-fed and hearty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> GOD's trees are well-watered-- the Lebanon cedars he planted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Birds build their nests in those trees; look--the stork at home in the treetop.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Mountain goats climb about the cliffs; badgers burrow among the rocks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The moon keeps track of the seasons, the sun is in charge of each day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> When it's dark and night takes over, all the forest creatures come out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The young lions roar for their prey, clamoring to God for their supper.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> When the sun comes up, they vanish, lazily stretched out in their dens.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Meanwhile, men and women go out to work, busy at their jobs until evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> What a wildly wonderful world, GOD! You made it all, with Wisdom at your side, made earth overflow with your wonderful creations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Oh, look--the deep, wide sea, brimming with fish past counting, sardines and sharks and salmon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Ships plow those waters, and Leviathan, your pet dragon, romps in them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> All the creatures look expectantly to you to give them their meals on time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> You come, and they gather around; you open your hand and they eat from it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> If you turned your back, they'd die in a minute-- Take back your Spirit and they die, revert to original mud;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Send out your Spirit and they spring to life-- the whole countryside in bloom and blossom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The glory of GOD--let it last forever! Let GOD enjoy his creation!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> He takes one look at earth and triggers an earthquake, points a finger at the mountains, and volcanoes erupt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Oh, let me sing to GOD all my life long, sing hymns to my God as long as I live!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Oh, let my song please him; I'm so pleased to be singing to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> But clear the ground of sinners-- no more godless men and women! O my soul, bless GOD!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="105">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Hallelujah! Thank GOD! Pray to him by name! Tell everyone you meet what he has done!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Sing him songs, belt out hymns, translate his wonders into music!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Honor his holy name with Hallelujahs, you who seek GOD. Live a happy life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Keep your eyes open for GOD, watch for his works; be alert for signs of his presence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Remember the world of wonders he has made, his miracles, and the verdicts he's rendered--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> O seed of Abraham, his servant, O child of Jacob, his chosen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He's GOD, our God, in charge of the whole earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And he remembers, remembers his Covenant-- for a thousand generations he's been as good as his word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> It's the Covenant he made with Abraham, the same oath he swore to Isaac,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The very statute he established with Jacob, the eternal Covenant with Israel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Namely, "I give you the land. Canaan is your hill-country inheritance."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When they didn't count for much, a mere handful, and strangers at that,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Wandering from country to country, drifting from pillar to post,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He permitted no one to abuse them. He told kings to keep their hands off:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Don't you dare lay a hand on my anointed, don't hurt a hair on the heads of my prophets."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Then he called down a famine on the country, he broke every last blade of wheat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But he sent a man on ahead: Joseph, sold as a slave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They put cruel chains on his ankles, an iron collar around his neck,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Until God's word came to the Pharaoh, and GOD confirmed his promise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> God sent the king to release him. The Pharaoh set Joseph free;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He appointed him master of his palace, put him in charge of all his business</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> To personally instruct his princes and train his advisors in wisdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Then Israel entered Egypt, Jacob immigrated to the Land of Ham.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> God gave his people lots of babies; soon their numbers alarmed their foes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> He turned the Egyptians against his people; they abused and cheated God's servants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Then he sent his servant Moses, and Aaron, whom he also chose.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> They worked marvels in that spiritual wasteland, miracles in the Land of Ham.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> He spoke, "Darkness!" and it turned dark-- they couldn't see what they were doing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> He turned all their water to blood so that all their fish died;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> He made frogs swarm through the land, even into the king's bedroom;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> He gave the word and flies swarmed, gnats filled the air.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> He substituted hail for rain, he stabbed their land with lightning;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> He wasted their vines and fig trees, smashed their groves of trees to splinters;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> With a word he brought in locusts, millions of locusts, armies of locusts;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> They consumed every blade of grass in the country and picked the ground clean of produce;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> He struck down every firstborn in the land, the first fruits of their virile powers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> He led Israel out, their arms filled with loot, and not one among his tribes even stumbled.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Egypt was glad to have them go-- they were scared to death of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> God spread a cloud to keep them cool through the day and a fire to light their way through the night;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> They prayed and he brought quail, filled them with the bread of heaven;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> He opened the rock and water poured out; it flowed like a river through that desert--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> All because he remembered his Covenant, his promise to Abraham, his servant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Remember this! He led his people out singing for joy; his chosen people marched, singing their hearts out!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> He made them a gift of the country they entered, helped them seize the wealth of the nations</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> So they could do everything he told them-- could follow his instructions to the letter. Hallelujah!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="106">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Hallelujah! Thank GOD! And why? Because he's good, because his love lasts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> But who on earth can do it-- declaim GOD's mighty acts, broadcast all his praises?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You're one happy man when you do what's right, one happy woman when you form the habit of justice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Remember me, GOD, when you enjoy your people; include me when you save them;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I want to see your chosen succeed, celebrate with your celebrating nation, join the Hallelujahs of your pride and joy!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> We've sinned a lot, both we and our parents; We've fallen short, hurt a lot of people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> After our parents left Egypt, they took your wonders for granted, forgot your great and wonderful love. They were barely beyond the Red Sea when they defied the High God--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> the very place he saved them! --the place he revealed his amazing power!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He rebuked the Red Sea so that it dried up on the spot --he paraded them right through! --no one so much as got wet feet!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He saved them from a life of oppression, pried them loose from the grip of the enemy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then the waters flowed back on their oppressors; there wasn't a single survivor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then they believed his words were true and broke out in songs of praise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But it wasn't long before they forgot the whole thing, wouldn't wait to be told what to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They only cared about pleasing themselves in that desert, provoked God with their insistent demands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He gave them exactly what they asked for-- but along with it they got an empty heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> One day in camp some grew jealous of Moses, also of Aaron, holy priest of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The ground opened and swallowed Dathan, then buried Abiram's gang.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Fire flared against that rebel crew and torched them to a cinder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They cast in metal a bull calf at Horeb and worshiped the statue they'd made.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> They traded the Glory for a cheap piece of sculpture--a grass-chewing bull!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They forgot God, their very own Savior, who turned things around in Egypt,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Who created a world of wonders in the Land of Ham, who gave that stunning performance at the Red Sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Fed up, God decided to get rid of them-- and except for Moses, his chosen, he would have. But Moses stood in the gap and deflected God's anger, prevented it from destroying them utterly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> They went on to reject the Blessed Land, didn't believe a word of what God promised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> They found fault with the life they had and turned a deaf ear to GOD's voice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Exasperated, God swore that he'd lay them low in the desert,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Scattering their children hither and yon, strewing them all over the earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Then they linked up with Baal Peor, attending funeral banquets and eating idol food.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> That made God so angry that a plague spread through their ranks;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Phinehas stood up and pled their case and the plague was stopped.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> This was counted to his credit; his descendants will never forget it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> They angered God again at Meribah Springs; this time Moses got mixed up in their evil;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Because they defied GOD yet again, Moses exploded and lost his temper.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> They didn't wipe out those godless cultures as ordered by GOD;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Instead they intermarried with the heathen, and in time became just like them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> They worshiped their idols, were caught in the trap of idols.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> They sacrificed their sons and daughters at the altars of demon gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> They slit the throats of their babies, murdered their infant girls and boys. They offered their babies to Canaan's gods; the blood of their babies stained the land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Their way of life stank to high heaven; they lived like whores.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> And GOD was furious--a wildfire anger; he couldn't stand even to look at his people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> He turned them over to the heathen so that the people who hated them ruled them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Their enemies made life hard for them; they were tyrannized under that rule.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Over and over God rescued them, but they never learned-- until finally their sins destroyed them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Still, when God saw the trouble they were in and heard their cries for help,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> He remembered his Covenant with them, and, immense with love, took them by the hand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> He poured out his mercy on them while their captors looked on, amazed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> Save us, GOD, our God! Gather us back out of exile So we can give thanks to your holy name and join in the glory when you are praised!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> Blessed be GOD, Israel's God! Bless now, bless always! Oh! Let everyone say Amen! Hallelujah!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="107">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Oh, thank GOD--he's so good! His love never runs out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> All of you set free by GOD, tell the world! Tell how he freed you from oppression,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then rounded you up from all over the place, from the four winds, from the seven seas.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Some of you wandered for years in the desert, looking but not finding a good place to live,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Half-starved and parched with thirst, staggering and stumbling, on the brink of exhaustion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then, in your desperate condition, you called out to GOD. He got you out in the nick of time;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He put your feet on a wonderful road that took you straight to a good place to live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> So thank GOD for his marvelous love, for his miracle mercy to the children he loves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He poured great draughts of water down parched throats; the starved and hungry got plenty to eat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Some of you were locked in a dark cell, cruelly confined behind bars,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Punished for defying God's Word, for turning your back on the High God's counsel--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> A hard sentence, and your hearts so heavy, and not a soul in sight to help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then you called out to GOD in your desperate condition; he got you out in the nick of time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He led you out of your dark, dark cell, broke open the jail and led you out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So thank GOD for his marvelous love, for his miracle mercy to the children he loves;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He shattered the heavy jailhouse doors, he snapped the prison bars like matchsticks!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Some of you were sick because you'd lived a bad life, your bodies feeling the effects of your sin;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> You couldn't stand the sight of food, so miserable you thought you'd be better off dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Then you called out to GOD in your desperate condition; he got you out in the nick of time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He spoke the word that healed you, that pulled you back from the brink of death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> So thank GOD for his marvelous love, for his miracle mercy to the children he loves;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Offer thanksgiving sacrifices, tell the world what he's done--sing it out!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Some of you set sail in big ships; you put to sea to do business in faraway ports.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Out at sea you saw GOD in action, saw his breathtaking ways with the ocean:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> With a word he called up the wind-- an ocean storm, towering waves!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> You shot high in the sky, then the bottom dropped out; your hearts were stuck in your throats.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> You were spun like a top, you reeled like a drunk, you didn't know which end was up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Then you called out to GOD in your desperate condition; he got you out in the nick of time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> He quieted the wind down to a whisper, put a muzzle on all the big waves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> And you were so glad when the storm died down, and he led you safely back to harbor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> So thank GOD for his marvelous love, for his miracle mercy to the children he loves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Lift high your praises when the people assemble, shout Hallelujah when the elders meet!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> GOD turned rivers into wasteland, springs of water into sunbaked mud;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Luscious orchards became alkali flats because of the evil of the people who lived there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Then he changed wasteland into fresh pools of water, arid earth into springs of water,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Brought in the hungry and settled them there; they moved in--what a great place to live!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> They sowed the fields, they planted vineyards, they reaped a bountiful harvest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> He blessed them and they prospered greatly; their herds of cattle never decreased.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> But abuse and evil and trouble declined</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> as he heaped scorn on princes and sent them away. He gave the poor a safe place to live,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> treated their clans like well-cared-for sheep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Good people see this and are glad; bad people are speechless, stopped in their tracks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> If you are really wise, you'll think this over-- it's time you appreciated GOD's deep love.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="108">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David prayer. I'm ready, God, so ready, ready from head to toe. Ready to sing, ready to raise a God-song:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Wake, soul! Wake, lute! Wake up, you sleepyhead sun!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I'm thanking you, GOD, out in the streets, singing your praises in town and country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The deeper your love, the higher it goes; every cloud's a flag to your faithfulness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Soar high in the skies, O God! Cover the whole earth with your glory!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And for the sake of the one you love so much, reach down and help me--answer me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> That's when God spoke in holy splendor: "Brimming over with joy, I make a present of Shechem, I hand out Succoth Valley as a gift.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Gilead's in my pocket, to say nothing of Manasseh. Ephraim's my hard hat, Judah my hammer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Moab's a scrub bucket-- I mop the floor with Moab, Spit on Edom, rain fireworks all over Philistia."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Who will take me to the thick of the fight? Who'll show me the road to Edom?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> You aren't giving up on us, are you, God? refusing to go out with our troops?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Give us help for the hard task; human help is worthless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> In God we'll do our very best; he'll flatten the opposition for good.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="109">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David prayer. My God, don't turn a deaf ear to my hallelujah prayer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Liars are pouring out invective on me; Their lying tongues are like a pack of dogs out to get me,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> barking their hate, nipping my heels--and for no reason!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I loved them and now they slander me--yes, me!-- and treat my prayer like a crime;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They return my good with evil, they return my love with hate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Send the Evil One to accuse my accusing judge; dispatch Satan to prosecute him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When he's judged, let the verdict be, "Guilty," and when he prays, let his prayer turn to sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Give him a short life, and give his job to somebody else.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Make orphans of his children, dress his wife in widow's weeds;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Turn his children into begging street urchins, evicted from their homes--homeless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> May the bank foreclose and wipe him out, and strangers, like vultures, pick him clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> May there be no one around to help him out, no one willing to give his orphans a break.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Chop down his family tree so that nobody even remembers his name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But erect a memorial to the sin of his father, and make sure his mother's name is there, too--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Their sins recorded forever before GOD, but they themselves sunk in oblivion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> That's all he deserves since he was never once kind, hounded the afflicted and heartbroken to their graves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Since he loved cursing so much, let curses rain down; Since he had no taste for blessing, let blessings flee far from him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> He dressed up in curses like a fine suit of clothes; he drank curses, took his baths in curses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> So give him a gift--a costume of curses; he can wear curses every day of the week!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> That's what they'll get, those out to get me-- an avalanche of just deserts from GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Oh, GOD, my Lord, step in; work a miracle for me--you can do it! Get me out of here--your love is so great!--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I'm at the end of my rope, my life in ruins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> I'm fading away to nothing, passing away, my youth gone, old before my time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> I'm weak from hunger and can hardly stand up, my body a rack of skin and bones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> I'm a joke in poor taste to those who see me; they take one look and shake their heads.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Help me, oh help me, GOD, my God, save me through your wonderful love;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Then they'll know that your hand is in this, that you, GOD, have been at work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Let them curse all they want; you do the blessing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Let them be jeered by the crowd when they stand up, followed by cheers for me, your servant. Dress my accusers in clothes dirty with shame, discarded and humiliating old ragbag clothes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> My mouth's full of great praise for GOD, I'm singing his hallelujahs surrounded by crowds,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> For he's always at hand to take the side of the needy, to rescue a life from the unjust judge.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="110">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David prayer. The word of GOD to my Lord: "Sit alongside me here on my throne until I make your enemies a stool for your feet."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> You were forged a strong scepter by GOD of Zion; now rule, though surrounded by enemies!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Your people will freely join you, resplendent in holy armor on the great day of your conquest, Join you at the fresh break of day, join you with all the vigor of youth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD gave his word and he won't take it back: you're the permanent priest, the Melchizedek priest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The Lord stands true at your side, crushing kings in his terrible wrath,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Bringing judgment on the nations, handing out convictions wholesale, crushing opposition across the wide earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The King-Maker put his King on the throne; the True King rules with head held high!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="111">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Hallelujah! I give thanks to GOD with everything I've got-- Wherever good people gather, and in the congregation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD's works are so great, worth A lifetime of study--endless enjoyment!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Splendor and beauty mark his craft; His generosity never gives out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> His miracles are his memorial-- This GOD of Grace, this GOD of Love.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He gave food to those who fear him, He remembered to keep his ancient promise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He proved to his people that he could do what he said: Hand them the nations on a platter--a gift!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He manufactures truth and justice; All his products are guaranteed to last--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Never out-of-date, never obsolete, rust-proof. All that he makes and does is honest and true:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He paid the ransom for his people, He ordered his Covenant kept forever. He's so personal and holy, worthy of our respect.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The good life begins in the fear of GOD-- Do that and you'll know the blessing of GOD. His Hallelujah lasts forever!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="112">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Hallelujah! Blessed man, blessed woman, who fear GOD, Who cherish and relish his commandments,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Their children robust on the earth, And the homes of the upright--how blessed!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Their houses brim with wealth And a generosity that never runs dry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Sunrise breaks through the darkness for good people-- God's grace and mercy and justice!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The good person is generous and lends lavishly;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> No shuffling or stumbling around for this one, But a sterling and solid and lasting reputation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Unfazed by rumor and gossip, Heart ready, trusting in GOD,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Spirit firm, unperturbed, Ever blessed, relaxed among enemies,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They lavish gifts on the poor-- A generosity that goes on, and on, and on. An honored life! A beautiful life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Someone wicked takes one look and rages, Blusters away but ends up speechless. There's nothing to the dreams of the wicked. Nothing.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="113">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Hallelujah! You who serve GOD, praise GOD! Just to speak his name is praise!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Just to remember GOD is a blessing-- now and tomorrow and always.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> From east to west, from dawn to dusk, keep lifting all your praises to GOD!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD is higher than anything and anyone, outshining everything you can see in the skies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Who can compare with GOD, our God, so majestically enthroned,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Surveying his magnificent heavens and earth?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He picks up the poor from out of the dirt, rescues the wretched who've been thrown out with the trash,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Seats them among the honored guests, a place of honor among the brightest and best.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He gives childless couples a family, gives them joy as the parents of children. Hallelujah!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="114">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> After Israel left Egypt, the clan of Jacob left those barbarians behind;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Judah became holy land for him, Israel the place of holy rule.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Sea took one look and ran the other way; River Jordan turned around and ran off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The mountains turned playful and skipped like rams, the hills frolicked like spring lambs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> What's wrong with you, Sea, that you ran away? and you, River Jordan, that you turned and ran off?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And mountains, why did you skip like rams? and you, hills, frolic like spring lambs?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Tremble, Earth! You're in the Lord's presence! in the presence of Jacob's God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He turned the rock into a pool of cool water, turned flint into fresh spring water.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="115">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Not for our sake, GOD, no, not for our sake, but for your name's sake, show your glory. Do it on account of your merciful love, do it on account of your faithful ways.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Do it so none of the nations can say, "Where now, oh where is their God?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Our God is in heaven doing whatever he wants to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Their gods are metal and wood, handmade in a basement shop:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Carved mouths that can't talk, painted eyes that can't see,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Tin ears that can't hear, molded noses that can't smell,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Hands that can't grasp, feet that can't walk or run, throats that never utter a sound.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Those who make them have become just like them, have become just like the gods they trust.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But you, Israel: put your trust in GOD! --trust your Helper! trust your Ruler!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Clan of Aaron, trust in GOD! --trust your Helper! trust your Ruler!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> You who fear GOD, trust in GOD! --trust your Helper! trust your Ruler!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> O GOD, remember us and bless us, bless the families of Israel and Aaron.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And let GOD bless all who fear GOD-- bless the small, bless the great.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Oh, let GOD enlarge your families-- giving growth to you, growth to your children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> May you be blessed by GOD, by GOD, who made heaven and earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The heaven of heavens is for GOD, but he put us in charge of the earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Dead people can't praise GOD-- not a word to be heard from those buried in the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But we bless GOD, oh yes-- we bless him now, we bless him always! Hallelujah!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="116">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I love GOD because he listened to me, listened as I begged for mercy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He listened so intently as I laid out my case before him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Death stared me in the face, hell was hard on my heels. Up against it, I didn't know which way to turn;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> then I called out to GOD for help: "Please, GOD!" I cried out. "Save my life!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD is gracious--it is he who makes things right, our most compassionate God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD takes the side of the helpless; when I was at the end of my rope, he saved me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I said to myself, "Relax and rest. GOD has showered you with blessings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Soul, you've been rescued from death; Eye, you've been rescued from tears; And you, Foot, were kept from stumbling."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'm striding in the presence of GOD, alive in the land of the living!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I stayed faithful, though bedeviled, and despite a ton of bad luck,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Despite giving up on the human race, saying, "They're all liars and cheats."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> What can I give back to GOD for the blessings he's poured out on me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I'll lift high the cup of salvation--a toast to GOD! I'll pray in the name of GOD;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'll complete what I promised GOD I'd do, and I'll do it together with his people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> When they arrive at the gates of death, GOD welcomes those who love him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Oh, GOD, here I am, your servant, your faithful servant: set me free for your service!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I'm ready to offer the thanksgiving sacrifice and pray in the name of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I'll complete what I promised GOD I'd do, and I'll do it in company with his people,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> In the place of worship, in GOD's house, in Jerusalem, GOD's city. Hallelujah!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="117">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Praise GOD, everybody! Applaud GOD, all people!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> His love has taken over our lives; GOD's faithful ways are eternal. Hallelujah!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="118">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Thank GOD because he's good, because his love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Tell the world, Israel, "His love never quits."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And you, clan of Aaron, tell the world, "His love never quits."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> And you who fear GOD, join in, "His love never quits."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Pushed to the wall, I called to GOD; from the wide open spaces, he answered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD's now at my side and I'm not afraid; who would dare lay a hand on me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD's my strong champion; I flick off my enemies like flies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Far better to take refuge in GOD than trust in people;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Far better to take refuge in GOD than trust in celebrities.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Hemmed in by barbarians, in GOD's name I rubbed their faces in the dirt;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Hemmed in and with no way out, in GOD's name I rubbed their faces in the dirt;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Like swarming bees, like wild prairie fire, they hemmed me in; in GOD's name I rubbed their faces in the dirt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I was right on the cliff-edge, ready to fall, when GOD grabbed and held me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD's my strength, he's also my song, and now he's my salvation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Hear the shouts, hear the triumph songs in the camp of the saved? "The hand of GOD has turned the tide!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The hand of GOD is raised in victory! The hand of GOD has turned the tide!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I didn't die. I lived! And now I'm telling the world what GOD did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> GOD tested me, he pushed me hard, but he didn't hand me over to Death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Swing wide the city gates--the righteous gates! I'll walk right through and thank GOD!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> This Temple Gate belongs to GOD, so the victors can enter and praise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Thank you for responding to me; you've truly become my salvation!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The stone the masons discarded as flawed is now the capstone!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> This is GOD's work. We rub our eyes--we can hardly believe it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> This is the very day GOD acted-- let's celebrate and be festive!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Salvation now, GOD. Salvation now! Oh yes, GOD--a free and full life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Blessed are you who enter in GOD's name-- from GOD's house we bless you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> GOD is God, he has bathed us in light. Festoon the shrine with garlands, hang colored banners above the altar!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> You're my God, and I thank you. O my God, I lift high your praise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Thank GOD--he's so good. His love never quits!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="119">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> You're blessed when you stay on course, walking steadily on the road revealed by GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> You're blessed when you follow his directions, doing your best to find him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> That's right--you don't go off on your own; you walk straight along the road he set.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You, GOD, prescribed the right way to live; now you expect us to live it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Oh, that my steps might be steady, keeping to the course you set;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then I'd never have any regrets in comparing my life with your counsel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I thank you for speaking straight from your heart; I learn the pattern of your righteous ways.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I'm going to do what you tell me to do; don't ever walk off and leave me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> How can a young person live a clean life? By carefully reading the map of your Word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I'm single-minded in pursuit of you; don't let me miss the road signs you've posted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I've banked your promises in the vault of my heart so I won't sin myself bankrupt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Be blessed, GOD; train me in your ways of wise living.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I'll transfer to my lips all the counsel that comes from your mouth;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I delight far more in what you tell me about living than in gathering a pile of riches.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I ponder every morsel of wisdom from you, I attentively watch how you've done it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I relish everything you've told me of life, I won't forget a word of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Be generous with me and I'll live a full life; not for a minute will I take my eyes off your road.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Open my eyes so I can see what you show me of your miracle-wonders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I'm a stranger in these parts; give me clear directions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> My soul is starved and hungry, ravenous!-- insatiable for your nourishing commands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And those who think they know so much, ignoring everything you tell them--let them have it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Don't let them mock and humiliate me; I've been careful to do just what you said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> While bad neighbors maliciously gossip about me, I'm absorbed in pondering your wise counsel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Yes, your sayings on life are what give me delight; I listen to them as to good neighbors!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> I'm feeling terrible--I couldn't feel worse! Get me on my feet again. You promised, remember?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> When I told my story, you responded; train me well in your deep wisdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Help me understand these things inside and out so I can ponder your miracle-wonders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> My sad life's dilapidated, a falling-down barn; build me up again by your Word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Barricade the road that goes Nowhere; grace me with your clear revelation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> I choose the true road to Somewhere, I post your road signs at every curve and corner.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> I grasp and cling to whatever you tell me; GOD, don't let me down!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> I'll run the course you lay out for me if you'll just show me how.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> GOD, teach me lessons for living so I can stay the course.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Give me insight so I can do what you tell me-- my whole life one long, obedient response.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Guide me down the road of your commandments; I love traveling this freeway!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Give me a bent for your words of wisdom, and not for piling up loot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Divert my eyes from toys and trinkets, invigorate me on the pilgrim way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Affirm your promises to me-- promises made to all who fear you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Deflect the harsh words of my critics-- but what you say is always so good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> See how hungry I am for your counsel; preserve my life through your righteous ways!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Let your love, GOD, shape my life with salvation, exactly as you promised;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Then I'll be able to stand up to mockery because I trusted your Word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Don't ever deprive me of truth, not ever-- your commandments are what I depend on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Oh, I'll guard with my life what you've revealed to me, guard it now, guard it ever;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> And I'll stride freely through wide open spaces as I look for your truth and your wisdom;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Then I'll tell the world what I find, speak out boldly in public, unembarrassed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> I cherish your commandments--oh, how I love them!--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> relishing every fragment of your counsel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> Remember what you said to me, your servant-- I hang on to these words for dear life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> These words hold me up in bad times; yes, your promises rejuvenate me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> The insolent ridicule me without mercy, but I don't budge from your revelation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> I watch for your ancient landmark words, and know I'm on the right track.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> But when I see the wicked ignore your directions, I'm beside myself with anger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> I set your instructions to music and sing them as I walk this pilgrim way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> I meditate on your name all night, GOD, treasuring your revelation, O GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> Still, I walk through a rain of derision because I live by your Word and counsel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> Because you have satisfied me, GOD, I promise to do everything you say.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> I beg you from the bottom of my heart: smile, be gracious to me just as you promised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="59"> When I took a long, careful look at your ways, I got my feet back on the trail you blazed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="60"> I was up at once, didn't drag my feet, was quick to follow your orders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="61"> The wicked hemmed me in--there was no way out-- but not for a minute did I forget your plan for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="62"> I get up in the middle of the night to thank you; your decisions are so right, so true--I can't wait till morning!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="63"> I'm a friend and companion of all who fear you, of those committed to living by your rules.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="64"> Your love, GOD, fills the earth! Train me to live by your counsel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="65"> Be good to your servant, GOD; be as good as your Word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="66"> Train me in good common sense; I'm thoroughly committed to living your way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="67"> Before I learned to answer you, I wandered all over the place, but now I'm in step with your Word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="68"> You are good, and the source of good; train me in your goodness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="69"> The godless spread lies about me, but I focus my attention on what you are saying;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="70"> They're bland as a bucket of lard, while I dance to the tune of your revelation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="71"> My troubles turned out all for the best-- they forced me to learn from your textbook.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="72"> Truth from your mouth means more to me than striking it rich in a gold mine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="73"> With your very own hands you formed me; now breathe your wisdom over me so I can understand you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="74"> When they see me waiting, expecting your Word, those who fear you will take heart and be glad.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="75"> I can see now, GOD, that your decisions are right; your testing has taught me what's true and right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="76"> Oh, love me--and right now!--hold me tight! just the way you promised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="77"> Now comfort me so I can live, really live; your revelation is the tune I dance to.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="78"> Let the fast-talking tricksters be exposed as frauds; they tried to sell me a bill of goods, but I kept my mind fixed on your counsel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="79"> Let those who fear you turn to me for evidence of your wise guidance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="80"> And let me live whole and holy, soul and body, so I can always walk with my head held high.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="81"> I'm homesick--longing for your salvation; I'm waiting for your word of hope.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="82"> My eyes grow heavy watching for some sign of your promise; how long must I wait for your comfort?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="83"> There's smoke in my eyes--they burn and water, but I keep a steady gaze on the instructions you post.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="84"> How long do I have to put up with all this? How long till you haul my tormentors into court?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="85"> The arrogant godless try to throw me off track, ignorant as they are of God and his ways.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="86"> Everything you command is a sure thing, but they harass me with lies. Help!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="87"> They've pushed and pushed--they never let up-- but I haven't relaxed my grip on your counsel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="88"> In your great love revive me so I can alertly obey your every word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="89"> What you say goes, GOD, and stays, as permanent as the heavens.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="90"> Your truth never goes out of fashion; it's as up-to-date as the earth when the sun comes up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="91"> Your Word and truth are dependable as ever; that's what you ordered--you set the earth going.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="92"> If your revelation hadn't delighted me so, I would have given up when the hard times came.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="93"> But I'll never forget the advice you gave me; you saved my life with those wise words.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="94"> Save me! I'm all yours. I look high and low for your words of wisdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="95"> The wicked lie in ambush to destroy me, but I'm only concerned with your plans for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="96"> I see the limits to everything human, but the horizons can't contain your commands!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="97"> Oh, how I love all you've revealed; I reverently ponder it all the day long.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="98"> Your commands give me an edge on my enemies; they never become obsolete.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="99"> I've even become smarter than my teachers since I've pondered and absorbed your counsel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="100"> I've become wiser than the wise old sages simply by doing what you tell me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="101"> I watch my step, avoiding the ditches and ruts of evil so I can spend all my time keeping your Word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="102"> I never make detours from the route you laid out; you gave me such good directions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="103"> Your words are so choice, so tasty; I prefer them to the best home cooking.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="104"> With your instruction, I understand life; that's why I hate false propaganda.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="105"> By your words I can see where I'm going; they throw a beam of light on my dark path.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="106"> I've committed myself and I'll never turn back from living by your righteous order.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="107"> Everything's falling apart on me, GOD; put me together again with your Word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="108"> Festoon me with your finest sayings, GOD; teach me your holy rules.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="109"> My life is as close as my own hands, but I don't forget what you have revealed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="110"> The wicked do their best to throw me off track, but I don't swerve an inch from your course.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="111"> I inherited your book on living; it's mine forever-- what a gift! And how happy it makes me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="112"> I concentrate on doing exactly what you say-- I always have and always will.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="113"> I hate the two-faced, but I love your clear-cut revelation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="114"> You're my place of quiet retreat; I wait for your Word to renew me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="115"> Get out of my life, evildoers, so I can keep my God's commands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="116"> Take my side as you promised; I'll live then for sure. Don't disappoint all my grand hopes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="117"> Stick with me and I'll be all right; I'll give total allegiance to your definitions of life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="118"> Expose all who drift away from your sayings; their casual idolatry is lethal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="119"> You reject earth's wicked as so much rubbish; therefore I lovingly embrace everything you say.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="120"> I shiver in awe before you; your decisions leave me speechless with reverence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="121"> I stood up for justice and the right; don't leave me to the mercy of my oppressors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="122"> Take the side of your servant, good God; don't let the godless take advantage of me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="123"> I can't keep my eyes open any longer, waiting for you to keep your promise to set everything right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="124"> Let your love dictate how you deal with me; teach me from your textbook on life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="125"> I'm your servant--help me understand what that means, the inner meaning of your instructions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="126"> It's time to act, GOD; they've made a shambles of your revelation!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="127"> Yea-Saying God, I love what you command, I love it better than gold and gemstones;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="128"> Yea-Saying God, I honor everything you tell me, I despise every deceitful detour. W</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="129"> Every word you give me is a miracle word-- how could I help but obey?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="130"> Break open your words, let the light shine out, let ordinary people see the meaning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="131"> Mouth open and panting, I wanted your commands more than anything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="132"> Turn my way, look kindly on me, as you always do to those who personally love you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="133"> Steady my steps with your Word of promise so nothing malign gets the better of me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="134"> Rescue me from the grip of bad men and women so I can live life your way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="135"> Smile on me, your servant; teach me the right way to live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="136"> I cry rivers of tears because nobody's living by your book!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="137"> You are right and you do right, GOD; your decisions are right on target.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="138"> You rightly instruct us in how to live ever faithful to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="139"> My rivals nearly did me in, they persistently ignored your commandments.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="140"> Your promise has been tested through and through, and I, your servant, love it dearly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="141"> I'm too young to be important, but I don't forget what you tell me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="142"> Your righteousness is eternally right, your revelation is the only truth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="143"> Even though troubles came down on me hard, your commands always gave me delight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="144"> The way you tell me to live is always right; help me understand it so I can live to the fullest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="145"> I call out at the top of my lungs, "GOD! Answer! I'll do whatever you say."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="146"> I called to you, "Save me so I can carry out all your instructions."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="147"> I was up before sunrise, crying for help, hoping for a word from you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="148"> I stayed awake all night, prayerfully pondering your promise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="149"> In your love, listen to me; in your justice, GOD, keep me alive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="150"> As those out to get me come closer and closer, they go farther and farther from the truth you reveal;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="151"> But you're the closest of all to me, GOD, and all your judgments true.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="152"> I've known all along from the evidence of your words that you meant them to last forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="153"> Take a good look at my trouble, and help me-- I haven't forgotten your revelation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="154"> Take my side and get me out of this; give me back my life, just as you promised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="155"> "Salvation" is only gibberish to the wicked because they've never looked it up in your dictionary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="156"> Your mercies, GOD, run into the billions; following your guidelines, revive me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="157"> My antagonists are too many to count, but I don't swerve from the directions you gave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="158"> I took one look at the quitters and was filled with loathing; they walked away from your promises so casually!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="159"> Take note of how I love what you tell me; out of your life of love, prolong my life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="160"> Your words all add up to the sum total: Truth. Your righteous decisions are eternal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="161"> I've been slandered unmercifully by the politicians, but my awe at your words keeps me stable.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="162"> I'm ecstatic over what you say, like one who strikes it rich.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="163"> I hate lies--can't stand them!-- but I love what you have revealed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="164"> Seven times each day I stop and shout praises for the way you keep everything running right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="165"> For those who love what you reveal, everything fits-- no stumbling around in the dark for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="166"> I wait expectantly for your salvation; GOD, I do what you tell me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="167"> My soul guards and keeps all your instructions-- oh, how much I love them!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="168"> I follow your directions, abide by your counsel; my life's an open book before you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="169"> Let my cry come right into your presence, GOD; provide me with the insight that comes only from your Word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="170"> Give my request your personal attention, rescue me on the terms of your promise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="171"> Let praise cascade off my lips; after all, you've taught me the truth about life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="172"> And let your promises ring from my tongue; every order you've given is right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="173"> Put your hand out and steady me since I've chosen to live by your counsel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="174"> I'm homesick, GOD, for your salvation; I love it when you show yourself!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="175"> Invigorate my soul so I can praise you well, use your decrees to put iron in my soul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="176"> And should I wander off like a lost sheep--seek me! I'll recognize the sound of your voice.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="120">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A pilgrim song. I'm in trouble. I cry to GOD, desperate for an answer:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Deliver me from the liars, GOD! They smile so sweetly but lie through their teeth."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Do you know what's next, can you see what's coming, all you barefaced liars?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Pointed arrows and burning coals will be your reward.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I'm doomed to live in Meshech, cursed with a home in Kedar,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> My whole life lived camping among quarreling neighbors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I'm all for peace, but the minute I tell them so, they go to war!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="121">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A pilgrim song. I look up to the mountains; does my strength come from mountains?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> No, my strength comes from GOD, who made heaven, and earth, and mountains.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He won't let you stumble, your Guardian God won't fall asleep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Not on your life! Israel's Guardian will never doze or sleep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD's your Guardian, right at your side to protect you--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Shielding you from sunstroke, sheltering you from moonstroke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD guards you from every evil, he guards your very life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He guards you when you leave and when you return, he guards you now, he guards you always.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="122">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A pilgrim song of David. When they said, "Let's go to the house of GOD," my heart leaped for joy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> And now we're here, O Jerusalem, inside Jerusalem's walls!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Jerusalem, well-built city, built as a place for worship!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The city to which the tribes ascend, all GOD's tribes go up to worship, To give thanks to the name of GOD-- this is what it means to be Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Thrones for righteous judgment are set there, famous David-thrones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Pray for Jerusalem's peace! Prosperity to all you Jerusalem-lovers!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Friendly insiders, get along! Hostile outsiders, keep your distance!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> For the sake of my family and friends, I say it again: live in peace!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> For the sake of the house of our God, GOD, I'll do my very best for you.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="123">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A pilgrim song. I look to you, heaven-dwelling God, look up to you for help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Like servants, alert to their master's commands, like a maiden attending her lady, We're watching and waiting, holding our breath, awaiting your word of mercy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Mercy, GOD, mercy! We've been kicked around long enough,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Kicked in the teeth by complacent rich men, kicked when we're down by arrogant brutes.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="124">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A pilgrim song of David. If GOD hadn't been for us --all together now, Israel, sing out!--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> If GOD hadn't been for us when everyone went against us,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> We would have been swallowed alive by their violent anger,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Swept away by the flood of rage, drowned in the torrent;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> We would have lost our lives in the wild, raging water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Oh, blessed be GOD! He didn't go off and leave us. He didn't abandon us defenseless, helpless as a rabbit in a pack of snarling dogs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> We've flown free from their fangs, free of their traps, free as a bird. Their grip is broken; we're free as a bird in flight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD's strong name is our help, the same GOD who made heaven and earth.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="125">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A pilgrim song. Those who trust in GOD are like Zion Mountain: Nothing can move it, a rock-solid mountain you can always depend on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Mountains encircle Jerusalem, and GOD encircles his people-- always has and always will.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The fist of the wicked will never violate What is due the righteous, provoking wrongful violence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Be good to your good people, GOD, to those whose hearts are right!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD will round up the backsliders, corral them with the incorrigibles. Peace over Israel!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="126">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A pilgrim song. It seemed like a dream, too good to be true, when GOD returned Zion's exiles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> We laughed, we sang, we couldn't believe our good fortune. We were the talk of the nations-- "GOD was wonderful to them!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> GOD was wonderful to us; we are one happy people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> And now, GOD, do it again-- bring rains to our drought-stricken lives</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> So those who planted their crops in despair will shout hurrahs at the harvest,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So those who went off with heavy hearts will come home laughing, with armloads of blessing.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="127">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A pilgrim song of Solomon. If GOD doesn't build the house, the builders only build shacks. If GOD doesn't guard the city, the night watchman might as well nap.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> It's useless to rise early and go to bed late, and work your worried fingers to the bone. Don't you know he enjoys giving rest to those he loves?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Don't you see that children are GOD's best gift? the fruit of the womb his generous legacy?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Like a warrior's fistful of arrows are the children of a vigorous youth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Oh, how blessed are you parents, with your quivers full of children! Your enemies don't stand a chance against you; you'll sweep them right off your doorstep.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="128">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A pilgrim song. All you who fear GOD, how blessed you are! how happily you walk on his smooth straight road!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> You worked hard and deserve all you've got coming. Enjoy the blessing! Revel in the goodness!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Your wife will bear children as a vine bears grapes, your household lush as a vineyard, The children around your table as fresh and promising as young olive shoots.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Stand in awe of God's Yes. Oh, how he blesses the one who fears GOD!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Enjoy the good life in Jerusalem every day of your life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And enjoy your grandchildren. Peace to Israel!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="129">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A pilgrim song. "They've kicked me around ever since I was young" --this is how Israel tells it--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "They've kicked me around ever since I was young, but they never could keep me down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Their plowmen plowed long furrows up and down my back;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then GOD ripped the harnesses of the evil plowmen to shreds."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Oh, let all those who hate Zion grovel in humiliation;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Let them be like grass in shallow ground that withers before the harvest,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Before the farmhands can gather it in, the harvesters get in the crop,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Before the neighbors have a chance to call out, "Congratulations on your wonderful crop! We bless you in GOD's name!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="130">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A pilgrim song. Help, GOD--the bottom has fallen out of my life! Master, hear my cry for help!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Listen hard! Open your ears! Listen to my cries for mercy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> If you, GOD, kept records on wrongdoings, who would stand a chance?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> As it turns out, forgiveness is your habit, and that's why you're worshiped.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I pray to GOD--my life a prayer-- and wait for what he'll say and do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> My life's on the line before God, my Lord, waiting and watching till morning, waiting and watching till morning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> O Israel, wait and watch for GOD-- with GOD's arrival comes love, with GOD's arrival comes generous redemption.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> No doubt about it--he'll redeem Israel, buy back Israel from captivity to sin.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="131">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A pilgrim song. GOD, I'm not trying to rule the roost, I don't want to be king of the mountain. I haven't meddled where I have no business or fantasized grandiose plans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I've kept my feet on the ground, I've cultivated a quiet heart. Like a baby content in its mother's arms, my soul is a baby content.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Wait, Israel, for GOD. Wait with hope. Hope now; hope always!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="132">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A pilgrim song. O GOD, remember David, remember all his troubles!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> And remember how he promised GOD, made a vow to the Strong God of Jacob,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "I'm not going home, and I'm not going to bed,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'm not going to sleep, not even take time to rest,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Until I find a home for GOD, a house for the Strong God of Jacob."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Remember how we got the news in Ephrathah, learned all about it at Jaar Meadows?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> We shouted, "Let's go to the shrine dedication! Let's worship at God's own footstool!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Up, GOD, enjoy your new place of quiet repose, you and your mighty covenant ark;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Get your priests all dressed up in justice; prompt your worshipers to sing this prayer:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Honor your servant David; don't disdain your anointed one."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD gave David his word, he won't back out on this promise: "One of your sons I will set on your throne;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> If your sons stay true to my Covenant and learn to live the way I teach them, Their sons will continue the line-- always a son to sit on your throne.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Yes--I, GOD, chose Zion, the place I wanted for my shrine;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> This will always be my home; this is what I want, and I'm here for good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I'll shower blessings on the pilgrims who come here, and give supper to those who arrive hungry;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I'll dress my priests in salvation clothes; the holy people will sing their hearts out!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Oh, I'll make the place radiant for David! I'll fill it with light for my anointed!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I'll dress his enemies in dirty rags, but I'll make his crown sparkle with splendor."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="133">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A pilgrim song of David. How wonderful, how beautiful, when brothers and sisters get along!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> It's like costly anointing oil flowing down head and beard, Flowing down Aaron's beard, flowing down the collar of his priestly robes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> It's like the dew on Mount Hermon flowing down the slopes of Zion. Yes, that's where GOD commands the blessing, ordains eternal life.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="134">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A pilgrim song. Come, bless GOD, all you servants of GOD! You priests of GOD, posted to the nightwatch in GOD's shrine,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Lift your praising hands to the Holy Place, and bless GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> In turn, may GOD of Zion bless you-- GOD who made heaven and earth!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="135">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Hallelujah! Praise the name of GOD, praise the works of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> All you priests on duty in GOD's temple, serving in the sacred halls of our God,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Shout "Hallelujah!" because GOD's so good, sing anthems to his beautiful name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> And why? Because GOD chose Jacob, embraced Israel as a prize possession.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I too give witness to the greatness of GOD, our Lord, high above all other gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He does just as he pleases-- however, wherever, whenever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He makes the weather--clouds and thunder, lightning and rain, wind pouring out of the north.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He struck down the Egyptian firstborn, both human and animal firstborn.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He made Egypt sit up and take notice, confronted Pharaoh and his servants with miracles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Yes, he struck down great nations, he slew mighty kings--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Sihon king of the Amorites, also Og of Bashan-- every last one of the Canaanite kings!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then he turned their land over to Israel, a gift of good land to his people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> GOD, your name is eternal, GOD, you'll never be out-of-date.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD stands up for his people, GOD holds the hands of his people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The gods of the godless nations are mere trinkets, made for quick sale in the markets:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Chiseled mouths that can't talk, painted eyes that can't see,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Carved ears that can't hear-- dead wood! cold metal!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Those who make and trust them become like them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Family of Israel, bless GOD! Family of Aaron, bless GOD!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Family of Levi, bless GOD! You who fear GOD, bless GOD!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Oh, blessed be GOD of Zion, First Citizen of Jerusalem! Hallelujah!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="136">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Thank GOD! He deserves your thanks. His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Thank the God of all gods, His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Thank the Lord of all lords. His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Thank the miracle-working God, His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The God whose skill formed the cosmos, His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The God who laid out earth on ocean foundations, His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The God who filled the skies with light, His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The sun to watch over the day, His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Moon and stars as guardians of the night, His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The God who struck down the Egyptian firstborn, His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And rescued Israel from Egypt's oppression, His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Took Israel in hand with his powerful hand, His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Split the Red Sea right in half, His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Led Israel right through the middle, His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Dumped Pharaoh and his army in the sea, His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The God who marched his people through the desert, His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Smashed huge kingdoms right and left, His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Struck down the famous kings, His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Struck Sihon the Amorite king, His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Struck Og the Bashanite king, His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then distributed their land as booty, His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Handed the land over to Israel. His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> God remembered us when we were down, His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Rescued us from the trampling boot, His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Takes care of everyone in time of need. His love never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Thank God, who did it all! His love never quits!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="137">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Alongside Babylon's rivers we sat on the banks; we cried and cried, remembering the good old days in Zion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Alongside the quaking aspens we stacked our unplayed harps;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> That's where our captors demanded songs, sarcastic and mocking: "Sing us a happy Zion song!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Oh, how could we ever sing GOD's song in this wasteland?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> If I ever forget you, Jerusalem, let my fingers wither and fall off like leaves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Let my tongue swell and turn black if I fail to remember you, If I fail, O dear Jerusalem, to honor you as my greatest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD, remember those Edomites, and remember the ruin of Jerusalem, That day they yelled out, "Wreck it, smash it to bits!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And you, Babylonians--ravagers! A reward to whoever gets back at you for all you've done to us;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Yes, a reward to the one who grabs your babies and smashes their heads on the rocks!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="138">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. Thank you! Everything in me says "Thank you!" Angels listen as I sing my thanks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I kneel in worship facing your holy temple and say it again: "Thank you!" Thank you for your love, thank you for your faithfulness; Most holy is your name, most holy is your Word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The moment I called out, you stepped in; you made my life large with strength.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When they hear what you have to say, GOD, all earth's kings will say "Thank you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They'll sing of what you've done: "How great the glory of GOD!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And here's why: GOD, high above, sees far below; no matter the distance, he knows everything about us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When I walk into the thick of trouble, keep me alive in the angry turmoil. With one hand strike my foes, With your other hand save me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Finish what you started in me, GOD. Your love is eternal--don't quit on me now.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="139">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. GOD, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I'm an open book to you; even from a distance, you know what I'm thinking.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You know when I leave and when I get back; I'm never out of your sight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You know everything I'm going to say before I start the first sentence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I look behind me and you're there, then up ahead and you're there, too-- your reassuring presence, coming and going.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> This is too much, too wonderful-- I can't take it all in!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit? to be out of your sight?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> If I climb to the sky, you're there! If I go underground, you're there!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> If I flew on morning's wings to the far western horizon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You'd find me in a minute-- you're already there waiting!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then I said to myself, "Oh, he even sees me in the dark! At night I'm immersed in the light!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> It's a fact: darkness isn't dark to you; night and day, darkness and light, they're all the same to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother's womb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I thank you, High God--you're breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made! I worship in adoration--what a creation!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, The days of my life all prepared before I'd even lived one day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Your thoughts--how rare, how beautiful! God, I'll never comprehend them!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I couldn't even begin to count them-- any more than I could count the sand of the sea. Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And please, God, do away with wickedness for good! And you murderers--out of here!--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> all the men and women who belittle you, God, infatuated with cheap god-imitations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> See how I hate those who hate you, GOD, see how I loathe all this godless arrogance;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I hate it with pure, unadulterated hatred. Your enemies are my enemies!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Investigate my life, O God, find out everything about me; Cross-examine and test me, get a clear picture of what I'm about;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> See for yourself whether I've done anything wrong-- then guide me on the road to eternal life.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="140">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. GOD, get me out of here, away from this evil; protect me from these vicious people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> All they do is think up new ways to be bad; they spend their days plotting war games.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They practice the sharp rhetoric of hate and hurt, speak venomous words that maim and kill.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD, keep me out of the clutch of these wicked ones, protect me from these vicious people;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Stuffed with self-importance, they plot ways to trip me up, determined to bring me down. These crooks invent traps to catch me and do their best to incriminate me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I prayed, "GOD, you're my God! Listen, GOD! Mercy!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD, my Lord, Strong Savior, protect me when the fighting breaks out!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Don't let the wicked have their way, GOD, don't give them an inch!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> These troublemakers all around me-- let them drown in their own verbal poison.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Let God pile hellfire on them, let him bury them alive in crevasses!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> These loudmouths-- don't let them be taken seriously; These savages-- let the Devil hunt them down!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I know that you, GOD, are on the side of victims, that you care for the rights of the poor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And I know that the righteous personally thank you, that good people are secure in your presence.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="141">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. GOD, come close. Come quickly! Open your ears--it's my voice you're hearing!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Treat my prayer as sweet incense rising; my raised hands are my evening prayers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Post a guard at my mouth, GOD, set a watch at the door of my lips.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Don't let me so much as dream of evil or thoughtlessly fall into bad company. And these people who only do wrong-- don't let them lure me with their sweet talk!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> May the Just One set me straight, may the Kind One correct me, Don't let sin anoint my head. I'm praying hard against their evil ways!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Oh, let their leaders be pushed off a high rock cliff; make them face the music.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Like a rock pulverized by a maul, let their bones be scattered at the gates of hell.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But GOD, dear Lord, I only have eyes for you. Since I've run for dear life to you, take good care of me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Protect me from their evil scheming, from all their demonic subterfuge.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Let the wicked fall flat on their faces, while I walk off without a scratch. A David prayer--when he was in the cave.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="142">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I cry out loudly to GOD, loudly I plead with GOD for mercy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I spill out all my complaints before him, and spell out my troubles in detail:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "As I sink in despair, my spirit ebbing away, you know how I'm feeling, Know the danger I'm in, the traps hidden in my path.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Look right, look left-- there's not a soul who cares what happens! I'm up against it, with no exit-- bereft, left alone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I cry out, GOD, call out: 'You're my last chance, my only hope for life!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Oh listen, please listen; I've never been this low. Rescue me from those who are hunting me down; I'm no match for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Get me out of this dungeon so I can thank you in public. Your people will form a circle around me and you'll bring me showers of blessing!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="143">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. Listen to this prayer of mine, GOD; pay attention to what I'm asking. Answer me--you're famous for your answers! Do what's right for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> But don't, please don't, haul me into court; not a person alive would be acquitted there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The enemy hunted me down; he kicked me and stomped me within an inch of my life. He put me in a black hole, buried me like a corpse in that dungeon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I sat there in despair, my spirit draining away, my heart heavy, like lead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I remembered the old days, went over all you've done, pondered the ways you've worked,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Stretched out my hands to you, as thirsty for you as a desert thirsty for rain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Hurry with your answer, GOD! I'm nearly at the end of my rope. Don't turn away; don't ignore me! That would be certain death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> If you wake me each morning with the sound of your loving voice, I'll go to sleep each night trusting in you. Point out the road I must travel; I'm all ears, all eyes before you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Save me from my enemies, GOD-- you're my only hope!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Teach me how to live to please you, because you're my God. Lead me by your blessed Spirit into cleared and level pastureland.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Keep up your reputation, God--give me life! In your justice, get me out of this trouble!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> In your great love, vanquish my enemies; make a clean sweep of those who harass me. And why? Because I'm your servant.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="144">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A David psalm. Blessed be GOD, my mountain, who trains me to fight fair and well.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He's the bedrock on which I stand, the castle in which I live, my rescuing knight, The high crag where I run for dear life, while he lays my enemies low.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I wonder why you care, GOD-- why do you bother with us at all?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> All we are is a puff of air; we're like shadows in a campfire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Step down out of heaven, GOD; ignite volcanoes in the hearts of the mountains.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Hurl your lightnings in every direction; shoot your arrows this way and that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Reach all the way from sky to sea: pull me out of the ocean of hate, out of the grip of those barbarians</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Who lie through their teeth, who shake your hand then knife you in the back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> O God, let me sing a new song to you, let me play it on a twelve-string guitar--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> A song to the God who saved the king, the God who rescued David, his servant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Rescue me from the enemy sword, release me from the grip of those barbarians Who lie through their teeth, who shake your hand then knife you in the back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Make our sons in their prime like sturdy oak trees, Our daughters as shapely and bright as fields of wildflowers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Fill our barns with great harvest, fill our fields with huge flocks;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Protect us from invasion and exile-- eliminate the crime in our streets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> How blessed the people who have all this! How blessed the people who have GOD for God!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="145">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> David's praise. I lift you high in praise, my God, O my King! and I'll bless your name into eternity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I'll bless you every day, and keep it up from now to eternity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> GOD is magnificent; he can never be praised enough. There are no boundaries to his greatness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Generation after generation stands in awe of your work; each one tells stories of your mighty acts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Your beauty and splendor have everyone talking; I compose songs on your wonders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Your marvelous doings are headline news; I could write a book full of the details of your greatness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The fame of your goodness spreads across the country; your righteousness is on everyone's lips.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD is all mercy and grace-- not quick to anger, is rich in love.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD is good to one and all; everything he does is suffused with grace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Creation and creatures applaud you, GOD;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> your holy people bless you. They talk about the glories of your rule, they exclaim over your splendor,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Letting the world know of your power for good, the lavish splendor of your kingdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Your kingdom is a kingdom eternal; you never get voted out of office. GOD always does what he says, and is gracious in everything he does.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD gives a hand to those down on their luck, gives a fresh start to those ready to quit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> All eyes are on you, expectant; you give them their meals on time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Generous to a fault, you lavish your favor on all creatures.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Everything GOD does is right-- the trademark on all his works is love.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> GOD's there, listening for all who pray, for all who pray and mean it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He does what's best for those who fear him-- hears them call out, and saves them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> GOD sticks by all who love him, but it's all over for those who don't.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> My mouth is filled with GOD's praise. Let everything living bless him, bless his holy name from now to eternity!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="146">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Hallelujah! O my soul, praise GOD!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> All my life long I'll praise GOD, singing songs to my God as long as I live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Don't put your life in the hands of experts who know nothing of life, of salvation life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Mere humans don't have what it takes; when they die, their projects die with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Instead, get help from the God of Jacob, put your hope in GOD and know real blessing!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD made sky and soil, sea and all the fish in it. He always does what he says--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> he defends the wronged, he feeds the hungry. GOD frees prisoners--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> he gives sight to the blind, he lifts up the fallen. GOD loves good people,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> protects strangers, takes the side of orphans and widows, but makes short work of the wicked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> GOD's in charge--always. Zion's God is God for good! Hallelujah!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="147">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Hallelujah! It's a good thing to sing praise to our God; praise is beautiful, praise is fitting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD's the one who rebuilds Jerusalem, who regathers Israel's scattered exiles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He heals the heartbroken and bandages their wounds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He counts the stars and assigns each a name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Our Lord is great, with limitless strength; we'll never comprehend what he knows and does</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD puts the fallen on their feet again and pushes the wicked into the ditch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Sing to GOD a thanksgiving hymn, play music on your instruments to God,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Who fills the sky with clouds, preparing rain for the earth, Then turning the mountains green with grass,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> feeding both cattle and crows.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He's not impressed with horsepower; the size of our muscles means little to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Those who fear GOD get GOD's attention; they can depend on his strength.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Jerusalem, worship GOD! Zion, praise your God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He made your city secure, he blessed your children among you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He keeps the peace at your borders, he puts the best bread on your tables.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He launches his promises earthward-- how swift and sure they come!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He spreads snow like a white fleece, he scatters frost like ashes,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He broadcasts hail like birdseed-- who can survive his winter?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Then he gives the command and it all melts; he breathes on winter--suddenly it's spring!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He speaks the same way to Jacob, speaks words that work to Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He never did this to the other nations; they never heard such commands. Hallelujah!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="148">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Hallelujah! Praise GOD from heaven, praise him from the mountaintops;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Praise him, all you his angels, praise him, all you his warriors,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, you morning stars;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Praise him, high heaven, praise him, heavenly rain clouds;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Praise, oh let them praise the name of GOD-- he spoke the word, and there they were!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He set them in place from all time to eternity; He gave his orders, and that's it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Praise GOD from earth, you sea dragons, you fathomless ocean deeps;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Fire and hail, snow and ice, hurricanes obeying his orders;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Mountains and all hills, apple orchards and cedar forests;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Wild beasts and herds of cattle, snakes, and birds in flight;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Earth's kings and all races, leaders and important people,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Robust men and women in their prime, and yes, graybeards and little children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Let them praise the name of GOD-- it's the only Name worth praising. His radiance exceeds anything in earth and sky;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> he's built a monument--his very own people! Praise from all who love GOD! Israel's children, intimate friends of GOD. Hallelujah!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="149">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Hallelujah! Sing to GOD a brand-new song, praise him in the company of all who love him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Let all Israel celebrate their Sovereign Creator, Zion's children exult in their King.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Let them praise his name in dance; strike up the band and make great music!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> And why? Because GOD delights in his people, festoons plain folk with salvation garlands!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Let true lovers break out in praise, sing out from wherever they're sitting,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Shout the high praises of God, brandish their swords in the wild sword-dance--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> A portent of vengeance on the God-defying nations, a signal that punishment's coming,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Their kings chained and hauled off to jail, their leaders behind bars for good,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The judgment on them carried out to the letter --and all who love God in the seat of honor! Hallelujah!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="150">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Hallelujah! Praise God in his holy house of worship, praise him under the open skies;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Praise him for his acts of power, praise him for his magnificent greatness;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Praise with a blast on the trumpet, praise by strumming soft strings;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Praise him with castanets and dance, praise him with banjo and flute;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Praise him with cymbals and a big bass drum, praise him with fiddles and mandolin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Let every living, breathing creature praise GOD! Hallelujah!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="20" bname="Proverbs">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> These are the wise sayings of Solomon, David's son, Israel's king--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Written down so we'll know how to live well and right, to understand what life means and where it's going;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> A manual for living, for learning what's right and just and fair;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> To teach the inexperienced the ropes and give our young people a grasp on reality.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> There's something here also for seasoned men and women,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> still a thing or two for the experienced to learn-- Fresh wisdom to probe and penetrate, the rhymes and reasons of wise men and women.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Start with GOD--the first step in learning is bowing down to GOD; only fools thumb their noses at such wisdom and learning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Pay close attention, friend, to what your father tells you; never forget what you learned at your mother's knee.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Wear their counsel like flowers in your hair, like rings on your fingers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Dear friend, if bad companions tempt you, don't go along with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> If they say--"Let's go out and raise some hell. Let's beat up some old man, mug some old woman.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Let's pick them clean and get them ready for their funerals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> We'll load up on top-quality loot. We'll haul it home by the truckload.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Join us for the time of your life! With us, it's share and share alike!"--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Oh, friend, don't give them a second look; don't listen to them for a minute.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They're racing to a very bad end, hurrying to ruin everything they lay hands on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Nobody robs a bank with everyone watching,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Yet that's what these people are doing-- they're doing themselves in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> When you grab all you can get, that's what happens: the more you get, the less you are.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Lady Wisdom goes out in the street and shouts. At the town center she makes her speech.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> In the middle of the traffic she takes her stand. At the busiest corner she calls out:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Simpletons! How long will you wallow in ignorance? Cynics! How long will you feed your cynicism? Idiots! How long will you refuse to learn?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> About face! I can revise your life. Look, I'm ready to pour out my spirit on you; I'm ready to tell you all I know.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> As it is, I've called, but you've turned a deaf ear; I've reached out to you, but you've ignored me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "Since you laugh at my counsel and make a joke of my advice,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> How can I take you seriously? I'll turn the tables and joke about your troubles!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> What if the roof falls in, and your whole life goes to pieces? What if catastrophe strikes and there's nothing to show for your life but rubble and ashes?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> You'll need me then. You'll call for me, but don't expect an answer. No matter how hard you look, you won't find me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "Because you hated Knowledge and had nothing to do with the Fear-of-GOD,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Because you wouldn't take my advice and brushed aside all my offers to train you,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Well, you've made your bed--now lie in it; you wanted your own way--now, how do you like it?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Don't you see what happens, you simpletons, you idiots? Carelessness kills; complacency is murder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> First pay attention to me, and then relax. Now you can take it easy--you're in good hands."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Good friend, take to heart what I'm telling you; collect my counsels and guard them with your life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Tune your ears to the world of Wisdom; set your heart on a life of Understanding.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> That's right--if you make Insight your priority, and won't take no for an answer,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Searching for it like a prospector panning for gold, like an adventurer on a treasure hunt,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Believe me, before you know it Fear-of-GOD will be yours; you'll have come upon the Knowledge of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And here's why: GOD gives out Wisdom free, is plainspoken in Knowledge and Understanding.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He's a rich mine of Common Sense for those who live well, a personal bodyguard to the candid and sincere.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He keeps his eye on all who live honestly, and pays special attention to his loyally committed ones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So now you can pick out what's true and fair, find all the good trails!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Lady Wisdom will be your close friend, and Brother Knowledge your pleasant companion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Good Sense will scout ahead for danger, Insight will keep an eye out for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They'll keep you from making wrong turns, or following the bad directions</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Of those who are lost themselves and can't tell a trail from a tumbleweed,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> These losers who make a game of evil and throw parties to celebrate perversity,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Traveling paths that go nowhere, wandering in a maze of detours and dead ends.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Wise friends will rescue you from the Temptress-- that smooth-talking Seductress</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Who's faithless to the husband she married years ago, never gave a second thought to her promises before God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Her whole way of life is doomed; every step she takes brings her closer to hell.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> No one who joins her company ever comes back, ever sets foot on the path to real living.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> So--join the company of good men and women, keep your feet on the tried and true paths.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> It's the men who walk straight who will settle this land, the women with integrity who will last here.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The corrupt will lose their lives; the dishonest will be gone for good.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Good friend, don't forget all I've taught you; take to heart my commands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They'll help you live a long, long time, a long life lived full and well.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Don't lose your grip on Love and Loyalty. Tie them around your neck; carve their initials on your heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Earn a reputation for living well in God's eyes and the eyes of the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Trust GOD from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Listen for GOD's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he's the one who will keep you on track.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Don't assume that you know it all. Run to GOD! Run from evil!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Your body will glow with health, your very bones will vibrate with life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Honor GOD with everything you own; give him the first and the best.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Your barns will burst, your wine vats will brim over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But don't, dear friend, resent GOD's discipline; don't sulk under his loving correction.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> It's the child he loves that GOD corrects; a father's delight is behind all this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You're blessed when you meet Lady Wisdom, when you make friends with Madame Insight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> She's worth far more than money in the bank; her friendship is better than a big salary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Her value exceeds all the trappings of wealth; nothing you could wish for holds a candle to her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> With one hand she gives long life, with the other she confers recognition.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Her manner is beautiful, her life wonderfully complete.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> She's the very Tree of Life to those who embrace her. Hold her tight--and be blessed!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> With Lady Wisdom, GOD formed Earth; with Madame Insight, he raised Heaven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> They knew when to signal rivers and springs to the surface, and dew to descend from the night skies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Dear friend, guard Clear Thinking and Common Sense with your life; don't for a minute lose sight of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> They'll keep your soul alive and well, they'll keep you fit and attractive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> You'll travel safely, you'll neither tire nor trip.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> You'll take afternoon naps without a worry, you'll enjoy a good night's sleep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> No need to panic over alarms or surprises, or predictions that doomsday's just around the corner,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Because GOD will be right there with you; he'll keep you safe and sound.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Never walk away from someone who deserves help; your hand is God's hand for that person.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Don't tell your neighbor, "Maybe some other time," or, "Try me tomorrow," when the money's right there in your pocket.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Don't figure ways of taking advantage of your neighbor when he's sitting there trusting and unsuspecting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Don't walk around with a chip on your shoulder, always spoiling for a fight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Don't try to be like those who shoulder their way through life. Why be a bully?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "Why not?" you say. Because GOD can't stand twisted souls. It's the straightforward who get his respect.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> GOD's curse blights the house of the wicked, but he blesses the home of the righteous.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> He gives proud skeptics a cold shoulder, but if you're down on your luck, he's right there to help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Wise living gets rewarded with honor; stupid living gets the booby prize.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Listen, friends, to some fatherly advice; sit up and take notice so you'll know how to live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I'm giving you good counsel; don't let it go in one ear and out the other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When I was a boy at my father's knee, the pride and joy of my mother,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He would sit me down and drill me: "Take this to heart. Do what I tell you--live!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Sell everything and buy Wisdom! Forage for Understanding! Don't forget one word! Don't deviate an inch!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Never walk away from Wisdom--she guards your life; love her--she keeps her eye on you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Above all and before all, do this: Get Wisdom! Write this at the top of your list: Get Understanding!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Throw your arms around her--believe me, you won't regret it; never let her go--she'll make your life glorious.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> She'll garland your life with grace, she'll festoon your days with beauty."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Dear friend, take my advice; it will add years to your life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I'm writing out clear directions to Wisdom Way, I'm drawing a map to Righteous Road.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I don't want you ending up in blind alleys, or wasting time making wrong turns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Hold tight to good advice; don't relax your grip. Guard it well--your life is at stake!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Don't take Wicked Bypass; don't so much as set foot on that road.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Stay clear of it; give it a wide berth. Make a detour and be on your way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Evil people are restless unless they're making trouble; They can't get a good night's sleep unless they've made life miserable for somebody.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Perversity is their food and drink, violence their drug of choice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The ways of right-living people glow with light; the longer they live, the brighter they shine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But the road of wrongdoing gets darker and darker-- travelers can't see a thing; they fall flat on their faces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Dear friend, listen well to my words; tune your ears to my voice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Keep my message in plain view at all times. Concentrate! Learn it by heart!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Those who discover these words live, really live; body and soul, they're bursting with health.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that's where life starts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Don't talk out of both sides of your mouth; avoid careless banter, white lies, and gossip.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Keep your eyes straight ahead; ignore all sideshow distractions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Watch your step, and the road will stretch out smooth before you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Look neither right nor left; leave evil in the dust.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Dear friend, pay close attention to this, my wisdom; listen very closely to the way I see it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Then you'll acquire a taste for good sense; what I tell you will keep you out of trouble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The lips of a seductive woman are oh so sweet, her soft words are oh so smooth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But it won't be long before she's gravel in your mouth, a pain in your gut, a wound in your heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> She's dancing down the primrose path to Death; she's headed straight for Hell and taking you with her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> She hasn't a clue about Real Life, about who she is or where she's going.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So, my friend, listen closely; don't treat my words casually.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Keep your distance from such a woman; absolutely stay out of her neighborhood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You don't want to squander your wonderful life, to waste your precious life among the hardhearted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Why should you allow strangers to take advantage of you? Why be exploited by those who care nothing for you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> You don't want to end your life full of regrets, nothing but sin and bones,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Saying, "Oh, why didn't I do what they told me? Why did I reject a disciplined life?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Why didn't I listen to my mentors, or take my teachers seriously?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> My life is ruined! I haven't one blessed thing to show for my life!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Do you know the saying, "Drink from your own rain barrel, draw water from your own spring-fed well"?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> It's true. Otherwise, you may one day come home and find your barrel empty and your well polluted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Your spring water is for you and you only, not to be passed around among strangers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Bless your fresh-flowing fountain! Enjoy the wife you married as a young man!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Lovely as an angel, beautiful as a rose-- don't ever quit taking delight in her body. Never take her love for granted!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Why would you trade enduring intimacies for cheap thrills with a whore? for dalliance with a promiscuous stranger?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Mark well that GOD doesn't miss a move you make; he's aware of every step you take.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The shadow of your sin will overtake you; you'll find yourself stumbling all over yourself in the dark.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Death is the reward of an undisciplined life; your foolish decisions trap you in a dead end.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Dear friend, if you've gone into hock with your neighbor or locked yourself into a deal with a stranger,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> If you've impulsively promised the shirt off your back and now find yourself shivering out in the cold,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Friend, don't waste a minute, get yourself out of that mess. You're in that man's clutches! Go, put on a long face; act desperate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Don't procrastinate-- there's no time to lose.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Run like a deer from the hunter, fly like a bird from the trapper!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> You lazy fool, look at an ant. Watch it closely; let it teach you a thing or two.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Nobody has to tell it what to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> All summer it stores up food; at harvest it stockpiles provisions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So how long are you going to laze around doing nothing? How long before you get out of bed?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> A nap here, a nap there, a day off here, a day off there, sit back, take it easy--do you know what comes next?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Just this: You can look forward to a dirt-poor life, poverty your permanent houseguest!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Riffraff and rascals talk out of both sides of their mouths.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They wink at each other, they shuffle their feet, they cross their fingers behind their backs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Their perverse minds are always cooking up something nasty, always stirring up trouble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Catastrophe is just around the corner for them, a total smash-up, their lives ruined beyond repair.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Here are six things GOD hates, and one more that he loathes with a passion:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> eyes that are arrogant, a tongue that lies, hands that murder the innocent,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> a heart that hatches evil plots, feet that race down a wicked track,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> a mouth that lies under oath, a troublemaker in the family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Good friend, follow your father's good advice; don't wander off from your mother's teachings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Wrap yourself in them from head to foot; wear them like a scarf around your neck.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Wherever you walk, they'll guide you; whenever you rest, they'll guard you; when you wake up, they'll tell you what's next.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> For sound advice is a beacon, good teaching is a light, moral discipline is a life path.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> They'll protect you from wanton women, from the seductive talk of some temptress.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Don't lustfully fantasize on her beauty, nor be taken in by her bedroom eyes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> You can buy an hour with a whore for a loaf of bread, but a wanton woman may well eat you alive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Can you build a fire in your lap and not burn your pants?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Can you walk barefoot on hot coals and not get blisters?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> It's the same when you have sex with your neighbor's wife: Touch her and you'll pay for it. No excuses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Hunger is no excuse for a thief to steal;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> When he's caught he has to pay it back, even if he has to put his whole house in hock.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Adultery is a brainless act, soul-destroying, self-destructive;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Expect a bloody nose, a black eye, and a reputation ruined for good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> For jealousy detonates rage in a cheated husband; wild for revenge, he won't make allowances.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Nothing you say or pay will make it all right; neither bribes nor reason will satisfy him.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Dear friend, do what I tell you; treasure my careful instructions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Do what I say and you'll live well. My teaching is as precious as your eyesight--guard it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Write it out on the back of your hands; etch it on the chambers of your heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Talk to Wisdom as to a sister. Treat Insight as your companion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They'll be with you to fend off the Temptress-- that smooth-talking, honey-tongued Seductress.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> As I stood at the window of my house looking out through the shutters,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Watching the mindless crowd stroll by, I spotted a young man without any sense</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Arriving at the corner of the street where she lived, then turning up the path to her house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> It was dusk, the evening coming on, the darkness thickening into night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Just then, a woman met him-- she'd been lying in wait for him, dressed to seduce him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Brazen and brash she was, restless and roaming, never at home,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Walking the streets, loitering in the mall, hanging out at every corner in town.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> She threw her arms around him and kissed him, boldly took his arm and said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "I've got all the makings for a feast-- today I made my offerings, my vows are all paid,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So now I've come to find you, hoping to catch sight of your face--and here you are!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I've spread fresh, clean sheets on my bed, colorful imported linens.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> My bed is aromatic with spices and exotic fragrances.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Come, let's make love all night, spend the night in ecstatic lovemaking!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> My husband's not home; he's away on business, and he won't be back for a month."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> (SEE 7:19)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Soon she has him eating out of her hand, bewitched by her honeyed speech.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Before you know it, he's trotting behind her, like a calf led to the butcher shop, Like a stag lured into ambush</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> and then shot with an arrow, Like a bird flying into a net not knowing that its flying life is over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> So, friends, listen to me, take these words of mine most seriously.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Don't fool around with a woman like that; don't even stroll through her neighborhood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Countless victims come under her spell; she's the death of many a poor man.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> She runs a halfway house to hell, fits you out with a shroud and a coffin.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Do you hear Lady Wisdom calling? Can you hear Madame Insight raising her voice?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> She's taken her stand at First and Main, at the busiest intersection.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Right in the city square where the traffic is thickest, she shouts,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "You--I'm talking to all of you, everyone out here on the streets!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Listen, you idiots--learn good sense! You blockheads--shape up!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Don't miss a word of this--I'm telling you how to live well, I'm telling you how to live at your best.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> My mouth chews and savors and relishes truth-- I can't stand the taste of evil!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You'll only hear true and right words from my mouth; not one syllable will be twisted or skewed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You'll recognize this as true--you with open minds; truth-ready minds will see it at once.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Prefer my life-disciplines over chasing after money, and God-knowledge over a lucrative career.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> For Wisdom is better than all the trappings of wealth; nothing you could wish for holds a candle to her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "I am Lady Wisdom, and I live next to Sanity; Knowledge and Discretion live just down the street.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The Fear-of-GOD means hating Evil, whose ways I hate with a passion-- pride and arrogance and crooked talk.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Good counsel and common sense are my characteristics; I am both Insight and the Virtue to live it out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> With my help, leaders rule, and lawmakers legislate fairly;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> With my help, governors govern, along with all in legitimate authority.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I love those who love me; those who look for me find me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Wealth and Glory accompany me-- also substantial Honor and a Good Name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> My benefits are worth more than a big salary, even a very big salary; the returns on me exceed any imaginable bonus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> You can find me on Righteous Road--that's where I walk-- at the intersection of Justice Avenue,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Handing out life to those who love me, filling their arms with life--armloads of life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "GOD sovereignly made me--the first, the basic-- before he did anything else.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> I was brought into being a long time ago, well before Earth got its start.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> I arrived on the scene before Ocean, yes, even before Springs and Rivers and Lakes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Before Mountains were sculpted and Hills took shape, I was already there, newborn;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Long before GOD stretched out Earth's Horizons, and tended to the minute details of Soil and Weather,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> And set Sky firmly in place, I was there. When he mapped and gave borders to wild Ocean,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> built the vast vault of Heaven, and installed the fountains that fed Ocean,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> When he drew a boundary for Sea, posted a sign that said, NO TRESPASSING, And then staked out Earth's foundations,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> I was right there with him, making sure everything fit. Day after day I was there, with my joyful applause, always enjoying his company,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Delighted with the world of things and creatures, happily celebrating the human family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "So, my dear friends, listen carefully; those who embrace these my ways are most blessed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Mark a life of discipline and live wisely; don't squander your precious life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Blessed the man, blessed the woman, who listens to me, awake and ready for me each morning, alert and responsive as I start my day's work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> When you find me, you find life, real life, to say nothing of GOD's good pleasure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> But if you wrong me, you damage your very soul; when you reject me, you're flirting with death."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Lady Wisdom has built and furnished her home; it's supported by seven hewn timbers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The banquet meal is ready to be served: lamb roasted, wine poured out, table set with silver and flowers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Having dismissed her serving maids, Lady Wisdom goes to town, stands in a prominent place, and invites everyone within sound of her voice:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Are you confused about life, don't know what's going on? Come with me, oh come, have dinner with me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I've prepared a wonderful spread--fresh-baked bread, roast lamb, carefully selected wines.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Leave your impoverished confusion and live! Walk up the street to a life with meaning."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> If you reason with an arrogant cynic, you'll get slapped in the face; confront bad behavior and get a kick in the shins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> So don't waste your time on a scoffer; all you'll get for your pains is abuse. But if you correct those who care about life, that's different--they'll love you for it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Save your breath for the wise--they'll be wiser for it; tell good people what you know--they'll profit from it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Skilled living gets its start in the Fear-of-GOD, insight into life from knowing a Holy God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> It's through me, Lady Wisdom, that your life deepens, and the years of your life ripen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Live wisely and wisdom will permeate your life; mock life and life will mock you. Madame Whore Calls Out, Too</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then there's this other woman, Madame Whore-- brazen, empty-headed, frivolous.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> She sits on the front porch of her house on Main Street,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And as people walk by minding their own business, calls out,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Are you confused about life, don't know what's going on?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Steal off with me, I'll show you a good time! No one will ever know--I'll give you the time of your life."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But they don't know about all the skeletons in her closet, that all her guests end up in hell.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Wise son, glad father; stupid son, sad mother.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Ill-gotten gain gets you nowhere; an honest life is immortal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> GOD won't starve an honest soul, but he frustrates the appetites of the wicked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Sloth makes you poor; diligence brings wealth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Make hay while the sun shines--that's smart; go fishing during harvest--that's stupid.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Blessings accrue on a good and honest life, but the mouth of the wicked is a dark cave of abuse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> A good and honest life is a blessed memorial; a wicked life leaves a rotten stench.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> A wise heart takes orders; an empty head will come unglued.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Honesty lives confident and carefree, but Shifty is sure to be exposed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> An evasive eye is a sign of trouble ahead, but an open, face-to-face meeting results in peace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The mouth of a good person is a deep, life-giving well, but the mouth of the wicked is a dark cave of abuse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Hatred starts fights, but love pulls a quilt over the bickering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You'll find wisdom on the lips of a person of insight, but the shortsighted needs a slap in the face.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The wise accumulate knowledge--a true treasure; know-it-alls talk too much--a sheer waste.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The wealth of the rich is their bastion; the poverty of the indigent is their ruin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The wage of a good person is exuberant life; an evil person ends up with nothing but sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The road to life is a disciplined life; ignore correction and you're lost for good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Liars secretly hoard hatred; fools openly spread slander.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The more talk, the less truth; the wise measure their words.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The speech of a good person is worth waiting for; the blabber of the wicked is worthless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The talk of a good person is rich fare for many, but chatterboxes die of an empty heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> GOD's blessing makes life rich; nothing we do can improve on God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> An empty-head thinks mischief is fun, but a mindful person relishes wisdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The nightmares of the wicked come true; what the good people desire, they get.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> When the storm is over, there's nothing left of the wicked; good people, firm on their rock foundation, aren't even fazed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> A lazy employee will give you nothing but trouble; it's vinegar in the mouth, smoke in the eyes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The Fear-of-GOD expands your life; a wicked life is a puny life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The aspirations of good people end in celebration; the ambitions of bad people crash.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> GOD is solid backing to a well-lived life, but he calls into question a shabby performance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Good people last--they can't be moved; the wicked are here today, gone tomorrow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> A good person's mouth is a clear fountain of wisdom; a foul mouth is a stagnant swamp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The speech of a good person clears the air; the words of the wicked pollute it.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD hates cheating in the marketplace; he loves it when business is aboveboard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The stuck-up fall flat on their faces, but down-to-earth people stand firm.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The integrity of the honest keeps them on track; the deviousness of crooks brings them to ruin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> A thick bankroll is no help when life falls apart, but a principled life can stand up to the worst.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Moral character makes for smooth traveling; an evil life is a hard life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Good character is the best insurance; crooks get trapped in their sinful lust.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When the wicked die, that's it-- the story's over, end of hope.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> A good person is saved from much trouble; a bad person runs straight into it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The loose tongue of the godless spreads destruction; the common sense of the godly preserves them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When it goes well for good people, the whole town cheers; when it goes badly for bad people, the town celebrates.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> When right-living people bless the city, it flourishes; evil talk turns it into a ghost town in no time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Mean-spirited slander is heartless; quiet discretion accompanies good sense.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> A gadabout gossip can't be trusted with a secret, but someone of integrity won't violate a confidence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Without good direction, people lose their way; the more wise counsel you follow, the better your chances.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Whoever makes deals with strangers is sure to get burned; if you keep a cool head, you'll avoid rash bargains.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> A woman of gentle grace gets respect, but men of rough violence grab for loot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When you're kind to others, you help yourself; when you're cruel to others, you hurt yourself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Bad work gets paid with a bad check; good work gets solid pay.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Take your stand with God's loyal community and live, or chase after phantoms of evil and die.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> GOD can't stand deceivers, but oh how he relishes integrity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Count on this: The wicked won't get off scot-free, and God's loyal people will triumph.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful face on an empty head.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The desires of good people lead straight to the best, but wicked ambition ends in angry frustration.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The world of the generous gets larger and larger; the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The one who blesses others is abundantly blessed; those who help others are helped.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Curses on those who drive a hard bargain! Blessings on all who play fair and square!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The one who seeks good finds delight; the student of evil becomes evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> A life devoted to things is a dead life, a stump; a God-shaped life is a flourishing tree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Exploit or abuse your family, and end up with a fistful of air; common sense tells you it's a stupid way to live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> A good life is a fruit-bearing tree; a violent life destroys souls.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> If good people barely make it, what's in store for the bad!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> If you love learning, you love the discipline that goes with it-- how shortsighted to refuse correction!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> A good person basks in the delight of GOD, and he wants nothing to do with devious schemers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You can't find firm footing in a swamp, but life rooted in God stands firm.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> A hearty wife invigorates her husband, but a frigid woman is cancer in the bones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The thinking of principled people makes for justice; the plots of degenerates corrupt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The words of the wicked kill; the speech of the upright saves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Wicked people fall to pieces--there's nothing to them; the homes of good people hold together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> A person who talks sense is honored; airheads are held in contempt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Better to be ordinary and work for a living than act important and starve in the process.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Good people are good to their animals; the "good-hearted" bad people kick and abuse them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The one who stays on the job has food on the table; the witless chase whims and fancies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> What the wicked construct finally falls into ruin, while the roots of the righteous give life, and more life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The gossip of bad people gets them in trouble; the conversation of good people keeps them out of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Well-spoken words bring satisfaction; well-done work has its own reward.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Fools are headstrong and do what they like; wise people take advice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Fools have short fuses and explode all too quickly; the prudent quietly shrug off insults.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Truthful witness by a good person clears the air, but liars lay down a smoke screen of deceit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Rash language cuts and maims, but there is healing in the words of the wise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Truth lasts; lies are here today, gone tomorrow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Evil scheming distorts the schemer; peace-planning brings joy to the planner.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> No evil can overwhelm a good person, but the wicked have their hands full of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> God can't stomach liars; he loves the company of those who keep their word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Prudent people don't flaunt their knowledge; talkative fools broadcast their silliness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The diligent find freedom in their work; the lazy are oppressed by work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Worry weighs us down; a cheerful word picks us up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> A good person survives misfortune, but a wicked life invites disaster.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> A lazy life is an empty life, but "early to rise" gets the job done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Good men and women travel right into life; sin's detours take you straight to hell.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Intelligent children listen to their parents; foolish children do their own thing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The good acquire a taste for helpful conversation; bullies push and shove their way through life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Careful words make for a careful life; careless talk may ruin everything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Indolence wants it all and gets nothing; the energetic have something to show for their lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> A good person hates false talk; a bad person wallows in gibberish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> A God-loyal life keeps you on track; sin dumps the wicked in the ditch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> A pretentious, showy life is an empty life; a plain and simple life is a full life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The rich can be sued for everything they have, but the poor are free of such threats.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The lives of good people are brightly lit streets; the lives of the wicked are dark alleys.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Arrogant know-it-alls stir up discord, but wise men and women listen to each other's counsel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Easy come, easy go, but steady diligence pays off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Unrelenting disappointment leaves you heartsick, but a sudden good break can turn life around.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Ignore the Word and suffer; honor God's commands and grow rich.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, so, no more drinking from death-tainted wells!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Sound thinking makes for gracious living, but liars walk a rough road.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> A commonsense person lives good sense; fools litter the country with silliness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Irresponsible talk makes a real mess of things, but a reliable reporter is a healing presence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Refuse discipline and end up homeless; embrace correction and live an honored life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Souls who follow their hearts thrive; fools bent on evil despise matters of soul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Become wise by walking with the wise; hang out with fools and watch your life fall to pieces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Disaster entraps sinners, but God-loyal people get a good life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> A good life gets passed on to the grandchildren; ill-gotten wealth ends up with good people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Banks foreclose on the farms of the poor, or else the poor lose their shirts to crooked lawyers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> A refusal to correct is a refusal to love; love your children by disciplining them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> An appetite for good brings much satisfaction, but the belly of the wicked always wants more.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Lady Wisdom builds a lovely home; Sir Fool comes along and tears it down brick by brick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> An honest life shows respect for GOD; a degenerate life is a slap in his face.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Frivolous talk provokes a derisive smile; wise speech evokes nothing but respect.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> No cattle, no crops; a good harvest requires a strong ox for the plow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> A true witness never lies; a false witness makes a business of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Cynics look high and low for wisdom--and never find it; the open-minded find it right on their doorstep!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Escape quickly from the company of fools; they're a waste of your time, a waste of your words.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The wisdom of the wise keeps life on track; the foolishness of fools lands them in the ditch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The stupid ridicule right and wrong, but a moral life is a favored life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The person who shuns the bitter moments of friends will be an outsider at their celebrations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Lives of careless wrongdoing are tumbledown shacks; holy living builds soaring cathedrals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> There's a way of life that looks harmless enough; look again--it leads straight to hell.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Sure, those people appear to be having a good time, but all that laughter will end in heartbreak.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> A mean person gets paid back in meanness, a gracious person in grace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The gullible believe anything they're told; the prudent sift and weigh every word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The wise watch their steps and avoid evil; fools are headstrong and reckless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The hotheaded do things they'll later regret; the coldhearted get the cold shoulder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Foolish dreamers live in a world of illusion; wise realists plant their feet on the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Eventually, evil will pay tribute to good; the wicked will respect God-loyal people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> An unlucky loser is shunned by all, but everyone loves a winner.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> It's criminal to ignore a neighbor in need, but compassion for the poor--what a blessing!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Isn't it obvious that conspirators lose out, while the thoughtful win love and trust?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Hard work always pays off; mere talk puts no bread on the table.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The wise accumulate wisdom; fools get stupider by the day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Souls are saved by truthful witness and betrayed by the spread of lies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The Fear-of-GOD builds up confidence, and makes a world safe for your children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The Fear-of-GOD is a spring of living water so you won't go off drinking from poisoned wells.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The mark of a good leader is loyal followers; leadership is nothing without a following.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Slowness to anger makes for deep understanding; a quick-tempered person stockpiles stupidity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> A sound mind makes for a robust body, but runaway emotions corrode the bones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> You insult your Maker when you exploit the powerless; when you're kind to the poor, you honor God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The evil of bad people leaves them out in the cold; the integrity of good people creates a safe place for living.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Lady Wisdom is at home in an understanding heart-- fools never even get to say hello.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> God-devotion makes a country strong; God-avoidance leaves people weak.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Diligent work gets a warm commendation; shiftless work earns an angry rebuke.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A gentle response defuses anger, but a sharp tongue kindles a temper-fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Knowledge flows like spring water from the wise; fools are leaky faucets, dripping nonsense.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> GOD doesn't miss a thing-- he's alert to good and evil alike.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Kind words heal and help; cutting words wound and maim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Moral dropouts won't listen to their elders; welcoming correction is a mark of good sense.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The lives of God-loyal people flourish; a misspent life is soon bankrupt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Perceptive words spread knowledge; fools are hollow--there's nothing to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD can't stand pious poses, but he delights in genuine prayers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> A life frittered away disgusts GOD; he loves those who run straight for the finish line.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> It's a school of hard knocks for those who leave God's path, a dead-end street for those who hate God's rules.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Even hell holds no secrets from GOD-- do you think he can't read human hearts?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Know-it-alls don't like being told what to do; they avoid the company of wise men and women.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> A cheerful heart brings a smile to your face; a sad heart makes it hard to get through the day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> An intelligent person is always eager to take in more truth; fools feed on fast-food fads and fancies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> A miserable heart means a miserable life; a cheerful heart fills the day with song.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> A simple life in the Fear-of-GOD is better than a rich life with a ton of headaches.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Better a bread crust shared in love than a slab of prime rib served in hate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Hot tempers start fights; a calm, cool spirit keeps the peace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The path of lazy people is overgrown with briers; the diligent walk down a smooth road.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Intelligent children make their parents proud; lazy students embarrass their parents.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The empty-headed treat life as a plaything; the perceptive grasp its meaning and make a go of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Refuse good advice and watch your plans fail; take good counsel and watch them succeed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Congenial conversation--what a pleasure! The right word at the right time--beautiful!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Life ascends to the heights for the thoughtful-- it's a clean about-face from descent into hell.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> GOD smashes the pretensions of the arrogant; he stands with those who have no standing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> GOD can't stand evil scheming, but he puts words of grace and beauty on display.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> A greedy and grasping person destroys community; those who refuse to exploit live and let live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Prayerful answers come from God-loyal people; the wicked are sewers of abuse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> GOD keeps his distance from the wicked; he closely attends to the prayers of God-loyal people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> A twinkle in the eye means joy in the heart, and good news makes you feel fit as a fiddle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Listen to good advice if you want to live well, an honored guest among wise men and women.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> An undisciplined, self-willed life is puny; an obedient, God-willed life is spacious.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Fear-of-GOD is a school in skilled living-- first you learn humility, then you experience glory.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Mortals make elaborate plans, but GOD has the last word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Humans are satisfied with whatever looks good; GOD probes for what is good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Put GOD in charge of your work, then what you've planned will take place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD made everything with a place and purpose; even the wicked are included--but for judgment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD can't stomach arrogance or pretense; believe me, he'll put those upstarts in their place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Guilt is banished through love and truth; Fear-of-GOD deflects evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When GOD approves of your life, even your enemies will end up shaking your hand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Far better to be right and poor than to be wrong and rich.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> We plan the way we want to live, but only GOD makes us able to live it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> A good leader motivates, doesn't mislead, doesn't exploit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD cares about honesty in the workplace; your business is his business.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Good leaders abhor wrongdoing of all kinds; sound leadership has a moral foundation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Good leaders cultivate honest speech; they love advisors who tell them the truth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> An intemperate leader wreaks havoc in lives; you're smart to stay clear of someone like that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Good-tempered leaders invigorate lives; they're like spring rain and sunshine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Get wisdom--it's worth more than money; choose insight over income every time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The road of right living bypasses evil; watch your step and save your life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> First pride, then the crash-- the bigger the ego, the harder the fall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> It's better to live humbly among the poor than to live it up among the rich and famous.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> It pays to take life seriously; things work out when you trust in GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> A wise person gets known for insight; gracious words add to one's reputation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> True intelligence is a spring of fresh water, while fools sweat it out the hard way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They make a lot of sense, these wise folks; whenever they speak, their reputation increases.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Gracious speech is like clover honey-- good taste to the soul, quick energy for the body.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> There's a way that looks harmless enough; look again--it leads straight to hell.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Appetite is an incentive to work; hunger makes you work all the harder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Mean people spread mean gossip; their words smart and burn.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Troublemakers start fights; gossips break up friendships.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Calloused climbers betray their very own friends; they'd stab their own grandmothers in the back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> A shifty eye betrays an evil intention; a clenched jaw signals trouble ahead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Gray hair is a mark of distinction, the award for a God-loyal life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Moderation is better than muscle, self-control better than political power.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Make your motions and cast your votes, but GOD has the final say.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="17">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A meal of bread and water in contented peace is better than a banquet spiced with quarrels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> A wise servant takes charge of an unruly child and is honored as one of the family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> As silver in a crucible and gold in a pan, so our lives are assayed by GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Evil people relish malicious conversation; the ears of liars itch for dirty gossip.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Whoever mocks poor people, insults their Creator; gloating over misfortune is a punishable crime.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Old people are distinguished by grandchildren; children take pride in their parents.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> We don't expect eloquence from fools, nor do we expect lies from our leaders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Receiving a gift is like getting a rare gemstone; any way you look at it, you see beauty refracted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Overlook an offense and bond a friendship; fasten on to a slight and--good-bye, friend!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> A quiet rebuke to a person of good sense does more than a whack on the head of a fool.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Criminals out looking for nothing but trouble won't have to wait long--they'll meet it coming and going!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Better to meet a grizzly robbed of her cubs than a fool hellbent on folly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Those who return evil for good will meet their own evil returning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The start of a quarrel is like a leak in a dam, so stop it before it bursts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Whitewashing bad people and throwing mud on good people are equally abhorrent to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> What's this? Fools out shopping for wisdom! They wouldn't recognize it if they saw it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Friends love through all kinds of weather, and families stick together in all kinds of trouble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> It's stupid to try to get something for nothing, or run up huge bills you can never pay.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The person who courts sin, marries trouble; build a wall, invite a burglar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> A bad motive can't achieve a good end; double-talk brings you double trouble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Having a fool for a child is misery; it's no fun being the parent of a dolt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> A cheerful disposition is good for your health; gloom and doom leave you bone-tired.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The wicked take bribes under the table; they show nothing but contempt for justice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The perceptive find wisdom in their own front yard; fools look for it everywhere but right here.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> A surly, stupid child is sheer pain to a father, a bitter pill for a mother to swallow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> It's wrong to penalize good behavior, or make good citizens pay for the crimes of others.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The one who knows much says little; an understanding person remains calm.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Even dunces who keep quiet are thought to be wise; as long as they keep their mouths shut, they're smart.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="18">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Loners who care only for themselves spit on the common good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Fools care nothing for thoughtful discourse; all they do is run off at the mouth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When wickedness arrives, shame's not far behind; contempt for life is contemptible.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Many words rush along like rivers in flood, but deep wisdom flows up from artesian springs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> It's not right to go easy on the guilty, or come down hard on the innocent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The words of a fool start fights; do him a favor and gag him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Fools are undone by their big mouths; their souls are crushed by their words.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Listening to gossip is like eating cheap candy; do you really want junk like that in your belly?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Slack habits and sloppy work are as bad as vandalism.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> GOD's name is a place of protection-- good people can run there and be safe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The rich think their wealth protects them; they imagine themselves safe behind it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Pride first, then the crash, but humility is precursor to honor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Answering before listening is both stupid and rude.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> A healthy spirit conquers adversity, but what can you do when the spirit is crushed?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Wise men and women are always learning, always listening for fresh insights.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> A gift gets attention; it buys the attention of eminent people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The first speech in a court case is always convincing-- until the cross-examination starts!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> You may have to draw straws when faced with a tough decision.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Do a favor and win a friend forever; nothing can untie that bond.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Words satisfy the mind as much as fruit does the stomach; good talk is as gratifying as a good harvest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Words kill, words give life; they're either poison or fruit--you choose.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Find a good spouse, you find a good life-- and even more: the favor of GOD!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The poor speak in soft supplications; the rich bark out answers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Friends come and friends go, but a true friend sticks by you like family.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="19">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Better to be poor and honest than a rich person no one can trust.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Ignorant zeal is worthless; haste makes waste.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> People ruin their lives by their own stupidity, so why does GOD always get blamed?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Wealth attracts friends as honey draws flies, but poor people are avoided like a plague.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Perjury won't go unpunished. Would you let a liar go free?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Lots of people flock around a generous person; everyone's a friend to the philanthropist.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When you're down on your luck, even your family avoids you-- yes, even your best friends wish you'd get lost. If they see you coming, they look the other way-- out of sight, out of mind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Grow a wise heart--you'll do yourself a favor; keep a clear head--you'll find a good life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The person who tells lies gets caught; the person who spreads rumors is ruined.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Blockheads shouldn't live on easy street any more than workers should give orders to their boss.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Smart people know how to hold their tongue; their grandeur is to forgive and forget.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Mean-tempered leaders are like mad dogs; the good-natured are like fresh morning dew.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> A parent is worn to a frazzle by a stupid child; a nagging spouse is a leaky faucet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> House and land are handed down from parents, but a congenial spouse comes straight from GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Life collapses on loafers; lazybones go hungry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Keep the rules and keep your life; careless living kills.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Mercy to the needy is a loan to GOD, and GOD pays back those loans in full.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Discipline your children while you still have the chance; indulging them destroys them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Let angry people endure the backlash of their own anger; if you try to make it better, you'll only make it worse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Take good counsel and accept correction-- that's the way to live wisely and well.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> We humans keep brainstorming options and plans, but GOD's purpose prevails.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> It's only human to want to make a buck, but it's better to be poor than a liar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Fear-of-GOD is life itself, a full life, and serene--no nasty surprises.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Some people dig a fork into the pie but are too lazy to raise it to their mouth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Punish the insolent--make an example of them. Who knows? Somebody might learn a good lesson.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Kids who lash out against their parents are an embarrassment and disgrace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> If you quit listening, dear child, and strike off on your own, you'll soon be out of your depth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> An unprincipled witness desecrates justice; the mouths of the wicked spew malice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The irreverent have to learn reverence the hard way; only a slap in the face brings fools to attention.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="20">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Wine makes you mean, beer makes you quarrelsome-- a staggering drunk is not much fun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Quick-tempered leaders are like mad dogs-- cross them and they bite your head off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> It's a mark of good character to avert quarrels, but fools love to pick fights.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> A farmer too lazy to plant in the spring has nothing to harvest in the fall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Knowing what is right is like deep water in the heart; a wise person draws from the well within.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Lots of people claim to be loyal and loving, but where on earth can you find one?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> God-loyal people, living honest lives, make it much easier for their children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Leaders who know their business and care keep a sharp eye out for the shoddy and cheap,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> For who among us can be trusted to be always diligent and honest?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Switching price tags and padding the expense account are two things GOD hates.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Young people eventually reveal by their actions if their motives are on the up and up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Ears that hear and eyes that see-- we get our basic equipment from GOD!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Don't be too fond of sleep; you'll end up in the poorhouse. Wake up and get up; then there'll be food on the table.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The shopper says, "That's junk--I'll take it off your hands," then goes off boasting of the bargain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Drinking from the beautiful chalice of knowledge is better than adorning oneself with gold and rare gems.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Hold tight to collateral on any loan to a stranger; beware of accepting what a transient has pawned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Stolen bread tastes sweet, but soon your mouth is full of gravel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Form your purpose by asking for counsel, then carry it out using all the help you can get.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Gossips can't keep secrets, so never confide in blabbermouths.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Anyone who curses father and mother extinguishes light and exists benighted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> A bonanza at the beginning is no guarantee of blessing at the end.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Don't ever say, "I'll get you for that!" Wait for GOD; he'll settle the score.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> GOD hates cheating in the marketplace; rigged scales are an outrage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The very steps we take come from GOD; otherwise how would we know where we're going?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> An impulsive vow is a trap; later you'll wish you could get out of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> After careful scrutiny, a wise leader makes a clean sweep of rebels and dolts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> GOD is in charge of human life, watching and examining us inside and out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Love and truth form a good leader; sound leadership is founded on loving integrity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Youth may be admired for vigor, but gray hair gives prestige to old age.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> A good thrashing purges evil; punishment goes deep within us.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="21">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Good leadership is a channel of water controlled by God; he directs it to whatever ends he chooses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> We justify our actions by appearances; GOD examines our motives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Clean living before God and justice with our neighbors mean far more to GOD than religious performance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Arrogance and pride--distinguishing marks in the wicked-- are just plain sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Careful planning puts you ahead in the long run; hurry and scurry puts you further behind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Make it to the top by lying and cheating; get paid with smoke and a promotion--to death!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The wicked get buried alive by their loot because they refuse to use it to help others.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Mixed motives twist life into tangles; pure motives take you straight down the road.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Better to live alone in a tumbledown shack than share a mansion with a nagging spouse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Wicked souls love to make trouble; they feel nothing for friends and neighbors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Simpletons only learn the hard way, but the wise learn by listening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> A God-loyal person will see right through the wicked and undo the evil they've planned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> If you stop your ears to the cries of the poor, your cries will go unheard, unanswered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> A quietly given gift soothes an irritable person; a heartfelt present cools a hot temper.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Good people celebrate when justice triumphs, but for the workers of evil it's a bad day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Whoever wanders off the straight and narrow ends up in a congregation of ghosts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> You're addicted to thrills? What an empty life! The pursuit of pleasure is never satisfied.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> What a bad person plots against the good, boomerangs; the plotter gets it in the end.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Better to live in a tent in the wild than with a cross and petulant spouse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Valuables are safe in a wise person's home; fools put it all out for yard sales.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Whoever goes hunting for what is right and kind finds life itself--glorious life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> One sage entered a whole city of armed soldiers-- their trusted defenses fell to pieces!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Watch your words and hold your tongue; you'll save yourself a lot of grief.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> You know their names--Brash, Impudent, Blasphemer-- intemperate hotheads, every one.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Lazy people finally die of hunger because they won't get up and go to work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Sinners are always wanting what they don't have; the God-loyal are always giving what they do have.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Religious performance by the wicked stinks; it's even worse when they use it to get ahead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> A lying witness is unconvincing; a person who speaks truth is respected.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Unscrupulous people fake it a lot; honest people are sure of their steps.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Nothing clever, nothing conceived, nothing contrived, can get the better of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Do your best, prepare for the worst-- then trust GOD to bring victory.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="22">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A sterling reputation is better than striking it rich; a gracious spirit is better than money in the bank.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The rich and the poor shake hands as equals-- GOD made them both!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> A prudent person sees trouble coming and ducks; a simpleton walks in blindly and is clobbered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The payoff for meekness and Fear-of-GOD is plenty and honor and a satisfying life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The perverse travel a dangerous road, potholed and mud-slick; if you know what's good for you, stay clear of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Point your kids in the right direction-- when they're old they won't be lost.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The poor are always ruled over by the rich, so don't borrow and put yourself under their power.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Whoever sows sin reaps weeds, and bullying anger sputters into nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Generous hands are blessed hands because they give bread to the poor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Kick out the troublemakers and things will quiet down; you need a break from bickering and griping!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD loves the pure-hearted and well-spoken; good leaders also delight in their friendship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> GOD guards knowledge with a passion, but he'll have nothing to do with deception.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The loafer says, "There's a lion on the loose! If I go out I'll be eaten alive!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The mouth of a whore is a bottomless pit; you'll fall in that pit if you're on the outs with GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Young people are prone to foolishness and fads; the cure comes through tough-minded discipline.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Exploit the poor or glad-hand the rich--whichever, you'll end up the poorer for it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Listen carefully to my wisdom; take to heart what I can teach you. You'll treasure its sweetness deep within;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> you'll give it bold expression in your speech.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> To make sure your foundation is trust in GOD, I'm laying it all out right now just for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> I'm giving you thirty sterling principles-- tested guidelines to live by.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Believe me--these are truths that work, and will keep you accountable to those who sent you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Don't walk on the poor just because they're poor, and don't use your position to crush the weak,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Because GOD will come to their defense; the life you took, he'll take from you and give back to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Don't hang out with angry people; don't keep company with hotheads.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Bad temper is contagious-- don't get infected.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Don't gamble on the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, hocking your house against a lucky chance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The time will come when you have to pay up; you'll be left with nothing but the shirt on your back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Don't stealthily move back the boundary lines staked out long ago by your ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Observe people who are good at their work-- skilled workers are always in demand and admired; they don't take a back seat to anyone.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="23">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When you go out to dinner with an influential person, mind your manners:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Don't gobble your food, don't talk with your mouth full.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And don't stuff yourself; bridle your appetite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Don't wear yourself out trying to get rich; restrain yourself!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Riches disappear in the blink of an eye; wealth sprouts wings and flies off into the wild blue yonder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Don't accept a meal from a tightwad; don't expect anything special.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He'll be as stingy with you as he is with himself; he'll say, "Eat! Drink!" but won't mean a word of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> His miserly serving will turn your stomach when you realize the meal's a sham.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Don't bother talking sense to fools; they'll only poke fun at your words.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Don't stealthily move back the boundary lines or cheat orphans out of their property,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> For they have a powerful Advocate who will go to bat for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Give yourselves to disciplined instruction; open your ears to tested knowledge.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Don't be afraid to correct your young ones; a spanking won't kill them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> A good spanking, in fact, might save them from something worse than death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Dear child, if you become wise, I'll be one happy parent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> My heart will dance and sing to the tuneful truth you'll speak.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Don't for a minute envy careless rebels; soak yourself in the Fear-of-GOD--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> That's where your future lies. Then you won't be left with an armload of nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Oh listen, dear child--become wise; point your life in the right direction.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Don't drink too much wine and get drunk; don't eat too much food and get fat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Drunks and gluttons will end up on skid row, in a stupor and dressed in rags.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Listen with respect to the father who raised you, and when your mother grows old, don't neglect her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Buy truth--don't sell it for love or money; buy wisdom, buy education, buy insight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Parents rejoice when their children turn out well; wise children become proud parents.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> So make your father happy! Make your mother proud!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Dear child, I want your full attention; please do what I show you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> A whore is a bottomless pit; a loose woman can get you in deep trouble fast.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> She'll take you for all you've got; she's worse than a pack of thieves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Who are the people who are always crying the blues? Who do you know who reeks of self-pity? Who keeps getting beat up for no reason at all? Whose eyes are bleary and bloodshot?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> It's those who spend the night with a bottle, for whom drinking is serious business.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Don't judge wine by its label, or its bouquet, or its full-bodied flavor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Judge it rather by the hangover it leaves you with-- the splitting headache, the queasy stomach.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Do you really prefer seeing double, with your speech all slurred,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Reeling and seasick, drunk as a sailor?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> "They hit me," you'll say, "but it didn't hurt; they beat on me, but I didn't feel a thing. When I'm sober enough to manage it, bring me another drink!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="24">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Don't envy bad people; don't even want to be around them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> All they think about is causing a disturbance; all they talk about is making trouble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> It takes wisdom to build a house, and understanding to set it on a firm foundation;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> It takes knowledge to furnish its rooms with fine furniture and beautiful draperies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> It's better to be wise than strong; intelligence outranks muscle any day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Strategic planning is the key to warfare; to win, you need a lot of good counsel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Wise conversation is way over the head of fools; in a serious discussion they haven't a clue.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The person who's always cooking up some evil soon gets a reputation as prince of rogues.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Fools incubate sin; cynics desecrate beauty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> If you fall to pieces in a crisis, there wasn't much to you in the first place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Rescue the perishing; don't hesitate to step in and help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> If you say, "Hey, that's none of my business," will that get you off the hook? Someone is watching you closely, you know-- Someone not impressed with weak excuses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Eat honey, dear child--it's good for you-- and delicacies that melt in your mouth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Likewise knowledge, and wisdom for your soul-- Get that and your future's secured, your hope is on solid rock.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Don't interfere with good people's lives; don't try to get the best of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> No matter how many times you trip them up, God-loyal people don't stay down long; Soon they're up on their feet, while the wicked end up flat on their faces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Don't laugh when your enemy falls; don't crow over his collapse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> GOD might see, and become very provoked, and then take pity on his plight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Don't bother your head with braggarts or wish you could succeed like the wicked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Those people have no future at all; they're headed down a dead-end street.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Fear GOD, dear child--respect your leaders; don't be defiant or mutinous.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Without warning your life can turn upside-down, and who knows how or when it might happen?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> It's wrong, very wrong, to go along with injustice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Whoever whitewashes the wicked gets a black mark in the history books,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> But whoever exposes the wicked will be thanked and rewarded.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> An honest answer is like a warm hug.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> First plant your fields; then build your barn.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Don't talk about your neighbors behind their backs-- no slander or gossip, please.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Don't say to anyone, "I'll get back at you for what you did to me. I'll make you pay for what you did!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> One day I walked by the field of an old lazybones, and then passed the vineyard of a lout;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> They were overgrown with weeds, thick with thistles, all the fences broken down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> I took a long look and pondered what I saw; the fields preached me a sermon and I listened:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "A nap here, a nap there, a day off here, a day off there, sit back, take it easy--do you know what comes next?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Just this: You can look forward to a dirt-poor life, with poverty as your permanent houseguest!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="25">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> There are also these proverbs of Solomon, collected by scribes of Hezekiah, king of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> God delights in concealing things; scientists delight in discovering things.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Like the horizons for breadth and the ocean for depth, the understanding of a good leader is broad and deep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Remove impurities from the silver and the silversmith can craft a fine chalice;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Remove the wicked from leadership and authority will be credible and God-honoring.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Don't work yourself into the spotlight; don't push your way into the place of prominence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> It's better to be promoted to a place of honor than face humiliation by being demoted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Don't jump to conclusions--there may be a perfectly good explanation for what you just saw.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> In the heat of an argument, don't betray confidences;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Word is sure to get around, and no one will trust you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The right word at the right time is like a custom-made piece of jewelry,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And a wise friend's timely reprimand is like a gold ring slipped on your finger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Reliable friends who do what they say are like cool drinks in sweltering heat--refreshing!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Like billowing clouds that bring no rain is the person who talks big but never produces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Patient persistence pierces through indifference; gentle speech breaks down rigid defenses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When you're given a box of candy, don't gulp it all down; eat too much chocolate and you'll make yourself sick;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And when you find a friend, don't outwear your welcome; show up at all hours and he'll soon get fed up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Anyone who tells lies against the neighbors in court or on the street is a loose cannon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Trusting a double-crosser when you're in trouble is like biting down on an abscessed tooth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Singing light songs to the heavyhearted is like pouring salt in their wounds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> If you see your enemy hungry, go buy him lunch; if he's thirsty, bring him a drink.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Your generosity will surprise him with goodness, and GOD will look after you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> A north wind brings stormy weather, and a gossipy tongue stormy looks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Better to live alone in a tumbledown shack than share a mansion with a nagging spouse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Like a cool drink of water when you're worn out and weary is a letter from a long-lost friend.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> A good person who gives in to a bad person is a muddied spring, a polluted well.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> It's not smart to stuff yourself with sweets, nor is glory piled on glory good for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> A person without self-control is like a house with its doors and windows knocked out.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="26">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> We no more give honors to fools than pray for snow in summer or rain during harvest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> You have as little to fear from an undeserved curse as from the dart of a wren or the swoop of a swallow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> A whip for the racehorse, a tiller for the sailboat-- and a stick for the back of fools!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Don't respond to the stupidity of a fool; you'll only look foolish yourself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Answer a fool in simple terms so he doesn't get a swelled head.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> You're only asking for trouble when you send a message by a fool.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> A proverb quoted by fools is limp as a wet noodle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Putting a fool in a place of honor is like setting a mud brick on a marble column.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> To ask a moron to quote a proverb is like putting a scalpel in the hands of a drunk.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Hire a fool or a drunk and you shoot yourself in the foot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> As a dog eats its own vomit, so fools recycle silliness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> See that man who thinks he's so smart? You can expect far more from a fool than from him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Loafers say, "It's dangerous out there! Tigers are prowling the streets!" and then pull the covers back over their heads.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Just as a door turns on its hinges, so a lazybones turns back over in bed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> A shiftless sluggard puts his fork in the pie, but is too lazy to lift it to his mouth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Dreamers fantasize their self-importance; they think they are smarter than a whole college faculty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> You grab a mad dog by the ears when you butt into a quarrel that's none of your business.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> People who shrug off deliberate deceptions, saying, "I didn't mean it, I was only joking,"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Are worse than careless campers who walk away from smoldering campfires.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> When you run out of wood, the fire goes out; when the gossip ends, the quarrel dies down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> A quarrelsome person in a dispute is like kerosene thrown on a fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Listening to gossip is like eating cheap candy; do you want junk like that in your belly?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Smooth talk from an evil heart is like glaze on cracked pottery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Your enemy shakes hands and greets you like an old friend, all the while conniving against you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> When he speaks warmly to you, don't believe him for a minute; he's just waiting for the chance to rip you off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> No matter how cunningly he conceals his malice, eventually his evil will be exposed in public.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Malice backfires; spite boomerangs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Liars hate their victims; flatterers sabotage trust.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="27">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Don't brashly announce what you're going to do tomorrow; you don't know the first thing about tomorrow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Don't call attention to yourself; let others do that for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Carrying a log across your shoulders while you're hefting a boulder with your arms Is nothing compared to the burden of putting up with a fool.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> We're blasted by anger and swamped by rage, but who can survive jealousy?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> A spoken reprimand is better than approval that's never expressed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The wounds from a lover are worth it; kisses from an enemy do you in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When you've stuffed yourself, you refuse dessert; when you're starved, you could eat a horse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> People who won't settle down, wandering hither and yon, are like restless birds, flitting to and fro.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Just as lotions and fragrance give sensual delight, a sweet friendship refreshes the soul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Don't leave your friends or your parents' friends and run home to your family when things get rough; Better a nearby friend than a distant family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Become wise, dear child, and make me happy; then nothing the world throws my way will upset me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> A prudent person sees trouble coming and ducks; a simpleton walks in blindly and is clobbered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Hold tight to collateral on any loan to a stranger; be wary of accepting what a transient has pawned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> If you wake your friend in the early morning by shouting "Rise and shine!" It will sound to him more like a curse than a blessing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> A nagging spouse is like the drip, drip, drip of a leaky faucet;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> You can't turn it off, and you can't get away from it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> If you care for your orchard, you'll enjoy its fruit; if you honor your boss, you'll be honored.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Just as water mirrors your face, so your face mirrors your heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Hell has a voracious appetite, and lust just never quits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The purity of silver and gold is tested by putting them in the fire; The purity of human hearts is tested by giving them a little fame.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Pound on a fool all you like-- you can't pound out foolishness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Know your sheep by name; carefully attend to your flocks;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> (Don't take them for granted; possessions don't last forever, you know.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> And then, when the crops are in and the harvest is stored in the barns,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> You can knit sweaters from lambs' wool, and sell your goats for a profit;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> There will be plenty of milk and meat to last your family through the winter.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="28">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The wicked are edgy with guilt, ready to run off even when no one's after them; Honest people are relaxed and confident, bold as lions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> When the country is in chaos, everybody has a plan to fix it-- But it takes a leader of real understanding to straighten things out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The wicked who oppress the poor are like a hailstorm that beats down the harvest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> If you desert God's law, you're free to embrace depravity; if you love God's law, you fight for it tooth and nail.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Justice makes no sense to the evilminded; those who seek GOD know it inside and out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> It's better to be poor and direct than rich and crooked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Practice God's law--get a reputation for wisdom; hang out with a loose crowd--embarrass your family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Get as rich as you want through cheating and extortion, But eventually some friend of the poor is going to give it all back to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> God has no use for the prayers of the people who won't listen to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Lead good people down a wrong path and you'll come to a bad end; do good and you'll be rewarded for it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The rich think they know it all, but the poor can see right through them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When good people are promoted, everything is great, but when the bad are in charge, watch out!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You can't whitewash your sins and get by with it; you find mercy by admitting and leaving them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> A tenderhearted person lives a blessed life; a hardhearted person lives a hard life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Lions roar and bears charge-- and the wicked lord it over the poor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Among leaders who lack insight, abuse abounds, but for one who hates corruption, the future is bright.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> A murderer haunted by guilt is doomed--there's no helping him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Walk straight--live well and be saved; a devious life is a doomed life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Work your garden--you'll end up with plenty of food; play and party--you'll end up with an empty plate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Committed and persistent work pays off; get-rich-quick schemes are ripoffs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Playing favorites is always a bad thing; you can do great harm in seemingly harmless ways.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> A miser in a hurry to get rich doesn't know that he'll end up broke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> In the end, serious reprimand is appreciated far more than bootlicking flattery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Anyone who robs father and mother and says, "So, what's wrong with that?" is worse than a pirate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> A grasping person stirs up trouble, but trust in GOD brings a sense of well-being.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> If you think you know it all, you're a fool for sure; real survivors learn wisdom from others.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Be generous to the poor--you'll never go hungry; shut your eyes to their needs, and run a gauntlet of curses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> When corruption takes over, good people go underground, but when the crooks are thrown out, it's safe to come out.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="29">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> For people who hate discipline and only get more stubborn, There'll come a day when life tumbles in and they break, but by then it'll be too late to help them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> When good people run things, everyone is glad, but when the ruler is bad, everyone groans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> If you love wisdom, you'll delight your parents, but you'll destroy their trust if you run with whores.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> A leader of good judgment gives stability; an exploiting leader leaves a trail of waste.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> A flattering neighbor is up to no good; he's probably planning to take advantage of you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Evil people fall into their own traps; good people run the other way, glad to escape.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The good-hearted understand what it's like to be poor; the hardhearted haven't the faintest idea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> A gang of cynics can upset a whole city; a group of sages can calm everyone down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> A sage trying to work things out with a fool gets only scorn and sarcasm for his trouble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Murderers hate honest people; moral folks encourage them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> A fool lets it all hang out; a sage quietly mulls it over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When a leader listens to malicious gossip, all the workers get infected with evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The poor and their abusers have at least something in common: they can both see--their sight, GOD's gift!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Leadership gains authority and respect when the voiceless poor are treated fairly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Wise discipline imparts wisdom; spoiled adolescents embarrass their parents.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When degenerates take charge, crime runs wild, but the righteous will eventually observe their collapse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Discipline your children; you'll be glad you did-- they'll turn out delightful to live with.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> If people can't see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; But when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> It takes more than talk to keep workers in line; mere words go in one ear and out the other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Observe the people who always talk before they think-- even simpletons are better off than they are.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> If you let people treat you like a doormat, you'll be quite forgotten in the end.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Angry people stir up a lot of discord; the intemperate stir up trouble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Pride lands you flat on your face; humility prepares you for honors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Befriend an outlaw and become an enemy to yourself. When the victims cry out, you'll be included in their curses if you're a coward to their cause in court.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The fear of human opinion disables; trusting in GOD protects you from that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Everyone tries to get help from the leader, but only GOD will give us justice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Good people can't stand the sight of deliberate evil; the wicked can't stand the sight of well-chosen goodness.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="30">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The skeptic swore, "There is no God! No God!--I can do anything I want!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I'm more animal than human; so-called human intelligence escapes me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "I flunked 'wisdom.' I see no evidence of a holy God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Has anyone ever seen Anyone climb into Heaven and take charge? grab the winds and control them? gather the rains in his bucket? stake out the ends of the earth? Just tell me his name, tell me the names of his sons. Come on now--tell me!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The believer replied, "Every promise of God proves true; he protects everyone who runs to him for help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So don't second-guess him; he might take you to task and show up your lies."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And then he prayed, "God, I'm asking for two things before I die; don't refuse me--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Banish lies from my lips and liars from my presence. Give me enough food to live on, neither too much nor too little.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> If I'm too full, I might get independent, saying, 'God? Who needs him?' If I'm poor, I might steal and dishonor the name of my God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Don't blow the whistle on your fellow workers behind their backs; They'll accuse you of being underhanded, and then you'll be the guilty one!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Don't curse your father or fail to bless your mother.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Don't imagine yourself to be quite presentable when you haven't had a bath in weeks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Don't be stuck-up and think you're better than everyone else.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Don't be greedy, merciless and cruel as wolves, Tearing into the poor and feasting on them, shredding the needy to pieces only to discard them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> A leech has twin daughters named "Gimme" and "Gimme more." Three things are never satisfied, no, there are four that never say, "That's enough, thank you!"--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> hell, a barren womb, a parched land, a forest fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> An eye that disdains a father and despises a mother-- that eye will be plucked out by wild vultures and consumed by young eagles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Three things amaze me, no, four things I'll never understand--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> how an eagle flies so high in the sky, how a snake glides over a rock, how a ship navigates the ocean, why adolescents act the way they do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Here's how a prostitute operates: she has sex with her client, Takes a bath, then asks, "Who's next?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Three things are too much for even the earth to bear, yes, four things shake its foundations--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> when the janitor becomes the boss, when a fool gets rich,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> when a whore is voted "woman of the year," when a "girlfriend" replaces a faithful wife.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> There are four small creatures, wisest of the wise they are--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> ants--frail as they are, get plenty of food in for the winter;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> marmots--vulnerable as they are, manage to arrange for rock-solid homes;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> locusts--leaderless insects, yet they strip the field like an army regiment;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> lizards--easy enough to catch, but they sneak past vigilant palace guards.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> There are three solemn dignitaries, four that are impressive in their bearing--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> a lion, king of the beasts, deferring to none;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> a rooster, proud and strutting; a billy goat; a head of state in stately procession.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> If you're dumb enough to call attention to yourself by offending people and making rude gestures,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Don't be surprised if someone bloodies your nose. Churned milk turns into butter; riled emotions turn into fist fights.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="31">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The words of King Lemuel, the strong advice his mother gave him:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Oh, son of mine, what can you be thinking of! Child whom I bore! The son I dedicated to God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Don't dissipate your virility on fortune-hunting women, promiscuous women who shipwreck leaders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Leaders can't afford to make fools of themselves, gulping wine and swilling beer,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Lest, hung over, they don't know right from wrong, and the people who depend on them are hurt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Use wine and beer only as sedatives, to kill the pain and dull the ache</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Of the terminally ill, for whom life is a living death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Speak up for the people who have no voice, for the rights of all the down-and-outers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Speak out for justice! Stand up for the poor and destitute!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> A good woman is hard to find, and worth far more than diamonds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Her husband trusts her without reserve, and never has reason to regret it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Never spiteful, she treats him generously all her life long.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> She shops around for the best yarns and cottons, and enjoys knitting and sewing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> She's like a trading ship that sails to faraway places and brings back exotic surprises.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> She's up before dawn, preparing breakfast for her family and organizing her day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> She looks over a field and buys it, then, with money she's put aside, plants a garden.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> First thing in the morning, she dresses for work, rolls up her sleeves, eager to get started.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> She senses the worth of her work, is in no hurry to call it quits for the day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> She's skilled in the crafts of home and hearth, diligent in homemaking.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> She's quick to assist anyone in need, reaches out to help the poor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> She doesn't worry about her family when it snows; their winter clothes are all mended and ready to wear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> She makes her own clothing, and dresses in colorful linens and silks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Her husband is greatly respected when he deliberates with the city fathers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> She designs gowns and sells them, brings the sweaters she knits to the dress shops.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Her clothes are well-made and elegant, and she always faces tomorrow with a smile.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> When she speaks she has something worthwhile to say, and she always says it kindly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> She keeps an eye on everyone in her household, and keeps them all busy and productive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Her children respect and bless her; her husband joins in with words of praise:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "Many women have done wonderful things, but you've outclassed them all!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Charm can mislead and beauty soon fades. The woman to be admired and praised is the woman who lives in the Fear-of-GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Give her everything she deserves! Festoon her life with praises!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="21" bname="Ecclesiastes">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> These are the words of the Quester, David's son and king in Jerusalem:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Smoke, nothing but smoke. [That's what the Quester says.] There's nothing to anything--it's all smoke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> What's there to show for a lifetime of work, a lifetime of working your fingers to the bone?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> One generation goes its way, the next one arrives, but nothing changes--it's business as usual for old planet earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The sun comes up and the sun goes down, then does it again, and again--the same old round.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The wind blows south, the wind blows north. Around and around and around it blows, blowing this way, then that--the whirling, erratic wind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> All the rivers flow into the sea, but the sea never fills up. The rivers keep flowing to the same old place, and then start all over and do it again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Everything's boring, utterly boring-- no one can find any meaning in it. Boring to the eye, boring to the ear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> What was will be again, what happened will happen again. There's nothing new on this earth. Year after year it's the same old thing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Does someone call out, "Hey, this is new"? Don't get excited--it's the same old story.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Nobody remembers what happened yesterday. And the things that will happen tomorrow? Nobody'll remember them either. Don't count on being remembered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Call me "the Quester." I've been king over Israel in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I looked most carefully into everything, searched out all that is done on this earth. And let me tell you, there's not much to write home about. God hasn't made it easy for us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I've seen it all and it's nothing but smoke--smoke, and spitting into the wind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Life's a corkscrew that can't be straightened, A minus that won't add up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I said to myself, "I know more and I'm wiser than anyone before me in Jerusalem. I've stockpiled wisdom and knowledge."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> What I've finally concluded is that so-called wisdom and knowledge are mindless and witless--nothing but spitting into the wind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Much learning earns you much trouble. The more you know, the more you hurt.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I said to myself, "Let's go for it--experiment with pleasure, have a good time!" But there was nothing to it, nothing but smoke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> What do I think of the fun-filled life? Insane! Inane! My verdict on the pursuit of happiness? Who needs it?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> With the help of a bottle of wine and all the wisdom I could muster, I tried my level best to penetrate the absurdity of life. I wanted to get a handle on anything useful we mortals might do during the years we spend on this earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Oh, I did great things: built houses, planted vineyards,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> designed gardens and parks and planted a variety of fruit trees in them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> made pools of water to irrigate the groves of trees.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I bought slaves, male and female, who had children, giving me even more slaves; then I acquired large herds and flocks, larger than any before me in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I piled up silver and gold, loot from kings and kingdoms. I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song, and--most exquisite of all pleasures-- voluptuous maidens for my bed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Oh, how I prospered! I left all my predecessors in Jerusalem far behind, left them behind in the dust. What's more, I kept a clear head through it all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Everything I wanted I took--I never said no to myself. I gave in to every impulse, held back nothing. I sucked the marrow of pleasure out of every task--my reward to myself for a hard day's work!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then I took a good look at everything I'd done, looked at all the sweat and hard work. But when I looked, I saw nothing but smoke. Smoke and spitting into the wind. There was nothing to any of it. Nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And then I took a hard look at what's smart and what's stupid. What's left to do after you've been king? That's a hard act to follow. You just do what you can, and that's it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But I did see that it's better to be smart than stupid, just as light is better than darkness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Even so, though the smart ones see where they're going and the stupid ones grope in the dark, they're all the same in the end. One fate for all--and that's it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> When I realized that my fate's the same as the fool's, I had to ask myself, "So why bother being wise?" It's all smoke, nothing but smoke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The smart and the stupid both disappear out of sight. In a day or two they're both forgotten. Yes, both the smart and the stupid die, and that's it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I hate life. As far as I can see, what happens on earth is a bad business. It's smoke--and spitting into the wind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And I hated everything I'd accomplished and accumulated on this earth. I can't take it with me--no, I have to leave it to whoever comes after me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Whether they're worthy or worthless--and who's to tell?--they'll take over the earthly results of my intense thinking and hard work. Smoke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> That's when I called it quits, gave up on anything that could be hoped for on this earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> What's the point of working your fingers to the bone if you hand over what you worked for to someone who never lifted a finger for it? Smoke, that's what it is. A bad business from start to finish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> So what do you get from a life of hard labor?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Pain and grief from dawn to dusk. Never a decent night's rest. Nothing but smoke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The best you can do with your life is have a good time and get by the best you can. The way I see it, that's it--divine fate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Whether we feast or fast, it's up to God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> God may give wisdom and knowledge and joy to his favorites, but sinners are assigned a life of hard labor, and end up turning their wages over to God's favorites. Nothing but smoke--and spitting into the wind.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> There's an opportune time to do things, a right time for everything on the earth:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> A right time for birth and another for death, A right time to plant and another to reap,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> A right time to kill and another to heal, A right time to destroy and another to construct,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> A right time to cry and another to laugh, A right time to lament and another to cheer,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> A right time to make love and another to abstain, A right time to embrace and another to part,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> A right time to search and another to count your losses, A right time to hold on and another to let go,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> A right time to rip out and another to mend, A right time to shut up and another to speak up,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> A right time to love and another to hate, A right time to wage war and another to make peace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But in the end, does it really make a difference what anyone does?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I've had a good look at what God has given us to do--busywork, mostly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> True, God made everything beautiful in itself and in its time--but he's left us in the dark, so we can never know what God is up to, whether he's coming or going.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I've decided that there's nothing better to do than go ahead and have a good time and get the most we can out of life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> That's it--eat, drink, and make the most of your job. It's God's gift.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I've also concluded that whatever God does, that's the way it's going to be, always. No addition, no subtraction. God's done it and that's it. That's so we'll quit asking questions and simply worship in holy fear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Whatever was, is. Whatever will be, is. That's how it always is with God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I took another good look at what's going on: The very place of judgment--corrupt!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The place of righteousness--corrupt! I said to myself, "God will judge righteous and wicked." There's a right time for every thing, every deed--and there's no getting around it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I said to myself regarding the human race, "God's testing the lot of us, showing us up as nothing but animals."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Humans and animals come to the same end--humans die, animals die. We all breathe the same air. So there's really no advantage in being human. None. Everything's smoke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> We all end up in the same place--we all came from dust, we all end up as dust.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Nobody knows for sure that the human spirit rises to heaven or that the animal spirit sinks into the earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> So I made up my mind that there's nothing better for us men and women than to have a good time in whatever we do--that's our lot. Who knows if there's anything else to life?</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Next I turned my attention to all the outrageous violence that takes place on this planet--the tears of the victims, no one to comfort them; the iron grip of oppressors, no one to rescue the victims from them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> So I congratulated the dead who are already dead instead of the living who are still alive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But luckier than the dead or the living is the person who has never even been, who has never seen the bad business that takes place on this earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then I observed all the work and ambition motivated by envy. What a waste! Smoke. And spitting into the wind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The fool sits back and takes it easy, His sloth is slow suicide.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> One handful of peaceful repose Is better than two fistfuls of worried work-- More spitting into the wind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I turned my head and saw yet another wisp of smoke on its way to nothingness:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> a solitary person, completely alone--no children, no family, no friends--yet working obsessively late into the night, compulsively greedy for more and more, never bothering to ask, "Why am I working like a dog, never having any fun? And who cares?" More smoke. A bad business.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> It's better to have a partner than go it alone. Share the work, share the wealth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And if one falls down, the other helps, But if there's no one to help, tough!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Two in a bed warm each other. Alone, you shiver all night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> By yourself you're unprotected. With a friend you can face the worst. Can you round up a third? A three-stranded rope isn't easily snapped.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> A poor youngster with some wisdom is better off than an old but foolish king who doesn't know which end is up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I saw a youth just like this start with nothing and go from rags to riches,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> and I saw everyone rally to the rule of this young successor to the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Even so, the excitement died quickly, the throngs of people soon lost interest. Can't you see it's only smoke? And spitting into the wind?</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Watch your step when you enter God's house. Enter to learn. That's far better than mindlessly offering a sacrifice, Doing more harm than good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Don't shoot off your mouth, or speak before you think. Don't be too quick to tell God what you think he wants to hear. God's in charge, not you--the less you speak, the better.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Over-work makes for restless sleep. Over-talk shows you up as a fool.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When you tell God you'll do something, do it--now. God takes no pleasure in foolish gabble. Vow it, then do it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Far better not to vow in the first place than to vow and not pay up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Don't let your mouth make a total sinner of you. When called to account, you won't get by with "Sorry, I didn't mean it." Why risk provoking God to angry retaliation?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But against all illusion and fantasy and empty talk There's always this rock foundation: Fear God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Don't be too upset when you see the poor kicked around, and justice and right violated all over the place. Exploitation filters down from one petty official to another. There's no end to it, and nothing can be done about it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But the good earth doesn't cheat anyone--even a bad king is honestly served by a field.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The one who loves money is never satisfied with money, Nor the one who loves wealth with big profits. More smoke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The more loot you get, the more looters show up. And what fun is that--to be robbed in broad daylight?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Hard and honest work earns a good night's sleep, Whether supper is beans or steak. But a rich man's belly gives him insomnia.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Here's a piece of bad luck I've seen happen: A man hoards far more wealth than is good for him</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And then loses it all in a bad business deal. He fathered a child but hasn't a cent left to give him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He arrived naked from the womb of his mother; He'll leave in the same condition--with nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> This is bad luck, for sure--naked he came, naked he went. So what was the point of working for a salary of smoke?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> All for a miserable life spent in the dark?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> After looking at the way things are on this earth, here's what I've decided is the best way to live: Take care of yourself, have a good time, and make the most of whatever job you have for as long as God gives you life. And that's about it. That's the human lot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Yes, we should make the most of what God gives, both the bounty and the capacity to enjoy it, accepting what's given and delighting in the work. It's God's gift!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> God deals out joy in the present, the now. It's useless to brood over how long we might live.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I looked long and hard at what goes on around here, and let me tell you, things are bad. And people feel it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> There are people, for instance, on whom God showers everything--money, property, reputation--all they ever wanted or dreamed of. And then God doesn't let them enjoy it. Some stranger comes along and has all the fun. It's more of what I'm calling smoke. A bad business.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Say a couple have scores of children and live a long, long life but never enjoy themselves--even though they end up with a big funeral! I'd say that a stillborn baby gets the better deal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> It gets its start in a mist and ends up in the dark--unnamed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> It sees nothing and knows nothing, but is better off by far than anyone living.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Even if someone lived a thousand years--make it two thousand!--but didn't enjoy anything, what's the point? Doesn't everyone end up in the same place?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> We work to feed our appetites; Meanwhile our souls go hungry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> So what advantage has a sage over a fool, or over some poor wretch who barely gets by?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Just grab whatever you can while you can; don't assume something better might turn up by and by. All it amounts to anyway is smoke. And spitting into the wind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Whatever happens, happens. Its destiny is fixed. You can't argue with fate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The more words that are spoken, the more smoke there is in the air. And who is any better off?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And who knows what's best for us as we live out our meager smoke-and-shadow lives? And who can tell any of us the next chapter of our lives?</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A good reputation is better than a fat bank account. Your death date tells more than your birth date.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> You learn more at a funeral than at a feast-- After all, that's where we'll end up. We might discover something from it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Crying is better than laughing. It blotches the face but it scours the heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Sages invest themselves in hurt and grieving. Fools waste their lives in fun and games.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You'll get more from the rebuke of a sage Than from the song and dance of fools.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The giggles of fools are like the crackling of twigs Under the cooking pot. And like smoke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Brutality stupefies even the wise And destroys the strongest heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Endings are better than beginnings. Sticking to it is better than standing out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Don't be quick to fly off the handle. Anger boomerangs. You can spot a fool by the lumps on his head.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Don't always be asking, "Where are the good old days?" Wise folks don't ask questions like that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Wisdom is better when it's paired with money, Especially if you get both while you're still living.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Double protection: wisdom and wealth! Plus this bonus: Wisdom energizes its owner.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Take a good look at God's work. Who could simplify and reduce Creation's curves and angles To a plain straight line?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> On a good day, enjoy yourself; On a bad day, examine your conscience. God arranges for both kinds of days So that we won't take anything for granted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I've seen it all in my brief and pointless life--here a good person cut down in the middle of doing good, there a bad person living a long life of sheer evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So don't knock yourself out being good, and don't go overboard being wise. Believe me, you won't get anything out of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But don't press your luck by being bad, either. And don't be reckless. Why die needlessly?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> It's best to stay in touch with both sides of an issue. A person who fears God deals responsibly with all of reality, not just a piece of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Wisdom puts more strength in one wise person Than ten strong men give to a city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> There's not one totally good person on earth, Not one who is truly pure and sinless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Don't eavesdrop on the conversation of others. What if the gossip's about you and you'd rather not hear it?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> You've done that a few times, haven't you--said things Behind someone's back you wouldn't say to his face?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> I tested everything in my search for wisdom. I set out to be wise, but it was beyond me,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> far beyond me, and deep--oh so deep! Does anyone ever find it?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> I concentrated with all my might, studying and exploring and seeking wisdom--the meaning of life. I also wanted to identify evil and stupidity, foolishness and craziness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> One discovery: A woman can be a bitter pill to swallow, full of seductive scheming and grasping. The lucky escape her; the undiscerning get caught.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> At least this is my experience--what I, the Quester, have pieced together as I've tried to make sense of life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> But the wisdom I've looked for I haven't found. I didn't find one man or woman in a thousand worth my while.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Yet I did spot one ray of light in this murk: God made men and women true and upright; we're the ones who've made a mess of things.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> There's nothing better than being wise, Knowing how to interpret the meaning of life. Wisdom puts light in the eyes, And gives gentleness to words and manners.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Do what your king commands; you gave a sacred oath of obedience.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Don't worryingly second-guess your orders or try to back out when the task is unpleasant. You're serving his pleasure, not yours.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The king has the last word. Who dares say to him, "What are you doing?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Carrying out orders won't hurt you a bit; the wise person obeys promptly and accurately.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Yes, there's a right time and way for everything, even though, unfortunately, we miss it for the most part.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> It's true that no one knows what's going to happen, or when. Who's around to tell us?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> No one can control the wind or lock it in a box. No one has any say-so regarding the day of death. No one can stop a battle in its tracks. No one who does evil can be saved by evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> All this I observed as I tried my best to understand all that's going on in this world. As long as men and women have the power to hurt each other, this is the way it is.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> One time I saw wicked men given a solemn burial in holy ground. When the people returned to the city, they delivered flowery eulogies--and in the very place where wicked acts were done by those very men! More smoke. Indeed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Because the sentence against evil deeds is so long in coming, people in general think they can get by with murder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Even though a person sins and gets by with it hundreds of times throughout a long life, I'm still convinced that the good life is reserved for the person who fears God, who lives reverently in his presence,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> and that the evil person will not experience a "good" life. No matter how many days he lives, they'll all be as flat and colorless as a shadow--because he doesn't fear God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Here's something that happens all the time and makes no sense at all: Good people get what's coming to the wicked, and bad people get what's coming to the good. I tell you, this makes no sense. It's smoke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So, I'm all for just going ahead and having a good time--the best possible. The only earthly good men and women can look forward to is to eat and drink well and have a good time--compensation for the struggle for survival these few years God gives us on earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When I determined to load up on wisdom and examine everything taking place on earth, I realized that if you keep your eyes open day and night without even blinking,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> you'll still never figure out the meaning of what God is doing on this earth. Search as hard as you like, you're not going to make sense of it. No matter how smart you are, you won't get to the bottom of it.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Well, I took all this in and thought it through, inside and out. Here's what I understood: The good, the wise, and all that they do are in God's hands--but, day by day, whether it's love or hate they're dealing with, they don't know. Anything's possible.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> It's one fate for everybody--righteous and wicked, good people, bad people, the nice and the nasty, worshipers and non-worshipers, committed and uncommitted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I find this outrageous--the worst thing about living on this earth--that everyone's lumped together in one fate. Is it any wonder that so many people are obsessed with evil? Is it any wonder that people go crazy right and left? Life leads to death. That's it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Still, anyone selected out for life has hope, for, as they say, "A living dog is better than a dead lion."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The living at least know something, even if it's only that they're going to die. But the dead know nothing and get nothing. They're a minus that no one remembers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Their loves, their hates, yes, even their dreams, are long gone. There's not a trace of them left in the affairs of this earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Seize life! Eat bread with gusto, Drink wine with a robust heart. Oh yes--God takes pleasure in your pleasure!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Dress festively every morning. Don't skimp on colors and scarves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Relish life with the spouse you love Each and every day of your precarious life. Each day is God's gift. It's all you get in exchange For the hard work of staying alive. Make the most of each one!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Whatever turns up, grab it and do it. And heartily! This is your last and only chance at it, For there's neither work to do nor thoughts to think In the company of the dead, where you're most certainly headed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I took another walk around the neighborhood and realized that on this earth as it is-- The race is not always to the swift, Nor the battle to the strong, Nor satisfaction to the wise, Nor riches to the smart, Nor grace to the learned. Sooner or later bad luck hits us all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> No one can predict misfortune. Like fish caught in a cruel net or birds in a trap, So men and women are caught By accidents evil and sudden.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> One day as I was observing how wisdom fares on this earth, I saw something that made me sit up and take notice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> There was a small town with only a few people in it. A strong king came and mounted an attack, building trenches and attack posts around it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> There was a poor but wise man in that town whose wisdom saved the town, but he was promptly forgotten. (He was only a poor man, after all.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> All the same, I still say that wisdom is better than muscle, even though the wise poor man was treated with contempt and soon forgotten.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The quiet words of the wise are more effective Than the ranting of a king of fools.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Wisdom is better than warheads, But one hothead can ruin the good earth.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Dead flies in perfume make it stink, And a little foolishness decomposes much wisdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Wise thinking leads to right living; Stupid thinking leads to wrong living.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Fools on the road have no sense of direction. The way they walk tells the story: "There goes the fool again!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> If a ruler loses his temper against you, don't panic; A calm disposition quiets intemperate rage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Here's a piece of bad business I've seen on this earth, An error that can be blamed on whoever is in charge:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Immaturity is given a place of prominence, While maturity is made to take a back seat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I've seen unproven upstarts riding in style, While experienced veterans are put out to pasture.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Caution: The trap you set might catch you. Warning: Your accomplice in crime might double-cross you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Safety first: Quarrying stones is dangerous. Be alert: Felling trees is hazardous.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Remember: The duller the ax the harder the work; Use your head: The more brains, the less muscle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> If the snake bites before it's been charmed, What's the point in then sending for the charmer?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The words of a wise person are gracious. The talk of a fool self-destructs--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He starts out talking nonsense And ends up spouting insanity and evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Fools talk way too much, Chattering stuff they know nothing about.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> A decent day's work so fatigues fools That they can't find their way back to town.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Unlucky the land whose king is a young pup, And whose princes party all night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Lucky the land whose king is mature, Where the princes behave themselves And don't drink themselves silly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> A shiftless man lives in a tumbledown shack; A lazy woman ends up with a leaky roof.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Laughter and bread go together, And wine gives sparkle to life-- But it's money that makes the world go around.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Don't bad-mouth your leaders, not even under your breath, And don't abuse your betters, even in the privacy of your home. Loose talk has a way of getting picked up and spread around. Little birds drop the crumbs of your gossip far and wide.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Be generous: Invest in acts of charity. Charity yields high returns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Don't hoard your goods; spread them around. Be a blessing to others. This could be your last night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When the clouds are full of water, it rains. When the wind blows down a tree, it lies where it falls.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Don't sit there watching the wind. Do your own work. Don't stare at the clouds. Get on with your life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Just as you'll never understand the mystery of life forming in a pregnant woman, So you'll never understand the mystery at work in all that God does.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Go to work in the morning and stick to it until evening without watching the clock. You never know from moment to moment how your work will turn out in the end.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Oh, how sweet the light of day, And how wonderful to live in the sunshine!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Even if you live a long time, don't take a single day for granted. Take delight in each light-filled hour, Remembering that there will also be many dark days And that most of what comes your way is smoke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You who are young, make the most of your youth. Relish your youthful vigor. Follow the impulses of your heart. If something looks good to you, pursue it. But know also that not just anything goes; You have to answer to God for every last bit of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Live footloose and fancy free-- You won't be young forever. Youth lasts about as long as smoke.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Honor and enjoy your Creator while you're still young, Before the years take their toll and your vigor wanes,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Before your vision dims and the world blurs And the winter years keep you close to the fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> In old age, your body no longer serves you so well. Muscles slacken, grip weakens, joints stiffen. The shades are pulled down on the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You can't come and go at will. Things grind to a halt. The hum of the household fades away. You are wakened now by bird-song.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Hikes to the mountains are a thing of the past. Even a stroll down the road has its terrors. Your hair turns apple-blossom white, Adorning a fragile and impotent matchstick body. Yes, you're well on your way to eternal rest, While your friends make plans for your funeral.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Life, lovely while it lasts, is soon over. Life as we know it, precious and beautiful, ends.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The body is put back in the same ground it came from. The spirit returns to God, who first breathed it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> It's all smoke, nothing but smoke. The Quester says that everything's smoke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Besides being wise himself, the Quester also taught others knowledge. He weighed, examined, and arranged many proverbs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The Quester did his best to find the right words and write the plain truth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The words of the wise prod us to live well. They're like nails hammered home, holding life together. They are given by God, the one Shepherd.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But regarding anything beyond this, dear friend, go easy. There's no end to the publishing of books, and constant study wears you out so you're no good for anything else.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The last and final word is this: Fear God. Do what he tells you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And that's it. Eventually God will bring everything that we do out into the open and judge it according to its hidden intent, whether it's good or evil.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="22" bname="Song of Solomon">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Song--best of all songs--Solomon's song!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Kiss me--full on the mouth! Yes! For your love is better than wine,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> headier than your aromatic oils. The syllables of your name murmur like a meadow brook. No wonder everyone loves to say your name!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Take me away with you! Let's run off together! An elopement with my King-Lover! We'll celebrate, we'll sing, we'll make great music. Yes! For your love is better than vintage wine. Everyone loves you--of course! And why not?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I am weathered but still elegant, oh, dear sisters in Jerusalem, Weather-darkened like Kedar desert tents, time-softened like Solomon's Temple hangings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Don't look down on me because I'm dark, darkened by the sun's harsh rays. My brothers ridiculed me and sent me to work in the fields. They made me care for the face of the earth, but I had no time to care for my own face.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Tell me where you're working --I love you so much--Tell me where you're tending your flocks, where you let them rest at noontime. Why should I be the one left out, outside the orbit of your tender care?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> If you can't find me, loveliest of all women, it's all right. Stay with your flocks. Lead your lambs to good pasture. Stay with your shepherd neighbors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You remind me of Pharaoh's well-groomed and satiny mares.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Pendant earrings line the elegance of your cheeks; strands of jewels illumine the curve of your throat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I'm making jewelry for you, gold and silver jewelry that will mark and accent your beauty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When my King-Lover lay down beside me, my fragrance filled the room.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> His head resting between my breasts--the head of my lover was a sachet of sweet myrrh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> My beloved is a bouquet of wildflowers picked just for me from the fields of Engedi.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Oh, my dear friend! You're so beautiful! And your eyes so beautiful--like doves!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> And you, my dear lover--you're so handsome! And the bed we share is like a forest glen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> We enjoy a canopy of cedars enclosed by cypresses, fragrant and green.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I'm just a wildflower picked from the plains of Sharon, a lotus blossom from the valley pools.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> A lotus blossoming in a swamp of weeds-- that's my dear friend among the girls in the village.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> As an apricot tree stands out in the forest, my lover stands above the young men in town. All I want is to sit in his shade, to taste and savor his delicious love.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He took me home with him for a festive meal, but his eyes feasted on me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Oh! Give me something refreshing to eat--and quickly! Apricots, raisins--anything. I'm about to faint with love!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> His left hand cradles my head, and his right arm encircles my waist!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Oh, let me warn you, sisters in Jerusalem, by the gazelles, yes, by all the wild deer: Don't excite love, don't stir it up, until the time is ripe--and you're ready.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Look! Listen! There's my lover! Do you see him coming? Vaulting the mountains, leaping the hills.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> My lover is like a gazelle, graceful; like a young stag, virile. Look at him there, on tiptoe at the gate, all ears, all eyes--ready!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> My lover has arrived and he's speaking to me! Get up, my dear friend, fair and beautiful lover--come to me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Look around you: Winter is over; the winter rains are over, gone!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Spring flowers are in blossom all over. The whole world's a choir--and singing! Spring warblers are filling the forest with sweet arpeggios.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Lilacs are exuberantly purple and perfumed, and cherry trees fragrant with blossoms. Oh, get up, dear friend, my fair and beautiful lover--come to me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Come, my shy and modest dove-- leave your seclusion, come out in the open. Let me see your face, let me hear your voice. For your voice is soothing and your face is ravishing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Then you must protect me from the foxes, foxes on the prowl, Foxes who would like nothing better than to get into our flowering garden.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> My lover is mine, and I am his. Nightly he strolls in our garden, Delighting in the flowers</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> until dawn breathes its light and night slips away. Turn to me, dear lover. Come like a gazelle. Leap like a wild stag on delectable mountains!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Restless in bed and sleepless through the night, I longed for my lover. I wanted him desperately. His absence was painful.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> So I got up, went out and roved the city, hunting through streets and down alleys. I wanted my lover in the worst way! I looked high and low, and didn't find him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And then the night watchmen found me as they patrolled the darkened city. "Have you seen my dear lost love?" I asked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> No sooner had I left them than I found him, found my dear lost love. I threw my arms around him and held him tight, wouldn't let him go until I had him home again, safe at home beside the fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Oh, let me warn you, sisters in Jerusalem, by the gazelles, yes, by all the wild deer: Don't excite love, don't stir it up, until the time is ripe--and you're ready.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> What's this I see, approaching from the desert, raising clouds of dust, Filling the air with sweet smells and pungent aromatics?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Look! It's Solomon's carriage, carried and guarded by sixty soldiers, sixty of Israel's finest,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> All of them armed to the teeth, trained for battle, ready for anything, anytime.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> King Solomon once had a carriage built from fine-grained Lebanon cedar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He had it framed with silver and roofed with gold. The cushions were covered with a purple fabric, the interior lined with tooled leather.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Come and look, sisters in Jerusalem. Oh, sisters of Zion, don't miss this! My King-Lover, dressed and garlanded for his wedding, his heart full, bursting with joy!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> You're so beautiful, my darling, so beautiful, and your dove eyes are veiled By your hair as it flows and shimmers, like a flock of goats in the distance streaming down a hillside in the sunshine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Your smile is generous and full-- expressive and strong and clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Your lips are jewel red, your mouth elegant and inviting, your veiled cheeks soft and radiant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The smooth, lithe lines of your neck command notice--all heads turn in awe and admiration!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Your breasts are like fawns, twins of a gazelle, grazing among the first spring flowers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The sweet, fragrant curves of your body, the soft, spiced contours of your flesh Invite me, and I come. I stay until dawn breathes its light and night slips away.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You're beautiful from head to toe, my dear love, beautiful beyond compare, absolutely flawless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Come with me from Lebanon, my bride. Leave Lebanon behind, and come. Leave your high mountain hideaway. Abandon your wilderness seclusion, Where you keep company with lions and panthers guard your safety.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You've captured my heart, dear friend. You looked at me, and I fell in love. One look my way and I was hopelessly in love!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> How beautiful your love, dear, dear friend-- far more pleasing than a fine, rare wine, your fragrance more exotic than select spices.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The kisses of your lips are honey, my love, every syllable you speak a delicacy to savor. Your clothes smell like the wild outdoors, the ozone scent of high mountains.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Dear lover and friend, you're a secret garden, a private and pure fountain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Body and soul, you are paradise, a whole orchard of succulent fruits-- Ripe apricots and peaches, oranges and pears; Nut trees and cinnamon, and all scented woods;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Mint and lavender, and all herbs aromatic;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> A garden fountain, sparkling and splashing, fed by spring waters from the Lebanon mountains.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Wake up, North Wind, get moving, South Wind! Breathe on my garden, fill the air with spice fragrance. Oh, let my lover enter his garden! Yes, let him eat the fine, ripe fruits.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I went to my garden, dear friend, best lover! breathed the sweet fragrance. I ate the fruit and honey, I drank the nectar and wine. Celebrate with me, friends! Raise your glasses--"To life! To love!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I was sound asleep, but in my dreams I was wide awake. Oh, listen! It's the sound of my lover knocking, calling! "Let me in, dear companion, dearest friend, my dove, consummate lover! I'm soaked with the dampness of the night, drenched with dew, shivering and cold."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "But I'm in my nightgown--do you expect me to get dressed? I'm bathed and in bed--do you want me to get dirty?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But my lover wouldn't take no for an answer, and the longer he knocked, the more excited I became.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I got up to open the door to my lover, sweetly ready to receive him, Desiring and expectant as I turned the door handle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But when I opened the door he was gone. My loved one had tired of waiting and left. And I died inside--oh, I felt so bad! I ran out looking for him But he was nowhere to be found. I called into the darkness--but no answer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The night watchmen found me as they patrolled the streets of the city. They slapped and beat and bruised me, ripping off my clothes, These watchmen, who were supposed to be guarding the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I beg you, sisters in Jerusalem-- if you find my lover, Please tell him I want him, that I'm heartsick with love for him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> What's so great about your lover, fair lady? What's so special about him that you beg for our help?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> My dear lover glows with health-- red-blooded, radiant! He's one in a million. There's no one quite like him!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> My golden one, pure and untarnished, with raven black curls tumbling across his shoulders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> His eyes are like doves, soft and bright, but deep-set, brimming with meaning, like wells of water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> His face is rugged, his beard smells like sage, His voice, his words, warm and reassuring.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Fine muscles ripple beneath his skin, quiet and beautiful. His torso is the work of a sculptor, hard and smooth as ivory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He stands tall, like a cedar, strong and deep-rooted, A rugged mountain of a man, aromatic with wood and stone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> His words are kisses, his kisses words. Everything about him delights me, thrills me through and through! That's my lover, that's my man, dear Jerusalem sisters.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> So where has this love of yours gone, fair one? Where on earth can he be? Can we help you look for him?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Never mind. My lover is already on his way to his garden, to browse among the flowers, touching the colors and forms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I am my lover's and my lover is mine. He caresses the sweet-smelling flowers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Dear, dear friend and lover, you're as beautiful as Tirzah, city of delights, Lovely as Jerusalem, city of dreams, the ravishing visions of my ecstasy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Your beauty is too much for me--I'm in over my head. I'm not used to this! I can't take it in. Your hair flows and shimmers like a flock of goats in the distance streaming down a hillside in the sunshine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Your smile is generous and full-- expressive and strong and clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Your veiled cheeks are soft and radiant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> There's no one like her on earth, never has been, never will be.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> She's a woman beyond compare. My dove is perfection, Pure and innocent as the day she was born, and cradled in joy by her mother. Everyone who came by to see her exclaimed and admired her-- All the fathers and mothers, the neighbors and friends, blessed and praised her:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Has anyone ever seen anything like this-- dawn-fresh, moon-lovely, sun-radiant, ravishing as the night sky with its galaxies of stars?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> One day I went strolling through the orchard, looking for signs of spring, Looking for buds about to burst into flower, anticipating readiness, ripeness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Before I knew it my heart was raptured, carried away by lofty thoughts!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Dance, dance, dear Shulammite, Angel-Princess! Dance, and we'll feast our eyes on your grace! Everyone wants to see the Shulammite dance her victory dances of love and peace.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Shapely and graceful your sandaled feet, and queenly your movement-- Your limbs are lithe and elegant, the work of a master artist.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Your body is a chalice, wine-filled. Your skin is silken and tawny like a field of wheat touched by the breeze.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Your breasts are like fawns, twins of a gazelle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Your neck is carved ivory, curved and slender. Your eyes are wells of light, deep with mystery. Quintessentially feminine! Your profile turns all heads, commanding attention.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The feelings I get when I see the high mountain ranges --stirrings of desire, longings for the heights-- Remind me of you, and I'm spoiled for anyone else!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Your beauty, within and without, is absolute, dear lover, close companion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You are tall and supple, like the palm tree, and your full breasts are like sweet clusters of dates.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I say, "I'm going to climb that palm tree! I'm going to caress its fruit!" Oh yes! Your breasts will be clusters of sweet fruit to me, Your breath clean and cool like fresh mint,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> your tongue and lips like the best wine. Yes, and yours are, too--my love's kisses flow from his lips to mine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I am my lover's. I'm all he wants. I'm all the world to him!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Come, dear lover-- let's tramp through the countryside.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Let's sleep at some wayside inn, then rise early and listen to bird-song. Let's look for wildflowers in bloom, blackberry bushes blossoming white, Fruit trees festooned with cascading flowers. And there I'll give myself to you, my love to your love!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Love-apples drench us with fragrance, fertility surrounds, suffuses us, Fruits fresh and preserved that I've kept and saved just for you, my love.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I wish you'd been my twin brother, sharing with me the breasts of my mother, Playing outside in the street, kissing in plain view of everyone, and no one thinking anything of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I'd take you by the hand and bring you home where I was raised by my mother. You'd drink my wine and kiss my cheeks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Imagine! His left hand cradling my head, his right arm around my waist!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Oh, let me warn you, sisters in Jerusalem: Don't excite love, don't stir it up, until the time is ripe--and you're ready.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Who is this I see coming up from the country, arm in arm with her lover? I found you under the apricot tree, and woke you up to love. Your mother went into labor under that tree, and under that very tree she bore you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Hang my locket around your neck, wear my ring on your finger. Love is invincible facing danger and death. Passion laughs at the terrors of hell. The fire of love stops at nothing-- it sweeps everything before it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Flood waters can't drown love, torrents of rain can't put it out. Love can't be bought, love can't be sold-- it's not to be found in the marketplace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> My brothers used to worry about me: "Our little sister has no breasts. What shall we do with our little sister when men come asking for her?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> She's a virgin and vulnerable, and we'll protect her. If they think she's a wall, we'll top it with barbed wire. If they think she's a door, we'll barricade it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Dear brothers, I'm a walled-in virgin still, but my breasts are full-- And when my lover sees me, he knows he'll soon be satisfied.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> King Solomon may have vast vineyards in lush, fertile country, Where he hires others to work the ground. People pay anything to get in on that bounty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But my vineyard is all mine, and I'm keeping it to myself. You can have your vast vineyards, Solomon, you and your greedy guests!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Oh, lady of the gardens, my friends are with me listening. Let me hear your voice!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Run to me, dear lover. Come like a gazelle. Leap like a wild stag on the spice mountains.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="23" bname="Isaiah">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The vision that Isaiah son of Amoz saw regarding Judah and Jerusalem during the times of the kings of Judah: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Heaven and earth, you're the jury. Listen to GOD's case: "I had children and raised them well, and they turned on me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The ox knows who's boss, the mule knows the hand that feeds him, But not Israel. My people don't know up from down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Shame! Misguided GOD-dropouts, staggering under their guilt-baggage, Gang of miscreants, band of vandals-- My people have walked out on me, their GOD, turned their backs on The Holy of Israel, walked off and never looked back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Why bother even trying to do anything with you when you just keep to your bullheaded ways? You keep beating your heads against brick walls. Everything within you protests against you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> From the bottom of your feet to the top of your head, nothing's working right. Wounds and bruises and running sores-- untended, unwashed, unbandaged.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Your country is laid waste, your cities burned down. Your land is destroyed by outsiders while you watch, reduced to rubble by barbarians.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Daughter Zion is deserted-- like a tumbledown shack on a dead-end street, Like a tarpaper shanty on the wrong side of the tracks, like a sinking ship abandoned by the rats.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> If GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies hadn't left us a few survivors, we'd be as desolate as Sodom, doomed just like Gomorrah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Listen to my Message, you Sodom-schooled leaders. Receive God's revelation, you Gomorrah-schooled people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Why this frenzy of sacrifices?" GOD's asking. "Don't you think I've had my fill of burnt sacrifices, rams and plump grain-fed calves? Don't you think I've had my fill of blood from bulls, lambs, and goats?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When you come before me, who ever gave you the idea of acting like this, Running here and there, doing this and that-- all this sheer commotion in the place provided for worship?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Quit your worship charades. I can't stand your trivial religious games: Monthly conferences, weekly Sabbaths, special meetings-- meetings, meetings, meetings--I can't stand one more!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Meetings for this, meetings for that. I hate them! You've worn me out! I'm sick of your religion, religion, religion, while you go right on sinning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> When you put on your next prayer-performance, I'll be looking the other way. No matter how long or loud or often you pray, I'll not be listening. And do you know why? Because you've been tearing people to pieces, and your hands are bloody.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Go home and wash up. Clean up your act. Sweep your lives clean of your evildoings so I don't have to look at them any longer. Say no to wrong.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Learn to do good. Work for justice. Help the down-and-out. Stand up for the homeless. Go to bat for the defenseless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Come. Sit down. Let's argue this out." This is GOD's Message: "If your sins are blood-red, they'll be snow-white. If they're red like crimson, they'll be like wool.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> If you'll willingly obey, you'll feast like kings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But if you're willful and stubborn, you'll die like dogs." That's right. GOD says so.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Oh! Can you believe it? The chaste city has become a whore! She was once all justice, everyone living as good neighbors, And now they're all at one another's throats.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Your coins are all counterfeits. Your wine is watered down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Your leaders are turncoats who keep company with crooks. They sell themselves to the highest bidder and grab anything not nailed down. They never stand up for the homeless, never stick up for the defenseless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> This Decree, therefore, of the Master, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the Strong One of Israel: "This is it! I'll get my oppressors off my back. I'll get back at my enemies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> I'll give you the back of my hand, purge the junk from your life, clean you up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> I'll set honest judges and wise counselors among you just like it was back in the beginning. Then you'll be renamed City-That-Treats-People-Right, the True-Blue City."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> GOD's right ways will put Zion right again. GOD's right actions will restore her penitents.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> But it's curtains for rebels and GOD-traitors, a dead end for those who walk out on GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "Your dalliances in those oak grove shrines will leave you looking mighty foolish, All that fooling around in god and goddess gardens that you thought was the latest thing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> You'll end up like an oak tree with all its leaves falling off, Like an unwatered garden, withered and brown.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> 'The Big Man' will turn out to be dead bark and twigs, and his 'work,' the spark that starts the fire That exposes man and work both as nothing but cinders and smoke."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Message Isaiah got regarding Judah and Jerusalem:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> There's a day coming when the mountain of GOD's House Will be The Mountain-- solid, towering over all mountains. All nations will river toward it, people from all over set out for it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They'll say, "Come, let's climb GOD's Mountain, go to the House of the God of Jacob. He'll show us the way he works so we can live the way we're made." Zion's the source of the revelation. GOD's Message comes from Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He'll settle things fairly between nations. He'll make things right between many peoples. They'll turn their swords into shovels, their spears into hoes. No more will nation fight nation; they won't play war anymore.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Come, family of Jacob, let's live in the light of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD, you've walked out on your family Jacob because their world is full of hokey religion, Philistine witchcraft, and pagan hocus-pocus,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> a world rolling in wealth, Stuffed with things, no end to its machines and gadgets,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And gods--gods of all sorts and sizes. These people make their own gods and worship what they make.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> A degenerate race, facedown in the gutter. Don't bother with them! They're not worth forgiving!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Head for the hills, hide in the caves From the terror of GOD, from his dazzling presence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> People with a big head are headed for a fall, pretentious egos brought down a peg. It's GOD alone at front-and-center on the Day we're talking about,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The Day that GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies is matched against all big-talking rivals, against all swaggering big names;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Against all giant sequoias hugely towering, and against the expansive chestnut;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Against Kilimanjaro and Annapurna, against the ranges of Alps and Andes;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Against every soaring skyscraper, against all proud obelisks and statues;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Against ocean-going luxury liners, against elegant three-masted schooners.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The swelled big heads will be punctured bladders, the pretentious egos brought down to earth, Leaving GOD alone at front-and-center on the Day we're talking about.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And all those sticks and stones dressed up to look like gods will be gone for good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Clamber into caves in the cliffs, duck into any hole you can find. Hide from the terror of GOD, from his dazzling presence, When he assumes his full stature on earth, towering and terrifying.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> On that Day men and women will take the sticks and stones They've decked out in gold and silver to look like gods and then worshiped, And they will dump them in any ditch or gully,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then run for rock caves and cliff hideouts To hide from the terror of GOD, from his dazzling presence, When he assumes his full stature on earth, towering and terrifying.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Quit scraping and fawning over mere humans, so full of themselves, so full of hot air! Can't you see there's nothing to them?</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Master, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, is emptying Jerusalem and Judah Of all the basic necessities, plain bread and water to begin with.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He's withdrawing police and protection, judges and courts, pastors and teachers,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> captains and generals, doctors and nurses, and, yes, even the repairmen and jacks-of-all-trades.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He says, "I'll put little kids in charge of the city. Schoolboys and schoolgirls will order everyone around.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> People will be at each other's throats, stabbing one another in the back: Neighbor against neighbor, young against old, the no-account against the well-respected.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> One brother will grab another and say, 'You look like you've got a head on your shoulders. Do something! Get us out of this mess.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And he'll say, 'Me? Not me! I don't have a clue. Don't put me in charge of anything.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Jerusalem's on its last legs. Judah is soon down for the count. Everything people say and do is at cross-purposes with GOD, a slap in my face.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Brazen in their depravity, they flout their sins like degenerate Sodom. Doom to their eternal souls! They've made their bed; now they'll sleep in it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Reassure the righteous that their good living will pay off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But doom to the wicked! Disaster! Everything they did will be done to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Skinny kids terrorize my people. Silly girls bully them around. My dear people! Your leaders are taking you down a blind alley. They're sending you off on a wild goose chase."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> GOD enters the courtroom. He takes his place at the bench to judge his people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD calls for order in the court, hauls the leaders of his people into the dock: "You've played havoc with this country. Your houses are stuffed with what you've stolen from the poor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> What is this anyway? Stomping on my people, grinding the faces of the poor into the dirt?" That's what the Master, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, says.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> GOD says, "Zion women are stuck-up, prancing around in their high heels, Making eyes at all the men in the street, swinging their hips, Tossing their hair, gaudy and garish in cheap jewelry."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The Master will fix it so those Zion women will all turn bald-- Scabby, bald-headed women. The Master will do it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The time is coming when the Master will strip them of their fancy baubles--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> the dangling earrings, anklets and bracelets,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> combs and mirrors and silk scarves, diamond brooches and pearl necklaces,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> the rings on their fingers and the rings on their toes,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> the latest fashions in hats, exotic perfumes and aphrodisiacs, gowns and capes,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> all the world's finest in fabrics and design.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Instead of wearing seductive scents, these women are going to smell like rotting cabbages; Instead of modeling flowing gowns, they'll be sporting rags; Instead of their stylish hairdos, scruffy heads; Instead of beauty marks, scabs and scars.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Your finest fighting men will be killed, your soldiers left dead on the battlefield.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The entrance gate to Zion will be clotted with people mourning their dead-- A city stooped under the weight of her loss, brought to her knees by her sorrows.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> That will be the day when seven women will gang up on one man, saying, "We'll take care of ourselves, get our own food and clothes. Just give us a child. Make us pregnant so we'll have something to live for!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> And that's when GOD's Branch will sprout green and lush. The produce of the country will give Israel's survivors something to be proud of again. Oh, they'll hold their heads high!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Everyone left behind in Zion, all the discards and rejects in Jerusalem, will be reclassified as "holy"--alive and therefore precious.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD will give Zion's women a good bath. He'll scrub the bloodstained city of its violence and brutality, purge the place with a firestorm of judgment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then GOD will bring back the ancient pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night and mark Mount Zion and everyone in it with his glorious presence, his immense, protective presence,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> shade from the burning sun and shelter from the driving rain.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I'll sing a ballad to the one I love, a love ballad about his vineyard: The one I love had a vineyard, a fine, well-placed vineyard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He hoed the soil and pulled the weeds, and planted the very best vines. He built a lookout, built a winepress, a vineyard to be proud of. He looked for a vintage yield of grapes, but for all his pains he got junk grapes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Now listen to what I'm telling you, you who live in Jerusalem and Judah. What do you think is going on between me and my vineyard?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Can you think of anything I could have done to my vineyard that I didn't do? When I expected good grapes, why did I get bitter grapes?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Well now, let me tell you what I'll do to my vineyard: I'll tear down its fence and let it go to ruin. I'll knock down the gate and let it be trampled.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I'll turn it into a patch of weeds, untended, uncared for-- thistles and thorns will take over. I'll give orders to the clouds: 'Don't rain on that vineyard, ever!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Do you get it? The vineyard of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies is the country of Israel. All the men and women of Judah are the garden he was so proud of. He looked for a crop of justice and saw them murdering each other. He looked for a harvest of righteousness and heard only the moans of victims.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Doom to you who buy up all the houses and grab all the land for yourselves-- Evicting the old owners, posting NO TRESPASSING signs, Taking over the country, leaving everyone homeless and landless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I overheard GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies say: "Those mighty houses will end up empty. Those extravagant estates will be deserted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> A ten-acre vineyard will produce a pint of wine, a fifty-pound sack of seed, a quart of grain."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Doom to those who get up early and start drinking booze before breakfast, Who stay up all hours of the night drinking themselves into a stupor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They make sure their banquets are well-furnished with harps and flutes and plenty of wine, But they'll have nothing to do with the work of GOD, pay no mind to what he is doing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Therefore my people will end up in exile because they don't know the score. Their "big men" will starve to death and the common people die of thirst.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Sheol developed a huge appetite, swallowing people nonstop! Big people and little people alike down that gullet, to say nothing of all the drunks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The down-and-out on a par with the high-and-mighty, Windbag boasters crumpled, flaccid as a punctured bladder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But by working justice, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies will be a mountain. By working righteousness, Holy God will show what "holy" is.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And lambs will graze as if they owned the place, Kids and calves right at home in the ruins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Doom to you who use lies to sell evil, who haul sin to market by the truckload,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Who say, "What's God waiting for? Let him get a move on so we can see it. Whatever The Holy of Israel has cooked up, we'd like to check it out."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Doom to you who call evil good and good evil, Who put darkness in place of light and light in place of darkness, Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Doom to you who think you're so smart, who hold such a high opinion of yourselves!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> All you're good at is drinking--champion boozers who collect trophies from drinking bouts</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> And then line your pockets with bribes from the guilty while you violate the rights of the innocent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> But they won't get by with it. As fire eats stubble and dry grass goes up in smoke, Their souls will atrophy, their achievements crumble into dust, Because they said no to the revelation of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, Would have nothing to do with The Holy of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> That's why GOD flamed out in anger against his people, reached out and knocked them down. The mountains trembled as their dead bodies piled up in the streets. But even after that, he was still angry, his fist still raised, ready to hit them again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> He raises a flag, signaling a distant nation, whistles for people at the ends of the earth. And here they come-- on the run!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> None drag their feet, no one stumbles, no one sleeps or dawdles. Shirts are on and pants buckled, every boot is spit-polished and tied.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Their arrows are sharp, bows strung, The hooves of their horses shod, chariot wheels greased.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Roaring like a pride of lions, the full-throated roars of young lions, They growl and seize their prey, dragging it off--no rescue for that one!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> They'll roar and roar and roar on that Day, like the roar of ocean billows. Look as long and hard as you like at that land, you'll see nothing but darkness and trouble. Every light in the sky will be blacked out by the clouds.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Master sitting on a throne--high, exalted!--and the train of his robes filled the Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Angel-seraphs hovered above him, each with six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two their feet, and with two they flew."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And they called back and forth one to the other, Holy, Holy, Holy is GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies. His bright glory fills the whole earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The foundations trembled at the sound of the angel voices, and then the whole house filled with smoke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I said, "Doom! It's Doomsday! I'm as good as dead! Every word I've ever spoken is tainted-- blasphemous even! And the people I live with talk the same way, using words that corrupt and desecrate. And here I've looked God in the face! The King! GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then one of the angel-seraphs flew to me. He held a live coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He touched my mouth with the coal and said, "Look. This coal has touched your lips. Gone your guilt, your sins wiped out."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And then I heard the voice of the Master: "Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?" I spoke up, "I'll go. Send me!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He said, "Go and tell this people: "'Listen hard, but you aren't going to get it; look hard, but you won't catch on.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Make these people blockheads, with fingers in their ears and blindfolds on their eyes, So they won't see a thing, won't hear a word, So they won't have a clue about what's going on and, yes, so they won't turn around and be made whole."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Astonished, I said, "And Master, how long is this to go on?" He said, "Until the cities are emptied out, not a soul left in the cities-- Houses empty of people, countryside empty of people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Until I, GOD, get rid of everyone, sending them off, the land totally empty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And even if some should survive, say a tenth, the devastation will start up again. The country will look like pine and oak forest with every tree cut down-- Every tree a stump, a huge field of stumps. But there's a holy seed in those stumps."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> During the time that Ahaz son of Jothan, son of Uzziah, was king of Judah, King Rezin of Aram and King Pekah son of Remaliah of Israel attacked Jerusalem, but the attack sputtered out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> When the Davidic government learned that Aram had joined forces with Ephraim (that is, Israel), Ahaz and his people were badly shaken. They shook like trees in the wind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then GOD told Isaiah, "Go and meet Ahaz. Take your son Shear-jashub (A-Remnant-Will-Return) with you. Meet him south of the city at the end of the aqueduct where it empties into the upper pool on the road to the public laundry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Tell him, Listen, calm down. Don't be afraid. And don't panic over these two burnt-out cases, Rezin of Aram and the son of Remaliah. They talk big but there's nothing to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Aram, along with Ephraim's son of Remaliah, have plotted to do you harm. They've conspired against you, saying,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> 'Let's go to war against Judah, dismember it, take it for ourselves, and set the son of Tabeel up as a puppet king over it.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But GOD, the Master, says, "It won't happen. Nothing will come of it</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Because the capital of Aram is Damascus and the king of Damascus is a mere man, Rezin. As for Ephraim, in sixty-five years it will be rubble, nothing left of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The capital of Ephraim is Samaria, and the king of Samaria is the mere son of Remaliah. If you don't take your stand in faith, you won't have a leg to stand on."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> GOD spoke again to Ahaz. This time he said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Ask for a sign from your GOD. Ask anything. Be extravagant. Ask for the moon!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But Ahaz said, "I'd never do that. I'd never make demands like that on GOD!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> So Isaiah told him, "Then listen to this, government of David! It's bad enough that you make people tired with your pious, timid hypocrisies, but now you're making God tired.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> So the Master is going to give you a sign anyway. Watch for this: A girl who is presently a virgin will get pregnant. She'll bear a son and name him Immanuel (God-With-Us).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> By the time the child is twelve years old, able to make moral decisions,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> the threat of war will be over. Relax, those two kings that have you so worried will be out of the picture.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But also be warned: GOD will bring on you and your people and your government a judgment worse than anything since the time the kingdom split, when Ephraim left Judah. The king of Assyria is coming!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> That's when GOD will whistle for the flies at the headwaters of Egypt's Nile, and whistle for the bees in the land of Assyria.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They'll come and infest every nook and cranny of this country. There'll be no getting away from them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And that's when the Master will take the razor rented from across the Euphrates--the king of Assyria no less!--and shave the hair off your heads and genitals, leaving you shamed, exposed, and denuded. He'll shave off your beards while he's at it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> It will be a time when survivors will count themselves lucky to have a cow and a couple of sheep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> At least they'll have plenty of milk! Whoever's left in the land will learn to make do with the simplest foods--curds, say, and honey.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But that's not the end of it. This country that used to be covered with fine vineyards--thousands of them, worth millions!--will revert to a weed patch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Weeds and thorn bushes everywhere! Good for nothing except, perhaps, hunting rabbits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Cattle and sheep will forage as best they can in the fields of weeds--but there won't be a trace of all those fertile and well-tended gardens and fields.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then GOD told me, "Get a big sheet of paper and write in indelible ink, 'This belongs to Maher-shalal-hash-baz (Spoil-Speeds-Plunder-Hurries).'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I got two honest men, Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberekiah, to witness the document.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then I went home to my wife, the prophetess. She conceived and gave birth to a son. GOD told me, "Name him Maher-shalal-hash-baz.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Before that baby says 'Daddy' or 'Mamma' the king of Assyria will have plundered the wealth of Damascus and the riches of Samaria."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD spoke to me again, saying:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Because this people has turned its back on the gently flowing stream of Shiloah And gotten all excited over Rezin and the son of Remaliah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I'm stepping in and facing them with the wild floodwaters of the Euphrates, The king of Assyria and all his fanfare, a river in flood, bursting its banks,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Pouring into Judah, sweeping everything before it, water up to your necks, A huge wingspan of a raging river, O Immanuel, spreading across your land."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But face the facts, all you oppressors, and then wring your hands. Listen, all of you, far and near. Prepare for the worst and wring your hands. Yes, prepare for the worst and wring your hands!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Plan and plot all you want--nothing will come of it. All your talk is mere talk, empty words, Because when all is said and done, the last word is Immanuel--God-With-Us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD spoke strongly to me, grabbed me with both hands and warned me not to go along with this people. He said:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Don't be like this people, always afraid somebody is plotting against them. Don't fear what they fear. Don't take on their worries.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> If you're going to worry, worry about The Holy. Fear GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The Holy can be either a Hiding Place or a Boulder blocking your way, The Rock standing in the willful way of both houses of Israel, A barbed-wire Fence preventing trespass to the citizens of Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Many of them are going to run into that Rock and get their bones broken, Get tangled up in that barbed wire and not get free of it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Gather up the testimony, preserve the teaching for my followers,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> While I wait for GOD as long as he remains in hiding, while I wait and hope for him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I stand my ground and hope, I and the children GOD gave me as signs to Israel, Warning signs and hope signs from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, who makes his home in Mount Zion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> When people tell you, "Try out the fortunetellers. Consult the spiritualists. Why not tap into the spirit-world, get in touch with the dead?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Tell them, "No, we're going to study the Scriptures." People who try the other ways get nowhere--a dead end!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Frustrated and famished, they try one thing after another. When nothing works out they get angry, cursing first this god and then that one, Looking this way and that,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> up, down, and sideways--and seeing nothing, A blank wall, an empty hole. They end up in the dark with nothing.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> But there'll be no darkness for those who were in trouble. Earlier he did bring the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali into disrepute, but the time is coming when he'll make that whole area glorious--the road along the Sea, the country past the Jordan, international Galilee.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. For those who lived in a land of deep shadows-- light! sunbursts of light!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You repopulated the nation, you expanded its joy. Oh, they're so glad in your presence! Festival joy! The joy of a great celebration, sharing rich gifts and warm greetings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The abuse of oppressors and cruelty of tyrants-- all their whips and cudgels and curses-- Is gone, done away with, a deliverance as surprising and sudden as Gideon's old victory over Midian.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The boots of all those invading troops, along with their shirts soaked with innocent blood, Will be piled in a heap and burned, a fire that will burn for days!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> For a child has been born--for us! the gift of a son--for us! He'll take over the running of the world. His names will be: Amazing Counselor, Strong God, Eternal Father, Prince of Wholeness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> His ruling authority will grow, and there'll be no limits to the wholeness he brings. He'll rule from the historic David throne over that promised kingdom. He'll put that kingdom on a firm footing and keep it going With fair dealing and right living, beginning now and lasting always. The zeal of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies will do all this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The Master sent a message against Jacob. It landed right on Israel's doorstep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> All the people soon heard the message, Ephraim and the citizens of Samaria. But they were a proud and arrogant bunch. They dismissed the message, saying,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Things aren't that bad. We can handle anything that comes. If our buildings are knocked down, we'll rebuild them bigger and finer. If our forests are cut down, we'll replant them with finer trees."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> So GOD incited their adversaries against them, stirred up their enemies to attack:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> From the east, Arameans; from the west, Philistines. They made hash of Israel. But even after that, he was still angry, his fist still raised, ready to hit them again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But the people paid no mind to him who hit them, didn't seek GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> So GOD hacked off Israel's head and tail, palm branch and reed, both on the same day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The big-head elders were the head, the lying prophets were the tail.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Those who were supposed to lead this people led them down blind alleys, And those who followed the leaders ended up lost and confused.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> That's why the Master lost interest in the young men, had no feeling for their orphans and widows. All of them were godless and evil, talking filth and folly. And even after that, he was still angry, his fist still raised, ready to hit them again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Their wicked lives raged like an out-of-control fire, the kind that burns everything in its path-- Trees and bushes, weeds and grasses-- filling the skies with smoke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies answered fire with fire, set the whole country on fire, Turned the people into consuming fires, consuming one another in their lusts--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Appetites insatiable, stuffing and gorging themselves left and right with people and things. But still they starved. Not even their children were safe from their rapacious hunger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Manasseh ate Ephraim, and Ephraim Manasseh, and then the two ganged up against Judah. And after that, he was still angry, his fist still raised, ready to hit them again.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Doom to you who legislate evil, who make laws that make victims--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Laws that make misery for the poor, that rob my destitute people of dignity, Exploiting defenseless widows, taking advantage of homeless children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> What will you have to say on Judgment Day, when Doomsday arrives out of the blue? Who will you get to help you? What good will your money do you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> A sorry sight you'll be then, huddled with the prisoners, or just some corpses stacked in the street. Even after all this, God is still angry, his fist still raised, ready to hit them again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Doom to Assyria, weapon of my anger. My wrath is a cudgel in his hands!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I send him against a godless nation, against the people I'm angry with. I command him to strip them clean, rob them blind, and then push their faces in the mud and leave them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But Assyria has another agenda; he has something else in mind. He's out to destroy utterly, to stamp out as many nations as he can.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Assyria says, 'Aren't my commanders all kings? Can't they do whatever they like?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Didn't I destroy Calno as well as Carchemish? Hamath as well as Arpad? Level Samaria as I did Damascus?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I've eliminated kingdoms full of gods far more impressive than anything in Jerusalem and Samaria.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> So what's to keep me from destroying Jerusalem in the same way I destroyed Samaria and all her god-idols?'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When the Master has finished dealing with Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he'll say, "Now it's Assyria's turn. I'll punish the bragging arrogance of the king of Assyria, his high and mighty posturing,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> the way he goes around saying, "'I've done all this by myself. I know more than anyone. I've wiped out the boundaries of whole countries. I've walked in and taken anything I wanted. I charged in like a bull and toppled their kings from their thrones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I reached out my hand and took all that they treasured as easily as a boy taking a bird's eggs from a nest. Like a farmer gathering eggs from the henhouse, I gathered the world in my basket, And no one so much as fluttered a wing or squawked or even chirped.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Does an ax take over from the one who swings it? Does a saw act more important than the sawyer? As if a shovel did its shoveling by using a ditch digger! As if a hammer used the carpenter to pound nails!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Therefore the Master, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, will send a debilitating disease on his robust Assyrian fighters. Under the canopy of God's bright glory a fierce fire will break out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Israel's Light will burst into a conflagration. The Holy will explode into a firestorm, And in one day burn to cinders every last Assyrian thornbush.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> GOD will destroy the splendid trees and lush gardens. The Assyrian body and soul will waste away to nothing like a disease-ridden invalid.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> A child could count what's left of the trees on the fingers of his two hands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And on that Day also, what's left of Israel, the ragtag survivors of Jacob, will no longer be fascinated by abusive, battering Assyria. They'll lean on GOD, The Holy--yes, truly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The ragtag remnant--what's left of Jacob--will come back to the Strong God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Your people Israel were once like the sand on the seashore, but only a scattered few will return. Destruction is ordered, brimming over with righteousness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> For the Master, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, will finish here what he started all over the globe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Therefore the Master, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, says: "My dear, dear people who live in Zion, don't be terrorized by the Assyrians when they beat you with clubs and threaten you with rods like the Egyptians once did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> In just a short time my anger against you will be spent and I'll turn my destroying anger on them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> I, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, will go after them with a cat-o'-nine-tails and finish them off decisively--as Gideon downed Midian at the rock Oreb, as Moses turned the tables on Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> On that day, Assyria will be pulled off your back, and the yoke of slavery lifted from your neck." Assyria's on the move: up from Rimmon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> on to Aiath, through Migron, with a bivouac at Micmash.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> They've crossed the pass, set camp at Geba for the night. Ramah trembles with fright. Gibeah of Saul has run off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Cry for help, daughter of Gallim! Listen to her, Laishah! Do something, Anathoth!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Madmenah takes to the hills. The people of Gebim flee in panic.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The enemy's soon at Nob--nearly there! In sight of the city he shakes his fist At the mount of dear daughter Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> But now watch this: The Master, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, swings his ax and lops the branches, Chops down the giant trees, lays flat the towering forest-on-the-march.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> His ax will make toothpicks of that forest, that Lebanon-like army reduced to kindling.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A green Shoot will sprout from Jesse's stump, from his roots a budding Branch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The life-giving Spirit of GOD will hover over him, the Spirit that brings wisdom and understanding, The Spirit that gives direction and builds strength, the Spirit that instills knowledge and Fear-of-GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Fear-of-GOD will be all his joy and delight. He won't judge by appearances, won't decide on the basis of hearsay.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He'll judge the needy by what is right, render decisions on earth's poor with justice. His words will bring everyone to awed attention. A mere breath from his lips will topple the wicked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Each morning he'll pull on sturdy work clothes and boots, and build righteousness and faithfulness in the land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The wolf will romp with the lamb, the leopard sleep with the kid. Calf and lion will eat from the same trough, and a little child will tend them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Cow and bear will graze the same pasture, their calves and cubs grow up together, and the lion eat straw like the ox.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The nursing child will crawl over rattlesnake dens, the toddler stick his hand down the hole of a serpent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Neither animal nor human will hurt or kill on my holy mountain. The whole earth will be brimming with knowing God-Alive, a living knowledge of God ocean-deep, ocean-wide.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> On that day, Jesse's Root will be raised high, posted as a rallying banner for the peoples. The nations will all come to him. His headquarters will be glorious.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Also on that day, the Master for the second time will reach out to bring back what's left of his scattered people. He'll bring them back from Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Ethiopia, Elam, Sinar, Hamath, and the ocean islands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And he'll raise that rallying banner high, visible to all nations, gather in all the scattered exiles of Israel, Pull in all the dispersed refugees of Judah from the four winds and the seven seas.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The jealousy of Ephraim will dissolve, the hostility of Judah will vanish-- Ephraim no longer the jealous rival of Judah, Judah no longer the hostile rival of Ephraim!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Blood brothers united, they'll pounce on the Philistines in the west, join forces to plunder the people in the east. They'll attack Edom and Moab. The Ammonites will fall into line.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> GOD will once again dry up Egypt's Red Sea, making for an easy crossing. He'll send a blistering wind down on the great River Euphrates, Reduce it to seven mere trickles. None even need get their feet wet!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> In the end there'll be a highway all the way from Assyria, easy traveling for what's left of God's people-- A highway just like the one Israel had when he marched up out of Egypt.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> And you will say in that day, "I thank you, GOD. You were angry but your anger wasn't forever. You withdrew your anger and moved in and comforted me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Yes, indeed--God is my salvation. I trust, I won't be afraid. GOD--yes GOD!--is my strength and song, best of all, my salvation!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Joyfully you'll pull up buckets of water from the wells of salvation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> And as you do it, you'll say, "Give thanks to GOD. Call out his name. Ask him anything! Shout to the nations, tell them what he's done, spread the news of his great reputation!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Sing praise-songs to GOD. He's done it all! Let the whole earth know what he's done!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Raise the roof! Sing your hearts out, O Zion! The Greatest lives among you: The Holy of Israel."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Message on Babylon. Isaiah son of Amoz saw it:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Run up a flag on an open hill. Yell loud. Get their attention. Wave them into formation. Direct them to the nerve center of power.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I've taken charge of my special forces, called up my crack troops. They're bursting with pride and passion to carry out my angry judgment."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Thunder rolls off the mountains like a mob huge and noisy-- Thunder of kingdoms in an uproar, nations assembling for war. GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies is calling his army into battle formation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They come from far-off countries, they pour in across the horizon. It's GOD on the move with the weapons of his wrath, ready to destroy the whole country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Wail! GOD's Day of Judgment is near-- an avalanche crashing down from the Strong God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Everyone paralyzed in the panic, hysterical</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> and unstrung, Doubled up in pain like a woman giving birth to a baby. Horrified--everyone they see is like a face out of a nightmare.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Watch now. GOD's Judgment Day comes. Cruel it is, a day of wrath and anger, A day to waste the earth and clean out all the sinners.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The stars in the sky, the great parade of constellations, will be nothing but black holes. The sun will come up as a black disk, and the moon a blank nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I'll put a full stop to the evil on earth, terminate the dark acts of the wicked. I'll gag all braggarts and boasters--not a peep anymore from them-- and trip strutting tyrants, leave them flat on their faces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Proud humanity will disappear from the earth. I'll make mortals rarer than hens' teeth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And yes, I'll even make the sky shake, and the earth quake to its roots Under the wrath of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the Judgment Day of his raging anger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Like a hunted white-tailed deer, like lost sheep with no shepherd, People will huddle with a few of their own kind, run off to some makeshift shelter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But tough luck to stragglers--they'll be killed on the spot, throats cut, bellies ripped open,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Babies smashed on the rocks while mothers and fathers watch, Houses looted, wives raped.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "And now watch this: Against Babylon, I'm inciting the Medes, A ruthless bunch indifferent to bribes, the kind of brutality that no one can blunt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They massacre the young, wantonly kick and kill even babies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And Babylon, most glorious of all kingdoms, the pride and joy of Chaldeans, Will end up smoking and stinking like Sodom, and, yes, like Gomorrah, when God had finished with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> No one will live there anymore, generation after generation a ghost town. Not even Bedouins will pitch tents there. Shepherds will give it a wide berth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But strange and wild animals will like it just fine, filling the vacant houses with eerie night sounds. Skunks will make it their home, and unspeakable night hags will haunt it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Hyenas will curdle your blood with their laughing, and the howling of coyotes will give you the shivers. "Babylon is doomed. It won't be long now."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> But not so with Jacob. GOD will have compassion on Jacob. Once again he'll choose Israel. He'll establish them in their own country. Outsiders will be attracted and throw their lot in with Jacob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The nations among whom they lived will actually escort them back home, and then Israel will pay them back by making slaves of them, men and women alike, possessing them as slaves in GOD's country, capturing those who had captured them, ruling over those who had abused them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When GOD has given you time to recover from the abuse and trouble and harsh servitude that you had to endure,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> you can amuse yourselves by taking up this satire, a taunt against the king of Babylon: Can you believe it? The tyrant is gone! The tyranny is over!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD has broken the rule of the wicked, the power of the bully-rulers</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> That crushed many people. A relentless rain of cruel outrage Established a violent rule of anger rife with torture and persecution.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And now it's over, the whole earth quietly at rest. Burst into song! Make the rafters ring!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Ponderosa pine trees are happy, giant Lebanon cedars are relieved, saying, "Since you've been cut down, there's no one around to cut us down."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And the underworld dead are all excited, preparing to welcome you when you come. Getting ready to greet you are the ghostly dead, all the famous names of earth. All the buried kings of the nations will stand up on their thrones</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> With well-prepared speeches, royal invitations to death: "Now you are as nothing as we are! Make yourselves at home with us dead folks!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> This is where your pomp and fine music led you, Babylon, to your underworld private chambers, A king-size mattress of maggots for repose and a quilt of crawling worms for warmth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> What a comedown this, O Babylon! Daystar! Son of Dawn! Flat on your face in the underworld mud, you, famous for flattening nations!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You said to yourself, "I'll climb to heaven. I'll set my throne over the stars of God. I'll run the assembly of angels that meets on sacred Mount Zaphon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'll climb to the top of the clouds. I'll take over as King of the Universe!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But you didn't make it, did you? Instead of climbing up, you came down-- Down with the underground dead, down to the abyss of the Pit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> People will stare and muse: "Can this be the one Who terrorized earth and its kingdoms,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> turned earth to a moonscape, Wasted its cities, shut up his prisoners to a living death?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Other kings get a decent burial, honored with eulogies and placed in a tomb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But you're dumped in a ditch unburied, like a stray dog or cat, Covered with rotting bodies, murdered and indigent corpses. Your dead body desecrated, mutilated--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> no state funeral for you! You've left your land in ruins, left a legacy of massacre. The progeny of your evil life will never be named. Oblivion!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Get a place ready to slaughter the sons of the wicked and wipe out their father's line. Unthinkable that they should own a square foot of land or desecrate the face of the world with their cities!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "I will confront them"--Decree of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies-- "and strip Babylon of name and survivors, children and grandchildren.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> " GOD's Decree. "I'll make it a worthless swamp and give it as a prize to the hedgehog. And then I'll bulldoze it out of existence." Decree of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies speaks: "Exactly as I planned, it will happen. Following my blueprints, it will take shape.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> I will shatter the Assyrian who trespasses my land and stomp him into the dirt on my mountains. I will ban his taking and making of slaves and lift the weight of oppression from all shoulders."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> This is the plan, planned for the whole earth, And this is the hand that will do it, reaching into every nation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies has planned it. Who could ever cancel such plans? His is the hand that's reached out. Who could brush it aside?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> In the year King Ahaz died, this Message came:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Hold it, Philistines! It's too soon to celebrate the defeat of your cruel oppressor. From the death throes of that snake a worse snake will come, and from that, one even worse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The poor won't have to worry. The needy will escape the terror. But you Philistines will be plunged into famine, and those who don't starve, God will kill.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Wail and howl, proud city! Fall prostrate in fear, Philistia! On the northern horizon, smoke from burned cities, the wake of a brutal, disciplined destroyer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> What does one say to outsiders who ask questions? Tell them, "GOD has established Zion. Those in need and in trouble find refuge in her."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A Message concerning Moab: Village Ar of Moab is in ruins, destroyed in a night raid. Village Kir of Moab is in ruins, destroyed in a night raid.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Village Dibon climbs to its chapel in the hills, goes up to lament. Moab weeps and wails over Nebo and Medba. Every head is shaved bald, every beard shaved clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They pour into the streets wearing black, go up on the roofs, take to the town square, Everyone in tears, everyone in grief.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Towns Heshbon and Elealeh cry long and loud. The sound carries as far as Jahaz. Moab sobs, shaking in grief. The soul of Moab trembles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Oh, how I grieve for Moab! Refugees stream to Zoar and then on to Eglath-shelishiyah. Up the slopes of Luhith they weep; on the road to Horonaim they cry their loss.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The springs of Nimrim are dried up-- grass brown, buds stunted, nothing grows.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They leave, carrying all their possessions on their backs, everything they own, Making their way as best they can across Willow Creek to safety.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Poignant cries reverberate all through Moab, Gut-wrenching sobs as far as Eglaim, heart-racking sobs all the way to Beer-elim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The banks of the Dibon crest with blood, but God has worse in store for Dibon: A lion--a lion to finish off the fugitives, to clean up whoever's left in the land.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Dispatch a gift of lambs," says Moab, "to the leaders in Jerusalem-- Lambs from Sela sent across the desert to buy the goodwill of Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The towns and people of Moab are at a loss, New-hatched birds knocked from the nest, fluttering helplessly At the banks of the Arnon River, unable to cross:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> 'Tell us what to do, help us out! Protect us, hide us!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Give the refugees from Moab sanctuary with you. Be a safe place for those on the run from the killing fields.'" "When this is all over," Judah answers, "the tyrant toppled, The killing at an end, all signs of these cruelties long gone,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> A new government of love will be established in the venerable David tradition. A Ruler you can depend upon will head this government, A Ruler passionate for justice, a Ruler quick to set things right."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> We've heard--everyone's heard!--of Moab's pride, world-famous for pride-- Arrogant, self-important, insufferable, full of hot air.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So now let Moab lament for a change, with antiphonal mock-laments from the neighbors! What a shame! How terrible! No more fine fruitcakes and Kir-hareseth candies!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> All those lush Heshbon fields dried up, the rich Sibmah vineyards withered! Foreign thugs have crushed and torn out the famous grapevines That once reached all the way to Jazer, right to the edge of the desert, Ripped out the crops in every direction as far as the eye can see.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'll join the weeping. I'll weep right along with Jazer, weep for the Sibmah vineyards. And yes, Heshbon and Elealeh, I'll mingle my tears with your tears! The joyful shouting at harvest is gone. Instead of song and celebration, dead silence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> No more boisterous laughter in the orchards, no more hearty work songs in the vineyards. Instead of the bustle and sound of good work in the fields, silence--deathly and deadening silence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> My heartstrings throb like harp strings for Moab, my soul in sympathy for sad Kir-heres.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When Moab trudges to the shrine to pray, he wastes both time and energy. Going to the sanctuary and praying for relief is useless. Nothing ever happens.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> This is GOD's earlier Message on Moab.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD's updated Message is, "In three years, no longer than the term of an enlisted soldier, Moab's impressive presence will be gone, that splendid hot-air balloon will be punctured, and instead of a vigorous population, just a few shuffling bums cadging handouts."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="17">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A Message concerning Damascus: "Watch this: Damascus undone as a city, a pile of dust and rubble!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Her towns emptied of people. The sheep and goats will move in And take over the towns as if they owned them--which they will!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Not a sign of a fort is left in Ephraim, not a trace of government left in Damascus. What's left of Aram? The same as what's left of Israel--not much." Decree of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "The Day is coming when Jacob's robust splendor goes pale and his well-fed body turns skinny.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The country will be left empty, picked clean as a field harvested by field hands. She'll be like a few stalks of barley left standing in the lush Valley of Rephaim after harvest,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Or like the couple of ripe olives overlooked in the top of the olive tree, Or the four or five apples that the pickers couldn't reach in the orchard." Decree of the GOD of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Yes, the Day is coming when people will notice The One Who Made Them, take a long hard look at The Holy of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They'll lose interest in all the stuff they've made--altars and monuments and rituals, their homemade, handmade religion--however impressive it is.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And yes, the Day is coming when their fortress cities will be abandoned--the very same cities that the Hivites and Amorites abandoned when Israel invaded! And the country will be empty, desolate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And why? Because you have forgotten God-Your-Salvation, not remembered your Rock-of-Refuge. And so, even though you are very religious, planting all sorts of bushes and herbs and trees to honor and influence your fertility gods,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And even though you make them grow so well, bursting with buds and sprouts and blossoms, Nothing will come of them. Instead of a harvest you'll get nothing but grief and pain, pain, pain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Oh my! Thunder! A thundering herd of people! Thunder like the crashing of ocean waves! Nations roaring, roaring, like the roar of a massive waterfall,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Roaring like a deafening Niagara! But God will silence them with a word, And then he'll blow them away like dead leaves off a tree, like down from a thistle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> At bedtime, terror fills the air. By morning it's gone--not a sign of it anywhere! This is what happens to those who would ruin us, this is the fate of those out to get us.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="18">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Doom to the land of flies and mosquitoes beyond the Ethiopian rivers,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Shipping emissaries all over the world, down rivers and across seas. Go, swift messengers, go to this people tall and handsome, This people held in respect everywhere, this people mighty and merciless, from the land crisscrossed with rivers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Everybody everywhere, all earth-dwellers: When you see a flag flying on the mountain, look! When you hear the trumpet blown, listen!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> For here's what GOD told me: "I'm not going to say anything, but simply look on from where I live, Quiet as warmth that comes from the sun, silent as dew during harvest."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And then, just before harvest, after the blossom has turned into a maturing grape, He'll step in and prune back the new shoots, ruthlessly hack off all the growing branches.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He'll leave them piled on the ground for birds and animals to feed on-- Fodder for the summering birds, fodder for the wintering animals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Then tribute will be brought to GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, brought from this people tall and handsome, This people once held in respect everywhere, this people once mighty and merciless, From the land crisscrossed with rivers, to Mount Zion, GOD's place.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="19">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A Message concerning Egypt: Watch this! GOD riding on a fast-moving cloud, moving in on Egypt! The god-idols of Egypt shudder and shake, Egyptians paralyzed by panic.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> God says, "I'll make Egyptian fight Egyptian, brother fight brother, neighbor fight neighbor, City fight city, kingdom fight kingdom-- anarchy and chaos and killing!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I'll knock the wind out of the Egyptians. They won't know coming from going. They'll go to their god-idols for answers; they'll conjure ghosts and hold s�ances, desperate for answers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But I'll turn the Egyptians over to a tyrant most cruel. I'll put them under the rule of a mean, merciless king." Decree of the Master, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The River Nile will dry up, the riverbed baked dry in the sun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The canals will become stagnant and stink, every stream touching the Nile dry up. River vegetation will rot away</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> the banks of the Nile-baked clay, The riverbed hard and smooth, river grasses dried up and gone with the wind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Fishermen will complain that the fishing's been ruined.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Textile workers will be out of work, all weavers and workers in linen and cotton and wool</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Dispirited, depressed in their forced idleness-- everyone who works for a living, jobless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The princes of Zoan are fools, the advisors of Pharaoh stupid. How could any of you dare tell Pharaoh, "Trust me: I'm wise. I know what's going on. Why, I'm descended from the old wisdom of Egypt"?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> There's not a wise man or woman left in the country. If there were, one of them would tell you what GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies has in mind for Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> As it is, the princes of Zoan are all fools and the princes of Memphis, dunces. The honored pillars of your society have led Egypt into detours and dead ends.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD has scrambled their brains, Egypt's become a falling-down-in-his-own-vomit drunk.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Egypt's hopeless, past helping, a senile, doddering old fool.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> On that Day, Egyptians will be like hysterical schoolgirls, screaming at the first hint of action from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Little Judah will strike terror in Egyptians! Say "Judah" to an Egyptian and see panic. The word triggers fear of the GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies' plan against Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> On that Day, more than one city in Egypt will learn to speak the language of faith and promise to follow GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies. One of these cities will be honored with the title "City of the Sun."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> On that Day, there will be a place of worship to GOD in the center of Egypt and a monument to GOD at its border.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> It will show how the GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies has helped the Egyptians. When they cry out in prayer to GOD because of oppressors, he'll send them help, a savior who will keep them safe and take care of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> GOD will openly show himself to the Egyptians and they'll get to know him on that Day. They'll worship him seriously with sacrifices and burnt offerings. They'll make vows and keep them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> GOD will wound Egypt, first hit and then heal. Egypt will come back to GOD, and GOD will listen to their prayers and heal them, heal them from head to toe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> On that Day, there will be a highway all the way from Egypt to Assyria: Assyrians will have free range in Egypt and Egyptians in Assyria. No longer rivals, they'll worship together, Egyptians and Assyrians!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> On that Day, Israel will take its place alongside Egypt and Assyria, sharing the blessing from the center.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, who blessed Israel, will generously bless them all: "Blessed be Egypt, my people! . . . Blessed be Assyria, work of my hands! . . . Blessed be Israel, my heritage!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="20">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the year the field commander, sent by King Sargon of Assyria, came to Ashdod and fought and took it,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD told Isaiah son of Amoz, "Go, take off your clothes and sandals," and Isaiah did it, going about naked and barefooted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then GOD said, "Just as my servant Isaiah has walked around town naked and barefooted for three years as a warning sign to Egypt and Ethiopia,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> so the king of Assyria is going to come and take the Egyptians as captives and the Ethiopians as exiles. He'll take young and old alike and march them out of there naked and barefooted, exposed to mockery and jeers--the bared buttocks of Egypt on parade!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Everyone who has put hope in Ethiopia and expected help from Egypt will be thrown into confusion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Everyone who lives along this coast will say, 'Look at them! Naked and barefooted, shuffling off to exile! And we thought they were our best hope, that they'd rescue us from the king of Assyria. Now what's going to happen to us? How are we going to get out of this?'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="21">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A Message concerning the desert at the sea: As tempests drive through the Negev Desert, coming out of the desert, that terror-filled place,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> A hard vision is given me: The betrayer betrayed, the plunderer plundered. Attack, Elam! Lay siege, Media! Persians, attack! Attack, Babylon! I'll put an end to all the moaning and groaning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Because of this news I'm doubled up in pain, writhing in pain like a woman having a baby, Baffled by what I hear, undone by what I see.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Absolutely stunned, horror-stricken, I had hoped for a relaxed evening, but it has turned into a nightmare.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The banquet is spread, the guests reclining in luxurious ease, Eating and drinking, having a good time, and then, "To arms, princes! The fight is on!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The Master told me, "Go, post a lookout. Have him report whatever he spots.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When he sees horses and wagons in battle formation, lines of donkeys and columns of camels, Tell him to keep his ear to the ground, note every whisper, every rumor."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Just then, the lookout shouted, "I'm at my post, Master, Sticking to my post day after day and all through the night!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I watched them come, the horses and wagons in battle formation. I heard them call out the war news in headlines: 'Babylon fallen! Fallen! And all its precious god-idols smashed to pieces on the ground.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Dear Israel, you've been through a lot, you've been put through the mill. The good news I get from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel, I now pass on to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> A Message concerning Edom: A voice calls to me from the Seir mountains in Edom, "Night watchman! How long till daybreak? How long will this night last?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The night watchman calls back, "Morning's coming, But for now it's still night. If you ask me again, I'll give the same answer."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> A Message concerning Arabia: You'll have to camp out in the desert badlands, you caravans of Dedanites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Haul water to the thirsty, greet fugitives with bread. Show your desert hospitality, you who live in Tema.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The desert's swarming with refugees escaping the horrors of war.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The Master told me, "Hang on. Within one year--I'll sign a contract on it!--the arrogant brutality of Kedar, those hooligans of the desert, will be over,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> nothing much left of the Kedar toughs." The GOD of Israel says so.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="22">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A Message concerning the Valley of Vision: What's going on here anyway? All this partying and noisemaking,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Shouting and cheering in the streets, the city noisy with celebrations!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You have no brave soldiers to honor, no combat heroes to be proud of. Your leaders were all cowards, captured without even lifting a sword, A country of cowards captured escaping the battle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> In the midst of the shouting, I said, "Let me alone. Let me grieve by myself. Don't tell me it's going to be all right. These people are doomed. It's not all right."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> For the Master, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, is bringing a day noisy with mobs of people, Jostling and stampeding in the Valley of Vision, knocking down walls and hollering to the mountains, "Attack! Attack!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Old enemies Elam and Kir arrive armed to the teeth-- weapons and chariots and cavalry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Your fine valleys are noisy with war, chariots and cavalry charging this way and that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> God has left Judah exposed and defenseless. You assessed your defenses that Day, inspected your arsenal of weapons in the Forest Armory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You found the weak places in the city walls that needed repair. You secured the water supply at the Lower Pool.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You took an inventory of the houses in Jerusalem and tore down some to get bricks to fortify the city wall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> You built a large cistern to ensure plenty of water. You looked and looked and looked, but you never looked to him who gave you this city, never once consulted the One who has long had plans for this city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The Master, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, called out on that Day, Called for a day of repentant tears, called you to dress in somber clothes of mourning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But what do you do? You throw a party! Eating and drinking and dancing in the streets! You barbecue bulls and sheep, and throw a huge feast-- slabs of meat, kegs of beer. "Seize the day! Eat and drink! Tomorrow we die!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies whispered to me his verdict on this frivolity: "You'll pay for this outrage until the day you die." The Master, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, says so.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The Master, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, spoke: "Come. Go to this steward, Shebna, who is in charge of all the king's affairs, and tell him:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> What's going on here? You're an outsider here and yet you act like you own the place, make a big, fancy tomb for yourself where everyone can see it, making sure everyone will think you're important.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> GOD is about to sack you, to throw you to the dogs. He'll grab you by the hair,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> swing you round and round dizzyingly, and then let you go, sailing through the air like a ball, until you're out of sight. Where you'll land, nobody knows. And there you'll die, and all the stuff you've collected heaped on your grave. You've disgraced your master's house!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> You're fired--and good riddance!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "On that Day I'll replace Shebna. I will call my servant Eliakim son of Hilkiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I'll dress him in your robe. I'll put your belt on him. I'll give him your authority. He'll be a father-leader to Jerusalem and the government of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I'll give him the key of the Davidic heritage. He'll have the run of the place--open any door and keep it open, lock any door and keep it locked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> I'll pound him like a nail into a solid wall. He'll secure the Davidic tradition.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Everything will hang on him--not only the fate of Davidic descendants but also the detailed daily operations of the house, including cups and cutlery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "And then the Day will come," says GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, "when that nail will come loose and fall out, break loose from that solid wall--and everything hanging on it will go with it." That's what will happen. GOD says so.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="23">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Wail, ships of Tarshish, your strong seaports all in ruins! When the ships returned from Cyprus, they saw the destruction.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Hold your tongue, you who live on the seacoast, merchants of Sidon. Your people sailed the deep seas, buying and selling,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Making money on wheat from Shihor, grown along the Nile-- multinational broker in grains!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Hang your head in shame, Sidon. The Sea speaks up, the powerhouse of the ocean says, "I've never had labor pains, never had a baby, never reared children to adulthood, Never gave life, never worked with life. It was all numbers, dead numbers, profit and loss."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When Egypt gets the report on Tyre, what wailing! what wringing of hands!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Visit Tarshish, you who live on the seacoast. Take a good, long look and wail--yes, cry buckets of tears!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Is this the city you remember as energetic and alive, bustling with activity, this historic old city, Expanding throughout the globe, buying and selling all over the world?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And who is behind the collapse of Tyre, the Tyre that controlled the world markets? Tyre's merchants were the business tycoons. Tyre's traders called all the shots.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies ordered the crash to show the sordid backside of pride and puncture the inflated reputations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Sail for home, O ships of Tarshish. There are no docks left in this harbor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD reached out to the sea and sea traders, threw the sea kingdoms into turmoil. GOD ordered the destruction of the seacoast cities, the centers of commerce.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> GOD said, "There's nothing left here to be proud of, bankrupt and bereft Sidon. Do you want to make a new start in Cyprus? Don't count on it. Nothing there will work out for you either."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Look at what happened to Babylon: There's nothing left of it. Assyria turned it into a desert, into a refuge for wild dogs and stray cats. They brought in their big siege engines, tore down the buildings, and left nothing behind but rubble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Wail, ships of Tarshish, your strong seaports all in ruins!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> For the next seventy years, a king's lifetime, Tyre will be forgotten. At the end of the seventy years, Tyre will stage a comeback, but it will be the comeback of a worn-out whore, as in the song:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Take a harp, circle the city, unremembered whore. Sing your old songs, your many old songs. Maybe someone will remember."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> At the end of the seventy years, GOD will look in on Tyre. She'll go back to her old whoring trade, selling herself to the highest bidder, doing anything with anyone--promiscuous with all the kingdoms of earth--for a fee.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But everything she gets, all the money she takes in, will be turned over to GOD. It will not be put in banks. Her profits will be put to the use of GOD-Aware, GOD-Serving-People, providing plenty of food and the best of clothing.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="24">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Danger ahead! GOD's about to ravish the earth and leave it in ruins, Rip everything out by the roots and send everyone scurrying:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> priests and laypeople alike, owners and workers alike, celebrities and nobodies alike, buyers and sellers alike, bankers and beggars alike, the haves and have-nots alike.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The landscape will be a moonscape, totally wasted. And why? Because GOD says so. He's issued the orders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The earth turns gaunt and gray, the world silent and sad, sky and land lifeless, colorless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Earth is polluted by its very own people, who have broken its laws, Disrupted its order, violated the sacred and eternal covenant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Therefore a curse, like a cancer, ravages the earth. Its people pay the price of their sacrilege. They dwindle away, dying out one by one.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> No more wine, no more vineyards, no more songs or singers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The laughter of castanets is gone, the shouts of celebrants, gone, the laughter of fiddles, gone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> No more parties with toasts of champagne. Serious drinkers gag on their drinks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The chaotic cities are unlivable. Anarchy reigns. Every house is boarded up, condemned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> People riot in the streets for wine, but the good times are gone forever-- no more joy for this old world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The city is dead and deserted, bulldozed into piles of rubble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> That's the way it will be on this earth. This is the fate of all nations: An olive tree shaken clean of its olives, a grapevine picked clean of its grapes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But there are some who will break into glad song. Out of the west they'll shout of GOD's majesty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Yes, from the east GOD's glory will ascend. Every island of the sea Will broadcast GOD's fame, the fame of the God of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> From the four winds and the seven seas we hear the singing: "All praise to the Righteous One!" But I said, "That's all well and good for somebody, but all I can see is doom, doom, and more doom." All of them at one another's throats, yes, all of them at one another's throats.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Terror and pits and booby traps are everywhere, whoever you are.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> If you run from the terror, you'll fall into the pit. If you climb out of the pit, you'll get caught in the trap. Chaos pours out of the skies. The foundations of earth are crumbling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Earth is smashed to pieces, earth is ripped to shreds, earth is wobbling out of control,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Earth staggers like a drunk, sways like a shack in a high wind. Its piled-up sins are too much for it. It collapses and won't get up again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> That's when GOD will call on the carpet rebel powers in the skies and Rebel kings on earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> They'll be rounded up like prisoners in a jail, Corralled and locked up in a jail, and then sentenced and put to hard labor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Shamefaced moon will cower, humiliated, red-faced sun will skulk, disgraced, Because GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies will take over, ruling from Mount Zion and Jerusalem, Splendid and glorious before all his leaders.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="25">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD, you are my God. I celebrate you. I praise you. You've done your share of miracle-wonders, well-thought-out plans, solid and sure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Here you've reduced the city to rubble, the strong city to a pile of stones. The enemy Big City is a non-city, never to be a city again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Superpowers will see it and honor you, brutal oppressors bow in worshipful reverence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They'll see that you take care of the poor, that you take care of poor people in trouble, Provide a warm, dry place in bad weather, provide a cool place when it's hot. Brutal oppressors are like a winter blizzard</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> and vicious foreigners like high noon in the desert. But you, shelter from the storm and shade from the sun, shut the mouths of the big-mouthed bullies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But here on this mountain, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies will throw a feast for all the people of the world, A feast of the finest foods, a feast with vintage wines, a feast of seven courses, a feast lavish with gourmet desserts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And here on this mountain, GOD will banish the pall of doom hanging over all peoples, The shadow of doom darkening all nations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Yes, he'll banish death forever. And GOD will wipe the tears from every face. He'll remove every sign of disgrace From his people, wherever they are. Yes! GOD says so!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Also at that time, people will say, "Look at what's happened! This is our God! We waited for him and he showed up and saved us! This GOD, the one we waited for! Let's celebrate, sing the joys of his salvation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> GOD's hand rests on this mountain!" As for the Moabites, they'll be treated like refuse, waste shoveled into a cesspool.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Thrash away as they will, like swimmers trying to stay afloat, They'll sink in the sewage. Their pride will pull them under.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Their famous fortifications will crumble to nothing, those mighty walls reduced to dust.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="26">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> At that time, this song will be sung in the country of Judah: We have a strong city, Salvation City, built and fortified with salvation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Throw wide the gates so good and true people can enter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> People with their minds set on you, you keep completely whole, Steady on their feet, because they keep at it and don't quit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Depend on GOD and keep at it because in the LORD GOD you have a sure thing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Those who lived high and mighty he knocked off their high horse. He used the city built on the hill as fill for the marshes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> All the exploited and outcast peoples build their lives on the reclaimed land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The path of right-living people is level. The Leveler evens the road for the right-living.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> We're in no hurry, GOD. We're content to linger in the path sign-posted with your decisions. Who you are and what you've done are all we'll ever want.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Through the night my soul longs for you. Deep from within me my spirit reaches out to you. When your decisions are on public display, everyone learns how to live right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> If the wicked are shown grace, they don't seem to get it. In the land of right living, they persist in wrong living, blind to the splendor of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> You hold your hand up high, GOD, but they don't see it. Open their eyes to what you do, to see your zealous love for your people. Shame them. Light a fire under them. Get the attention of these enemies of yours.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> GOD, order a peaceful and whole life for us because everything we've done, you've done for us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> O GOD, our God, we've had other masters rule us, but you're the only Master we've ever known.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The dead don't talk, ghosts don't walk, Because you've said, "Enough--that's all for you," and wiped them off the books.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But the living you make larger than life. The more life you give, the more glory you display, and stretch the borders to accommodate more living!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> O GOD, they begged you for help when they were in trouble, when your discipline was so heavy they could barely whisper a prayer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Like a woman having a baby, writhing in distress, screaming her pain as the baby is being born, That's how we were because of you, O GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> We were pregnant full-term. We writhed in labor but bore no baby. We gave birth to wind. Nothing came of our labor. We produced nothing living. We couldn't save the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But friends, your dead will live, your corpses will get to their feet. All you dead and buried, wake up! Sing! Your dew is morning dew catching the first rays of sun, The earth bursting with life, giving birth to the dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Come, my people, go home and shut yourselves in. Go into seclusion for a while until the punishing wrath is past,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Because GOD is sure to come from his place to punish the wrong of the people on earth. Earth itself will point out the bloodstains; it will show where the murdered have been hidden away.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="27">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> At that time GOD will unsheathe his sword, his merciless, massive, mighty sword. He'll punish the serpent Leviathan as it flees, the serpent Leviathan thrashing in flight. He'll kill that old dragon that lives in the sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "At that same time, a fine vineyard will appear. There's something to sing about!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I, GOD, tend it. I keep it well-watered. I keep careful watch over it so that no one can damage it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'm not angry. I care. Even if it gives me thistles and thornbushes, I'll just pull them out and burn them up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Let that vine cling to me for safety, let it find a good and whole life with me, let it hold on for a good and whole life."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The days are coming when Jacob shall put down roots, Israel blossom and grow fresh branches, and fill the world with its fruit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Has GOD knocked them to the ground as he knocked down those who hit them? Oh, no. Were they killed as their killers were killed? Again, no.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He was hard on them all right. The exile was a harsh sentence. He blew them away on a fierce blast of wind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But the good news is that through this experience Jacob's guilt was taken away. The evidence that his sin is removed will be this: He will tear down the alien altars, take them apart stone by stone, And then crush the stones into gravel and clean out all the sex-and-religion shrines.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> For there's nothing left of that pretentious grandeur. Nobody lives there anymore. It's unlivable. But animals do just fine, browsing and bedding down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And it's not a bad place to get firewood. Dry twigs and dead branches are plentiful. It's the leavings of a people with no sense of God. So, the God who made them Will have nothing to do with them. He who formed them will turn his back on them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> At that time GOD will thresh from the River Euphrates to the Brook of Egypt, And you, people of Israel, will be selected grain by grain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> At that same time a great trumpet will be blown, calling home the exiles from Assyria, Welcoming home the refugees from Egypt to come and worship GOD on the holy mountain, Jerusalem.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="28">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Doom to the pretentious drunks of Ephraim, shabby and washed out and seedy-- Tipsy, sloppy-fat, beer-bellied parodies of a proud and handsome past.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Watch closely: GOD has someone picked out, someone tough and strong to flatten them. Like a hailstorm, like a hurricane, like a flash flood, one-handed he'll throw them to the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Samaria, the party hat on Israel's head, will be knocked off with one blow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> It will disappear quicker than a piece of meat tossed to a dog.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> At that time, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies will be the beautiful crown on the head of what's left of his people:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Energy and insights of justice to those who guide and decide, strength and prowess to those who guard and protect.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> These also, the priest and prophet, stagger from drink, weaving, falling-down drunks, Besotted with wine and whiskey, can't see straight, can't talk sense.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Every table is covered with vomit. They live in vomit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Is that so? And who do you think you are to teach us? Who are you to lord it over us? We're not babies in diapers to be talked down to by such as you--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> 'Da, da, da, da, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's a good little girl, that's a good little boy.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But that's exactly how you will be addressed. God will speak to this people In baby talk, one syllable at a time--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> and he'll do it through foreign oppressors. He said before, "This is the time and place to rest, to give rest to the weary. This is the place to lay down your burden." But they won't listen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> So GOD will start over with the simple basics and address them in baby talk, one syllable at a time-- "Da, da, da, da, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's a good little girl, that's a good little boy." And like toddlers, they will get up and fall down, get bruised and confused and lost.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Now listen to GOD's Message, you scoffers, you who rule this people in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> You say, "We've taken out good life insurance. We've hedged all our bets, covered all our bases. No disaster can touch us. We've thought of everything. We're advised by the experts. We're set."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But the Master, GOD, has something to say to this: "Watch closely. I'm laying a foundation in Zion, a solid granite foundation, squared and true. And this is the meaning of the stone: A TRUSTING LIFE WON'T TOPPLE.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I'll make justice the measuring stick and righteousness the plumb line for the building. A hailstorm will knock down the shantytown of lies, and a flash flood will wash out the rubble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Then you'll see that your precious life insurance policy wasn't worth the paper it was written on. Your careful precautions against death were a pack of illusions and lies. When the disaster happens, you'll be crushed by it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Every time disaster comes, you'll be in on it-- disaster in the morning, disaster at night." Every report of disaster will send you cowering in terror.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> There will be no place where you can rest, nothing to hide under.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> GOD will rise to full stature, raging as he did long ago on Mount Perazim And in the valley of Gibeon against the Philistines. But this time it's against you. Hard to believe, but true. Not what you'd expect, but it's coming.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Sober up, friends, and don't scoff. Scoffing will just make it worse. I've heard the orders issued for destruction, orders from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies--ending up in an international disaster.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Listen to me now. Give me your closest attention.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Do farmers plow and plow and do nothing but plow? Or harrow and harrow and do nothing but harrow?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> After they've prepared the ground, don't they plant? Don't they scatter dill and spread cumin, Plant wheat and barley in the fields and raspberries along the borders?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> They know exactly what to do and when to do it. Their God is their teacher.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> And at the harvest, the delicate herbs and spices, the dill and cumin, are treated delicately.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> On the other hand, wheat is threshed and milled, but still not endlessly. The farmer knows how to treat each kind of grain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> He's learned it all from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, who knows everything about when and how and where.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="29">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Doom, Ariel, Ariel, the city where David set camp! Let the years add up, let the festivals run their cycles,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> But I'm not letting up on Jerusalem. The moaning and groaning will continue. Jerusalem to me is an Ariel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Like David, I'll set up camp against you. I'll set siege, build towers, bring in siege engines, build siege ramps.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Driven into the ground, you'll speak, you'll mumble words from the dirt-- Your voice from the ground, like the muttering of a ghost. Your speech will whisper from the dust.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But it will be your enemies who are beaten to dust, the mob of tyrants who will be blown away like chaff. Because, surprise, as if out of nowhere,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> a visit from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, With thunderclaps, earthquakes, and earsplitting noise, backed up by hurricanes, tornadoes, and lightning strikes,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And the mob of enemies at war with Ariel, all who trouble and hassle and torment her, will turn out to be a bad dream, a nightmare.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Like a hungry man dreaming he's eating steak and wakes up hungry as ever, Like a thirsty woman dreaming she's drinking iced tea and wakes up thirsty as ever, So that mob of nations at war against Mount Zion will wake up and find they haven't shot an arrow, haven't killed a single soul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Drug yourselves so you feel nothing. Blind yourselves so you see nothing. Get drunk, but not on wine. Black out, but not from whiskey.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> For GOD has rocked you into a deep, deep sleep, put the discerning prophets to sleep, put the farsighted seers to sleep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> What you've been shown here is somewhat like a letter in a sealed envelope. If you give it to someone who can read and tell her, "Read this," she'll say, "I can't. The envelope is sealed."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And if you give it to someone who can't read and tell him, "Read this," he'll say, "I can't read."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The Master said: "These people make a big show of saying the right thing, but their hearts aren't in it. Because they act like they're worshiping me but don't mean it,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'm going to step in and shock them awake, astonish them, stand them on their ears. The wise ones who had it all figured out will be exposed as fools. The smart people who thought they knew everything will turn out to know nothing."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Doom to you! You pretend to have the inside track. You shut GOD out and work behind the scenes, Plotting the future as if you knew everything, acting mysterious, never showing your hand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> You have everything backwards! You treat the potter as a lump of clay. Does a book say to its author, "He didn't write a word of me"? Does a meal say to the woman who cooked it, "She had nothing to do with this"?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And then before you know it, and without you having anything to do with it, Wasted Lebanon will be transformed into lush gardens, and Mount Carmel reforested.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> At that time the deaf will hear word-for-word what's been written. After a lifetime in the dark, the blind will see.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The castoffs of society will be laughing and dancing in GOD, the down-and-outs shouting praise to The Holy of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> For there'll be no more gangs on the street. Cynical scoffers will be an extinct species. Those who never missed a chance to hurt or demean will never be heard of again:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Gone the people who corrupted the courts, gone the people who cheated the poor, gone the people who victimized the innocent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> And finally this, GOD's Message for the family of Jacob, the same GOD who redeemed Abraham: "No longer will Jacob hang his head in shame, no longer grow gaunt and pale with waiting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> For he's going to see his children, my personal gift to him--lots of children. And these children will honor me by living holy lives. In holy worship they'll honor the Holy One of Jacob and stand in holy awe of the God of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Those who got off-track will get back on-track, and complainers and whiners learn gratitude."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="30">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Doom, rebel children!" GOD's Decree. "You make plans, but not mine. You make deals, but not in my Spirit. You pile sin on sin, one sin on top of another,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Going off to Egypt without so much as asking me, Running off to Pharaoh for protection, expecting to hide out in Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Well, some protection Pharaoh will be! Some hideout, Egypt!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They look big and important, true, with officials strategically established in Zoan in the north and Hanes in the south,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> but there's nothing to them. Anyone stupid enough to trust them will end up looking stupid-- All show, no substance, an embarrassing farce."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And this note on the animals of the Negev encountered on the road to Egypt: A most dangerous, treacherous route, menaced by lions and deadly snakes. And you're going to lug all your stuff down there, your donkeys and camels loaded down with bribes, Thinking you can buy protection from that hollow farce of a nation?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Egypt is all show, no substance. My name for her is Toothless Dragon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> So, go now and write all this down. Put it in a book So that the record will be there to instruct the coming generations,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Because this is a rebel generation, a people who lie, A people unwilling to listen to anything GOD tells them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They tell their spiritual leaders, "Don't bother us with irrelevancies." They tell their preachers, "Don't waste our time on impracticalities. Tell us what makes us feel better.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Don't bore us with obsolete religion. That stuff means nothing to us. Quit hounding us with The Holy of Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Therefore, The Holy of Israel says this: "Because you scorn this Message, Preferring to live by injustice and shape your lives on lies,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> This perverse way of life will be like a towering, badly built wall That slowly, slowly tilts and shifts, and then one day, without warning, collapses--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Smashed to bits like a piece of pottery, smashed beyond recognition or repair, Useless, a pile of debris to be swept up and thrown in the trash."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> GOD, the Master, The Holy of Israel, has this solemn counsel: "Your salvation requires you to turn back to me and stop your silly efforts to save yourselves. Your strength will come from settling down in complete dependence on me-- The very thing you've been unwilling to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> You've said, 'Nothing doing! We'll rush off on horseback!' You'll rush off, all right! Just not far enough! You've said, 'We'll ride off on fast horses!' Do you think your pursuers ride old nags?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Think again: A thousand of you will scatter before one attacker. Before a mere five you'll all run off. There'll be nothing left of you-- a flagpole on a hill with no flag, a signpost on a roadside with the sign torn off."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But GOD's not finished. He's waiting around to be gracious to you. He's gathering strength to show mercy to you. GOD takes the time to do everything right--everything. Those who wait around for him are the lucky ones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Oh yes, people of Zion, citizens of Jerusalem, your time of tears is over. Cry for help and you'll find it's grace and more grace. The moment he hears, he'll answer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Just as the Master kept you alive during the hard times, he'll keep your teacher alive and present among you. Your teacher will be right there, local and on the job,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> urging you on whenever you wander left or right: "This is the right road. Walk down this road."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> You'll scrap your expensive and fashionable god-images. You'll throw them in the trash as so much garbage, saying, "Good riddance!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> God will provide rain for the seeds you sow. The grain that grows will be abundant. Your cattle will range far and wide.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Oblivious to war and earthquake, the oxen and donkeys you use for hauling and plowing will be fed well</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> near running brooks that flow freely from mountains and hills.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Better yet, on the Day GOD heals his people of the wounds and bruises from the time of punishment, moonlight will flare into sunlight, and sunlight, like a whole week of sunshine at once, will flood the land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Look, GOD's on his way, and from a long way off! Smoking with anger, immense as he comes into view, Words steaming from his mouth, searing, indicting words!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> A torrent of words, a flash flood of words sweeping everyone into the vortex of his words. He'll shake down the nations in a sieve of destruction, herd them into a dead end.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> But you will sing, sing through an all-night holy feast! Your hearts will burst with song, make music like the sound of flutes on parade, En route to the mountain of GOD, on the way to the Rock of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> GOD will sound out in grandiose thunder, display his hammering arm, Furiously angry, showering sparks-- cloudburst, storm, hail!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Oh yes, at GOD's thunder Assyria will cower under the clubbing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Every blow GOD lands on them with his club is in time to the music of drums and pipes, GOD in all-out, two-fisted battle, fighting against them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Topheth's fierce fires are well prepared, ready for the Assyrian king. The Topheth furnace is deep and wide, well stoked with hot-burning wood. GOD's breath, like a river of burning pitch, starts the fire.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="31">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Doom to those who go off to Egypt thinking that horses can help them, Impressed by military mathematics, awed by sheer numbers of chariots and riders-- And to The Holy of Israel, not even a glance, not so much as a prayer to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Still, he must be reckoned with, a most wise God who knows what he's doing. He can call down catastrophe. He's a God who does what he says. He intervenes in the work of those who do wrong, stands up against interfering evildoers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Egyptians are mortal, not God, and their horses are flesh, not Spirit. When GOD gives the signal, helpers and helped alike will fall in a heap and share the same dirt grave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> This is what GOD told me: "Like a lion, king of the beasts, that gnaws and chews and worries its prey, Not fazed in the least by a bunch of shepherds who arrive to chase it off, So GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies comes down to fight on Mount Zion, to make war from its heights.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And like a huge eagle hovering in the sky, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies protects Jerusalem. I'll protect and rescue it. Yes, I'll hover and deliver."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Repent, return, dear Israel, to the One you so cruelly abandoned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> On the day you return, you'll throw away--every last one of you--the no-gods your sinful hands made from metal and wood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Assyrians will fall dead, killed by a sword-thrust but not by a soldier, laid low by a sword not swung by a mortal. Assyrians will run from that sword, run for their lives, and their prize young men made slaves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Terrorized, that rock-solid people will fall to pieces, their leaders scatter hysterically." GOD's Decree on Assyria. His fire blazes in Zion, his furnace burns hot in Jerusalem.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="32">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> But look! A king will rule in the right way, and his leaders will carry out justice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Each one will stand as a shelter from high winds, provide safe cover in stormy weather. Each will be cool running water in parched land, a huge granite outcrop giving shade in the desert.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Anyone who looks will see, anyone who listens will hear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The impulsive will make sound decisions, the tongue-tied will speak with eloquence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> No more will fools become celebrities, nor crooks be rewarded with fame.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> For fools are fools and that's that, thinking up new ways to do mischief. They leave a wake of wrecked lives and lies about GOD, Turning their backs on the homeless hungry, ignoring those dying of thirst in the streets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And the crooks? Underhanded sneaks they are, inventive in sin and scandal, Exploiting the poor with scams and lies, unmoved by the victimized poor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But those who are noble make noble plans, and stand for what is noble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Take your stand, indolent women! Listen to me! Indulgent, indolent women, listen closely to what I have to say.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> In just a little over a year from now, you'll be shaken out of your lazy lives. The grape harvest will fail, and there'll be no fruit on the trees.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Oh tremble, you indolent women. Get serious, you pampered dolls! Strip down and discard your silk fineries. Put on funeral clothes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Shed honest tears for the lost harvest, the failed vintage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Weep for my people's gardens and farms that grow nothing but thistles and thornbushes. Cry tears, real tears, for the happy homes no longer happy, the merry city no longer merry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The royal palace is deserted, the bustling city quiet as a morgue, The emptied parks and playgrounds taken over by wild animals, delighted with their new home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Yes, weep and grieve until the Spirit is poured down on us from above And the badlands desert grows crops and the fertile fields become forests.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Justice will move into the badlands desert. Right will build a home in the fertile field.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And where there's Right, there'll be Peace and the progeny of Right: quiet lives and endless trust.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> My people will live in a peaceful neighborhood-- in safe houses, in quiet gardens.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The forest of your pride will be clear-cut, the city showing off your power leveled.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But you will enjoy a blessed life, planting well-watered fields and gardens, with your farm animals grazing freely.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="33">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Doom to you, Destroyer, not yet destroyed; And doom to you, Betrayer, not yet betrayed. When you finish destroying, your turn will come--destroyed! When you quit betraying, your turn will come--betrayed!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD, treat us kindly. You're our only hope. First thing in the morning, be there for us! When things go bad, help us out!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You spoke in thunder and everyone ran. You showed up and nations scattered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Your people, for a change, got in on the loot, picking the field clean of the enemy spoils.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD is supremely esteemed. His center holds. Zion brims over with all that is just and right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD keeps your days stable and secure-- salvation, wisdom, and knowledge in surplus, and best of all, Zion's treasure, Fear-of-GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But look! Listen! Tough men weep openly. Peacemaking diplomats are in bitter tears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The roads are empty-- not a soul out on the streets. The peace treaty is broken, its conditions violated, its signers reviled.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The very ground under our feet mourns, the Lebanon mountains hang their heads, Flowering Sharon is a weed-choked gully, and the forests of Bashan and Carmel? Bare branches.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Now I'm stepping in," GOD says. "From now on, I'm taking over. The gloves come off. Now see how mighty I am.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> There's nothing to you. Pregnant with chaff, you produce straw babies; full of hot air, you self-destruct.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> You're good for nothing but fertilizer and fuel. Earth to earth--and the sooner the better.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "If you're far away, get the reports on what I've done, And if you're in the neighborhood, pay attention to my record.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The sinners in Zion are rightly terrified; the godless are at their wit's end: 'Who among us can survive this firestorm? Who of us can get out of this purge with our lives?'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The answer's simple: Live right, speak the truth, despise exploitation, refuse bribes, reject violence, avoid evil amusements.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> This is how you raise your standard of living! A safe and stable way to live. A nourishing, satisfying way to live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Oh, you'll see the king--a beautiful sight! And you'll take in the wide vistas of land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> In your mind you'll go over the old terrors: "What happened to that Assyrian inspector who condemned and confiscated? And the one who gouged us of taxes? And that cheating moneychanger?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Gone! Out of sight forever! Their insolence nothing now but a fading stain on the carpet! No more putting up with a language you can't understand, no more sounds of gibberish in your ears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Just take a look at Zion, will you? Centering our worship in festival feasts! Feast your eyes on Jerusalem, a quiet and permanent place to live. No more pulling up stakes and moving on, no more patched-together lean-tos.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Instead, GOD! GOD majestic, God himself the place in a country of broad rivers and streams, But rivers blocked to invading ships, off-limits to predatory pirates.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> For GOD makes all the decisions here. GOD is our king. GOD runs this place and he'll keep us safe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Ha! Your sails are in shreds, your mast wobbling, your hold leaking. The plunder is free for the taking, free for all-- for weak and strong, insiders and outsiders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> No one in Zion will say, "I'm sick." Best of all, they'll all live guilt-free.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="34">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Draw in close now, nations. Listen carefully, you people. Pay attention! Earth, you too, and everything in you. World, and all that comes from you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> And here's why: GOD is angry, good and angry with all the nations, So blazingly angry at their arms and armies that he's going to rid earth of them, wipe them out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The corpses, thrown in a heap, will stink like the town dump in midsummer, Their blood flowing off the mountains like creeks in spring runoff.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Stars will fall out of the sky like overripe, rotting fruit in the orchard, And the sky itself will be folded up like a blanket and put away in a closet. All that army of stars, shriveled to nothing, like leaves and fruit in autumn, dropping and rotting!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Once I've finished with earth and sky, I'll start in on Edom. I'll come down hard on Edom, a people I've slated for total termination."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD has a sword, thirsty for blood and more blood, a sword hungry for well-fed flesh, Lamb and goat blood, the suet-rich kidneys of rams. Yes, GOD has scheduled a sacrifice in Bozrah, the capital, the whole country of Edom a slaughterhouse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> A wholesale slaughter, wild animals and farm animals alike slaughtered. The whole country soaked with blood, all the ground greasy with fat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> It's GOD's scheduled time for vengeance, the year all Zion's accounts are settled.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Edom's streams will flow sluggish, thick with pollution, the soil sterile, poisoned with waste, The whole country a smoking, stinking garbage dump--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The fires burning day and night, the skies black with endless smoke. Generation after generation of wasteland-- no more travelers through this country!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Vultures and skunks will police the streets; owls and crows will feel at home there. God will reverse creation. Chaos! He will cancel fertility. Emptiness!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Leaders will have no one to lead. They'll name it No Kingdom There, A country where all kings and princes are unemployed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Thistles will take over, covering the castles, fortresses conquered by weeds and thornbushes. Wild dogs will prowl the ruins, ostriches have the run of the place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Wildcats and hyenas will hunt together, demons and devils dance through the night. The night-demon Lilith, evil and rapacious, will establish permanent quarters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Scavenging carrion birds will breed and brood, infestations of ominous evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Get and read GOD's book: None of this is going away, this breeding, brooding evil. GOD has personally commanded it all. His Spirit set it in motion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> GOD has assigned them their place, decreed their fate in detail. This is permanent-- generation after generation, the same old thing.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="35">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Wilderness and desert will sing joyously, the badlands will celebrate and flower-- Like the crocus in spring,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> bursting into blossom, a symphony of song and color. Mountain glories of Lebanon--a gift. Awesome Carmel, stunning Sharon--gifts. GOD's resplendent glory, fully on display. GOD awesome, GOD majestic.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Energize the limp hands, strengthen the rubbery knees.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Tell fearful souls, "Courage! Take heart! GOD is here, right here, on his way to put things right And redress all wrongs. He's on his way! He'll save you!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Blind eyes will be opened, deaf ears unstopped,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Lame men and women will leap like deer, the voiceless break into song. Springs of water will burst out in the wilderness, streams flow in the desert.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Hot sands will become a cool oasis, thirsty ground a splashing fountain. Even lowly jackals will have water to drink, and barren grasslands flourish richly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> There will be a highway called the Holy Road. No one rude or rebellious is permitted on this road. It's for GOD's people exclusively-- impossible to get lost on this road. Not even fools can get lost on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> No lions on this road, no dangerous wild animals-- Nothing and no one dangerous or threatening. Only the redeemed will walk on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The people GOD has ransomed will come back on this road. They'll sing as they make their way home to Zion, unfading halos of joy encircling their heads, Welcomed home with gifts of joy and gladness as all sorrows and sighs scurry into the night.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="36">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria made war on all the fortress cities of Judah and took them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Then the king of Assyria sent his general, the "Rabshekah," accompanied by a huge army, from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah. The general stopped at the aqueduct where it empties into the upper pool on the road to the public laundry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Three men went out to meet him: Eliakim son of Hilkiah, in charge of the palace; Shebna the secretary; and Joah son of Asaph, the official historian.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The Rabshekah said to them, "Tell Hezekiah that the Great King, the king of Assyria, says this: 'What kind of backing do you think you have against me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You're bluffing and I'm calling your bluff. Your words are no match for my weapons. What kind of backup do you have now that you've rebelled against me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Egypt? Don't make me laugh. Egypt is a rubber crutch. Lean on Egypt and you'll end up flat on your face. That's all Pharaoh king of Egypt is to anyone who leans on him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And if you try to tell me, "We're leaning on our GOD," isn't it a bit late? Hasn't Hezekiah just gotten rid of all the places of worship, telling you, "You've got to worship at this altar"?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "'Be reasonable. Face the facts: My master the king of Assyria will give you two thousand horses if you can put riders on them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You can't do it, can you? So how do you think, depending on flimsy Egypt's chariots and riders, you can stand up against even the lowest-ranking captain in my master's army?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "'And besides, do you think I came all this way to destroy this land without first getting GOD's blessing? It was your GOD who told me, Make war on this land. Destroy it.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah answered the Rabshekah, "Please talk to us in Aramaic. We understand Aramaic. Don't talk to us in Hebrew within earshot of all the people gathered around."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But the Rabshekah replied, "Do you think my master has sent me to give this message to your master and you but not also to the people clustered here? It's their fate that's at stake. They're the ones who are going to end up eating their own excrement and drinking their own urine."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then the Rabshekah stood up and called out loudly in Hebrew, the common language, "Listen to the message of the great king, the king of Assyria!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Don't listen to Hezekiah's lies. He can't save you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And don't pay any attention to Hezekiah's pious sermons telling you to lean on GOD, telling you 'GOD will save us, depend on it. GOD won't let this city fall to the king of Assyria.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Don't listen to Hezekiah. Listen to the king of Assyria's offer: 'Make peace with me. Come and join me. Everyone will end up with a good life, with plenty of land and water,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> and eventually something far better. I'll turn you loose in wide open spaces, with more than enough fertile and productive land for everyone.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Don't let Hezekiah mislead you with his lies, 'GOD will save us.' Has that ever happened? Has any god in history ever gotten the best of the king of Assyria?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Look around you. Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? The gods of Sepharvaim? Did the gods do anything for Samaria?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Name one god that has ever saved its countries from me. So what makes you think that GOD could save Jerusalem from me?'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The three men were silent. They said nothing, for the king had already commanded, "Don't answer him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the court historian, tearing their clothes in defeat and despair, went back and reported what the Rabshekah had said to Hezekiah.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="37">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When King Hezekiah heard the report, he also tore his clothes and dressed in rough, penitential burlap gunnysacks, and went into the sanctuary of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, all of them also dressed in penitential burlap, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They said to him, "Hezekiah says, 'This is a black day. We're in crisis. We're like pregnant women without even the strength to have a baby!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Do you think your GOD heard what the Rabshekah said, sent by his master the king of Assyria to mock the living God? And do you think your GOD will do anything about it? Pray for us, Isaiah. Pray for those of us left here holding the fort!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then King Hezekiah's servants came to Isaiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Isaiah said, "Tell your master this: 'GOD's Message: Don't be upset by what you've heard, all those words the servants of the Assyrian king have used to mock me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I personally will take care of him. I'll arrange it so that he'll get a rumor of bad news back home and rush home to take care of it. And he'll die there. Killed--a violent death.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The Rabshekah left and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah. (He had gotten word that the king had left Lachish.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Just then the Assyrian king received an intelligence report on King Tirhakah of Ethiopia: "He is on his way to make war on you." On hearing that, he sent messengers to Hezekiah with instructions to deliver this message:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Don't let your GOD, on whom you so naively lean, deceive you, promising that Jerusalem won't fall to the king of Assyria.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Use your head! Look around at what the kings of Assyria have done all over the world--one country after another devastated! And do you think you're going to get off?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Have any of the gods of any of these countries ever stepped in and saved them, even one of these nations my predecessors destroyed--Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who lived in Telassar?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Look around. Do you see anything left of the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, the king of Hena, the king of Ivvah?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Hezekiah took the letter from the hands of the messengers and read it. Then he went into the sanctuary of GOD and spread the letter out before GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Then Hezekiah prayed to GOD:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, enthroned over the cherubim-angels, you are God, the only God there is, God of all kingdoms on earth. You made heaven and earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Listen, O GOD, and hear. Look, O GOD, and see. Mark all these words of Sennacherib that he sent to mock the living God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> It's quite true, O GOD, that the kings of Assyria have devastated all the nations and their lands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They've thrown their gods into the trash and burned them--no great achievement since they were no-gods anyway, gods made in workshops, carved from wood and chiseled from rock. An end to the no-gods!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But now step in, O GOD, our God. Save us from him. Let all the kingdoms of earth know that you and you alone are GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent this word to Hezekiah: "GOD's Message, the God of Israel: Because you brought King Sennacherib of Assyria to me in prayer,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> here is my answer, GOD's answer: "'She has no use for you, Sennacherib, nothing but contempt, this virgin daughter Zion. She spits at you and turns on her heel, this daughter Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "'Who do you think you've been mocking and reviling all these years? Who do you think you've been jeering and treating with such utter contempt All these years? The Holy of Israel!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> You've used your servants to mock the Master. You've bragged, "With my fleet of chariots I've gone to the highest mountain ranges, penetrated the far reaches of Lebanon, Chopped down its giant cedars, its finest cypresses. I conquered its highest peak, explored its deepest forest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> I dug wells and drank my fill. I emptied the famous rivers of Egypt with one kick of my foot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "'Haven't you gotten the news that I've been behind this all along? This is a longstanding plan of mine and I'm just now making it happen, using you to devastate strong cities, turning them into piles of rubble</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> and leaving their citizens helpless, bewildered, and confused, drooping like unwatered plants, stunted like withered seedlings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "'I know all about your pretentious poses, your officious comings and goings, and, yes, the tantrums you throw against me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Because of all your wild raging against me, your unbridled arrogance that I keep hearing of, I'll put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth. I'll show you who's boss. I'll turn you around and take you back to where you came from.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "'And this, Hezekiah, will be your confirming sign: This year's crops will be slim pickings, and next year it won't be much better. But in three years, farming will be back to normal, with regular sowing and reaping, planting and harvesting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> What's left of the people of Judah will put down roots and make a new start.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The people left in Jerusalem will get moving again. Mount Zion survivors will take hold again. The zeal of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies will do all this.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "Finally, this is GOD's verdict on the king of Assyria: "'Don't worry, he won't enter this city, won't let loose a single arrow, Won't brandish so much as one shield, let alone build a siege ramp against it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> He'll go back the same way he came. He won't set a foot in this city. GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> I've got my hand on this city to save it, Save it for my very own sake, but also for the sake of my David dynasty.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Then the Angel of GOD arrived and struck the Assyrian camp--185,000 Assyrians died. By the time the sun came up, they were all dead--an army of corpses!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Sennacherib, king of Assyria, got out of there fast, back home to Nineveh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> As he was worshiping in the sanctuary of his god Nisroch, he was murdered by his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer. They escaped to the land of Ararat. His son Esar-haddon became the next king.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="38">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> At that time, Hezekiah got sick. He was about to die. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz visited him and said, "GOD says, 'Prepare your affairs and your family. This is it: You're going to die. You're not going to get well.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Hezekiah turned away from Isaiah and, facing the wall, prayed to GOD:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "GOD, please, I beg you: Remember how I've lived my life. I've lived faithfully in your presence, lived out of a heart that was totally yours. You've seen how I've lived, the good that I have done." And Hezekiah wept as he prayed--painful tears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then GOD told Isaiah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Go and speak with Hezekiah. Give him this Message from me, GOD, the God of your ancestor David: 'I've heard your prayer. I have seen your tears. Here's what I'll do: I'll add fifteen years to your life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And I'll save both you and this city from the king of Assyria. I have my hand on this city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "'And this is your confirming sign, confirming that I, GOD, will do exactly what I have promised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Watch for this: As the sun goes down and the shadow lengthens on the sundial of Ahaz, I'm going to reverse the shadow ten notches on the dial.'" And that's what happened: The declining sun's shadow reversed ten notches on the dial.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> This is what Hezekiah king of Judah wrote after he'd been sick and then recovered from his sickness:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> In the very prime of life I have to leave. Whatever time I have left is spent in death's waiting room.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> No more glimpses of GOD in the land of the living, No more meetings with my neighbors, no more rubbing shoulders with friends.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> This body I inhabit is taken down and packed away like a camper's tent. Like a weaver, I've rolled up the carpet of my life as God cuts me free of the loom And at day's end sweeps up the scraps and pieces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I cry for help until morning. Like a lion, God pummels and pounds me, relentlessly finishing me off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I squawk like a doomed hen, moan like a dove. My eyes ache from looking up for help: "Master, I'm in trouble! Get me out of this!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But what's the use? God himself gave me the word. He's done it to me. I can't sleep-- I'm that upset, that troubled.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> O Master, these are the conditions in which people live, and yes, in these very conditions my spirit is still alive-- fully recovered with a fresh infusion of life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> It seems it was good for me to go through all those troubles. Throughout them all you held tight to my lifeline. You never let me tumble over the edge into nothing. But my sins you let go of, threw them over your shoulder--good riddance!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The dead don't thank you, and choirs don't sing praises from the morgue. Those buried six feet under don't witness to your faithful ways.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> It's the living--live men, live women--who thank you, just as I'm doing right now. Parents give their children full reports on your faithful ways.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> GOD saves and will save me. As fiddles and mandolins strike up the tunes, We'll sing, oh we'll sing, sing, for the rest of our lives in the Sanctuary of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Isaiah had said, "Prepare a poultice of figs and put it on the boil so he may recover."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Hezekiah had said, "What is my cue that it's all right to enter again the Sanctuary of GOD?"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="39">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Sometime later, King Merodach-baladan son of Baladan of Babylon sent messengers with greetings and a gift to Hezekiah. He had heard that Hezekiah had been sick and was now well.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Hezekiah received the messengers warmly. He took them on a tour of his royal precincts, proudly showing them all his treasures: silver, gold, spices, expensive oils, all his weapons--everything out on display. There was nothing in his house or kingdom that Hezekiah didn't show them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Later the prophet Isaiah showed up. He asked Hezekiah, "What were these men up to? What did they say? And where did they come from?" Hezekiah said, "They came from a long way off, from Babylon."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "And what did they see in your palace?" "Everything," said Hezekiah. "I showed them the works, opened all the doors and impressed them with it all."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, "Now listen to this Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I have to warn you, the time is coming when everything in this palace, along with everything your ancestors accumulated before you, will be hauled off to Babylon. GOD says that there will be nothing left. Nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And not only your things but your sons. Some of your sons will be taken into exile, ending up as eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Hezekiah replied to Isaiah, "Good. If GOD says so, it's good." Within himself he was thinking, "But surely nothing bad will happen in my lifetime. I'll enjoy peace and stability as long as I live."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="40">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Comfort, oh comfort my people," says your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Speak softly and tenderly to Jerusalem, but also make it very clear That she has served her sentence, that her sin is taken care of--forgiven! She's been punished enough and more than enough, and now it's over and done with."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Thunder in the desert! "Prepare for GOD's arrival! Make the road straight and smooth, a highway fit for our God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Fill in the valleys, level off the hills, Smooth out the ruts, clear out the rocks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then GOD's bright glory will shine and everyone will see it. Yes. Just as GOD has said."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> A voice says, "Shout!" I said, "What shall I shout?" "These people are nothing but grass, their love fragile as wildflowers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The grass withers, the wildflowers fade, if GOD so much as puffs on them. Aren't these people just so much grass?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> True, the grass withers and the wildflowers fade, but our God's Word stands firm and forever."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Climb a high mountain, Zion. You're the preacher of good news. Raise your voice. Make it good and loud, Jerusalem. You're the preacher of good news. Speak loud and clear. Don't be timid! Tell the cities of Judah, "Look! Your God!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Look at him! GOD, the Master, comes in power, ready to go into action. He is going to pay back his enemies and reward those who have loved him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Like a shepherd, he will care for his flock, gathering the lambs in his arms, Hugging them as he carries them, leading the nursing ewes to good pasture.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Who has scooped up the ocean in his two hands, or measured the sky between his thumb and little finger, Who has put all the earth's dirt in one of his baskets, weighed each mountain and hill?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Who could ever have told GOD what to do or taught him his business?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> What expert would he have gone to for advice, what school would he attend to learn justice? What god do you suppose might have taught him what he knows, showed him how things work?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Why, the nations are but a drop in a bucket, a mere smudge on a window. Watch him sweep up the islands like so much dust off the floor!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> There aren't enough trees in Lebanon nor enough animals in those vast forests to furnish adequate fuel and offerings for his worship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> All the nations add up to simply nothing before him-- less than nothing is more like it. A minus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> So who even comes close to being like God? To whom or what can you compare him?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Some no-god idol? Ridiculous! It's made in a workshop, cast in bronze, Given a thin veneer of gold, and draped with silver filigree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Or, perhaps someone will select a fine wood-- olive wood, say--that won't rot, Then hire a woodcarver to make a no-god, giving special care to its base so it won't tip over!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Have you not been paying attention? Have you not been listening? Haven't you heard these stories all your life? Don't you understand the foundation of all things?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> God sits high above the round ball of earth. The people look like mere ants. He stretches out the skies like a canvas-- yes, like a tent canvas to live under.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> He ignores what all the princes say and do. The rulers of the earth count for nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Princes and rulers don't amount to much. Like seeds barely rooted, just sprouted, They shrivel when God blows on them. Like flecks of chaff, they're gone with the wind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "So--who is like me? Who holds a candle to me?" says The Holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Look at the night skies: Who do you think made all this? Who marches this army of stars out each night, counts them off, calls each by name --so magnificent! so powerful!-- and never overlooks a single one?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Why would you ever complain, O Jacob, or, whine, Israel, saying, "GOD has lost track of me. He doesn't care what happens to me"?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Don't you know anything? Haven't you been listening? GOD doesn't come and go. God lasts. He's Creator of all you can see or imagine. He doesn't get tired out, doesn't pause to catch his breath. And he knows everything, inside and out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> He energizes those who get tired, gives fresh strength to dropouts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> For even young people tire and drop out, young folk in their prime stumble and fall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> But those who wait upon GOD get fresh strength. They spread their wings and soar like eagles, They run and don't get tired, they walk and don't lag behind.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="41">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Quiet down, far-flung ocean islands. Listen! Sit down and rest, everyone. Recover your strength. Gather around me. Say what's on your heart. Together let's decide what's right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Who got things rolling here, got this champion from the east on the move? Who recruited him for this job, then rounded up and corralled the nations so he could run roughshod over kings? He's off and running, pulverizing nations into dust, leaving only stubble and chaff in his wake.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He chases them and comes through unscathed, his feet scarcely touching the path.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Who did this? Who made it happen? Who always gets things started? I did. GOD. I'm first on the scene. I'm also the last to leave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Far-flung ocean islands see it and panic. The ends of the earth are shaken. Fearfully they huddle together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They try to help each other out, making up stories in the dark.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The godmakers in the workshops go into overtime production, crafting new models of no-gods, Urging one another on--'Good job!' 'Great design!'-- pounding in nails at the base so that the things won't tip over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "But you, Israel, are my servant. You're Jacob, my first choice, descendants of my good friend Abraham.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I pulled you in from all over the world, called you in from every dark corner of the earth, Telling you, 'You're my servant, serving on my side. I've picked you. I haven't dropped you.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Don't panic. I'm with you. There's no need to fear for I'm your God. I'll give you strength. I'll help you. I'll hold you steady, keep a firm grip on you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Count on it: Everyone who had it in for you will end up out in the cold-- real losers. Those who worked against you will end up empty-handed-- nothing to show for their lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When you go out looking for your old adversaries you won't find them-- Not a trace of your old enemies, not even a memory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> That's right. Because I, your GOD, have a firm grip on you and I'm not letting go. I'm telling you, 'Don't panic. I'm right here to help you.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Do you feel like a lowly worm, Jacob? Don't be afraid. Feel like a fragile insect, Israel? I'll help you. I, GOD, want to reassure you. The God who buys you back, The Holy of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I'm transforming you from worm to harrow, from insect to iron. As a sharp-toothed harrow you'll smooth out the mountains, turn those tough old hills into loamy soil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> You'll open the rough ground to the weather, to the blasts of sun and wind and rain. But you'll be confident and exuberant, expansive in The Holy of Israel!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "The poor and homeless are desperate for water, their tongues parched and no water to be found. But I'm there to be found, I'm there for them, and I, God of Israel, will not leave them thirsty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I'll open up rivers for them on the barren hills, spout fountains in the valleys. I'll turn the baked-clay badlands into a cool pond, the waterless waste into splashing creeks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I'll plant the red cedar in that treeless wasteland, also acacia, myrtle, and olive. I'll place the cypress in the desert, with plenty of oaks and pines.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Everyone will see this. No one can miss it-- unavoidable, indisputable evidence That I, GOD, personally did this. It's created and signed by The Holy of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Set out your case for your gods," says GOD. "Bring your evidence," says the King of Jacob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Take the stand on behalf of your idols, offer arguments, assemble reasons. Spread out the facts before us so that we can assess them ourselves. Ask them, 'If you are gods, explain what the past means--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> or, failing that, tell us what will happen in the future. Can't do that? How about doing something--anything! Good or bad--whatever. Can you hurt us or help us? Do we need to be afraid?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> They say nothing, because they are nothing-- sham gods, no-gods, fool-making gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "I, God, started someone out from the north and he's come. He was called out of the east by name. He'll stomp the rulers into the mud the way a potter works the clay.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Let me ask you, Did anyone guess that this might happen? Did anyone tell us earlier so we might confirm it with 'Yes, he's right!'? No one mentioned it, no one announced it, no one heard a peep out of you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> But I told Zion all about this beforehand. I gave Jerusalem a preacher of good news.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> But around here there's no one-- no one who knows what's going on. I ask, but no one can tell me the score.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Nothing here. It's all smoke and hot air-- sham gods, hollow gods, no-gods.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="42">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Take a good look at my servant. I'm backing him to the hilt. He's the one I chose, and I couldn't be more pleased with him. I've bathed him with my Spirit, my life. He'll set everything right among the nations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He won't call attention to what he does with loud speeches or gaudy parades.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He won't brush aside the bruised and the hurt and he won't disregard the small and insignificant, but he'll steadily and firmly set things right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He won't tire out and quit. He won't be stopped until he's finished his work--to set things right on earth. Far-flung ocean islands wait expectantly for his teaching."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD's Message, the God who created the cosmos, stretched out the skies, laid out the earth and all that grows from it, Who breathes life into earth's people, makes them alive with his own life:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "I am GOD. I have called you to live right and well. I have taken responsibility for you, kept you safe. I have set you among my people to bind them to me, and provided you as a lighthouse to the nations,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> To make a start at bringing people into the open, into light: opening blind eyes, releasing prisoners from dungeons, emptying the dark prisons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I am GOD. That's my name. I don't franchise my glory, don't endorse the no-god idols.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Take note: The earlier predictions of judgment have been fulfilled. I'm announcing the new salvation work. Before it bursts on the scene, I'm telling you all about it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Sing to GOD a brand-new song, sing his praises all over the world! Let the sea and its fish give a round of applause, with all the far-flung islands joining in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Let the desert and its camps raise a tune, calling the Kedar nomads to join in. Let the villagers in Sela round up a choir and perform from the tops of the mountains.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Make GOD's glory resound; echo his praises from coast to coast.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> GOD steps out like he means business. You can see he's primed for action. He shouts, announcing his arrival; he takes charge and his enemies fall into line:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "I've been quiet long enough. I've held back, biting my tongue. But now I'm letting loose, letting go, like a woman who's having a baby--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Stripping the hills bare, withering the wildflowers, Drying up the rivers, turning lakes into mudflats.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But I'll take the hand of those who don't know the way, who can't see where they're going. I'll be a personal guide to them, directing them through unknown country. I'll be right there to show them what roads to take, make sure they don't fall into the ditch. These are the things I'll be doing for them-- sticking with them, not leaving them for a minute."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But those who invested in the no-gods are bankrupt--dead broke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Pay attention! Are you deaf? Open your eyes! Are you blind?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> You're my servant, and you're not looking! You're my messenger, and you're not listening! The very people I depended upon, servants of GOD, blind as a bat--willfully blind!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> You've seen a lot, but looked at nothing. You've heard everything, but listened to nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> GOD intended, out of the goodness of his heart, to be lavish in his revelation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But this is a people battered and cowed, shut up in attics and closets, Victims licking their wounds, feeling ignored, abandoned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But is anyone out there listening? Is anyone paying attention to what's coming?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Who do you think turned Jacob over to the thugs, let loose the robbers on Israel? Wasn't it GOD himself, this God against whom we've sinned-- not doing what he commanded, not listening to what he said?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Isn't it God's anger that's behind all this, God's punishing power? Their whole world collapsed but they still didn't get it; their life is in ruins but they don't take it to heart.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="43">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> But now, GOD's Message, the God who made you in the first place, Jacob, the One who got you started, Israel: "Don't be afraid, I've redeemed you. I've called your name. You're mine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> When you're in over your head, I'll be there with you. When you're in rough waters, you will not go down. When you're between a rock and a hard place, it won't be a dead end--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Because I am GOD, your personal God, The Holy of Israel, your Savior. I paid a huge price for you: all of Egypt, with rich Cush and Seba thrown in!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> That's how much you mean to me! That's how much I love you! I'd sell off the whole world to get you back, trade the creation just for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "So don't be afraid: I'm with you. I'll round up all your scattered children, pull them in from east and west.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I'll send orders north and south: 'Send them back. Return my sons from distant lands, my daughters from faraway places.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I want them back, every last one who bears my name, every man, woman, and child Whom I created for my glory, yes, personally formed and made each one.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Get the blind and deaf out here and ready-- the blind (though there's nothing wrong with their eyes) and the deaf (though there's nothing wrong with their ears).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then get the other nations out here and ready. Let's see what they have to say about this, how they account for what's happened. Let them present their expert witnesses and make their case; let them try to convince us what they say is true.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "But you are my witnesses." GOD's Decree. "You're my handpicked servant So that you'll come to know and trust me, understand both that I am and who I am. Previous to me there was no such thing as a god, nor will there be after me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I, yes I, am GOD. I'm the only Savior there is.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I spoke, I saved, I told you what existed long before these upstart gods appeared on the scene. And you know it, you're my witnesses, you're the evidence." GOD's Decree. "Yes, I am God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I've always been God and I always will be God. No one can take anything from me. I make; who can unmake it?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD, your Redeemer, The Holy of Israel, says: "Just for you, I will march on Babylon. I'll turn the tables on the Babylonians. Instead of whooping it up, they'll be wailing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I am GOD, your Holy One, Creator of Israel, your King."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> This is what GOD says, the God who builds a road right through the ocean, who carves a path through pounding waves,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The God who summons horses and chariots and armies-- they lie down and then can't get up; they're snuffed out like so many candles:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Forget about what's happened; don't keep going over old history.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Be alert, be present. I'm about to do something brand-new. It's bursting out! Don't you see it? There it is! I'm making a road through the desert, rivers in the badlands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Wild animals will say 'Thank you!' --the coyotes and the buzzards-- Because I provided water in the desert, rivers through the sun-baked earth, Drinking water for the people I chose,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> the people I made especially for myself, a people custom-made to praise me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "But you didn't pay a bit of attention to me, Jacob. You so quickly tired of me, Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> You wouldn't even bring sheep for offerings in worship. You couldn't be bothered with sacrifices. It wasn't that I asked that much from you. I didn't expect expensive presents.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> But you didn't even do the minimum-- so stingy with me, so closefisted. Yet you haven't been stingy with your sins. You've been plenty generous with them--and I'm fed up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "But I, yes I, am the one who takes care of your sins--that's what I do. I don't keep a list of your sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "So, make your case against me. Let's have this out. Make your arguments. Prove you're in the right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Your original ancestor started the sinning, and everyone since has joined in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> That's why I had to disqualify the Temple leaders, repudiate Jacob and discredit Israel.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="44">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "But for now, dear servant Jacob, listen-- yes, you, Israel, my personal choice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD who made you has something to say to you; the God who formed you in the womb wants to help you. Don't be afraid, dear servant Jacob, Jeshurun, the one I chose.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> For I will pour water on the thirsty ground and send streams coursing through the parched earth. I will pour my Spirit into your descendants and my blessing on your children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They shall sprout like grass on the prairie, like willows alongside creeks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> This one will say, 'I am GOD's,' and another will go by the name Jacob; That one will write on his hand 'GOD's property'-- and be proud to be called Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD, King of Israel, your Redeemer, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, says: "I'm first, I'm last, and everything in between. I'm the only God there is.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Who compares with me? Speak up. See if you measure up. From the beginning, who else has always announced what's coming? So what is coming next? Anybody want to venture a try?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Don't be afraid, and don't worry: Haven't I always kept you informed, told you what was going on? You're my eyewitnesses: Have you ever come across a God, a real God, other than me? There's no Rock like me that I know of."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> All those who make no-god idols don't amount to a thing, and what they work so hard at making is nothing. Their little puppet-gods see nothing and know nothing--they're total embarrassments!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Who would bother making gods that can't do anything, that can't "god"?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Watch all the no-god worshipers hide their faces in shame. Watch the no-god makers slink off humiliated when their idols fail them. Get them out here in the open. Make them face God-reality.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The blacksmith makes his no-god, works it over in his forge, hammering it on his anvil--such hard work! He works away, fatigued with hunger and thirst.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The woodworker draws up plans for his no-god, traces it on a block of wood. He shapes it with chisels and planes into human shape--a beautiful woman, a handsome man, ready to be placed in a chapel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He first cuts down a cedar, or maybe picks out a pine or oak, and lets it grow strong in the forest, nourished by the rain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Then it can serve a double purpose: Part he uses as firewood for keeping warm and baking bread; from the other part he makes a god that he worships--carves it into a god shape and prays before it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> With half he makes a fire to warm himself and barbecue his supper. He eats his fill and sits back satisfied with his stomach full and his feet warmed by the fire: "Ah, this is the life."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And he still has half left for a god, made to his personal design--a handy, convenient no-god to worship whenever so inclined. Whenever the need strikes him he prays to it, "Save me. You're my god."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Pretty stupid, wouldn't you say? Don't they have eyes in their heads? Are their brains working at all?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Doesn't it occur to them to say, "Half of this tree I used for firewood: I baked bread, roasted meat, and enjoyed a good meal. And now I've used the rest to make an abominable no-god. Here I am praying to a stick of wood!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> This lover of emptiness, of nothing, is so out of touch with reality, so far gone, that he can't even look at what he's doing, can't even look at the no-god stick of wood in his hand and say, "This is crazy."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Remember these things, O Jacob. Take it seriously, Israel, that you're my servant. I made you, shaped you: You're my servant. O Israel, I'll never forget you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I've wiped the slate of all your wrongdoings. There's nothing left of your sins. Come back to me, come back. I've redeemed you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> High heavens, sing! GOD has done it. Deep earth, shout! And you mountains, sing! A forest choir of oaks and pines and cedars! GOD has redeemed Jacob. GOD's glory is on display in Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> GOD, your Redeemer, who shaped your life in your mother's womb, says: "I am GOD. I made all that is. With no help from you I spread out the skies and laid out the earth."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> He makes the magicians look ridiculous and turns fortunetellers into jokes. He makes the experts look trivial and their latest knowledge look silly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> But he backs the word of his servant and confirms the counsel of his messengers. He says to Jerusalem, "Be inhabited," and to the cities of Judah, "Be rebuilt," and to the ruins, "I raise you up."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> He says to Ocean, "Dry up. I'm drying up your rivers."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> He says to Cyrus, "My shepherd-- everything I want, you'll do it." He says to Jerusalem, "Be built," and to the Temple, "Be established."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="45">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message to his anointed, to Cyrus, whom he took by the hand To give the task of taming the nations, of terrifying their kings-- He gave him free rein, no restrictions:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "I'll go ahead of you, clearing and paving the road. I'll break down bronze city gates, smash padlocks, kick down barred entrances.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I'll lead you to buried treasures, secret caches of valuables-- Confirmations that it is, in fact, I, GOD, the God of Israel, who calls you by your name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> It's because of my dear servant Jacob, Israel my chosen, That I've singled you out, called you by name, and given you this privileged work. And you don't even know me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I am GOD, the only God there is. Besides me there are no real gods. I'm the one who armed you for this work, though you don't even know me,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So that everyone, from east to west, will know that I have no god-rivals. I am GOD, the only God there is.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I form light and create darkness, I make harmonies and create discords. I, GOD, do all these things.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Open up, heavens, and rain. Clouds, pour out buckets of my goodness! Loosen up, earth, and bloom salvation; sprout right living. I, GOD, generate all this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But doom to you who fight your Maker-- you're a pot at odds with the potter! Does clay talk back to the potter: 'What are you doing? What clumsy fingers!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Would a sperm say to a father, 'Who gave you permission to use me to make a baby?' Or a fetus to a mother, 'Why have you cooped me up in this belly?'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Thus GOD, The Holy of Israel, Israel's Maker, says: "Do you question who or what I'm making? Are you telling me what I can or cannot do?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I made earth, and I created man and woman to live on it. I handcrafted the skies and direct all the constellations in their turnings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And now I've got Cyrus on the move. I've rolled out the red carpet before him. He will build my city. He will bring home my exiles. I didn't hire him to do this. I told him. I, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD says: "The workers of Egypt, the merchants of Ethiopia, and those statuesque Sabeans Will all come over to you--all yours. Docile in chains, they'll follow you, Hands folded in reverence, praying before you: 'Amazing! God is with you! There is no other God--none.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Clearly, you are a God who works behind the scenes, God of Israel, Savior God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Humiliated, all those others will be ashamed to show their faces in public. Out of work and at loose ends, the makers of no-god idols won't know what to do with themselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The people of Israel, though, are saved by you, GOD, saved with an eternal salvation. They won't be ashamed, they won't be at loose ends, ever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> GOD, Creator of the heavens-- he is, remember, God. Maker of earth-- he put it on its foundations, built it from scratch. He didn't go to all that trouble to just leave it empty, nothing in it. He made it to be lived in. This GOD says: "I am GOD, the one and only.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I don't just talk to myself or mumble under my breath. I never told Jacob, 'Seek me in emptiness, in dark nothingness.' I am GOD. I work out in the open, saying what's right, setting things right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> So gather around, come on in, all you refugees and castoffs. They don't seem to know much, do they-- those who carry around their no-god blocks of wood, praying for help to a dead stick?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> So tell me what you think. Look at the evidence. Put your heads together. Make your case. Who told you, and a long time ago, what's going on here? Who made sense of things for you? Wasn't I the one? GOD? It had to be me. I'm the only God there is-- The only God who does things right and knows how to help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> So turn to me and be helped--saved!-- everyone, whoever and wherever you are. I am GOD, the only God there is, the one and only.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> I promise in my own name: Every word out of my mouth does what it says. I never take back what I say. Everyone is going to end up kneeling before me. Everyone is going to end up saying of me,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> 'Yes! Salvation and strength are in GOD!'" All who have raged against him will be brought before him, disgraced by their unbelief.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> And all who are connected with Israel will have a robust, praising, good life in GOD!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="46">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The god Bel falls down, god Nebo slumps. The no-god hunks of wood are loaded on mules And have to be hauled off, wearing out the poor mules--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Dead weight, burdens who can't bear burdens, hauled off to captivity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Listen to me, family of Jacob, everyone that's left of the family of Israel. I've been carrying you on my back from the day you were born,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> And I'll keep on carrying you when you're old. I'll be there, bearing you when you're old and gray. I've done it and will keep on doing it, carrying you on my back, saving you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "So to whom will you compare me, the Incomparable? Can you picture me without reducing me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> People with a lot of money hire craftsmen to make them gods. The artisan delivers the god, and they kneel and worship it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They carry it around in holy parades, then take it home and put it on a shelf. And there it sits, day in and day out, a dependable god, always right where you put it. Say anything you want to it, it never talks back. Of course, it never does anything either!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Think about this. Wrap your minds around it. This is serious business, rebels. Take it to heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Remember your history, your long and rich history. I am GOD, the only God you've had or ever will have-- incomparable, irreplaceable--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> From the very beginning telling you what the ending will be, All along letting you in on what is going to happen, Assuring you, 'I'm in this for the long haul, I'll do exactly what I set out to do,'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Calling that eagle, Cyrus, out of the east, from a far country the man I chose to help me. I've said it, and I'll most certainly do it. I've planned it, so it's as good as done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Now listen to me: You're a hardheaded bunch and hard to help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I'm ready to help you right now. Deliverance is not a long-range plan. Salvation isn't on hold. I'm putting salvation to work in Zion now, and glory in Israel.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="47">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Get off your high horse and sit in the dirt, virgin daughter of Babylon. No more throne for you--sit on the ground, daughter of the Chaldeans. Nobody will be calling you 'charming' and 'alluring' anymore. Get used to it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Get a job, any old job: Clean gutters, scrub toilets. Hock your gowns and scarves, put on overalls--the party's over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Your nude body will be on public display, exposed to vulgar taunts. It's vengeance time, and I'm taking vengeance. No one gets let off the hook."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Our Redeemer speaks, named GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, The Holy of Israel:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Shut up and get out of the way, daughter of Chaldeans. You'll no longer be called 'First Lady of the Kingdoms.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I was fed up with my people, thoroughly disgusted with my progeny. I turned them over to you, but you had no compassion. You put old men and women to cruel, hard labor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You said, 'I'm the First Lady. I'll always be the pampered darling.' You took nothing seriously, took nothing to heart, never gave tomorrow a thought.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Well, start thinking, playgirl. You're acting like the center of the universe, Smugly saying to yourself, 'I'm Number One. There's nobody but me. I'll never be a widow, I'll never lose my children.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Those two things are going to hit you both at once, suddenly, on the same day: Spouse and children gone, a total loss, despite your many enchantments and charms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You were so confident and comfortable in your evil life, saying, 'No one sees me.' You thought you knew so much, had everything figured out. What delusion! Smugly telling yourself, 'I'm Number One. There's nobody but me.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Ruin descends-- you can't charm it away. Disaster strikes-- you can't cast it off with spells. Catastrophe, sudden and total-- and you're totally at sea, totally bewildered!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But don't give up. From your great repertoire of enchantments there must be one you haven't yet tried. You've been at this a long time. Surely something will work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I know you're exhausted trying out remedies, but don't give up. Call in the astrologers and stargazers. They're good at this. Surely they can work up something!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Fat chance. You'd be grasping at straws that are already in the fire, A fire that is even now raging. Your 'experts' are in it and won't get out. It's not a fire for cooking venison stew, not a fire to warm you on a winter night!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> That's the fate of your friends in sorcery, your magician buddies you've been in cahoots with all your life. They reel, confused, bumping into one another. None of them bother to help you.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="48">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "And now listen to this, family of Jacob, you who are called by the name Israel: Who got you started in the loins of Judah, you who use GOD's name to back up your promises and pray to the God of Israel? But do you mean it? Do you live like it?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> You claim to be citizens of the Holy City; you act as though you lean on the God of Israel, named GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> For a long time now, I've let you in on the way I work: I told you what I was going to do beforehand, then I did it and it was done, and that's that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I know you're a bunch of hardheads, obstinate and flint-faced,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> So I got a running start and began telling you what was going on before it even happened. That is why you can't say, 'My god-idol did this.' 'My favorite god-carving commanded this.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> You have all this evidence confirmed by your own eyes and ears. Shouldn't you be talking about it? And that was just the beginning. I have a lot more to tell you, things you never knew existed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> This isn't a variation on the same old thing. This is new, brand-new, something you'd never guess or dream up. When you hear this you won't be able to say, 'I knew that all along.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You've never been good listeners to me. You have a history of ignoring me, A sorry track record of fickle attachments-- rebels from the womb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But out of the sheer goodness of my heart, because of who I am, I keep a tight rein on my anger and hold my temper. I don't wash my hands of you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Do you see what I've done? I've refined you, but not without fire. I've tested you like silver in the furnace of affliction.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Out of myself, simply because of who I am, I do what I do. I have my reputation to keep up. I'm not playing second fiddle to either gods or people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Listen, Jacob. Listen, Israel-- I'm the One who named you! I'm the One. I got things started and, yes, I'll wrap them up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Earth is my work, handmade. And the skies--I made them too, horizon to horizon. When I speak, they're on their feet, at attention.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Come everybody, gather around, listen: Who among the gods has delivered the news? I, GOD, love this man Cyrus, and I'm using him to do what I want with Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I, yes I, have spoken. I've called him. I've brought him here. He'll be successful.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Come close, listen carefully: I've never kept secrets from you. I've always been present with you." And now, the Master, GOD, sends me and his Spirit</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> with this Message from GOD, your Redeemer, The Holy of Israel: "I am GOD, your God, who teaches you how to live right and well. I show you what to do, where to go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> If you had listened all along to what I told you, your life would have flowed full like a river, blessings rolling in like waves from the sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Children and grandchildren are like sand, your progeny like grains of sand. There would be no end of them, no danger of losing touch with me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Get out of Babylon! Run from the Babylonians! Shout the news. Broadcast it. Let the world know, the whole world. Tell them, "GOD redeemed his dear servant Jacob!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They weren't thirsty when he led them through the deserts. He made water pour out of the rock; he split the rock and the water gushed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "There is no peace," says GOD, "for the wicked."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="49">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Listen, far-flung islands, pay attention, faraway people: GOD put me to work from the day I was born. The moment I entered the world he named me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He gave me speech that would cut and penetrate. He kept his hand on me to protect me. He made me his straight arrow and hid me in his quiver.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He said to me, "You're my dear servant, Israel, through whom I'll shine."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But I said, "I've worked for nothing. I've nothing to show for a life of hard work. Nevertheless, I'll let GOD have the last word. I'll let him pronounce his verdict."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "And now," GOD says, this God who took me in hand from the moment of birth to be his servant, To bring Jacob back home to him, to set a reunion for Israel-- What an honor for me in GOD's eyes! That God should be my strength!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He says, "But that's not a big enough job for my servant-- just to recover the tribes of Jacob, merely to round up the strays of Israel. I'm setting you up as a light for the nations so that my salvation becomes global!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD, Redeemer of Israel, The Holy of Israel, says to the despised one, kicked around by the nations, slave labor to the ruling class: "Kings will see, get to their feet--the princes, too-- and then fall on their faces in homage Because of GOD, who has faithfully kept his word, The Holy of Israel, who has chosen you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD also says: "When the time's ripe, I answer you. When victory's due, I help you. I form you and use you to reconnect the people with me, To put the land in order, to resettle families on the ruined properties.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I tell prisoners, 'Come on out. You're free!' and those huddled in fear, 'It's all right. It's safe now.' There'll be foodstands along all the roads, picnics on all the hills--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Nobody hungry, nobody thirsty, shade from the sun, shelter from the wind, For the Compassionate One guides them, takes them to the best springs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I'll make all my mountains into roads, turn them into a superhighway.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Look: These coming from far countries, and those, out of the north, These streaming in from the west, and those from all the way down the Nile!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Heavens, raise the roof! Earth, wake the dead! Mountains, send up cheers! GOD has comforted his people. He has tenderly nursed his beaten-up, beaten-down people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But Zion said, "I don't get it. GOD has left me. My Master has forgotten I even exist."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Can a mother forget the infant at her breast, walk away from the baby she bore? But even if mothers forget, I'd never forget you--never.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Look, I've written your names on the backs of my hands. The walls you're rebuilding are never out of my sight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Your builders are faster than your wreckers. The demolition crews are gone for good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Look up, look around, look well! See them all gathering, coming to you? As sure as I am the living God"--GOD's Decree-- "you're going to put them on like so much jewelry, you're going to use them to dress up like a bride.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "And your ruined land? Your devastated, decimated land? Filled with more people than you know what to do with! And your barbarian enemies, a fading memory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The children born in your exile will be saying, 'It's getting too crowded here. I need more room.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And you'll say to yourself, 'Where on earth did these children come from? I lost everything, had nothing, was exiled and penniless. So who reared these children? How did these children get here?'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The Master, GOD, says: "Look! I signal to the nations, I raise my flag to summon the people. Here they'll come: women carrying your little boys in their arms, men carrying your little girls on their shoulders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Kings will be your babysitters, princesses will be your nursemaids. They'll offer to do all your drudge work-- scrub your floors, do your laundry. You'll know then that I am GOD. No one who hopes in me ever regrets it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Can plunder be retrieved from a giant, prisoners of war gotten back from a tyrant?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> But GOD says, "Even if a giant grips the plunder and a tyrant holds my people prisoner, I'm the one who's on your side, defending your cause, rescuing your children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> And your enemies, crazed and desperate, will turn on themselves, killing each other in a frenzy of self-destruction. Then everyone will know that I, GOD, have saved you--I, the Mighty One of Jacob."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="50">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD says: "Can you produce your mother's divorce papers proving I got rid of her? Can you produce a receipt proving I sold you? Of course you can't. It's your sins that put you here, your wrongs that got you shipped out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> So why didn't anyone come when I knocked? Why didn't anyone answer when I called? Do you think I've forgotten how to help? Am I so decrepit that I can't deliver? I'm as powerful as ever, and can reverse what I once did: I can dry up the sea with a word, turn river water into desert sand, And leave the fish stinking in the sun, stranded on dry land . . .</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Turn all the lights out in the sky and pull down the curtain."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The Master, GOD, has given me a well-taught tongue, So I know how to encourage tired people. He wakes me up in the morning, Wakes me up, opens my ears to listen as one ready to take orders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The Master, GOD, opened my ears, and I didn't go back to sleep, didn't pull the covers back over my head.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I followed orders, stood there and took it while they beat me, held steady while they pulled out my beard, Didn't dodge their insults, faced them as they spit in my face.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And the Master, GOD, stays right there and helps me, so I'm not disgraced. Therefore I set my face like flint, confident that I'll never regret this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> My champion is right here. Let's take our stand together! Who dares bring suit against me? Let him try!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Look! the Master, GOD, is right here. Who would dare call me guilty? Look! My accusers are a clothes bin of threadbare socks and shirts, fodder for moths!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Who out there fears GOD, actually listens to the voice of his servant? For anyone out there who doesn't know where you're going, anyone groping in the dark, Here's what: Trust in GOD. Lean on your God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But if all you're after is making trouble, playing with fire, Go ahead and see where it gets you. Set your fires, stir people up, blow on the flames, But don't expect me to just stand there and watch. I'll hold your feet to those flames.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="51">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Listen to me, all you who are serious about right living and committed to seeking GOD. Ponder the rock from which you were cut, the quarry from which you were dug.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Yes, ponder Abraham, your father, and Sarah, who bore you. Think of it! One solitary man when I called him, but once I blessed him, he multiplied.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Likewise I, GOD, will comfort Zion, comfort all her mounds of ruins. I'll transform her dead ground into Eden, her moonscape into the garden of GOD, A place filled with exuberance and laughter, thankful voices and melodic songs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Pay attention, my people. Listen to me, nations. Revelation flows from me. My decisions light up the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> My deliverance arrives on the run, my salvation right on time. I'll bring justice to the peoples. Even faraway islands will look to me and take hope in my saving power.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Look up at the skies, ponder the earth under your feet. The skies will fade out like smoke, the earth will wear out like work pants, and the people will die off like flies. But my salvation will last forever, my setting-things-right will never be obsolete.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Listen now, you who know right from wrong, you who hold my teaching inside you: Pay no attention to insults, and when mocked don't let it get you down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Those insults and mockeries are moth-eaten, from brains that are termite-ridden, But my setting-things-right lasts, my salvation goes on and on and on."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Wake up, wake up, flex your muscles, GOD! Wake up as in the old days, in the long ago. Didn't you once make mincemeat of Rahab, dispatch the old chaos-dragon?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And didn't you once dry up the sea, the powerful waters of the deep, And then made the bottom of the ocean a road for the redeemed to walk across?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> In the same way GOD's ransomed will come back, come back to Zion cheering, shouting, Joy eternal wreathing their heads, exuberant ecstasies transporting them-- and not a sign of moans or groans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "I, I'm the One comforting you. What are you afraid of--or who? Some man or woman who'll soon be dead? Some poor wretch destined for dust?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You've forgotten me, GOD, who made you, who unfurled the skies, who founded the earth. And here you are, quaking like an aspen before the tantrums of a tyrant who thinks he can kick down the world. But what will come of the tantrums?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The victims will be released before you know it. They're not going to die. They're not even going to go hungry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> For I am GOD, your very own God, who stirs up the sea and whips up the waves, named GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I teach you how to talk, word by word, and personally watch over you, Even while I'm unfurling the skies, setting earth on solid foundations, and greeting Zion: 'Welcome, my people!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> So wake up! Rub the sleep from your eyes! Up on your feet, Jerusalem! You've drunk the cup GOD handed you, the strong drink of his anger. You drank it down to the last drop, staggered and collapsed, dead-drunk.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And nobody to help you home, no one among your friends or children to take you by the hand and put you in bed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> You've been hit with a double dose of trouble --does anyone care? Assault and battery, hunger and death --will anyone comfort?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Your sons and daughters have passed out, strewn in the streets like stunned rabbits, Sleeping off the strong drink of GOD's anger, the rage of your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Therefore listen, please, you with your splitting headaches, You who are nursing the hangovers that didn't come from drinking wine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Your Master, your GOD, has something to say, your God has taken up his people's case: "Look, I've taken back the drink that sent you reeling. No more drinking from that jug of my anger!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> I've passed it over to your abusers to drink, those who ordered you, 'Down on the ground so we can walk all over you!' And you had to do it. Flat on the ground, you were the dirt under their feet."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="52">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Wake up, wake up! Pull on your boots, Zion! Dress up in your Sunday best, Jerusalem, holy city! Those who want no part of God have been culled out. They won't be coming along.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Brush off the dust and get to your feet, captive Jerusalem! Throw off your chains, captive daughter of Zion!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> GOD says, "You were sold for nothing. You're being bought back for nothing."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Again, the Master, GOD, says, "Early on, my people went to Egypt and lived, strangers in the land. At the other end, Assyria oppressed them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And now, what have I here?" GOD's Decree. "My people are hauled off again for no reason at all. Tyrants on the warpath, whooping it up, and day after day, incessantly, my reputation blackened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Now it's time that my people know who I am, what I'm made of--yes, that I have something to say. Here I am!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the messenger bringing good news, Breaking the news that all's well, proclaiming good times, announcing salvation, telling Zion, "Your God reigns!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Voices! Listen! Your scouts are shouting, thunderclap shouts, shouting in joyful unison. They see with their own eyes GOD coming back to Zion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Break into song! Boom it out, ruins of Jerusalem: "GOD has comforted his people! He's redeemed Jerusalem!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> GOD has rolled up his sleeves. All the nations can see his holy, muscled arm. Everyone, from one end of the earth to the other, sees him at work, doing his salvation work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Out of here! Out of here! Leave this place! Don't look back. Don't contaminate yourselves with plunder. Just leave, but leave clean. Purify yourselves in the process of worship, carrying the holy vessels of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But you don't have to be in a hurry. You're not running from anybody! GOD is leading you out of here, and the God of Israel is also your rear guard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Just watch my servant blossom! Exalted, tall, head and shoulders above the crowd!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But he didn't begin that way. At first everyone was appalled. He didn't even look human-- a ruined face, disfigured past recognition.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Nations all over the world will be in awe, taken aback, kings shocked into silence when they see him. For what was unheard of they'll see with their own eyes, what was unthinkable they'll have right before them."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="53">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Who believes what we've heard and seen? Who would have thought GOD's saving power would look like this?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The servant grew up before God--a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched field. There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on him, thought he was scum.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But the fact is, it was our pains he carried-- our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him--our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost. We've all done our own thing, gone our own way. And GOD has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong, on him, on him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He was beaten, he was tortured, but he didn't say a word. Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered and like a sheep being sheared, he took it all in silence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Justice miscarried, and he was led off-- and did anyone really know what was happening? He died without a thought for his own welfare, beaten bloody for the sins of my people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They buried him with the wicked, threw him in a grave with a rich man, Even though he'd never hurt a soul or said one word that wasn't true.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Still, it's what GOD had in mind all along, to crush him with pain. The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin so that he'd see life come from it--life, life, and more life. And GOD's plan will deeply prosper through him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Out of that terrible travail of soul, he'll see that it's worth it and be glad he did it. Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant, will make many "righteous ones," as he himself carries the burden of their sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Therefore I'll reward him extravagantly-- the best of everything, the highest honors-- Because he looked death in the face and didn't flinch, because he embraced the company of the lowest. He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many, he took up the cause of all the black sheep.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="54">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Sing, barren woman, who has never had a baby. Fill the air with song, you who've never experienced childbirth! You're ending up with far more children than all those childbearing women." GOD says so!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Clear lots of ground for your tents! Make your tents large. Spread out! Think big! Use plenty of rope, drive the tent pegs deep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You're going to need lots of elbow room for your growing family. You're going to take over whole nations; you're going to resettle abandoned cities.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Don't be afraid--you're not going to be embarrassed. Don't hold back--you're not going to come up short. You'll forget all about the humiliations of your youth, and the indignities of being a widow will fade from memory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> For your Maker is your bridegroom, his name, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies! Your Redeemer is The Holy of Israel, known as God of the whole earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> You were like an abandoned wife, devastated with grief, and GOD welcomed you back, Like a woman married young and then left," says your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Your Redeemer GOD says: "I left you, but only for a moment. Now, with enormous compassion, I'm bringing you back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> In an outburst of anger I turned my back on you-- but only for a moment. It's with lasting love that I'm tenderly caring for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "This exile is just like the days of Noah for me: I promised then that the waters of Noah would never again flood the earth. I'm promising now no more anger, no more dressing you down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> For even if the mountains walk away and the hills fall to pieces, My love won't walk away from you, my covenant commitment of peace won't fall apart." The GOD who has compassion on you says so.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Afflicted city, storm-battered, unpitied: I'm about to rebuild you with stones of turquoise, Lay your foundations with sapphires,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> construct your towers with rubies, Your gates with jewels, and all your walls with precious stones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> All your children will have GOD for their teacher-- what a mentor for your children!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> You'll be built solid, grounded in righteousness, far from any trouble--nothing to fear! far from terror--it won't even come close!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> If anyone attacks you, don't for a moment suppose that I sent them, And if any should attack, nothing will come of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I create the blacksmith who fires up his forge and makes a weapon designed to kill. I also create the destroyer--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> but no weapon that can hurt you has ever been forged. Any accuser who takes you to court will be dismissed as a liar. This is what GOD's servants can expect. I'll see to it that everything works out for the best." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="55">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Hey there! All who are thirsty, come to the water! Are you penniless? Come anyway--buy and eat! Come, buy your drinks, buy wine and milk. Buy without money--everything's free!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Why do you spend your money on junk food, your hard-earned cash on cotton candy? Listen to me, listen well: Eat only the best, fill yourself with only the finest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Pay attention, come close now, listen carefully to my life-giving, life-nourishing words. I'm making a lasting covenant commitment with you, the same that I made with David: sure, solid, enduring love.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I set him up as a witness to the nations, made him a prince and leader of the nations,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And now I'm doing it to you: You'll summon nations you've never heard of, and nations who've never heard of you will come running to you Because of me, your GOD, because The Holy of Israel has honored you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Seek GOD while he's here to be found, pray to him while he's close at hand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Let the wicked abandon their way of life and the evil their way of thinking. Let them come back to GOD, who is merciful, come back to our God, who is lavish with forgiveness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "I don't think the way you think. The way you work isn't the way I work." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "For as the sky soars high above earth, so the way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Just as rain and snow descend from the skies and don't go back until they've watered the earth, Doing their work of making things grow and blossom, producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> So will the words that come out of my mouth not come back empty-handed. They'll do the work I sent them to do, they'll complete the assignment I gave them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "So you'll go out in joy, you'll be led into a whole and complete life. The mountains and hills will lead the parade, bursting with song. All the trees of the forest will join the procession, exuberant with applause.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> No more thistles, but giant sequoias, no more thornbushes, but stately pines-- Monuments to me, to GOD, living and lasting evidence of GOD."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="56">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message: "Guard my common good: Do what's right and do it in the right way, For salvation is just around the corner, my setting-things-right is about to go into action.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> How blessed are you who enter into these things, you men and women who embrace them, Who keep Sabbath and don't defile it, who watch your step and don't do anything evil!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Make sure no outsider who now follows GOD ever has occasion to say, 'GOD put me in second-class. I don't really belong.' And make sure no physically mutilated person is ever made to think, 'I'm damaged goods. I don't really belong.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> For GOD says: "To the mutilated who keep my Sabbaths and choose what delights me and keep a firm grip on my covenant,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I'll provide them an honored place in my family and within my city, even more honored than that of sons and daughters. I'll confer permanent honors on them that will never be revoked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "And as for the outsiders who now follow me, working for me, loving my name, and wanting to be my servants-- All who keep Sabbath and don't defile it, holding fast to my covenant--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I'll bring them to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. They'll be welcome to worship the same as the 'insiders,' to bring burnt offerings and sacrifices to my altar. Oh yes, my house of worship will be known as a house of prayer for all people."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The Decree of the Master, GOD himself, who gathers in the exiles of Israel: "I will gather others also, gather them in with those already gathered."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> A call to the savage beasts: Come on the run. Come, devour, beast barbarians!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> For Israel's watchmen are blind, the whole lot of them. They have no idea what's going on. They're dogs without sense enough to bark, lazy dogs, dreaming in the sun--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But hungry dogs, they do know how to eat, voracious dogs, with never enough. And these are Israel's shepherds! They know nothing, understand nothing. They all look after themselves, grabbing whatever's not nailed down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Come," they say, "let's have a party. Let's go out and get drunk!" And tomorrow, more of the same: "Let's live it up!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="57">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Meanwhile, right-living people die and no one gives them a thought. God-fearing people are carted off and no one even notices. The right-living people are out of their misery, they're finally at rest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They lived well and with dignity and now they're finally at peace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "But you, children of a witch, come here! Sons of a slut, daughters of a whore.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> What business do you have taunting, sneering, and sticking out your tongue? Do you have any idea what wretches you've turned out to be? A race of rebels, a generation of liars.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You satisfy your lust any place you find some shade and fornicate at whim. You kill your children at any convenient spot-- any cave or crevasse will do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> You take stones from the creek and set up your sex-and-religion shrines. You've chosen your fate. Your worship will be your doom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You've climbed a high mountain to practice your foul sex-and-death religion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Behind closed doors you assemble your precious gods and goddesses. Deserting me, you've gone all out, stripped down and made your bed your place of worship. You've climbed into bed with the 'sacred' whores and loved every minute of it, adoring every curve of their naked bodies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You anoint your king-god with ointments and lavish perfumes on yourselves. You send scouts to search out the latest in religion, send them all the way to hell and back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You wear yourselves out trying the new and the different, and never see what a waste it all is. You've always found strength for the latest fad, never got tired of trying new religions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Who talked you into the pursuit of this nonsense, leaving me high and dry, forgetting you ever knew me? Because I don't yell and make a scene do you think I don't exist?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I'll go over, detail by detail, all your 'righteous' attempts at religion, and expose the absurdity of it all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Go ahead, cry for help to your collection of no-gods: A good wind will blow them away. They're smoke, nothing but smoke. "But anyone who runs to me for help will inherit the land, will end up owning my holy mountain!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Someone says: "Build, build! Make a road! Clear the way, remove the rocks from the road my people will travel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> A Message from the high and towering God, who lives in Eternity, whose name is Holy: "I live in the high and holy places, but also with the low-spirited, the spirit-crushed, And what I do is put new spirit in them, get them up and on their feet again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> For I'm not going to haul people into court endlessly, I'm not going to be angry forever. Otherwise, people would lose heart. These souls I created would tire out and give up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I was angry, good and angry, because of Israel's sins. I struck him hard and turned away in anger, while he kept at his stubborn, willful ways.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When I looked again and saw what he was doing, I decided to heal him, lead him, and comfort him, creating a new language of praise for the mourners.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Peace to the far-off, peace to the near-at-hand," says GOD-- "and yes, I will heal them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But the wicked are storm-battered seas that can't quiet down. The waves stir up garbage and mud.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> There's no peace," God says, "for the wicked.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="58">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Shout! A full-throated shout! Hold nothing back--a trumpet-blast shout! Tell my people what's wrong with their lives, face my family Jacob with their sins!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They're busy, busy, busy at worship, and love studying all about me. To all appearances they're a nation of right-living people-- law-abiding, God-honoring. They ask me, 'What's the right thing to do?' and love having me on their side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But they also complain, 'Why do we fast and you don't look our way? Why do we humble ourselves and you don't even notice?' "Well, here's why: "The bottom line on your 'fast days' is profit. You drive your employees much too hard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight. You fast, but you swing a mean fist. The kind of fasting you do won't get your prayers off the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Do you think this is the kind of fast day I'm after: a day to show off humility? To put on a pious long face and parade around solemnly in black? Do you call that fasting, a fast day that I, GOD, would like?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "This is the kind of fast day I'm after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> What I'm interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Do this and the lights will turn on, and your lives will turn around at once. Your righteousness will pave your way. The GOD of glory will secure your passage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then when you pray, GOD will answer. You'll call out for help and I'll say, 'Here I am.' "If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims, quit gossiping about other people's sins,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out, Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I will always show you where to go. I'll give you a full life in the emptiest of places-- firm muscles, strong bones. You'll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You'll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "If you watch your step on the Sabbath and don't use my holy day for personal advantage, If you treat the Sabbath as a day of joy, GOD's holy day as a celebration, If you honor it by refusing 'business as usual,' making money, running here and there--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Then you'll be free to enjoy GOD! Oh, I'll make you ride high and soar above it all. I'll make you feast on the inheritance of your ancestor Jacob." Yes! GOD says so!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="59">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Look! Listen! GOD's arm is not amputated--he can still save. GOD's ears are not stopped up--he can still hear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> There's nothing wrong with God; the wrong is in you. Your wrongheaded lives caused the split between you and God. Your sins got between you so that he doesn't hear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Your hands are drenched in blood, your fingers dripping with guilt, Your lips smeared with lies, your tongue swollen from muttering obscenities.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> No one speaks up for the right, no one deals fairly. They trust in illusion, they tell lies, they get pregnant with mischief and have sin-babies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They hatch snake eggs and weave spider webs. Eat an egg and die; break an egg and get a snake!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The spider webs are no good for shirts or shawls. No one can wear these weavings! They weave wickedness, they hatch violence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They compete in the race to do evil and run to be the first to murder. They plan and plot evil, think and breathe evil, and leave a trail of wrecked lives behind them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They know nothing about peace and less than nothing about justice. They make tortuously twisted roads. No peace for the wretch who walks down those roads!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Which means that we're a far cry from fair dealing, and we're not even close to right living. We long for light but sink into darkness, long for brightness but stumble through the night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Like the blind, we inch along a wall, groping eyeless in the dark. We shuffle our way in broad daylight, like the dead, but somehow walking.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> We're no better off than bears, groaning, and no worse off than doves, moaning. We look for justice--not a sign of it; for salvation--not so much as a hint.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Our wrongdoings pile up before you, God, our sins stand up and accuse us. Our wrongdoings stare us down; we know in detail what we've done:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Mocking and denying GOD, not following our God, Spreading false rumors, inciting sedition, pregnant with lies, muttering malice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Justice is beaten back, Righteousness is banished to the sidelines, Truth staggers down the street, Honesty is nowhere to be found,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Good is missing in action. Anyone renouncing evil is beaten and robbed. GOD looked and saw evil looming on the horizon-- so much evil and no sign of Justice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He couldn't believe what he saw: not a soul around to correct this awful situation. So he did it himself, took on the work of Salvation, fueled by his own Righteousness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He dressed in Righteousness, put it on like a suit of armor, with Salvation on his head like a helmet, Put on Judgment like an overcoat, and threw a cloak of Passion across his shoulders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> He'll make everyone pay for what they've done: fury for his foes, just deserts for his enemies. Even the far-off islands will get paid off in full.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> In the west they'll fear the name of GOD, in the east they'll fear the glory of GOD, For he'll arrive like a river in flood stage, whipped to a torrent by the wind of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "I'll arrive in Zion as Redeemer, to those in Jacob who leave their sins." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "As for me," GOD says, "this is my covenant with them: My Spirit that I've placed upon you and the words that I've given you to speak, they're not going to leave your mouths nor the mouths of your children nor the mouths of your grandchildren. You will keep repeating these words and won't ever stop." GOD's orders.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="60">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Get out of bed, Jerusalem! Wake up. Put your face in the sunlight. GOD's bright glory has risen for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The whole earth is wrapped in darkness, all people sunk in deep darkness, But GOD rises on you, his sunrise glory breaks over you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Nations will come to your light, kings to your sunburst brightness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Look up! Look around! Watch as they gather, watch as they approach you: Your sons coming from great distances, your daughters carried by their nannies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When you see them coming you'll smile--big smiles! Your heart will swell and, yes, burst! All those people returning by sea for the reunion, a rich harvest of exiles gathered in from the nations!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And then streams of camel caravans as far as the eye can see, young camels of nomads in Midian and Ephah, Pouring in from the south from Sheba, loaded with gold and frankincense, preaching the praises of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And yes, a great roundup of flocks from the nomads in Kedar and Nebaioth, Welcome gifts for worship at my altar as I bathe my glorious Temple in splendor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "What's that we see in the distance, a cloud on the horizon, like doves darkening the sky?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> It's ships from the distant islands, the famous Tarshish ships Returning your children from faraway places, loaded with riches, with silver and gold, And backed by the name of your GOD, The Holy of Israel, showering you with splendor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Foreigners will rebuild your walls, and their kings assist you in the conduct of worship. When I was angry I hit you hard. It's my desire now to be tender.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Your Jerusalem gates will always be open --open house day and night!-- Receiving deliveries of wealth from all nations, and their kings, the delivery boys!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Any nation or kingdom that doesn't deliver will perish; those nations will be totally wasted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The rich woods of Lebanon will be delivered --all that cypress and oak and pine-- To give a splendid elegance to my Sanctuary, as I make my footstool glorious.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The descendants of your oppressor will come bowing and scraping to you. All who looked down at you in contempt will lick your boots. They'll confer a title on you: City of GOD, Zion of The Holy of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Not long ago you were despised refuse-- out-of-the-way, unvisited, ignored. But now I've put you on your feet, towering and grand forever, a joy to look at!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When you suck the milk of nations and the breasts of royalty, You'll know that I, GOD, am your Savior, your Redeemer, Champion of Jacob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I'll give you only the best--no more hand-me-downs! Gold instead of bronze, silver instead of iron, bronze instead of wood, iron instead of stones. I'll install Peace to run your country, make Righteousness your boss.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> There'll be no more stories of crime in your land, no more robberies, no more vandalism. You'll name your main street Salvation Way, and install Praise Park at the center of town.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> You'll have no more need of the sun by day nor the brightness of the moon at night. GOD will be your eternal light, your God will bathe you in splendor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Your sun will never go down, your moon will never fade. I will be your eternal light. Your days of grieving are over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> All your people will live right and well, in permanent possession of the land. They're the green shoot that I planted, planted with my own hands to display my glory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The runt will become a great tribe, the weakling become a strong nation. I am GOD. At the right time I'll make it happen."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="61">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Spirit of GOD, the Master, is on me because GOD anointed me. He sent me to preach good news to the poor, heal the heartbroken, Announce freedom to all captives, pardon all prisoners.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD sent me to announce the year of his grace-- a celebration of God's destruction of our enemies-- and to comfort all who mourn,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> To care for the needs of all who mourn in Zion, give them bouquets of roses instead of ashes, Messages of joy instead of news of doom, a praising heart instead of a languid spirit. Rename them "Oaks of Righteousness" planted by GOD to display his glory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They'll rebuild the old ruins, raise a new city out of the wreckage. They'll start over on the ruined cities, take the rubble left behind and make it new.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You'll hire outsiders to herd your flocks and foreigners to work your fields,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But you'll have the title "Priests of GOD," honored as ministers of our God. You'll feast on the bounty of nations, you'll bask in their glory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Because you got a double dose of trouble and more than your share of contempt, Your inheritance in the land will be doubled and your joy go on forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Because I, GOD, love fair dealing and hate thievery and crime, I'll pay your wages on time and in full, and establish my eternal covenant with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Your descendants will become well-known all over. Your children in foreign countries Will be recognized at once as the people I have blessed."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I will sing for joy in GOD, explode in praise from deep in my soul! He dressed me up in a suit of salvation, he outfitted me in a robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom who puts on a tuxedo and a bride a jeweled tiara.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> For as the earth bursts with spring wildflowers, and as a garden cascades with blossoms, So the Master, GOD, brings righteousness into full bloom and puts praise on display before the nations.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="62">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Regarding Zion, I can't keep my mouth shut, regarding Jerusalem, I can't hold my tongue, Until her righteousness blazes down like the sun and her salvation flames up like a torch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Foreign countries will see your righteousness, and world leaders your glory. You'll get a brand-new name straight from the mouth of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You'll be a stunning crown in the palm of GOD's hand, a jeweled gold cup held high in the hand of your God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> No more will anyone call you Rejected, and your country will no more be called Ruined. You'll be called Hephzibah (My Delight), and your land Beulah (Married), Because GOD delights in you and your land will be like a wedding celebration.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> For as a young man marries his virgin bride, so your builder marries you, And as a bridegroom is happy in his bride, so your God is happy with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I've posted watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem. Day and night they keep at it, praying, calling out, reminding GOD to remember.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They are to give him no peace until he does what he said, until he makes Jerusalem famous as the City of Praise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD has taken a solemn oath, an oath he means to keep: "Never again will I open your grain-filled barns to your enemies to loot and eat. Never again will foreigners drink the wine that you worked so hard to produce.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> No. The farmers who grow the food will eat the food and praise GOD for it. And those who make the wine will drink the wine in my holy courtyards."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Walk out of the gates. Get going! Get the road ready for the people. Build the highway. Get at it! Clear the debris, hoist high a flag, a signal to all peoples!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Yes! GOD has broadcast to all the world: "Tell daughter Zion, 'Look! Your Savior comes, Ready to do what he said he'd do, prepared to complete what he promised.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Zion will be called new names: Holy People, GOD-Redeemed, Sought-Out, City-Not-Forsaken.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="63">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The watchmen call out, "Who goes there, marching out of Edom, out of Bozrah in clothes dyed red? Name yourself, so splendidly dressed, advancing, bristling with power!" "It is I: I speak what is right, I, mighty to save!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "And why are your robes so red, your clothes dyed red like those who tread grapes?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "I've been treading the winepress alone. No one was there to help me. Angrily, I stomped the grapes; raging, I trampled the people. Their blood spurted all over me-- all my clothes were soaked with blood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I was set on vengeance. The time for redemption had arrived.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I looked around for someone to help --no one. I couldn't believe it --not one volunteer. So I went ahead and did it myself, fed and fueled by my rage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I trampled the people in my anger, crushed them under foot in my wrath, soaked the earth with their lifeblood."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I'll make a list of GOD's gracious dealings, all the things GOD has done that need praising, All the generous bounties of GOD, his great goodness to the family of Israel-- Compassion lavished, love extravagant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He said, "Without question these are my people, children who would never betray me." So he became their Savior.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> In all their troubles, he was troubled, too. He didn't send someone else to help them. He did it himself, in person. Out of his own love and pity he redeemed them. He rescued them and carried them along for a long, long time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But they turned on him; they grieved his Holy Spirit. So he turned on them, became their enemy and fought them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then they remembered the old days, the days of Moses, God's servant: "Where is he who brought the shepherds of his flock up and out of the sea? And what happened to the One who set his Holy Spirit within them?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Who linked his arm with Moses' right arm, divided the waters before them, Making him famous ever after,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> and led them through the muddy abyss as surefooted as horses on hard, level ground?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Like a herd of cattle led to pasture, the Spirit of GOD gave them rest." That's how you led your people! That's how you became so famous!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Look down from heaven, look at us! Look out the window of your holy and magnificent house! Whatever happened to your passion, your famous mighty acts, Your heartfelt pity, your compassion? Why are you holding back?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> You are our Father. Abraham and Israel are long dead. They wouldn't know us from Adam. But you're our living Father, our Redeemer, famous from eternity!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Why, GOD, did you make us wander from your ways? Why did you make us cold and stubborn so that we no longer worshiped you in awe? Turn back for the sake of your servants. You own us! We belong to you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> For a while your holy people had it good, but now our enemies have wrecked your holy place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> For a long time now, you've paid no attention to us. It's like you never knew us.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="64">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Oh, that you would rip open the heavens and descend, make the mountains shudder at your presence--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> As when a forest catches fire, as when fire makes a pot to boil--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> To shock your enemies into facing you, make the nations shake in their boots! You did terrible things we never expected, descended and made the mountains shudder at your presence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Since before time began no one has ever imagined, No ear heard, no eye seen, a God like you who works for those who wait for him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You meet those who happily do what is right, who keep a good memory of the way you work. But how angry you've been with us! We've sinned and kept at it so long! Is there any hope for us? Can we be saved?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> We're all sin-infected, sin-contaminated. Our best efforts are grease-stained rags. We dry up like autumn leaves-- sin-dried, we're blown off by the wind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> No one prays to you or makes the effort to reach out to you Because you've turned away from us, left us to stew in our sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Still, GOD, you are our Father. We're the clay and you're our potter: All of us are what you made us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Don't be too angry with us, O GOD. Don't keep a permanent account of wrongdoing. Keep in mind, please, we are your people--all of us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Your holy cities are all ghost towns: Zion's a ghost town, Jerusalem's a field of weeds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Our holy and beautiful Temple, which our ancestors filled with your praises, Was burned down by fire, all our lovely parks and gardens in ruins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> In the face of all this, are you going to sit there unmoved, GOD? Aren't you going to say something? Haven't you made us miserable long enough?</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="65">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "I've made myself available to those who haven't bothered to ask. I'm here, ready to be found by those who haven't bothered to look. I kept saying 'I'm here, I'm right here' to a nation that ignored me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I reached out day after day to a people who turned their backs on me, People who make wrong turns, who insist on doing things their own way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They get on my nerves, are rude to my face day after day, Make up their own kitchen religion, a potluck religious stew.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They spend the night in tombs to get messages from the dead, Eat forbidden foods and drink a witch's brew of potions and charms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They say, 'Keep your distance. Don't touch me. I'm holier than thou.' These people gag me. I can't stand their stench.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Look at this! Their sins are all written out-- I have the list before me. I'm not putting up with this any longer. I'll pay them the wages</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They have coming for their sins. And for the sins of their parents lumped in, a bonus." GOD says so. "Because they've practiced their blasphemous worship, mocking me at their hillside shrines, I'll let loose the consequences and pay them in full for their actions."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD's Message: "But just as one bad apple doesn't ruin the whole bushel, there are still plenty of good apples left. So I'll preserve those in Israel who obey me. I won't destroy the whole nation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'll bring out my true children from Jacob and the heirs of my mountains from Judah. My chosen will inherit the land, my servants will move in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The lush valley of Sharon in the west will be a pasture for flocks, And in the east, the valley of Achor, a place for herds to graze. These will be for the people who bothered to reach out to me, who wanted me in their lives, who actually bothered to look for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "But you who abandon me, your GOD, who forget the holy mountains, Who hold dinners for Lady Luck and throw cocktail parties for Sir Fate,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Well, you asked for it. Fate it will be: your destiny, Death. For when I invited you, you ignored me; when I spoke to you, you brushed me off. You did the very things I exposed as evil; you chose what I hate."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Therefore, this is the Message from the Master, GOD: "My servants will eat, and you'll go hungry; My servants will drink, and you'll go thirsty; My servants will rejoice, and you'll hang your heads.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> My servants will laugh from full hearts, and you'll cry out heartbroken, yes, wail from crushed spirits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Your legacy to my chosen will be your name reduced to a cussword. I, GOD, will put you to death and give a new name to my servants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Then whoever prays a blessing in the land will use my faithful name for the blessing, And whoever takes an oath in the land will use my faithful name for the oath, Because the earlier troubles are gone and forgotten, banished far from my sight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Pay close attention now: I'm creating new heavens and a new earth. All the earlier troubles, chaos, and pain are things of the past, to be forgotten.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Look ahead with joy. Anticipate what I'm creating: I'll create Jerusalem as sheer joy, create my people as pure delight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I'll take joy in Jerusalem, take delight in my people: No more sounds of weeping in the city, no cries of anguish;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> No more babies dying in the cradle, or old people who don't enjoy a full lifetime; One-hundredth birthdays will be considered normal-- anything less will seem like a cheat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They'll build houses and move in. They'll plant fields and eat what they grow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> No more building a house that some outsider takes over, No more planting fields that some enemy confiscates, For my people will be as long-lived as trees, my chosen ones will have satisfaction in their work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They won't work and have nothing come of it, they won't have children snatched out from under them. For they themselves are plantings blessed by GOD, with their children and grandchildren likewise GOD-blessed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Before they call out, I'll answer. Before they've finished speaking, I'll have heard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Wolf and lamb will graze the same meadow, lion and ox eat straw from the same trough, but snakes--they'll get a diet of dirt! Neither animal nor human will hurt or kill anywhere on my Holy Mountain," says GOD.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="66">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message: "Heaven's my throne, earth is my footstool. What sort of house could you build for me? What holiday spot reserve for me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I made all this! I own all this!" GOD's Decree. "But there is something I'm looking for: a person simple and plain, reverently responsive to what I say.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Your acts of worship are acts of sin: Your sacrificial slaughter of the ox is no different from murdering the neighbor; Your offerings for worship, no different from dumping pig's blood on the altar; Your presentation of memorial gifts, no different from honoring a no-god idol. You choose self-serving worship, you delight in self-centered worship--disgusting!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Well, I choose to expose your nonsense and let you realize your worst fears, Because when I invited you, you ignored me; when I spoke to you, you brushed me off. You did the very things I exposed as evil, you chose what I hate."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But listen to what GOD has to say to you who reverently respond to his Word: "Your own families hate you and turn you out because of me. They taunt you, 'Let us see GOD's glory! If God's so great, why aren't you happy?' But they're the ones who are going to end up shamed."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Rumbles of thunder from the city! A voice out of the Temple! GOD's voice, handing out judgment to his enemies:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Before she went into labor, she had the baby. Before the birth pangs hit, she delivered a son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Has anyone ever heard of such a thing? Has anyone seen anything like this? A country born in a day? A nation born in a flash? But Zion was barely in labor when she had her babies!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Do I open the womb and not deliver the baby? Do I, the One who delivers babies, shut the womb?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Rejoice, Jerusalem, and all who love her, celebrate! And all you who have shed tears over her, join in the happy singing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> You newborns can satisfy yourselves at her nurturing breasts. Yes, delight yourselves and drink your fill at her ample bosom."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> GOD's Message: "I'll pour robust well-being into her like a river, the glory of nations like a river in flood. You'll nurse at her breasts, nestle in her bosom, and be bounced on her knees.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> As a mother comforts her child, so I'll comfort you. You will be comforted in Jerusalem."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> You'll see all this and burst with joy --you'll feel ten feet tall-- As it becomes apparent that GOD is on your side and against his enemies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> For GOD arrives like wildfire and his chariots like a tornado, A furious outburst of anger, a rebuke fierce and fiery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> For it's by fire that GOD brings judgment, a death sentence on the human race. Many, oh so many, are under GOD's sentence of death:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "All who enter the sacred groves for initiation in those unholy rituals that climaxed in that foul and obscene meal of pigs and mice will eat together and then die together." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "I know everything they've ever done or thought. I'm going to come and then gather everyone--all nations, all languages. They'll come and see my glory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I'll set up a station at the center. I'll send the survivors of judgment all over the world: Spain and Africa, Turkey and Greece, and the far-off islands that have never heard of me, who know nothing of what I've done nor who I am. I'll send them out as missionaries to preach my glory among the nations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> They'll return with all your long-lost brothers and sisters from all over the world. They'll bring them back and offer them in living worship to GOD. They'll bring them on horses and wagons and carts, on mules and camels, straight to my holy mountain Jerusalem," says GOD. "They'll present them just as Israelites present their offerings in a ceremonial vessel in the Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I'll even take some of them and make them priests and Levites," says GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "For just as the new heavens and new earth that I am making will stand firm before me" --GOD's Decree-- "So will your children and your reputation stand firm.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Month after month and week by week, everyone will come to worship me," GOD says.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "And then they'll go out and look at what happened to those who rebelled against me. Corpses! Maggots endlessly eating away on them, an endless supply of fuel for fires. Everyone who sees what's happened and smells the stench retches."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="24" bname="Jeremiah">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Message of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah of the family of priests who lived in Anathoth in the country of Benjamin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD's Message began to come to him during the thirteenth year that Josiah son of Amos reigned over Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> It continued to come to him during the time Jehoiakim son of Josiah reigned over Judah. And it continued to come to him clear down to the fifth month of the eleventh year of the reign of Zedekiah son of Josiah over Judah, the year that Jerusalem was taken into exile.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> This is what GOD said:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Before I shaped you in the womb, I knew all about you. Before you saw the light of day, I had holy plans for you: A prophet to the nations-- that's what I had in mind for you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But I said, "Hold it, Master GOD! Look at me. I don't know anything. I'm only a boy!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD told me, "Don't say, 'I'm only a boy.' I'll tell you where to go and you'll go there. I'll tell you what to say and you'll say it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Don't be afraid of a soul. I'll be right there, looking after you." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD reached out, touched my mouth, and said, "Look! I've just put my words in your mouth--hand-delivered!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> See what I've done? I've given you a job to do among nations and governments--a red-letter day! Your job is to pull up and tear down, take apart and demolish, And then start over, building and planting."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD's Message came to me: "What do you see, Jeremiah?" I said, "A walking stick--that's all."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And GOD said, "Good eyes! I'm sticking with you. I'll make every word I give you come true."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> GOD's Message came again: "So what do you see now?" I said, "I see a boiling pot, tipped down toward us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Then GOD told me, "Disaster will pour out of the north on everyone living in this land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Watch for this: I'm calling all the kings out of the north." GOD's Decree. "They'll come and set up headquarters facing Jerusalem's gates, Facing all the city walls, facing all the villages of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I'll pronounce my judgment on the people of Judah for walking out on me--what a terrible thing to do!-- And courting other gods with their offerings, worshiping as gods sticks they'd carved, stones they'd painted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "But you--up on your feet and get dressed for work! Stand up and say your piece. Say exactly what I tell you to say. Don't pull your punches or I'll pull you out of the lineup.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Stand at attention while I prepare you for your work. I'm making you as impregnable as a castle, Immovable as a steel post, solid as a concrete block wall. You're a one-man defense system against this culture, Against Judah's kings and princes, against the priests and local leaders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They'll fight you, but they won't even scratch you. I'll back you up every inch of the way." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message came to me. It went like this:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Get out in the streets and call to Jerusalem, 'GOD's Message! I remember your youthful loyalty, our love as newlyweds. You stayed with me through the wilderness years, stuck with me through all the hard places.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Israel was GOD's holy choice, the pick of the crop. Anyone who laid a hand on her would soon wish he hadn't!'" GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Hear GOD's Message, House of Jacob! Yes, you--House of Israel!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD's Message: "What did your ancestors find fault with in me that they drifted so far from me, Took up with Sir Windbag and turned into windbags themselves?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> It never occurred to them to say, 'Where's GOD, the God who got us out of Egypt, Who took care of us through thick and thin, those rough-and-tumble wilderness years of parched deserts and death valleys, A land that no one who enters comes out of, a cruel, inhospitable land?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "I brought you to a garden land where you could eat lush fruit. But you barged in and polluted my land, trashed and defiled my dear land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The priests never thought to ask, 'Where's GOD?' The religion experts knew nothing of me. The rulers defied me. The prophets preached god Baal And chased empty god-dreams and silly god-schemes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Because of all this, I'm bringing charges against you" --GOD's Decree-- "charging you and your children and your grandchildren.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Look around. Have you ever seen anything quite like this? Sail to the western islands and look. Travel to the Kedar wilderness and look. Look closely. Has this ever happened before,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> That a nation has traded in its gods for gods that aren't even close to gods? But my people have traded my Glory for empty god-dreams and silly god-schemes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Stand in shock, heavens, at what you see! Throw up your hands in disbelief--this can't be!" GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "My people have committed a compound sin: they've walked out on me, the fountain Of fresh flowing waters, and then dug cisterns-- cisterns that leak, cisterns that are no better than sieves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Isn't Israel a valued servant, born into a family with place and position? So how did she end up a piece of meat</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> fought over by snarling and roaring lions? There's nothing left of her but a few old bones, her towns trashed and deserted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Egyptians from the cities of Memphis and Tahpanhes have broken your skulls.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And why do you think all this has happened? Isn't it because you walked out on your God just as he was beginning to lead you in the right way?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "And now, what do you think you'll get by going off to Egypt? Maybe a cool drink of Nile River water? Or what do you think you'll get by going off to Assyria? Maybe a long drink of Euphrates River water?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Your evil ways will get you a sound thrashing, that's what you'll get. You'll pay dearly for your disloyal ways. Take a long, hard look at what you've done and its bitter results. Was it worth it to have walked out on your God?" GOD's Decree, Master GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "A long time ago you broke out of the harness. You shook off all restraints. You said, 'I will not serve!' and off you went, Visiting every sex-and-religion shrine on the way, like a common whore.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> You were a select vine when I planted you from completely reliable stock. And look how you've turned out-- a tangle of rancid growth, a poor excuse for a vine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Scrub, using the strongest soaps. Scour your skin raw. The sin-grease won't come out. I can't stand to even look at you!" GOD's Decree, the Master's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "How dare you tell me, 'I'm not stained by sin. I've never chased after the Baal sex gods'! Well, look at the tracks you've left behind in the valley. How do you account for what is written in the desert dust-- Tracks of a camel in heat, running this way and that,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> tracks of a wild donkey in rut, Sniffing the wind for the slightest scent of sex. Who could possibly corral her! On the hunt for sex, sex, and more sex-- insatiable, indiscriminate, promiscuous.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "Slow down. Take a deep breath. What's the hurry? Why wear yourself out? Just what are you after anyway? But you say, 'I can't help it. I'm addicted to alien gods. I can't quit.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "Just as a thief is chagrined, but only when caught, so the people of Israel are chagrined, Caught along with their kings and princes, their priests and prophets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> They walk up to a tree and say, 'My father!' They pick up a stone and say, 'My mother! You bore me!' All I ever see of them is their backsides. They never look me in the face. But when things go badly, they don't hesitate to come running, calling out, 'Get a move on! Save us!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Why not go to your handcrafted gods you're so fond of? Rouse them. Let them save you from your bad times. You've got more gods, Judah, than you know what to do with.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "What do you have against me, running off to assert your 'independence'?" GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "I've wasted my time trying to train your children. They've paid no attention to me, ignored my discipline. And you've gotten rid of your God-messengers, treating them like dirt and sweeping them away.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "What a generation you turned out to be! Didn't I tell you? Didn't I warn you? Have I let you down, Israel? Am I nothing but a dead-end street? Why do my people say, 'Good riddance! From now on we're on our own'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Young women don't forget their jewelry, do they? Brides don't show up without their veils, do they? But my people forget me. Day after day after day they never give me a thought.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "What an impressive start you made to get the most out of life. You founded schools of sin, taught graduate courses in evil!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> And now you're sending out graduates, resplendent in cap and gown-- except the gowns are stained with the blood of your victims! All that blood convicts you. You cut and hurt a lot of people to get where you are.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> And yet you have the gall to say, 'I've done nothing wrong. God doesn't mind. He hasn't punished me, has he?' Don't look now, but judgment's on the way, aimed at you who say, 'I've done nothing wrong.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> "You think it's just a small thing, don't you, to try out another sin-project when the first one fails? But Egypt will leave you in the lurch the same way that Assyria did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> You're going to walk away from there wringing your hands. I, GOD, have blacklisted those you trusted. You'll get not a lick of help from them."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message came to me as follows: "If a man's wife walks out on him And marries another man, can he take her back as if nothing had happened? Wouldn't that raise a huge stink in the land? And isn't that what you've done-- 'whored' your way with god after god? And now you want to come back as if nothing had happened." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Look around at the hills. Where have you not had sex? You've camped out like hunters stalking deer. You've solicited many lover-gods, Like a streetwalking whore chasing after other gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And so the rain has stopped. No more rain from the skies! But it doesn't even faze you. Brazen as whores, you carry on as if you've done nothing wrong.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then you have the nerve to call out, 'My father! You took care of me when I was a child. Why not now?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Are you going to keep up your anger nonstop?' That's your line. Meanwhile you keep sinning nonstop."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD spoke to me during the reign of King Josiah: "You have noticed, haven't you, how fickle Israel has visited every hill and grove of trees as a whore at large?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I assumed that after she had gotten it out of her system, she'd come back, but she didn't. Her flighty sister, Judah, saw what she did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> She also saw that because of fickle Israel's loose morals I threw her out, gave her her walking papers. But that didn't faze flighty sister Judah. She went out, big as you please, and took up a whore's life also.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> She took up cheap sex-and-religion as a sideline diversion, an indulgent recreation, and used anything and anyone, flouting sanity and sanctity alike, stinking up the country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And not once in all this did flighty sister Judah even give me a nod, although she made a show of it from time to time." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then GOD told me, "Fickle Israel was a good sight better than flighty Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Go and preach this message. Face north toward Israel and say: "'Turn back, fickle Israel. I'm not just hanging back to punish you. I'm committed in love to you. My anger doesn't seethe nonstop.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Just admit your guilt. Admit your God-defiance. Admit to your promiscuous life with casual partners, pulling strangers into the sex-and-religion groves While turning a deaf ear to me.'" GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Come back, wandering children!" GOD's Decree. "I, yes I, am your true husband. I'll pick you out one by one-- This one from the city, these two from the country-- and bring you to Zion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I'll give you good shepherd-rulers who rule my way, who rule you with intelligence and wisdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "And this is what will happen: You will increase and prosper in the land. The time will come"--GOD's Decree!--"when no one will say any longer, 'Oh, for the good old days! Remember the Ark of the Covenant?' It won't even occur to anyone to say it--'the good old days.' The so-called good old days of the Ark are gone for good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Jerusalem will be the new Ark--'GOD's Throne.' All the godless nations, no longer stuck in the ruts of their evil ways, will gather there to honor GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "At that time, the House of Judah will join up with the House of Israel. Holding hands, they'll leave the north country and come to the land I willed to your ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "I planned what I'd say if you returned to me: 'Good! I'll bring you back into the family. I'll give you choice land, land that the godless nations would die for.' And I imagined that you would say, 'Dear father!' and would never again go off and leave me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But no luck. Like a false-hearted woman walking out on her husband, you, the whole family of Israel, have proven false to me." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The sound of voices comes drifting out of the hills, the unhappy sound of Israel's crying, Israel lamenting the wasted years, never once giving her God a thought.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Come back, wandering children! I can heal your wanderlust!" "We're here! We've come back to you. You're our own true GOD!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> All that popular religion was a cheap lie, duped crowds buying up the latest in gods. We're back! Back to our true GOD, the salvation of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The Fraud picked us clean, swindled us of what our ancestors bequeathed us, Gypped us out of our inheritance-- God-blessed flocks and God-given children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> We made our bed and now lie in it, all tangled up in the dirty sheets of dishonor. All because we sinned against our GOD, we and our fathers and mothers. From the time we took our first steps, said our first words, we've been rebels, disobeying the voice of our GOD."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "If you want to come back, O Israel, you must really come back to me. You must get rid of your stinking sin paraphernalia and not wander away from me anymore.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Then you can say words like, 'As GOD lives . . . ' and have them mean something true and just and right. And the godless nations will get caught up in the blessing and find something in Israel to write home about."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Here's another Message from GOD to the people of Judah and Jerusalem: "Plow your unplowed fields, but then don't plant weeds in the soil!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Yes, circumcise your lives for God's sake. Plow your unplowed hearts, all you people of Judah and Jerusalem. Prevent fire--the fire of my anger-- for once it starts it can't be put out. Your wicked ways are fuel for the fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Sound the alarm in Judah, broadcast the news in Jerusalem. Say, 'Blow the ram's horn trumpet through the land!' Shout out--a bullhorn bellow!-- 'Close ranks! Run for your lives to the shelters!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Send up a flare warning Zion: 'Not a minute to lose! Don't sit on your hands!' Disaster's descending from the north. I set it off! When it lands, it will shake the foundations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Invaders have pounced like a lion from its cover, ready to rip nations to shreds, Leaving your land in wrack and ruin, your cities in rubble, abandoned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Dress in funereal black. Weep and wail, For GOD's sledgehammer anger has slammed into us head-on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "When this happens" --GOD's Decree-- "King and princes will lose heart; priests will be baffled and prophets stand dumbfounded."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then I said, "Alas, Master GOD! You've fed lies to this people, this Jerusalem. You assured them, 'All is well, don't worry,' at the very moment when the sword was at their throats."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> At that time, this people, yes, this very Jerusalem, will be told in plain words: "The northern hordes are sweeping in from the desert steppes-- A wind that's up to no good,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> a gale-force wind. I ordered this wind. I'm pronouncing my hurricane judgment on my people."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Look at them! Like banks of storm clouds, racing, tumbling, their chariots a tornado, Their horses faster than eagles! Woe to us! We're done for!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Jerusalem! Scrub the evil from your lives so you'll be fit for salvation. How much longer will you harbor devious and malignant designs within you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> What's this? A messenger from Dan? Bad news from Ephraim's hills!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Make the report public. Broadcast the news to Jerusalem: "Invaders from far off are raising war cries against Judah's towns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> They're all over her, like a dog on a bone. And why? Because she rebelled against me." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "It's the way you've lived that's brought all this on you. The bitter taste is from your evil life. That's what's piercing your heart."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I'm doubled up with cramps in my belly-- a poker burns in my gut. My insides are tearing me up, never a moment's peace. The ram's horn trumpet blast rings in my ears, the signal for all-out war.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Disaster hard on the heels of disaster, the whole country in ruins! In one stroke my home is destroyed, the walls flattened in the blink of an eye.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> How long do I have to look at the warning flares, listen to the siren of danger?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "What fools my people are! They have no idea who I am. A company of half-wits, dopes and donkeys all! Experts at evil but klutzes at good."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> I looked at the earth-- it was back to pre-Genesis chaos and emptiness. I looked at the skies, and not a star to be seen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> I looked at the mountains-- they were trembling like aspen leaves, And all the hills rocking back and forth in the wind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> I looked--what's this! Not a man or woman in sight, and not a bird to be seen in the skies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> I looked--this can't be! Every garden and orchard shriveled up. All the towns were ghost towns. And all this because of GOD, because of the blazing anger of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Yes, this is GOD's Word on the matter: "The whole country will be laid waste-- still it won't be the end of the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The earth will mourn and the skies lament Because I've given my word and won't take it back. I've decided and won't change my mind."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Someone shouts, "Horsemen and archers!" and everybody runs for cover. They hide in ditches, they climb into caves. The cities are emptied, not a person left anywhere.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> And you, what do you think you're up to? Dressing up in party clothes, Decking yourselves out in jewelry, putting on lipstick and rouge and mascara! Your primping goes for nothing. You're not going to seduce anyone. They're out to kill you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> And what's that I hear? The cry of a woman in labor, the screams of a mother giving birth to her firstborn. It's the cry of Daughter Zion, gasping for breath, reaching out for help: "Help, oh help me! I'm dying! The killers are on me!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Patrol Jerusalem's streets. Look around. Take note. Search the market squares. See if you can find one man, one woman, A single soul who does what is right and tries to live a true life. I want to forgive that person." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "But if all they do is say, 'As sure as GOD lives . . . ' they're nothing but a bunch of liars."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But you, GOD, you have an eye for truth, don't you? You hit them hard, but it didn't faze them. You disciplined them, but they refused correction. Hardheaded, harder than rock, they wouldn't change.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then I said to myself, "Well, these are just poor people. They don't know any better. They were never taught anything about GOD. They never went to prayer meetings. I'll find some people from the best families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I'll talk to them. They'll know what's going on, the way GOD works. They'll know the score." But they were no better! Rebels all! Off doing their own thing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The invaders are ready to pounce and kill, like a mountain lion, a wilderness wolf, Panthers on the prowl. The streets aren't safe anymore. And why? Because the people's sins are piled sky-high; their betrayals are past counting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Why should I even bother with you any longer? Your children wander off, leaving me, Taking up with gods that aren't even gods. I satisfied their deepest needs, and then they went off with the 'sacred' whores, left me for orgies in sex shrines!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> A bunch of well-groomed, lusty stallions, each one pawing and snorting for his neighbor's wife.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Do you think I'm going to stand around and do nothing?" GOD's Decree. "Don't you think I'll take serious measures against a people like this?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Go down the rows of vineyards and rip out the vines, but not all of them. Leave a few. Prune back those vines! That growth didn't come from GOD!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They've betrayed me over and over again, Judah and Israel both." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "They've spread lies about GOD. They've said, 'There's nothing to him. Nothing bad will happen to us, neither famine nor war will come our way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The prophets are all windbags. They speak nothing but nonsense.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Therefore, this is what GOD said to me, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies: "Because they have talked this way, they are going to eat those words. Watch now! I'm putting my words as fire in your mouth. And the people are a pile of kindling ready to go up in flames.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Attention! I'm bringing a far-off nation against you, O house of Israel." GOD's Decree. "A solid nation, an ancient nation, A nation that speaks another language. You won't understand a word they say.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When they aim their arrows, you're as good as dead. They're a nation of real fighters!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> They'll clean you out of house and home, rob you of crops and children alike. They'll feast on your sheep and cattle, strip your vines and fig trees. And the fortresses that made you feel so safe-- leveled with a stroke of the sword!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Even then, as bad as it will be"--GOD's Decree!--"it will not be the end of the world for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And when people ask, 'Why did our GOD do all this to us?' you must say to them, 'It's tit for tat. Just as you left me and served foreign gods in your own country, so now you must serve foreigners in their own country.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "Tell the house of Jacob this, put out this bulletin in Judah:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Listen to this, you scatterbrains, airheads, With eyes that see but don't really look, and ears that hear but don't really listen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Why don't you honor me? Why aren't you in awe before me? Yes, me, who made the shorelines to contain the ocean waters. I drew a line in the sand that cannot be crossed. Waves roll in but cannot get through; breakers crash but that's the end of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But this people--what a people! Uncontrollable, untameable runaways.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> It never occurs to them to say, 'How can we honor our GOD with our lives, The God who gives rain in both spring and autumn and maintains the rhythm of the seasons, Who sets aside time each year for harvest and keeps everything running smoothly for us?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Of course you don't! Your bad behavior blinds you to all this. Your sins keep my blessings at a distance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "My people are infiltrated by wicked men, unscrupulous men on the hunt. They set traps for the unsuspecting. Their victims are innocent men and women.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Their houses are stuffed with ill-gotten gain, like a hunter's bag full of birds. Pretentious and powerful and rich,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> hugely obese, oily with rolls of fat. Worse, they have no conscience. Right and wrong mean nothing to them. They stand for nothing, stand up for no one, throw orphans to the wolves, exploit the poor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Do you think I'll stand by and do nothing about this?" GOD's Decree. "Don't you think I'll take serious measures against a people like this?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "Unspeakable! Sickening! What's happened in this country?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Prophets preach lies and priests hire on as their assistants. And my people love it. They eat it up! But what will you do when it's time to pick up the pieces?</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Run for your lives, children of Benjamin! Get out of Jerusalem, and now! Give a blast on the ram's horn in Blastville. Send up smoke signals from Smoketown. Doom pours out of the north-- massive terror!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I have likened my dear daughter Zion to a lovely meadow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Well, now 'shepherds' from the north have discovered her and brought in their flocks of soldiers. They've pitched camp all around her, and plan where they'll 'graze.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> And then, 'Prepare to attack! The fight is on! To arms! We'll strike at noon! Oh, it's too late? Day is dying? Evening shadows are upon us?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Well, up anyway! We'll attack by night and tear apart her defenses stone by stone.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies gave the orders: "Chop down her trees. Build a siege ramp against Jerusalem, A city full of brutality, bursting with violence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Just as a well holds a good supply of water, she supplies wickedness nonstop. The streets echo the cries: 'Violence! Rape!' Victims, bleeding and moaning, lie all over the place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You're in deep trouble, Jerusalem. You've pushed me to the limit. You're on the brink of being wiped out, being turned into a ghost town."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> More orders from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies: "Time's up! Harvest the grapes for judgment. Salvage what's left of Israel. Go back over the vines. Pick them clean, every last grape.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "I've got something to say. Is anybody listening? I've a warning to post. Will anyone notice? It's hopeless! Their ears are stuffed with wax-- deaf as a post, blind as a bat. It's hopeless! They've tuned out GOD. They don't want to hear from me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But I'm bursting with the wrath of GOD. I can't hold it in much longer. "So dump it on the children in the streets. Let it loose on the gangs of youth. For no one's exempt: Husbands and wives will be taken, the old and those ready to die;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Their homes will be given away-- all they own, even their loved ones-- When I give the signal against all who live in this country." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Everyone's after the dishonest dollar, little people and big people alike. Prophets and priests and everyone in between twist words and doctor truth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> My people are broken--shattered!-- and they put on band-aids, Saying, 'It's not so bad. You'll be just fine.' But things are not 'just fine'!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Do you suppose they are embarrassed over this outrage? No, they have no shame. They don't even know how to blush. There's no hope for them. They've hit bottom and there's no getting up. As far as I'm concerned, they're finished." GOD has spoken.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> GOD's Message yet again: "Go stand at the crossroads and look around. Ask for directions to the old road, The tried and true road. Then take it. Discover the right route for your souls. But they said, 'Nothing doing. We aren't going that way.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I even provided watchmen for them to warn them, to set off the alarm. But the people said, 'It's a false alarm. It doesn't concern us.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And so I'm calling in the nations as witnesses: 'Watch, witnesses, what happens to them!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And, 'Pay attention, earth! Don't miss these bulletins.' I'm visiting catastrophe on this people, the end result of the games they've been playing with me. They've ignored everything I've said, had nothing but contempt for my teaching.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> What would I want with incense brought in from Sheba, rare spices from exotic places? Your burnt sacrifices in worship give me no pleasure. Your religious rituals mean nothing to me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> So listen to this. Here's GOD's verdict on your way of life: "Watch out! I'm putting roadblocks and barriers on the road you're taking. They'll send you sprawling, parents and children, neighbors and friends-- and that will be the end of the lot of you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> And listen to this verdict from GOD: "Look out! An invasion from the north, a mighty power on the move from a faraway place:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Armed to the teeth, vicious and pitiless, Booming like sea storm and thunder--tramp, tramp, tramp-- riding hard on war horses, In battle formation against you, dear Daughter Zion!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> We've heard the news, and we're as limp as wet dishrags. We're paralyzed with fear. Terror has a death grip on our throats.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Don't dare go outdoors! Don't leave the house! Death is on the prowl. Danger everywhere!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "Dear Daughter Zion: Dress in black. Blacken your face with ashes. Weep most bitterly, as for an only child. The countdown has begun . . . six, five, four, three . . . The Terror is on us!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> GOD gave me this task: "I have made you the examiner of my people, to examine and weigh their lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> They're a thickheaded, hard-nosed bunch, rotten to the core, the lot of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Refining fires are cranked up to white heat, but the ore stays a lump, unchanged. It's useless to keep trying any longer. Nothing can refine evil out of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Men will give up and call them 'slag,' thrown on the slag heap by me, their GOD."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Message from GOD to Jeremiah:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Stand in the gate of GOD's Temple and preach this Message. "Say, 'Listen, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, Israel's God, has this to say to you: "'Clean up your act--the way you live, the things you do--so I can make my home with you in this place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Don't for a minute believe the lies being spoken here--"This is GOD's Temple, GOD's Temple, GOD's Temple!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Total nonsense! Only if you clean up your act (the way you live, the things you do), only if you do a total spring cleaning on the way you live and treat your neighbors,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> only if you quit exploiting the street people and orphans and widows, no longer taking advantage of innocent people on this very site and no longer destroying your souls by using this Temple as a front for other gods--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> only then will I move into your neighborhood. Only then will this country I gave your ancestors be my permanent home, my Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "'Get smart! Your leaders are handing you a pack of lies, and you're swallowing them!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Use your heads! Do you think you can rob and murder, have sex with the neighborhood wives, tell lies nonstop, worship the local gods, and buy every novel religious commodity on the market--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> and then march into this Temple, set apart for my worship, and say, "We're safe!" thinking that the place itself gives you a license to go on with all this outrageous sacrilege?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> A cave full of criminals! Do you think you can turn this Temple, set apart for my worship, into something like that? Well, think again. I've got eyes in my head. I can see what's going on.'" GOD's Decree!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "'Take a trip down to the place that was once in Shiloh, where I met my people in the early days. Take a look at those ruins, what I did to it because of the evil ways of my people Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "'So now, because of the way you have lived and failed to listen, even though time and again I took you aside and talked seriously with you, and because you refused to change when I called you to repent,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'm going to do to this Temple, set aside for my worship, this place you think is going to keep you safe no matter what, this place I gave as a gift to your ancestors and you, the same as I did to Shiloh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And as for you, I'm going to get rid of you, the same as I got rid of those old relatives of yours around Shiloh, your fellow Israelites in that former kingdom to the north.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "And you, Jeremiah, don't waste your time praying for this people. Don't offer to make petitions or intercessions. Don't bother me with them. I'm not listening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Can't you see what they're doing in all the villages of Judah and in the Jerusalem streets?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Why, they've got the children gathering wood while the fathers build fires and the mothers make bread to be offered to 'the Queen of Heaven'! And as if that weren't bad enough, they go around pouring out libations to any other gods they come across, just to hurt me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "But is it me they're hurting?" GOD's Decree! "Aren't they just hurting themselves? Exposing themselves shamefully? Making themselves ridiculous?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "Here's what the Master GOD has to say: 'My white-hot anger is about to descend on this country and everything in it--people and animals, trees in the field and vegetables in the garden--a raging wildfire that no one can put out.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "The Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, Israel's God: 'Go ahead! Put your burnt offerings with all your other sacrificial offerings and make a good meal for yourselves. I sure don't want them!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> When I delivered your ancestors out of Egypt, I never said anything to them about wanting burnt offerings and sacrifices as such.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But I did say this, commanded this: "Obey me. Do what I say and I will be your God and you will be my people. Live the way I tell you. Do what I command so that your lives will go well."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "'But do you think they listened? Not a word of it. They did just what they wanted to do, indulged any and every evil whim and got worse day by day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> From the time your ancestors left the land of Egypt until now, I've supplied a steady stream of my servants the prophets,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> but do you think the people listened? Not once. Stubborn as mules and worse than their ancestors!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "Tell them all this, but don't expect them to listen. Call out to them, but don't expect an answer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Tell them, 'You are the nation that wouldn't obey GOD, that refused all discipline. Truth has disappeared. There's not a trace of it left in your mouths.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "'So shave your heads. Go bald to the hills and lament, For GOD has rejected and left this generation that has made him so angry.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "The people of Judah have lived evil lives while I've stood by and watched." GOD's Decree. "In deliberate insult to me, they've set up their obscene god-images in the very Temple that was built to honor me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> They've constructed Topheth altars for burning babies in prominent places all through the valley of Ben-hinnom, altars for burning their sons and daughters alive in the fire--a shocking perversion of all that I am and all I command.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "But soon, very soon"--GOD's Decree!--"the names Topheth and Ben-hinnom will no longer be used. They'll call the place what it is: Murder Meadow. Corpses will be stacked up in Topheth because there's no room left to bury them!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Corpses abandoned in the open air, fed on by crows and coyotes, who have the run of the place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> And I'll empty both smiles and laughter from the villages of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem. No wedding songs, no holiday sounds. Dead silence.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "And when the time comes"--God's Decree!--"I'll see to it that they dig up the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of the princes and priests and prophets, and yes, even the bones of the common people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They'll dig them up and spread them out like a congregation at worship before sun, moon, and stars, all those sky gods they've been so infatuated with all these years, following their 'lucky stars' in doglike devotion. The bones will be left scattered and exposed, to reenter the soil as fertilizer, like manure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Everyone left--all from this evil generation unlucky enough to still be alive in whatever godforsaken place I will have driven them to--will wish they were dead." Decree of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Tell them this, GOD's Message: "'Do people fall down and not get up? Or take the wrong road and then just keep going?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> So why does this people go backwards, and just keep on going--backwards! They stubbornly hold on to their illusions, refuse to change direction.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I listened carefully but heard not so much as a whisper. No one expressed one word of regret. Not a single "I'm sorry" did I hear. They just kept at it, blindly and stupidly banging their heads against a brick wall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Cranes know when it's time to move south for winter. And robins, warblers, and bluebirds know when it's time to come back again. But my people? My people know nothing, not the first thing of GOD and his rule.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "'How can you say, "We know the score. We're the proud owners of GOD's revelation"? Look where it's gotten you--stuck in illusion. Your religion experts have taken you for a ride!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Your know-it-alls will be unmasked, caught and shown up for what they are. Look at them! They know everything but GOD's Word. Do you call that "knowing"?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "'So here's what will happen to the know-it-alls: I'll make them wifeless and homeless. Everyone's after the dishonest dollar, little people and big people alike. Prophets and priests and everyone in-between twist words and doctor truth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> My dear Daughter--my people--broken, shattered, and yet they put on band-aids, Saying, "It's not so bad. You'll be just fine." But things are not "just fine"!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Do you suppose they are embarrassed over this outrage? Not really. They have no shame. They don't even know how to blush. There's no hope for them. They've hit bottom and there's no getting up. As far as I'm concerned, they're finished.'" GOD has spoken.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "'I went out to see if I could salvage anything'" --GOD's Decree-- "'but found nothing: Not a grape, not a fig, just a few withered leaves. I'm taking back everything I gave them.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> So why are we sitting here, doing nothing? Let's get organized. Let's go to the big city and at least die fighting. We've gotten GOD's ultimatum: We're damned if we do and damned if we don't-- damned because of our sin against him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> We hoped things would turn out for the best, but it didn't happen that way. We were waiting around for healing-- and terror showed up!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> From Dan at the northern borders we hear the hooves of horses, Horses galloping, horses neighing. The ground shudders and quakes. They're going to swallow up the whole country. Towns and people alike--fodder for war.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "'What's more, I'm dispatching poisonous snakes among you, Snakes that can't be charmed, snakes that will bite you and kill you.'" GOD's Decree!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I drown in grief. I'm heartsick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Oh, listen! Please listen! It's the cry of my dear people reverberating through the country. Is GOD no longer in Zion? Has the King gone away? Can you tell me why they flaunt their plaything-gods, their silly, imported no-gods before me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The crops are in, the summer is over, but for us nothing's changed. We're still waiting to be rescued.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> For my dear broken people, I'm heartbroken. I weep, seized by grief.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Are there no healing ointments in Gilead? Isn't there a doctor in the house? So why can't something be done to heal and save my dear, dear people?</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I wish my head were a well of water and my eyes fountains of tears So I could weep day and night for casualties among my dear, dear people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> At times I wish I had a wilderness hut, a backwoods cabin, Where I could get away from my people and never see them again. They're a faithless, feckless bunch, a congregation of degenerates.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Their tongues shoot out lies like a bow shoots arrows-- A mighty army of liars, the sworn enemies of truth. They advance from one evil to the next, ignorant of me." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Be wary of even longtime neighbors. Don't even trust your grandmother! Brother schemes against brother, like old cheating Jacob. Friend against friend spreads malicious gossip.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Neighbors gyp neighbors, never telling the truth. They've trained their tongues to tell lies, and now they can't tell the truth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They pile wrong upon wrong, stack lie upon lie, and refuse to know me." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Therefore, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies says: "Watch this! I'll melt them down and see what they're made of. What else can I do with a people this wicked?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Their tongues are poison arrows! Deadly lies stream from their mouths. Neighbor greets neighbor with a smile, 'Good morning! How're things?' while scheming to do away with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Do you think I'm going to stand around and do nothing?" GOD's Decree. "Don't you think I'll take serious measures against a people like this?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "I'm lamenting the loss of the mountain pastures. I'm chanting dirges for the old grazing grounds. They've become deserted wastelands too dangerous for travelers. No sounds of sheep bleating or cattle mooing. Birds and wild animals, all gone. Nothing stirring, no sounds of life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I'm going to make Jerusalem a pile of rubble, fit for nothing but stray cats and dogs. I'm going to reduce Judah's towns to piles of ruins where no one lives!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I asked, "Is there anyone around bright enough to tell us what's going on here? Anyone who has the inside story from GOD and can let us in on it? "Why is the country wasted? "Why no travelers in this desert?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> GOD's answer: "Because they abandoned my plain teaching. They wouldn't listen to anything I said, refused to live the way I told them to.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Instead they lived any way they wanted and took up with the Baal gods, who they thought would give them what they wanted--following the example of their parents."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And this is the consequence. GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies says so: "I'll feed them with pig slop. "I'll give them poison to drink.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Then I'll scatter them far and wide among godless peoples that neither they nor their parents have ever heard of, and I'll send Death in pursuit until there's nothing left of them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> A Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies: "Look over the trouble we're in and call for help. Send for some singers who can help us mourn our loss.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Tell them to hurry-- to help us express our loss and lament, Help us get our tears flowing, make tearful music of our crying.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Listen to it! Listen to that torrent of tears out of Zion: 'We're a ruined people, we're a shamed people! We've been driven from our homes and must leave our land!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Mourning women! Oh, listen to GOD's Message! Open your ears. Take in what he says. Teach your daughters songs for the dead and your friends the songs of heartbreak.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Death has climbed in through the window, broken into our bedrooms. Children on the playgrounds drop dead, and young men and women collapse at their games.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Speak up! "GOD's Message: "'Dead bodies everywhere, scattered at random like sheep and goat dung in the fields, Like wheat cut down by reapers and left to rot where it falls.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> GOD's Message: "Don't let the wise brag of their wisdom. Don't let heroes brag of their exploits. Don't let the rich brag of their riches.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> If you brag, brag of this and this only: That you understand and know me. I'm GOD, and I act in loyal love. I do what's right and set things right and fair, and delight in those who do the same things. These are my trademarks." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "Stay alert! It won't be long now"--GOD's Decree!--"when I will personally deal with everyone whose life is all outside but no inside:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab. All these nations are big on performance religion--including Israel, who is no better."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Listen to the Message that GOD is sending your way, House of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Listen most carefully: "Don't take the godless nations as your models. Don't be impressed by their glamour and glitz, no matter how much they're impressed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The religion of these peoples is nothing but smoke. An idol is nothing but a tree chopped down, then shaped by a woodsman's ax.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They trim it with tinsel and balls, use hammer and nails to keep it upright.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> It's like a scarecrow in a cabbage patch--can't talk! Dead wood that has to be carried--can't walk! Don't be impressed by such stuff. It's useless for either good or evil."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> All this is nothing compared to you, O GOD. You're wondrously great, famously great.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Who can fail to be impressed by you, King of the nations? It's your very nature to be worshiped! Look far and wide among the elite of the nations. The best they can come up with is nothing compared to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Stupidly, they line them up--a lineup of sticks, good for nothing but making smoke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Gilded with silver foil from Tarshish, covered with gold from Uphaz, Hung with violet and purple fabrics-- no matter how fancy the sticks, they're still sticks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But GOD is the real thing-- the living God, the eternal King. When he's angry, Earth shakes. Yes, and the godless nations quake.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Tell them this: 'The stick gods who made nothing, neither sky nor earth, Will come to nothing on the earth and under the sky.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But it is God whose power made the earth, whose wisdom gave shape to the world, who crafted the cosmos.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He thunders, and rain pours down. He sends the clouds soaring. He embellishes the storm with lightnings, launches wind from his warehouse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Stick-god worshipers looking mighty foolish, god-makers embarrassed by their handmade gods! Their gods are frauds--dead sticks,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> deadwood gods, tasteless jokes. When the fires of judgment come, they'll be ashes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But the Portion-of-Jacob is the real thing. He put the whole universe together And pays special attention to Israel. His name? GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Grab your bags, all you who are under attack.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> GOD has given notice: "Attention! I'm evicting Everyone who lives here, And right now--yes, right now! I'm going to press them to the limit, squeeze the life right out of them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But it's a black day for me! Hopelessly wounded, I said, "Why, oh why did I think I could bear it?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> My house is ruined-- the roof caved in. Our children are gone-- we'll never see them again. No one left to help in rebuilding, no one to make a new start!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> It's because our leaders are stupid. They never asked GOD for counsel, And so nothing worked right. The people are scattered all over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But listen! Something's coming! A big commotion from the northern borders! Judah's towns about to be smashed, left to all the stray dogs and cats!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> I know, GOD, that mere mortals can't run their own lives, That men and women don't have what it takes to take charge of life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> So correct us, GOD, as you see best. Don't lose your temper. That would be the end of us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Vent your anger on the godless nations, who refuse to acknowledge you, And on the people who won't pray to you-- The very ones who've made hash out of Jacob, yes, made hash And devoured him whole, people and pastures alike.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Message that came to Jeremiah from GOD:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Preach to the people of Judah and citizens of Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Tell them this: 'This is GOD's Message, the Message of Israel's God to you. Anyone who does not keep the terms of this covenant is cursed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The terms are clear. I made them plain to your ancestors when I delivered them from Egypt, out of the iron furnace of suffering. "'Obey what I tell you. Do exactly what I command you. Your obedience will close the deal. You'll be mine and I'll be yours.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> This will provide the conditions in which I will be able to do what I promised your ancestors: to give them a fertile and lush land. And, as you know, that's what I did.'" "Yes, GOD," I replied. "That's true."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD continued: "Preach all this in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem. Say, 'Listen to the terms of this covenant and carry them out!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I warned your ancestors when I delivered them from Egypt and I've kept up the warnings. I haven't quit warning them for a moment. I warned them from morning to night: "Obey me or else!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But they didn't obey. They paid no attention to me. They did whatever they wanted to do, whenever they wanted to do it, until finally I stepped in and ordered the punishments set out in the covenant, which, despite all my warnings, they had ignored.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then GOD said, "There's a conspiracy among the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They've plotted to reenact the sins of their ancestors--the ones who disobeyed me and decided to go after other gods and worship them. Israel and Judah are in this together, mindlessly breaking the covenant I made with their ancestors."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Well, your God has something to say about this: Watch out! I'm about to visit doom on you, and no one will get out of it. You're going to cry for help but I won't listen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then all the people in Judah and Jerusalem will start praying to the gods you've been sacrificing to all these years, but it won't do a bit of good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You've got as many gods as you have villages, Judah! And you've got enough altars for sacrifices to that impotent sex god Baal to put one on every street corner in Jerusalem!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "And as for you, Jeremiah, I don't want you praying for this people. Nothing! Not a word of petition. Indeed, I'm not going to listen to a single syllable of their crisis-prayers."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "What business do the ones I love have figuring out how to get off the hook? And right in the house of worship! Do you think making promises and devising pious programs will save you from doom? Do you think you can get out of this by becoming more religious?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> A mighty oak tree, majestic and glorious-- that's how I once described you. But it will only take a clap of thunder and a bolt of lightning to leave you a shattered wreck.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "I, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, who planted you--yes, I have pronounced doom on you. Why? Because of the disastrous life you've lived, Israel and Judah alike, goading me to anger with your continuous worship and offerings to that sorry god Baal."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> God told me what was going on. That's how I knew. You, GOD, opened my eyes to their evil scheming.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I had no idea what was going on--naive as a lamb being led to slaughter! I didn't know they had it in for me, didn't know of their behind-the-scenes plots: "Let's get rid of the preacher. That will stop the sermons! Let's get rid of him for good. He won't be remembered for long."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Then I said, "GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, you're a fair judge. You examine and cross-examine human actions and motives. I want to see these people shown up and put down! I'm an open book before you. Clear my name."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> That sent a signal to GOD, who spoke up: "Here's what I'll do to the men of Anathoth who are trying to murder you, the men who say, 'Don't preach to us in GOD's name or we'll kill you.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Yes, it's GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies speaking. Indeed! I'll call them to account: Their young people will die in battle, their children will die of starvation,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> and there will be no one left at all, none. I'm visiting the men of Anathoth with doom. Doomsday!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> You are right, O GOD, and you set things right. I can't argue with that. But I do have some questions: Why do bad people have it so good? Why do con artists make it big?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> You planted them and they put down roots. They flourished and produced fruit. They talk as if they're old friends with you, but they couldn't care less about you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Meanwhile, you know me inside and out. You don't let me get by with a thing! Make them pay for the way they live, pay with their lives, like sheep marked for slaughter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> How long do we have to put up with this-- the country depressed, the farms in ruin-- And all because of wickedness, these wicked lives? Even animals and birds are dying off Because they'll have nothing to do with God and think God has nothing to do with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "So, Jeremiah, if you're worn out in this footrace with men, what makes you think you can race against horses? And if you can't keep your wits during times of calm, what's going to happen when troubles break loose like the Jordan in flood?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Those closest to you, your own brothers and cousins, are working against you. They're out to get you. They'll stop at nothing. Don't trust them, especially when they're smiling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "I will abandon the House of Israel, walk away from my beloved people. I will turn over those I most love to those who are her enemies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> She's been, this one I held dear, like a snarling lion in the jungle, Growling and baring her teeth at me-- and I can't take it anymore.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Has this one I hold dear become a preening peacock? But isn't she under attack by vultures? Then invite all the hungry animals at large, invite them in for a free meal!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Foreign, scavenging shepherds will loot and trample my fields, Turn my beautiful, well-cared-for fields into vacant lots of tin cans and thistles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They leave them littered with junk-- a ruined land, a land in lament. The whole countryside is a wasteland, and no one will really care.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "The barbarians will invade, swarm over hills and plains. The judgment sword of GOD will take its toll from one end of the land to the other. Nothing living will be safe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They will plant wheat and reap weeds. Nothing they do will work out. They will look at their meager crops and wring their hands. All this the result of GOD's fierce anger!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD's Message: "Regarding all the bad neighbors who abused the land I gave to Israel as their inheritance: I'm going to pluck them out of their lands, and then pluck Judah out from among them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Once I've pulled the bad neighbors out, I will relent and take them tenderly to my heart and put them back where they belong, put each of them back in their home country, on their family farms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Then if they will get serious about living my way and pray to me as well as they taught my people to pray to that god Baal, everything will go well for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But if they won't listen, then I'll pull them out of their land by the roots and cart them off to the dump. Total destruction!" GOD's Decree.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD told me, "Go and buy yourself some linen shorts. Put them on and keep them on. Don't even take them off to wash them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> So I bought the shorts as GOD directed and put them on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then GOD told me,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Take the shorts that you bought and go straight to Perath and hide them there in a crack in the rock."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> So I did what GOD told me and hid them at Perath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Next, after quite a long time, GOD told me, "Go back to Perath and get the linen shorts I told you to hide there."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So I went back to Perath and dug them out of the place where I had hidden them. The shorts by then had rotted and were worthless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD explained,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "This is the way I am going to ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> a wicked bunch of people who won't obey me, who do only what they want to do, who chase after all kinds of no-gods and worship them. They're going to turn out as rotten as these old shorts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Just as shorts clothe and protect, so I kept the whole family of Israel under my care"--GOD's Decree--"so that everyone could see they were my people, a people I could show off to the world and be proud of. But they refused to do a thing I said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "And then tell them this: 'GOD's Message, personal from the God of Israel: Every wine jug should be full of wine.' "And they'll say, 'Of course. We know that. Every wine jug should be full of wine!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Then you'll say, 'This is what GOD says: Watch closely. I'm going to fill every person who lives in this country--the kings who rule from David's throne, the priests, the prophets, the citizens of Jerusalem--with wine that will make them drunk.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And then I'll smash them, smash the wine-filled jugs--old and young alike. Nothing will stop me. Not an ounce of pity or mercy or compassion will slow me down. Every last drunken jug of them will be smashed!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Then I said, Listen. Listen carefully: Don't stay stuck in your ways! It's GOD's Message we're dealing with here.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Let your lives glow bright before GOD before he turns out the lights, Before you trip and fall on the dark mountain paths. The light you always took for granted will go out and the world will turn black.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> If you people won't listen, I'll go off by myself and weep over you, Weep because of your stubborn arrogance, bitter, bitter tears, Rivers of tears from my eyes, because GOD's sheep will end up in exile.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Tell the king and the queen-mother, "Come down off your high horses. Your dazzling crowns will tumble off your heads."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The villages in the Negev will be surrounded, everyone trapped, And Judah dragged off to exile, the whole country dragged to oblivion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Look, look, Jerusalem! Look at the enemies coming out of the north! What will become of your flocks of people, the beautiful flocks in your care?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> How are you going to feel when the people you've played up to, looked up to all these years Now look down on you? You didn't expect this? Surprise! The pain of a woman having a baby!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Do I hear you saying, "What's going on here? Why me?" The answer's simple: You're guilty, hugely guilty. Your guilt has your life endangered, your guilt has you writhing in pain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Can an African change skin? Can a leopard get rid of its spots? So what are the odds on you doing good, you who are so long-practiced in evil?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "I'll blow these people away-- like wind-blown leaves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> You have it coming to you. I've measured it out precisely." GOD's Decree. "It's because you forgot me and embraced the Big Lie, that so-called god Baal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> I'm the one who will rip off your clothes, expose and shame you before the watching world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Your obsessions with gods, gods, and more gods, your goddess affairs, your god-adulteries. Gods on the hills, gods in the fields-- every time I look you're off with another god. O Jerusalem, what a sordid life! Is there any hope for you!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message that came to Jeremiah regarding the drought:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Judah weeps, her cities mourn. The people fall to the ground, moaning, while sounds of Jerusalem's sobs rise up, up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The rich people sent their servants for water. They went to the cisterns, but the cisterns were dry. They came back with empty buckets, wringing their hands, shaking their heads.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> All the farm work has stopped. Not a drop of rain has fallen. The farmers don't know what to do. They wring their hands, they shake their heads.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Even the doe abandons her fawn in the field because there is no grass--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Eyes glazed over, on her last legs, nothing but skin and bones."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> We know we're guilty. We've lived bad lives-- but do something, GOD. Do it for your sake! Time and time again we've betrayed you. No doubt about it--we've sinned against you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Hope of Israel! Our only hope! Israel's last chance in this trouble! Why are you acting like a tourist, taking in the sights, here today and gone tomorrow?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Why do you just stand there and stare, like someone who doesn't know what to do in a crisis? But GOD, you are, in fact, here, here with us! You know who we are--you named us! Don't leave us in the lurch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then GOD said of these people: "Since they loved to wander this way and that, never giving a thought to where they were going, I will now have nothing more to do with them-- except to note their guilt and punish their sins."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD said to me, "Don't pray that everything will turn out all right for this people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When they skip their meals in order to pray, I won't listen to a thing they say. When they redouble their prayers, bringing all kinds of offerings from their herds and crops, I'll not accept them. I'm finishing them off with war and famine and disease."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I said, "But Master, GOD! Their preachers have been telling them that everything is going to be all right--no war and no famine--that there's nothing to worry about."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Then GOD said, "These preachers are liars, and they use my name to cover their lies. I never sent them, I never commanded them, and I don't talk with them. The sermons they've been handing out are sheer illusion, tissues of lies, whistlings in the dark.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "So this is my verdict on them: All the preachers who preach using my name as their text, preachers I never sent in the first place, preachers who say, 'War and famine will never come here'--these preachers will die in war and by starvation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> And the people to whom they've been preaching will end up as corpses, victims of war and starvation, thrown out in the streets of Jerusalem unburied--no funerals for them or their wives or their children! I'll make sure they get the full brunt of all their evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "And you, Jeremiah, will say this to them: "'My eyes pour out tears. Day and night, the tears never quit. My dear, dear people are battered and bruised, hopelessly and cruelly wounded.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I walk out into the fields, shocked by the killing fields strewn with corpses. I walk into the city, shocked by the sight of starving bodies. And I watch the preachers and priests going about their business as if nothing's happened!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> God, have you said your final No to Judah? Can you simply not stand Zion any longer? If not, why have you treated us like this, beaten us nearly to death? We hoped for peace-- nothing good came from it; We looked for healing-- and got kicked in the stomach.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> We admit, O GOD, how bad we've lived, and our ancestors, how bad they were. We've sinned, they've sinned, we've all sinned against you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Your reputation is at stake! Don't quit on us! Don't walk out and abandon your glorious Temple! Remember your covenant. Don't break faith with us!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Can the no-gods of the godless nations cause rain? Can the sky water the earth by itself? You're the one, O GOD, who does this. So you're the one for whom we wait. You made it all, you do it all.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then GOD said to me: "Jeremiah, even if Moses and Samuel stood here and made their case, I wouldn't feel a thing for this people. Get them out of here. Tell them to get lost!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> And if they ask you, 'So where do we go?' tell them GOD says, "'If you're assigned to die, go and die; if assigned to war, go and get killed; If assigned to starve, go starve; if assigned to exile, off to exile you go!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "I've arranged for four kinds of punishment: death in battle, the corpses dropped off by killer dogs, the rest picked clean by vultures, the bones gnawed by hyenas.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They'll be a sight to see, a sight to shock the whole world--and all because of Manasseh son of Hezekiah and all he did in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Who do you think will feel sorry for you, Jerusalem? Who do you think will waste tears on you? Who will bother to take the time to ask, 'So, how are things going?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "You left me, remember?" GOD's Decree. "You turned your back and walked out. So I will grab you and hit you hard. I'm tired of letting you off the hook.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I threw you to the four winds and let the winds scatter you like leaves. I made sure you'll lose everything, since nothing makes you change.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I created more widows among you than grains of sand on the ocean beaches. At noon mothers will get the news of their sons killed in action. Sudden anguish for the mothers-- all those terrible deaths.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> A mother of seven falls to the ground, gasping for breath, Robbed of her children in their prime. Her sun sets at high noon! Then I'll round up any of you that are left alive and see that you're killed by your enemies." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Unlucky mother--that you had me as a son, given the unhappy job of indicting the whole country! I've never hurt or harmed a soul, and yet everyone is out to get me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But, GOD knows, I've done everything I could to help them, prayed for them and against their enemies. I've always been on their side, trying to stave off disaster. God knows how I've tried!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "O Israel, O Judah, what are your chances against the iron juggernaut from the north?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> In punishment for your sins, I'm giving away everything you've got, giving it away for nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'll make you slaves to your enemies in a strange and far-off land. My anger is blazing and fierce, burning in hot judgment against you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> You know where I am, GOD! Remember what I'm doing here! Take my side against my detractors. Don't stand back while they ruin me. Just look at the abuse I'm taking!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When your words showed up, I ate them-- swallowed them whole. What a feast! What delight I took in being yours, O GOD, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I never joined the party crowd in their laughter and their fun. Led by you, I went off by myself. You'd filled me with indignation. Their sin had me seething.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But why, why this chronic pain, this ever worsening wound and no healing in sight? You're nothing, GOD, but a mirage, a lovely oasis in the distance--and then nothing!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> This is how GOD answered me: "Take back those words, and I'll take you back. Then you'll stand tall before me. Use words truly and well. Don't stoop to cheap whining. Then, but only then, you'll speak for me. Let your words change them. Don't change your words to suit them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> I'll turn you into a steel wall, a thick steel wall, impregnable. They'll attack you but won't put a dent in you because I'm at your side, defending and delivering." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "I'll deliver you from the grip of the wicked. I'll get you out of the clutch of the ruthless."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Jeremiah, don't get married. Don't raise a family here.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I have signed the death warrant on all the children born in this country, the mothers who bear them and the fathers who beget them--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> an epidemic of death. Death unlamented, the dead unburied, dead bodies decomposing and stinking like dung, all the killed and starved corpses served up as meals for carrion crows and mongrel dogs!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD continued: "Don't enter a house where there's mourning. Don't go to the funeral. Don't sympathize. I've quit caring about what happens to this people." GOD's Decree. "No more loyal love on my part, no more compassion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The famous and obscure will die alike here, unlamented and unburied. No funerals will be conducted, no one will give them a second thought,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> no one will care, no one will say, 'I'm sorry,' no one will so much as offer a cup of tea, not even for the mother or father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "And if there happens to be a feast celebrated, don't go there either to enjoy the festivities."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel, says, "Watch this! I'm about to banish smiles and laughter from this place. No more brides and bridegrooms celebrating. And I'm doing it in your lifetime, before your very eyes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "When you tell this to the people and they ask, 'Why is GOD talking this way, threatening us with all these calamities? We're not criminals, after all. What have we done to our GOD to be treated like this?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> tell them this: 'It's because your ancestors left me, walked off and never looked back. They took up with the no-gods, worshiped and doted on them, and ignored me and wouldn't do a thing I told them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And you're even worse! Take a good look in the mirror--each of you doing whatever you want, whenever you want, refusing to pay attention to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And for this I'm getting rid of you, throwing you out in the cold, into a far and strange country. You can worship your precious no-gods there to your heart's content. Rest assured, I won't bother you anymore.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "On the other hand, don't miss this: The time is coming when no one will say any longer, 'As sure as GOD lives, the God who delivered Israel from Egypt.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> What they'll say is, 'As sure as GOD lives, the God who brought Israel back from the land of the north, brought them back from all the places where he'd scattered them.' That's right, I'm going to bring them back to the land I first gave to their ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Now, watch for what comes next: I'm going to assemble a bunch of fishermen." GOD's Decree! "They'll go fishing for my people and pull them in for judgment. Then I'll send out a party of hunters, and they'll hunt them out in all the mountains, hills, and caves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I'm watching their every move. I haven't lost track of a single one of them, neither them nor their sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "They won't get by with a thing. They'll pay double for everything they did wrong. They've made a complete mess of things, littering their lives with their obscene no-gods, leaving piles of stinking god-junk all over the place."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> GOD, my strength, my stronghold, my safe retreat when trouble descends: The godless nations will come from earth's four corners, saying, "Our ancestors lived on lies, useless illusions, all smoke."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Can mortals manufacture gods? Their factories turn out no-gods!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Watch closely now. I'm going to teach these wrongheaded people. Starting right now, I'm going to teach them Who I am and what I do, teach them the meaning of my name, GOD--'I AM.'</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="17">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Judah's sin is engraved with a steel chisel, A steel chisel with a diamond point-- engraved on their granite hearts, engraved on the stone corners of their altars.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The evidence against them is plain to see: sex-and-religion altars and sacred sex shrines Anywhere there's a grove of trees, anywhere there's an available hill.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "I'll use your mountains as roadside stands for giving away everything you have. All your 'things' will serve as reparations for your sins all over the country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You'll lose your gift of land, The inheritance I gave you. I'll make you slaves of your enemies in a far-off and strange land. My anger is hot and blazing and fierce, and no one will put it out."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD's Message: "Cursed is the strong one who depends on mere humans, Who thinks he can make it on muscle alone and sets GOD aside as dead weight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He's like a tumbleweed on the prairie, out of touch with the good earth. He lives rootless and aimless in a land where nothing grows.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "But blessed is the man who trusts me, GOD, the woman who sticks with GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They're like trees replanted in Eden, putting down roots near the rivers-- Never a worry through the hottest of summers, never dropping a leaf, Serene and calm through droughts, bearing fresh fruit every season.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful, a puzzle that no one can figure out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But I, GOD, search the heart and examine the mind. I get to the heart of the human. I get to the root of things. I treat them as they really are, not as they pretend to be."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Like a cowbird that cheats by laying its eggs in another bird's nest Is the person who gets rich by cheating. When the eggs hatch, the deceit is exposed. What a fool he'll look like then!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> From early on your Sanctuary was set high, a throne of glory, exalted!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> O GOD, you're the hope of Israel. All who leave you end up as fools, Deserters with nothing to show for their lives, who walk off from GOD, fountain of living waters-- and wind up dead!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD, pick up the pieces. Put me back together again. You are my praise!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Listen to how they talk about me: "So where's this 'Word of GOD'? We'd like to see something happen!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But it wasn't my idea to call for Doomsday. I never wanted trouble. You know what I've said. It's all out in the open before you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Don't add to my troubles. Give me some relief!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Let those who harass me be harassed, not me. Let them be disgraced, not me. Bring down upon them the day of doom. Lower the boom. Boom!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> GOD's Message to me: "Go stand in the People's Gate, the one used by Judah's kings as they come and go, and then proceed in turn to all the gates of Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Tell them: 'Listen, you kings of Judah, listen to GOD's Message--and all you people who go in and out of these gates, you listen!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "'This is GOD's Message. Be careful, if you care about your lives, not to desecrate the Sabbath by turning it into just another workday, lugging stuff here and there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Don't use the Sabbath to do business as usual. Keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They never did it, as you know. They paid no attention to what I said and went about their own business, refusing to be guided or instructed by me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "'But now, take seriously what I tell you. Quit desecrating the Sabbath by busily going about your own work, and keep the Sabbath day holy by not doing business as usual.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Then kings from the time of David and their officials will continue to ride through these gates on horses or in chariots. The people of Judah and citizens of Jerusalem will continue to pass through them, too. Jerusalem will always be filled with people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> People will stream in from all over Judah, from the province of Benjamin, from the Jerusalem suburbs, from foothills and mountains and deserts. They'll come to worship, bringing all kinds of offerings--animals, grains, incense, expressions of thanks--into the Sanctuary of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "'But if you won't listen to me, won't keep the Sabbath holy, won't quit using the Sabbath for doing your own work, busily going in and out of the city gates on your self-important business, then I'll burn the gates down. In fact, I'll burn the whole city down, palaces and all, with a fire nobody will be able to put out!'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="18">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD told Jeremiah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Up on your feet! Go to the potter's house. When you get there, I'll tell you what I have to say."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> So I went to the potter's house, and sure enough, the potter was there, working away at his wheel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Whenever the pot the potter was working on turned out badly, as sometimes happens when you are working with clay, the potter would simply start over and use the same clay to make another pot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Can't I do just as this potter does, people of Israel?" GOD's Decree! "Watch this potter. In the same way that this potter works his clay, I work on you, people of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> At any moment I may decide to pull up a people or a country by the roots and get rid of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But if they repent of their wicked lives, I will think twice and start over with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> At another time I might decide to plant a people or country,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> but if they don't cooperate and won't listen to me, I will think again and give up on the plans I had for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "So, tell the people of Judah and citizens of Jerusalem my Message: 'Danger! I'm shaping doom against you, laying plans against you. Turn back from your doomed way of life. Straighten out your lives.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "But they'll just say, 'Why should we? What's the point? We'll live just the way we've always lived, doom or no doom.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> GOD's Message: "Ask around. Survey the godless nations. Has anyone heard the likes of this? Virgin Israel has become a slut!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Does snow disappear from the Lebanon peaks? Do alpine streams run dry?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But my people have left me to worship the Big Lie. They've gotten off the track, the old, well-worn trail, And now bushwhack through underbrush in a tangle of roots and vines.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Their land's going to end up a mess-- a fool's memorial to be spit on. Travelers passing through will shake their heads in disbelief.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I'll scatter my people before their enemies, like autumn leaves in a high wind. On their day of doom, they'll stare at my back as I walk away, catching not so much as a glimpse of my face."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Some of the people said, "Come on, let's cook up a plot against Jeremiah. We'll still have the priests to teach us the law, wise counselors to give us advice, and prophets to tell us what God has to say. Come on, let's discredit him so we don't have to put up with him any longer."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And I said to GOD: "GOD, listen to me! Just listen to what my enemies are saying.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Should I get paid evil for good? That's what they're doing. They've made plans to kill me! Remember all the times I stood up for them before you, speaking up for them, trying to soften your anger?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But enough! Let their children starve! Let them be massacred in battle! Let their wives be childless and widowed, their friends die and their proud young men be killed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Let cries of panic sound from their homes as you surprise them with war parties! They're all set to lynch me. The noose is practically around my neck!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But you know all this, GOD. You know they're determined to kill me. Don't whitewash their crimes, don't overlook a single sin! Round the bunch of them up before you. Strike while the iron of your anger is hot!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="19">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD said to me, "Go, buy a clay pot. Then get a few leaders from the people and a few of the leading priests</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> and go out to the Valley of Ben-hinnom, just outside the Potsherd Gate, and preach there what I tell you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Say, 'Listen to GOD's Word, you kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem! This is the Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel. I'm about to bring doom crashing down on this place. Oh, and will ears ever ring!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Doom--because they've walked off and left me, and made this place strange by worshiping strange gods, gods never heard of by them, their parents, or the old kings of Judah. Doom--because they have massacred innocent people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Doom--because they've built altars to that no-god Baal, and burned their own children alive in the fire as offerings to Baal, an atrocity I never ordered, never so much as hinted at!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "'And so it's pay day, and soon'--GOD's Decree!--'this place will no longer be known as Topheth or Valley of Ben-hinnom, but Massacre Meadows.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I'm canceling all the plans Judah and Jerusalem had for this place, and I'll have them killed by their enemies. I'll stack their dead bodies to be eaten by carrion crows and wild dogs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I'll turn this city into such a museum of atrocities that anyone coming near will be shocked speechless by the savage brutality.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The people will turn into cannibals. Dehumanized by the pressure of the enemy siege, they'll eat their own children! Yes, they'll eat one another, family and friends alike.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Say all this, and then smash the pot in front of the men who have come with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then say, 'This is what GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies says: I'll smash this people and this city like a man who smashes a clay pot into so many pieces it can never be put together again. They'll bury bodies here in Topheth until there's no more room.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And the whole city will become a Topheth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The city will be turned by people and kings alike into a center for worshiping the star gods and goddesses, turned into an open grave, the whole city an open grave, stinking like a sewer, like Topheth.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Then Jeremiah left Topheth, where GOD had sent him to preach the sermon, and took his stand in the court of GOD's Temple and said to the people,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "This is the Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies to you: 'Warning! Danger! I'm bringing down on this city and all the surrounding towns the doom that I have pronounced. They're set in their ways and won't budge. They refuse to do a thing I say.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="20">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The priest Pashur son of Immer was the senior priest in GOD's Temple. He heard Jeremiah preach this sermon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He whipped Jeremiah the prophet and put him in the stocks at the Upper Benjamin Gate of GOD's Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The next day Pashur came and let him go. Jeremiah told him, "GOD has a new name for you: not Pashur but Danger-Everywhere,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> because GOD says, 'You're a danger to yourself and everyone around you. All your friends are going to get killed in battle while you stand there and watch. What's more, I'm turning all of Judah over to the king of Babylon to do whatever he likes with them--haul them off into exile, kill them at whim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Everything worth anything in this city, property and possessions along with everything in the royal treasury--I'm handing it all over to the enemy. They'll rummage through it and take what they want back to Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "'And you, Pashur, you and everyone in your family will be taken prisoner into exile--that's right, exile in Babylon. You'll die and be buried there, you and all your cronies to whom you preached your lies.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You pushed me into this, GOD, and I let you do it. You were too much for me. And now I'm a public joke. They all poke fun at me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Every time I open my mouth I'm shouting, "Murder!" or "Rape!" And all I get for my GOD-warnings are insults and contempt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But if I say, "Forget it! No more GOD-Messages from me!" The words are fire in my belly, a burning in my bones. I'm worn out trying to hold it in. I can't do it any longer!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then I hear whispering behind my back: "There goes old 'Danger-Everywhere.' Shut him up! Report him!" Old friends watch, hoping I'll fall flat on my face: "One misstep and we'll have him. We'll get rid of him for good!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But GOD, a most fierce warrior, is at my side. Those who are after me will be sent sprawling-- Slapstick buffoons falling all over themselves, a spectacle of humiliation no one will ever forget.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Oh, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, no one fools you. You see through everyone, everything. I want to see you pay them back for what they've done. I rest my case with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Sing to GOD! All praise to GOD! He saves the weak from the grip of the wicked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Curse the day I was born! The day my mother bore me-- a curse on it, I say!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And curse the man who delivered the news to my father: "You've got a new baby--a boy baby!" (How happy it made him.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Let that birth notice be blacked out, deleted from the records, And the man who brought it haunted to his death with the bad news he brought.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He should have killed me before I was born, with that womb as my tomb, My mother pregnant for the rest of her life with a baby dead in her womb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Why, oh why, did I ever leave that womb? Life's been nothing but trouble and tears, and what's coming is more of the same.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="21">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message to Jeremiah when King Zedekiah sent Pashur son of Malkijah and the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah to him with this request:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, has waged war against us. Pray to GOD for us. Ask him for help. Maybe GOD will intervene with one of his famous miracles and make him leave."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But Jeremiah said, "Tell Zedekiah:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> 'This is the GOD of Israel's Message to you: You can say good-bye to your army, watch morale and weapons flushed down the drain. I'm going to personally lead the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans, against whom you're fighting so hard, right into the city itself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I'm joining their side and fighting against you, fighting all-out, holding nothing back. And in fierce anger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I'm prepared to wipe out the population of this city, people and animals alike, in a raging epidemic.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And then I will personally deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, his princes, and any survivors left in the city who haven't died from disease, been killed, or starved. I'll deliver them to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon--yes, hand them over to their enemies, who have come to kill them. He'll kill them ruthlessly, showing no mercy.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "And then tell the people at large, 'GOD's Message to you is this: Listen carefully. I'm giving you a choice: life or death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Whoever stays in this city will die--either in battle or by starvation or disease. But whoever goes out and surrenders to the Chaldeans who have surrounded the city will live. You'll lose everything--but not your life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I'm determined to see this city destroyed. I'm that angry with this place! GOD's Decree. I'm going to give it to the king of Babylon, and he's going to burn it to the ground.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "To the royal house of Judah, listen to GOD's Message!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> House of David, listen--GOD's Message to you: 'Start each day by dealing with justice. Rescue victims from their exploiters. Prevent fire--the fire of my anger-- for once it starts, it can't be put out. Your evil regime is fuel for my anger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Don't you realize that I'm against you, yes, against you. You think you've got it made, all snug and secure. You say, "Who can possibly get to us? Who can crash our party?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Well, I can--and will! I'll punish your evil regime. I'll start a fire that will rage unchecked, burn everything in sight to cinders.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="22">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's orders: "Go to the royal palace and deliver this Message.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Say, 'Listen to what GOD says, O King of Judah, you who sit on David's throne--you and your officials and all the people who go in and out of these palace gates.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> This is GOD's Message: Attend to matters of justice. Set things right between people. Rescue victims from their exploiters. Don't take advantage of the homeless, the orphans, the widows. Stop the murdering!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "'If you obey these commands, then kings who follow in the line of David will continue to go in and out of these palace gates mounted on horses and riding in chariots--they and their officials and the citizens of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But if you don't obey these commands, then I swear--GOD's Decree!--this palace will end up a heap of rubble.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> This is GOD's verdict on Judah's royal palace: "I number you among my favorite places-- like the lovely hills of Gilead, like the soaring peaks of Lebanon. Yet I swear I'll turn you into a wasteland, as empty as a ghost town.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I'll hire a demolition crew, well-equipped with sledgehammers and wrecking bars, Pound the country to a pulp and burn it all up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Travelers from all over will come through here and say to one another, 'Why would GOD do such a thing to this wonderful city?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They'll be told, 'Because they walked out on the covenant of their GOD, took up with other gods and worshiped them.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Don't weep over dead King Josiah. Don't waste your tears. Weep for his exiled son: He's gone for good. He'll never see home again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> For this is GOD's Word on Shallum son of Josiah, who succeeded his father as king of Judah: "He's gone from here, gone for good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He'll die in the place they've taken him to. He'll never see home again."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Doom to him who builds palaces but bullies people, who makes a fine house but destroys lives, Who cheats his workers and won't pay them for their work,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Who says, 'I'll build me an elaborate mansion with spacious rooms and fancy windows. I'll bring in rare and expensive woods and the latest in interior decor.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So, that makes you a king-- living in a fancy palace? Your father got along just fine, didn't he? He did what was right and treated people fairly, And things went well with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He stuck up for the down-and-out, And things went well for Judah. Isn't this what it means to know me?" GOD's Decree!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "But you're blind and brainless. All you think about is yourself, Taking advantage of the weak, bulldozing your way, bullying victims."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> This is God's epitaph on Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah: "Doom to this man! Nobody will shed tears over him, 'Poor, poor brother!' Nobody will shed tears over him, 'Poor, poor master!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They'll give him a donkey's funeral, drag him out of the city and dump him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "People of Jerusalem, climb a Lebanon peak and weep, climb a Bashan mountain and wail, Climb the Abarim ridge and cry-- you've made a total mess of your life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I spoke to you when everything was going your way. You said, 'I'm not interested.' You've been that way as long as I've known you, never listened to a thing I said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> All your leaders will be blown away, all your friends end up in exile, And you'll find yourself in the gutter, disgraced by your evil life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> You big-city people thought you were so important, thought you were 'king of the mountain'! You're soon going to be doubled up in pain, pain worse than the pangs of childbirth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "As sure as I am the living God"--GOD's Decree--"even if you, Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, were the signet ring on my right hand, I'd pull you off</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> and give you to those who are out to kill you, to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and the Chaldeans,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> and then throw you, both you and your mother, into a foreign country, far from your place of birth. There you'll both die.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "You'll be homesick, desperately homesick, but you'll never get home again."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Is Jehoiachin a leaky bucket, a rusted-out pail good for nothing? Why else would he be thrown away, he and his children, thrown away to a foreign place?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> O land, land, land, listen to GOD's Message!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> This is GOD's verdict: "Write this man off as if he were childless, a man who will never amount to anything. Nothing will ever come of his life. He's the end of the line, the last of the kings.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="23">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Doom to the shepherd-leaders who butcher and scatter my sheep!" GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "So here is what I, GOD, Israel's God, say to the shepherd-leaders who misled my people: 'You've scattered my sheep. You've driven them off. You haven't kept your eye on them. Well, let me tell you, I'm keeping my eye on you, keeping track of your criminal behavior.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I'll take over and gather what's left of my sheep, gather them in from all the lands where I've driven them. I'll bring them back where they belong, and they'll recover and flourish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'll set shepherd-leaders over them who will take good care of them. They won't live in fear or panic anymore. All the lost sheep rounded up!' GOD's Decree."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Time's coming"--GOD's Decree-- "when I'll establish a truly righteous David-Branch, A ruler who knows how to rule justly. He'll make sure of justice and keep people united.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> In his time Judah will be secure again and Israel will live in safety. This is the name they'll give him: 'GOD-Who-Puts-Everything-Right.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "So watch for this. The time's coming"--GOD's Decree--"when no one will say, 'As sure as GOD lives, the God who brought the Israelites out of Egypt,'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> but, 'As sure as GOD lives, the God who brought the descendants of Israel back from the north country and from the other countries where he'd driven them, so that they can live on their own good earth.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> My head is reeling, my limbs are limp, I'm staggering like a drunk, seeing double from too much wine-- And all because of GOD, because of his holy words.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Now for what GOD says regarding the lying prophets: "Can you believe it? A country teeming with adulterers! faithless, promiscuous idolater-adulterers! They're a curse on the land. The land's a wasteland. Their unfaithfulness is turning the country into a cesspool,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Prophets and priests devoted to desecration. They have nothing to do with me as their God. My very own Temple, mind you-- mud-spattered with their crimes." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "But they won't get by with it. They'll find themselves on a slippery slope, Careening into the darkness, somersaulting into the pitch-black dark. I'll make them pay for their crimes. It will be the Year of Doom." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Over in Samaria I saw prophets acting like silly fools--shocking! They preached using that no-god Baal for a text, messing with the minds of my people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And the Jerusalem prophets are even worse--horrible!-- sex-driven, living a lie, Subsidizing a culture of wickedness, and never giving it a second thought. They're as bad as those wretches in old Sodom, the degenerates of old Gomorrah."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So here's the Message to the prophets from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies: "I'll cook them a supper of maggoty meat with after-dinner drinks of strychnine. The Jerusalem prophets are behind all this. They're the cause of the godlessness polluting this country."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> A Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies: "Don't listen to the sermons of the prophets. It's all hot air. Lies, lies, and more lies. They make it all up. Not a word they speak comes from me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> They preach their 'Everything Will Turn Out Fine' sermon to congregations with no taste for God, Their 'Nothing Bad Will Ever Happen to You' sermon to people who are set in their own ways.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Have any of these prophets bothered to meet with me, the true GOD? bothered to take in what I have to say? listened to and then lived out my Word?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Look out! GOD's hurricane will be let loose-- my hurricane blast, Spinning the heads of the wicked like tops!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> God's raging anger won't let up Until I've made a clean sweep, completing the job I began. When the job's done, you'll see that it's been well done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "I never sent these prophets, but they ran anyway. I never spoke to them, but they preached away.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> If they'd have bothered to sit down and meet with me, they'd have preached my Message to my people. They'd have gotten them back on the right track, gotten them out of their evil ruts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "Am I not a God near at hand"--GOD's Decree-- "and not a God far off?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Can anyone hide out in a corner where I can't see him?" GOD's Decree. "Am I not present everywhere, whether seen or unseen?" GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "I know what they're saying, all these prophets who preach lies using me as their text, saying 'I had this dream! I had this dream!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> How long do I have to put up with this? Do these prophets give two cents about me as they preach their lies and spew out their grandiose delusions?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> They swap dreams with one another, feed on each other's delusive dreams, trying to distract my people from me just as their ancestors were distracted by the no-god Baal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "You prophets who do nothing but dream-- go ahead and tell your silly dreams. But you prophets who have a message from me-- tell it truly and faithfully. What does straw have in common with wheat? Nothing else is like GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Isn't my Message like fire?" GOD's Decree. "Isn't it like a sledgehammer busting a rock?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "I've had it with the 'prophets' who get all their sermons secondhand from each other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Yes, I've had it with them. They make up stuff and then pretend it's a real sermon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "Oh yes, I've had it with the prophets who preach the lies they dream up, spreading them all over the country, ruining the lives of my people with their cheap and reckless lies. "I never sent these prophets, never authorized a single one of them. They do nothing for this people--nothing!" GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "And anyone, including prophets and priests, who asks, 'What's GOD got to say about all this, what's troubling him?' tell him, 'You, you're the trouble, and I'm getting rid of you.'" GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "And if anyone, including prophets and priests, goes around saying glibly 'GOD's Message! GOD's Message!' I'll punish him and his family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> "Instead of claiming to know what GOD says, ask questions of one another, such as 'How do we understand GOD in this?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> But don't go around pretending to know it all, saying 'God told me this . . . God told me that. . . .' I don't want to hear it anymore. Only the person I authorize speaks for me. Otherwise, my Message gets twisted, the Message of the living GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> "You can ask the prophets, 'How did GOD answer you? What did he tell you?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> But don't pretend that you know all the answers yourselves and talk like you know it all. I'm telling you: Quit the 'God told me this . . . God told me that . . .' kind of talk.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> "Are you paying attention? You'd better, because I'm about to take you in hand and throw you to the ground, you and this entire city that I gave to your ancestors. I've had it with the lot of you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> You're never going to live this down. You're going down in history as a disgrace."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="24">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the Temple of GOD. This was after Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim king of Judah from Jerusalem into exile in Babylon, along with the leaders of Judah, the craftsmen, and the skilled laborers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> In one basket the figs were of the finest quality, ripe and ready to eat. In the other basket the figs were rotten, so rotten they couldn't be eaten.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> GOD said to me, "Jeremiah, what do you see?" "Figs," I said. "Excellent figs of the finest quality, and also rotten figs, so rotten they can't be eaten."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then GOD told me,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "This is the Message from the GOD of Israel: The exiles from here that I've sent off to the land of the Babylonians are like the good figs, and I'll make sure they get good treatment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I'll keep my eye on them so that their lives are good, and I'll bring them back to this land. I'll build them up, not tear them down; I'll plant them, not uproot them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "And I'll give them a heart to know me, GOD. They'll be my people and I'll be their God, for they'll have returned to me with all their hearts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "But like the rotten figs, so rotten they can't be eaten, is Zedekiah king of Judah. Rotten figs--that's how I'll treat him and his leaders, along with the survivors here and those down in Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'll make them something that the whole world will look on as disgusting--repugnant outcasts, their names used as curse words wherever in the world I drive them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And I'll make sure they die like flies--from war, starvation, disease, whatever--until the land I once gave to them and their ancestors is completely rid of them."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="25">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> This is the Message given to Jeremiah for all the people of Judah. It came in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah. It was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Jeremiah the prophet delivered the Message to all the people of Judah and citizens of Jerusalem:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> From the thirteenth year of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah right up to the present day--twenty-three years it's been!--GOD's Word has come to me, and from early each morning to late every night I've passed it on to you. And you haven't listened to a word of it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Not only that, but God also sent a steady stream of prophets to you who were just as persistent as me, and you never listened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They told you, "Turn back--right now, each one of you!--from your evil way of life and bad behavior, and live in the land GOD gave you and your ancestors, the land he intended to give you forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Don't follow the god-fads of the day, taking up and worshiping these no-gods. Don't make me angry with your god-businesses, making and selling gods--a dangerous business!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "You refused to listen to any of this, and now I am really angry. These god-making businesses of yours are your doom."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The verdict of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies on all this: "Because you have refused to listen to what I've said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'm stepping in. I'm sending for the armies out of the north headed by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, my servant in this, and I'm setting them on this land and people and even the surrounding countries. I'm devoting the whole works to total destruction--a horror to top all the horrors in history.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And I'll banish every sound of joy--singing, laughter, marriage festivities, genial workmen, candlelit suppers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The whole landscape will be one vast wasteland. These countries will be in subjection to the king of Babylon for seventy years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Once the seventy years is up, I'll punish the king of Babylon and the whole nation of Babylon for their sin. Then they'll be the wasteland.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Everything that I said I'd do to that country, I'll do--everything that's written in this book, everything Jeremiah preached against all the godless nations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Many nations and great kings will make slaves of the Babylonians, paying them back for everything they've done to others. They won't get by with anything." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> This is a Message that the GOD of Israel gave me: "Take this cup filled with the wine of my wrath that I'm handing to you. Make all the nations where I send you drink it down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They'll drink it and get drunk, staggering in delirium because of the killing that I'm going to unleash among them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I took the cup from GOD's hand and made them drink it, all the nations to which he sent me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Jerusalem and the towns of Judah, along with their kings and leaders, turning them into a vast wasteland, a horror to look at, a cussword--which, in fact, they now are;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Pharaoh king of Egypt with his attendants and leaders,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> plus all his people and the melting pot of foreigners collected there; All the kings of Uz; All the kings of the Philistines from Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and what's left of Ashdod;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Edom, Moab, and the Ammonites;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> All the kings of Tyre, Sidon, and the coastlands across the sea;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Dedan, Tema, Buz, and the nomads on the fringe of the desert;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> All the kings of Arabia and the various Bedouin sheiks and chieftains wandering about in the desert;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> All the kings of Zimri, Elam, and the Medes;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> All the kings from the north countries near and far, one by one; All the kingdoms on planet Earth . . . And the king of Sheshak (that is, Babylon) will be the last to drink.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "Tell them, 'These are orders from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel: Drink and get drunk and vomit. Fall on your faces and don't get up again. You're slated for a massacre.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "If any of them refuse to take the cup from you and drink it, say to them, 'GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies has ordered you to drink. So drink!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "'Prepare for the worst! I'm starting off the catastrophe in the city that I claim as my own, so don't think you are going to get out of it. No, you're not getting out of anything. It's the sword and nothing but the sword against everyone everywhere!'" The GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies' Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "Preach it all, Jeremiah. Preach the entire Message to them. Say: "'GOD roars like a lion from high heaven; thunder rolls out from his holy dwelling-- Ear-splitting bellows against his people, shouting hurrahs like workers in harvest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The noise reverberates all over the earth; everyone everywhere hears it. GOD makes his case against the godless nations. He's about to put the human race on trial. For the wicked the verdict is clear-cut: death by the sword.'" GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> A Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies: "Prepare for the worst! Doomsday! Disaster is spreading from nation to nation. A huge storm is about to rage all across planet Earth."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Laid end to end, those killed in GOD's judgment that day will stretch from one end of the earth to the other. No tears will be shed and no burials conducted. The bodies will be left where they fall, like so much horse dung fertilizing the fields.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Wail, shepherds! Cry out for help! Grovel in the dirt, you masters of flocks! Time's up--you're slated for the slaughterhouse, like a choice ram with its throat cut.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> There's no way out for the rulers, no escape for those shepherds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Hear that? Rulers crying for help, shepherds of the flock wailing! GOD is about to ravage their fine pastures.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> The peaceful sheepfolds will be silent with death, silenced by GOD's deadly anger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> God will come out into the open like a lion leaping from its cover, And the country will be torn to pieces, ripped and ravaged by his anger.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="26">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> At the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, this Message came from GOD to Jeremiah:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "GOD's Message: Stand in the court of GOD's Temple and preach to the people who come from all over Judah to worship in GOD's Temple. Say everything I tell you to say to them. Don't hold anything back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Just maybe they'll listen and turn back from their bad lives. Then I'll reconsider the disaster that I'm planning to bring on them because of their evil behavior.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Say to them, 'This is GOD's Message: If you refuse to listen to me and live by my teaching that I've revealed so plainly to you,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> and if you continue to refuse to listen to my servants the prophets that I tirelessly keep on sending to you--but you've never listened! Why would you start now?--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> then I'll make this Temple a pile of ruins like Shiloh, and I'll make this city nothing but a bad joke worldwide.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Everybody there--priests, prophets, and people--heard Jeremiah preaching this Message in the Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> When Jeremiah had finished his sermon, saying everything God had commanded him to say, the priests and prophets and people all grabbed him, yelling, "Death! You're going to die for this!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> How dare you preach--and using GOD's name!--saying that this Temple will become a heap of rubble like Shiloh and this city be wiped out without a soul left in it!" All the people mobbed Jeremiah right in the Temple itself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Officials from the royal court of Judah were told of this. They left the palace immediately and came to GOD's Temple to investigate. They held court on the spot, at the New Gate entrance to GOD's Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The prophets and priests spoke first, addressing the officials, but also the people: "Death to this man! He deserves nothing less than death! He has preached against this city--you've heard the evidence with your own ears."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Jeremiah spoke next, publicly addressing the officials before the crowd: "GOD sent me to preach against both this Temple and city everything that's been reported to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> So do something about it! Change the way you're living, change your behavior. Listen obediently to the Message of your GOD. Maybe GOD will reconsider the disaster he has threatened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "As for me, I'm at your mercy--do whatever you think is best.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But take warning: If you kill me, you're killing an innocent man, and you and the city and the people in it will be liable. I didn't say any of this on my own. GOD sent me and told me what to say. You've been listening to GOD speak, not Jeremiah."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The court officials, backed by the people, then handed down their ruling to the priests and prophets: "Acquittal. No death sentence for this man. He has spoken to us with the authority of our GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then some of the respected leaders stood up and addressed the crowd:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "In the reign of Hezekiah king of Judah, Micah of Moresheth preached to the people of Judah this sermon: This is GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies' Message for you: "'Because of people like you, Zion will be turned back into farmland, Jerusalem end up as a pile of rubble, and instead of the Temple on the mountain, a few scraggly scrub pines.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Did King Hezekiah or anyone else in Judah kill Micah of Moresheth because of that sermon? Didn't Hezekiah honor him and pray for mercy from GOD? And then didn't GOD call off the disaster he had threatened? "Friends, we're at the brink of bringing a terrible calamity upon ourselves."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> (At another time there had been a man, Uriah son of Shemaiah from Kiriath-jearim, who had preached similarly in the name of GOD. He preached against this same city and country just as Jeremiah did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> When King Jehoiakim and his royal court heard his sermon, they determined to kill him. Uriah, afraid for his life, went into hiding in Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> King Jehoiakim sent Elnathan son of Achbor with a posse of men after him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They brought him back from Egypt and presented him to the king. And the king had him killed. They dumped his body unceremoniously outside the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> But in Jeremiah's case, Ahikam son of Shaphan stepped forward and took his side, preventing the mob from lynching him.)</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="27">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Early in the reign of Zedekiah son of Josiah king of Judah, Jeremiah received this Message from GOD:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Make a harness and a yoke and then harness yourself up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Send a message to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon. Send it through their ambassadors who have come to Jerusalem to see Zedekiah king of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Give them this charge to take back to their masters: 'This is a Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel. Tell your masters:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "'I'm the one who made the earth, man and woman, and all the animals in the world. I did it on my own without asking anyone's help and I hand it out to whomever I will.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Here and now I give all these lands over to my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. I have made even the wild animals subject to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> All nations will be under him, then his son, and then his grandson. Then his country's time will be up and the tables will be turned: Babylon will be the underdog servant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But until then, any nation or kingdom that won't submit to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon must take the yoke of the king of Babylon and harness up. I'll punish that nation with war and starvation and disease until I've got them where I want them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "'So don't for a minute listen to all your prophets and spiritualists and fortunetellers, who claim to know the future and who tell you not to give in to the king of Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They're handing you a line of lies, barefaced lies, that will end up putting you in exile far from home. I myself will drive you out of your lands, and that'll be the end of you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But the nation that accepts the yoke of the king of Babylon and does what he says, I'll let that nation stay right where it is, minding its own business.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then I gave this same message to Zedekiah king of Judah: "Harness yourself up to the yoke of the king of Babylon. Serve him and his people. Live a long life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Why choose to get killed or starve to death or get sick and die, which is what GOD has threatened to any nation that won't throw its lot in with Babylon?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Don't listen to the prophets who are telling you not to submit to the king of Babylon. They're telling you lies, preaching lies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> GOD's Word on this is, 'I didn't send those prophets, but they keep preaching lies, claiming I sent them. If you listen to them, I'll end up driving you out of here and that will be the end of you, both you and the lying prophets.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> And finally I spoke to the priests and the people at large: "This is GOD's Message: Don't listen to the preaching of the prophets who keep telling you, 'Trust us: The furnishings, plundered from GOD's Temple, are going to be returned from Babylon any day now.' That's a lie.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Don't listen to them. Submit to the king of Babylon and live a long life. Why do something that will destroy this city and leave it a heap of rubble?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> If they are real prophets and have a Message from GOD, let them come to GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies in prayer so that the furnishings that are still left in GOD's Temple, the king's palace, and Jerusalem aren't also lost to Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> That's because GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies has already spoken about the Temple furnishings that remain--the pillars, the great bronze basin, the stands, and all the other bowls and chalices</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon didn't take when he took Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim off to Babylonian exile along with all the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He said that the furnishings left behind in the Temple of GOD and in the royal palace and in Jerusalem</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> will be taken off to Babylon and stay there until, in GOD's words, 'I take the matter up again and bring them back where they belong.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="28">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Later that same year (it was in the fifth month of King Zedekiah's fourth year) Hananiah son of Azzur, a prophet from Gibeon, confronted Jeremiah in the Temple of GOD in front of the priests and all the people who were there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Hananiah said: "This Message is straight from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel: 'I will most certainly break the yoke of the king of Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Before two years are out I'll have all the furnishings of GOD's Temple back here, all the things that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon plundered and hauled off to Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'll also bring back Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim king of Judah and all the exiles who were taken off to Babylon.' GOD's Decree. 'Yes, I will break the king of Babylon's yoke. You'll no longer be in harness to him.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Prophet Jeremiah stood up to Prophet Hananiah in front of the priests and all the people who were in GOD's Temple that day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Prophet Jeremiah said, "Wonderful! Would that it were true--that GOD would validate your preaching by bringing the Temple furnishings and all the exiles back from Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But listen to me, listen closely. Listen to what I tell both you and all the people here today:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The old prophets, the ones before our time, preached judgment against many countries and kingdoms, warning of war and disaster and plague.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So any prophet who preaches that everything is just fine and there's nothing to worry about stands out like a sore thumb. We'll wait and see. If it happens, it happens--and then we'll know that GOD sent him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> At that, Hananiah grabbed the yoke from Jeremiah's shoulders and smashed it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And then he addressed the people: "This is GOD's Message: In just this way I will smash the yoke of the king of Babylon and get him off the neck of all the nations--and within two years." Jeremiah walked out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Later, sometime after Hananiah had smashed the yoke from off his shoulders, Jeremiah received this Message from GOD:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Go back to Hananiah and tell him, 'This is GOD's Message: You smashed the wooden yoke-bars; now you've got iron yoke-bars.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> This is a Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, Israel's own God: I've put an iron yoke on all these nations. They're harnessed to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. They'll do just what he tells them. Why, I'm even putting him in charge of the wild animals.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So prophet Jeremiah told prophet Hananiah, "Hold it, Hananiah! GOD never sent you. You've talked the whole country into believing a pack of lies!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> And so GOD says, 'You claim to be sent? I'll send you all right--right off the face of the earth! Before the year is out, you'll be dead because you fomented sedition against GOD.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Prophet Hananiah died that very year, in the seventh month.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="29">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> This is the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to what was left of the elders among the exiles, to the priests and prophets and all the exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken to Babylon from Jerusalem,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> including King Jehoiachin, the queen mother, the government leaders, and all the skilled laborers and craftsmen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The letter was carried by Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah had sent to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. The letter said:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> This is the Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, Israel's God, to all the exiles I've taken from Jerusalem to Babylon:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Build houses and make yourselves at home. "Put in gardens and eat what grows in that country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Marry and have children. Encourage your children to marry and have children so that you'll thrive in that country and not waste away.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Make yourselves at home there and work for the country's welfare. "Pray for Babylon's well-being. If things go well for Babylon, things will go well for you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Yes. Believe it or not, this is the Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, Israel's God: "Don't let all those so-called preachers and know-it-alls who are all over the place there take you in with their lies. Don't pay any attention to the fantasies they keep coming up with to please you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They're a bunch of liars preaching lies--and claiming I sent them! I never sent them, believe me." GOD's Decree!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> This is GOD's Word on the subject: "As soon as Babylon's seventy years are up and not a day before, I'll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out--plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I'll listen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "When you come looking for me, you'll find me. "Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'll make sure you won't be disappointed." GOD's Decree. "I'll turn things around for you. I'll bring you back from all the countries into which I drove you"--GOD's Decree--"bring you home to the place from which I sent you off into exile. You can count on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "But for right now, because you've taken up with these newfangled prophets who set themselves up as 'Babylonian specialists,' spreading the word 'GOD sent them just for us!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> GOD is setting the record straight: As for the king still sitting on David's throne and all the people left in Jerusalem who didn't go into exile with you, they're facing bad times.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies says, 'Watch this! Catastrophe is on the way: war, hunger, disease! They're a barrel of rotten apples.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I'll rid the country of them through war and hunger and disease. The whole world is going to hold its nose at the smell, shut its eyes at the horrible sight. They'll end up in slum ghettos</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> because they wouldn't listen to a thing I said when I sent my servant-prophets preaching tirelessly and urgently. No, they wouldn't listen to a word I said.'" GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "And you--you exiles whom I sent out of Jerusalem to Babylon--listen to GOD's Message to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> As far as Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah are concerned, the 'Babylonian specialists' who are preaching lies in my name, I will turn them over to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who will kill them while you watch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The exiles from Judah will take what they see at the execution and use it as a curse: 'GOD fry you to a crisp like the king of Babylon fried Zedekiah and Ahab in the fire!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Those two men, sex predators and prophet-impostors, got what they deserved. They pulled every woman they got their hands on into bed--their neighbors' wives, no less--and preached lies claiming it was my Message. I never sent those men. I've never had anything to do with them." GOD's Decree. "They won't get away with a thing. I've witnessed it all."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> And this is the Message for Shemaiah the Nehelamite:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel, says: You took it on yourself to send letters to all the people in Jerusalem and to the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah and the company of priests. In your letter you told Zephaniah that</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> GOD set you up as priest replacing priest Jehoiadah. He's put you in charge of GOD's Temple and made you responsible for locking up any crazy fellow off the street who takes it into his head to be a prophet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "So why haven't you done anything about muzzling Jeremiah of Anathoth, who's going around posing as a prophet?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> He's gone so far as to write to us in Babylon, 'It's going to be a long exile, so build houses and make yourselves at home. Plant gardens and prepare Babylonian recipes.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The priest Zephaniah read that letter to the prophet Jeremiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Then GOD told Jeremiah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "Send this Message to the exiles. Tell them what GOD says about Shemaiah the Nehelamite: Shemaiah is preaching lies to you. I didn't send him. He is seducing you into believing lies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> So this is GOD's verdict: I will punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his whole family. He's going to end up with nothing and no one. No one from his family will be around to see any of the good that I am going to do for my people because he has preached rebellion against me." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="30">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> This is the Message Jeremiah received from GOD:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "GOD's Message, the God of Israel: 'Write everything I tell you in a book.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "'Look. The time is coming when I will turn everything around for my people, both Israel and Judah. I, GOD, say so. I'll bring them back to the land I gave their ancestors, and they'll take up ownership again.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> This is the way GOD put it to Israel and Judah:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "GOD's Message: "'Cries of panic are being heard. The peace has been shattered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Ask around! Look around! Can men bear babies? So why do I see all these he-men holding their bellies like women in labor, Faces contorted, pale as death?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The blackest of days, no day like it ever! A time of deep trouble for Jacob-- but he'll come out of it alive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "'And then I'll enter the darkness. I'll break the yoke from their necks, Cut them loose from the harness. No more slave labor to foreigners!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They'll serve their GOD and the David-King I'll establish for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "'So fear no more, Jacob, dear servant. Don't despair, Israel. Look up! I'll save you out of faraway places, I'll bring your children back from exile. Jacob will come back and find life good, safe and secure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I'll be with you. I'll save you. I'll finish off all the godless nations Among which I've scattered you, but I won't finish you off. I'll punish you, but fairly. I won't send you off with just a slap on the wrist.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "This is GOD's Message: "'You're a burned-out case, as good as dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Everyone has given up on you. You're hopeless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> All your fair-weather friends have skipped town without giving you a second thought. But I delivered the knockout blow, a punishment you will never forget, Because of the enormity of your guilt, the endless list of your sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So why all this self-pity, licking your wounds? You deserve all this, and more. Because of the enormity of your guilt, the endless list of your sins, I've done all this to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "'Everyone who hurt you will be hurt; your enemies will end up as slaves. Your plunderers will be plundered; your looters will become loot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> As for you, I'll come with healing, curing the incurable, Because they all gave up on you and dismissed you as hopeless-- that good-for-nothing Zion.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Again, GOD's Message: "'I'll turn things around for Jacob. I'll compassionately come in and rebuild homes. The town will be rebuilt on its old foundations; the mansions will be splendid again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Thanksgivings will pour out of the windows; laughter will spill through the doors. Things will get better and better. Depression days are over. They'll thrive, they'll flourish. The days of contempt will be over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> They'll look forward to having children again, to being a community in which I take pride. I'll punish anyone who hurts them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> and their prince will come from their own ranks. One of their own people shall be their leader. Their ruler will come from their own ranks. I'll grant him free and easy access to me. Would anyone dare to do that on his own, to enter my presence uninvited?' GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "'And that's it: You'll be my very own people, I'll be your very own God.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Look out! GOD's hurricane is let loose, his hurricane blast, Spinning the heads of the wicked like dust devils!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> God's raging anger won't let up Until he's made a clean sweep completing the job he began. When the job's done you'll see it's been well done.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="31">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "And when that happens"--GOD's Decree-- "it will be plain as the sun at high noon: I'll be the God of every man, woman, and child in Israel and they shall be my very own people."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> This is the way GOD put it: "They found grace out in the desert, these people who survived the killing. Israel, out looking for a place to rest,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> met God out looking for them!" GOD told them, "I've never quit loving you and never will. Expect love, love, and more love!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> And so now I'll start over with you and build you up again, dear virgin Israel. You'll resume your singing, grabbing tambourines and joining the dance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You'll go back to your old work of planting vineyards on the Samaritan hillsides, And sit back and enjoy the fruit-- oh, how you'll enjoy those harvests!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The time's coming when watchmen will call out from the hilltops of Ephraim: 'On your feet! Let's go to Zion, go to meet our GOD!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Oh yes, GOD says so: "Shout for joy at the top of your lungs for Jacob! Announce the good news to the number-one nation! Raise cheers! Sing praises. Say, 'GOD has saved his people, saved the core of Israel.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Watch what comes next: "I'll bring my people back from the north country And gather them up from the ends of the earth, gather those who've gone blind And those who are lame and limping, gather pregnant women, Even the mothers whose birth pangs have started, bring them all back, a huge crowd!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Watch them come! They'll come weeping for joy as I take their hands and lead them, Lead them to fresh flowing brooks, lead them along smooth, uncluttered paths. Yes, it's because I'm Israel's Father and Ephraim's my firstborn son!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Hear this, nations! GOD's Message! Broadcast this all over the world! Tell them, 'The One who scattered Israel will gather them together again. From now on he'll keep a careful eye on them, like a shepherd with his flock.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I, GOD, will pay a stiff ransom price for Jacob; I'll free him from the grip of the Babylonian bully.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The people will climb up Zion's slopes shouting with joy, their faces beaming because of GOD's bounty-- Grain and wine and oil, flocks of sheep, herds of cattle. Their lives will be like a well-watered garden, never again left to dry up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Young women will dance and be happy, young men and old men will join in. I'll convert their weeping into laughter, lavishing comfort, invading their grief with joy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'll make sure that their priests get three square meals a day and that my people have more than enough.'" GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Again, GOD's Message: "Listen to this! Laments coming out of Ramah, wild and bitter weeping. It's Rachel weeping for her children, Rachel refusing all solace. Her children are gone, gone--long gone into exile."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But GOD says, "Stop your incessant weeping, hold back your tears. Collect wages from your grief work." GOD's Decree. "They'll be coming back home!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> There's hope for your children." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "I've heard the contrition of Ephraim. Yes, I've heard it clearly, saying, 'You trained me well. You broke me, a wild yearling horse, to the saddle. Now put me, trained and obedient, to use. You are my GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> After those years of running loose, I repented. After you trained me to obedience, I was ashamed of my past, my wild, unruly past. Humiliated, I beat on my chest. Will I ever live this down?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "Oh! Ephraim is my dear, dear son, my child in whom I take pleasure! Every time I mention his name, my heart bursts with longing for him! Everything in me cries out for him. Softly and tenderly I wait for him." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Set up signposts to mark your trip home. Get a good map. Study the road conditions. The road out is the road back. Come back, dear virgin Israel, come back to your hometowns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> How long will you flit here and there, indecisive? How long before you make up your fickle mind? GOD will create a new thing in this land: A transformed woman will embrace the transforming GOD!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> A Message from Israel's GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies: "When I've turned everything around and brought my people back, the old expressions will be heard on the streets: 'GOD bless you!' . . . 'O True Home!' . . . 'O Holy Mountain!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> All Judah's people, whether in town or country, will get along just fine with each other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> I'll refresh tired bodies; I'll restore tired souls.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Just then I woke up and looked around--what a pleasant and satisfying sleep!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "Be ready. The time's coming"--GOD's Decree--"when I will plant people and animals in Israel and Judah, just as a farmer plants seed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> And in the same way that earlier I relentlessly pulled up and tore down, took apart and demolished, so now I am sticking with them as they start over, building and planting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "When that time comes you won't hear the old proverb anymore, Parents ate the green apples, their children got the stomachache.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "No, each person will pay for his own sin. You eat green apples, you're the one who gets sick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "That's right. The time is coming when I will make a brand-new covenant with Israel and Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> It won't be a repeat of the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant even though I did my part as their Master." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "This is the brand-new covenant that I will make with Israel when the time comes. I will put my law within them--write it on their hearts!--and be their God. And they will be my people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> They will no longer go around setting up schools to teach each other about GOD. They'll know me firsthand, the dull and the bright, the smart and the slow. I'll wipe the slate clean for each of them. I'll forget they ever sinned!" GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> GOD's Message, from the God who lights up the day with sun and brightens the night with moon and stars, Who whips the ocean into a billowy froth, whose name is GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> "If this ordered cosmos ever fell to pieces, fell into chaos before me"--GOD's Decree-- "Then and only then might Israel fall apart and disappear as a nation before me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> GOD's Message: "If the skies could be measured with a yardstick and the earth explored to its core, Then and only then would I turn my back on Israel, disgusted with all they've done." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> "The time is coming"--it's GOD's Decree--"when GOD's city will be rebuilt, rebuilt all the way from the Citadel of Hanamel to the Corner Gate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> The master plan will extend west to Gareb Hill and then around to Goath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> The whole valley to the south where incinerated corpses are dumped--a death valley if there ever was one!--and all the terraced fields out to the Brook Kidron on the east as far north as the Horse Gate will be consecrated to me as a holy place. "This city will never again be torn down or destroyed."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="32">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Message Jeremiah received from GOD in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah. It was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> At that time the army of the king of Babylon was holding Jerusalem under siege. Jeremiah was shut up in jail in the royal palace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Zedekiah, king of Judah, had locked him up, complaining, "How dare you preach, saying, 'GOD says, I'm warning you: I will hand this city over to the king of Babylon and he will take it over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Zedekiah king of Judah will be handed over to the Chaldeans right along with the city. He will be handed over to the king of Babylon and forced to face the music.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He'll be hauled off to Babylon where he'll stay until I deal with him. GOD's Decree. Fight against the Babylonians all you want--it won't get you anywhere.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Jeremiah said, "GOD's Message came to me like this:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Prepare yourself! Hanamel, your uncle Shallum's son, is on his way to see you. He is going to say, 'Buy my field in Anathoth. You have the legal right to buy it.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "And sure enough, just as GOD had said, my cousin Hanamel came to me while I was in jail and said, 'Buy my field in Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin, for you have the legal right to keep it in the family. Buy it. Take it over.' "That did it. I knew it was GOD's Message.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "So I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel. I paid him seventeen silver shekels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I followed all the proper procedures: In the presence of witnesses I wrote out the bill of sale, sealed it, and weighed out the money on the scales.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then I took the deed of purchase--the sealed copy that contained the contract and its conditions and also the open copy--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> and gave them to Baruch son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah. All this took place in the presence of my cousin Hanamel and the witnesses who had signed the deed, as the Jews who were at the jail that day looked on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Then, in front of all of them, I told Baruch,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> 'These are orders from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel: Take these documents--both the sealed and the open deeds--and put them for safekeeping in a pottery jar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> For GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel, says, "Life is going to return to normal. Homes and fields and vineyards are again going to be bought in this country."'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "And then, having handed over the legal documents to Baruch son of Neriah, I prayed to GOD,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> 'Dear GOD, my Master, you created earth and sky by your great power--by merely stretching out your arm! There is nothing you can't do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> You're loyal in your steadfast love to thousands upon thousands--but you also make children live with the fallout from their parents' sins. Great and powerful God, named GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> determined in purpose and relentless in following through, you see everything that men and women do and respond appropriately to the way they live, to the things they do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "'You performed signs and wonders in the country of Egypt and continue to do so right into the present, right here in Israel and everywhere else, too. You've made a reputation for yourself that doesn't diminish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> You brought your people Israel out of Egypt with signs and wonders--a powerful deliverance!--by merely stretching out your arm.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> You gave them this land and solemnly promised to their ancestors a bountiful and fertile land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But when they entered the land and took it over, they didn't listen to you. They didn't do what you commanded. They wouldn't listen to a thing you told them. And so you brought this disaster on them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "'Oh, look at the siege ramps already set in place to take the city. Killing and starvation and disease are on our doorstep. The Babylonians are attacking! The Word you spoke is coming to pass--it's daily news!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> And yet you, GOD, the Master, even though it is certain that the city will be turned over to the Babylonians, also told me, Buy the field. Pay for it in cash. And make sure there are witnesses.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Then GOD's Message came again to Jeremiah:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "Stay alert! I am GOD, the God of everything living. Is there anything I can't do?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> So listen to GOD's Message: No doubt about it, I'm handing this city over to the Babylonians and Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. He'll take it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The attacking Chaldeans will break through and burn the city down: All those houses whose roofs were used as altars for offerings to Baal and the worship of who knows how many other gods provoked me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> It isn't as if this were the first time they had provoked me. The people of Israel and Judah have been doing this for a long time--doing what I hate, making me angry by the way they live." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "This city has made me angry from the day they built it, and now I've had my fill. I'm destroying it. I can't stand to look any longer</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> at the wicked lives of the people of Israel and Judah, deliberately making me angry, the whole lot of them--kings and leaders and priests and preachers, in the country and in the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> They've turned their backs on me--won't even look me in the face!--even though I took great pains to teach them how to live. They refused to listen, refused to be taught.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Why, they even set up obscene god and goddess statues in the Temple built in my honor--an outrageous desecration!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> And then they went out and built shrines to the god Baal in the valley of Hinnom, where they burned their children in sacrifice to the god Molech--I can hardly conceive of such evil!--turning the whole country into one huge act of sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> "But there is also this Message from me, the GOD of Israel, to this city of which you have said, 'In killing and starvation and disease this city will be delivered up to the king of Babylon':</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> "'Watch for this! I will collect them from all the countries to which I will have driven them in my anger and rage and indignation. Yes, I'll bring them all back to this place and let them live here in peace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> They will be my people, I will be their God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> I'll make them of one mind and heart, always honoring me, so that they can live good and whole lives, they and their children after them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> What's more, I'll make a covenant with them that will last forever, a covenant to stick with them no matter what, and work for their good. I'll fill their hearts with a deep respect for me so they'll not even think of turning away from me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> "'Oh how I'll rejoice in them! Oh how I'll delight in doing good things for them! Heart and soul, I'll plant them in this country and keep them here!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> "Yes, this is GOD's Message: 'I will certainly bring this huge catastrophe on this people, but I will also usher in a wonderful life of prosperity. I promise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Fields are going to be bought here again, yes, in this very country that you assume is going to end up desolate--gone to the dogs, unlivable, wrecked by the Babylonians.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Yes, people will buy farms again, and legally, with deeds of purchase, sealed documents, proper witnesses--and right here in the territory of Benjamin, and in the area around Jerusalem, around the villages of Judah and the hill country, the Shephelah and the Negev. I will restore everything that was lost.' GOD's Decree."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="33">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> While Jeremiah was still locked up in jail, a second Message from GOD was given to him:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "This is GOD's Message, the God who made earth, made it livable and lasting, known everywhere as GOD:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> 'Call to me and I will answer you. I'll tell you marvelous and wondrous things that you could never figure out on your own.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "This is what GOD, the God of Israel, has to say about what's going on in this city, about the homes of both people and kings that have been demolished, about all the ravages of war</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> and the killing by the Chaldeans, and about the streets littered with the dead bodies of those killed because of my raging anger--about all that's happened because the evil actions in this city have turned my stomach in disgust.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "But now take another look. I'm going to give this city a thorough renovation, working a true healing inside and out. I'm going to show them life whole, life brimming with blessings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I'll restore everything that was lost to Judah and Jerusalem. I'll build everything back as good as new.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I'll scrub them clean from the dirt they've done against me. I'll forgive everything they've done wrong, forgive all their rebellions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And Jerusalem will be a center of joy and praise and glory for all the countries on earth. They'll get reports on all the good I'm doing for her. They'll be in awe of the blessings I am pouring on her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Yes, GOD's Message: 'You're going to look at this place, these empty and desolate towns of Judah and streets of Jerusalem, and say, "A wasteland. Unlivable. Not even a dog could live here."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But the time is coming when you're going to hear laughter and celebration, marriage festivities, people exclaiming, "Thank GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies. He's so good! His love never quits," as they bring thank offerings into GOD's Temple. I'll restore everything that was lost in this land. I'll make everything as good as new.' I, GOD, say so.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies says: 'This coming desolation, unfit for even a stray dog, is once again going to become a pasture for shepherds who care for their flocks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You'll see flocks everywhere--in the mountains around the towns of the Shephelah and Negev, all over the territory of Benjamin, around Jerusalem and the towns of Judah--flocks under the care of shepherds who keep track of each sheep.' GOD says so.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "'Watch for this: The time is coming'--GOD's Decree--'when I will keep the promise I made to the families of Israel and Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> When that time comes, I will make a fresh and true shoot sprout from the David-Tree. He will run this country honestly and fairly. He will set things right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> That's when Judah will be secure and Jerusalem live in safety. The motto for the city will be, "GOD Has Set Things Right for Us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> GOD has made it clear that there will always be a descendant of David ruling the people of Israel</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> and that there will always be Levitical priests on hand to offer burnt offerings, present grain offerings, and carry on the sacrificial worship in my honor.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> GOD's Message to Jeremiah:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "GOD says, 'If my covenant with day and my covenant with night ever fell apart so that day and night became haphazard and you never knew which was coming and when,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> then and only then would my covenant with my servant David fall apart and his descendants no longer rule. The same goes for the Levitical priests who serve me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Just as you can't number the stars in the sky nor measure the sand on the seashore, neither will you be able to account for the descendants of David my servant and the Levites who serve me.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> GOD's Message to Jeremiah:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "Have you heard the saying that's making the rounds: 'The two families GOD chose, Israel and Judah, he disowned'? And have you noticed that my people are treated with contempt, with rumors afoot that there's nothing to them anymore?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "Well, here's GOD's response: 'If my covenant with day and night wasn't in working order, if sky and earth weren't functioning the way I set them going,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> then, but only then, you might think I had disowned the descendants of Jacob and of my servant David, and that I wouldn't set up any of David's descendants over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But as it is, I will give them back everything they've lost. The last word is, I will have mercy on them.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="34">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message to Jeremiah at the time King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon mounted an all-out attack on Jerusalem and all the towns around it with his armies and allies and everyone he could muster:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "I, GOD, the God of Israel, direct you to go and tell Zedekiah king of Judah: 'This is GOD's Message. Listen to me. I am going to hand this city over to the king of Babylon, and he is going to burn it to the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And don't think you'll get away. You'll be captured and be his prisoner. You will have a personal confrontation with the king of Babylon and be taken off with him, captive, to Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "'But listen, O Zedekiah king of Judah, to the rest of the Message of GOD. You won't be killed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You'll die a peaceful death. They will honor you with funeral rites as they honored your ancestors, the kings who preceded you. They will properly mourn your death, weeping, "Master, master!" This is a solemn promise. GOD's Decree.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The prophet Jeremiah gave this Message to Zedekiah king of Judah in Jerusalem, gave it to him word for word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> It was at the very time that the king of Babylon was mounting his all-out attack on Jerusalem and whatever cities in Judah that were still standing--only Lachish and Azekah, as it turned out (they were the only fortified cities left in Judah).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD delivered a Message to Jeremiah after King Zedekiah made a covenant with the people of Jerusalem to decree freedom</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> to the slaves who were Hebrews, both men and women. The covenant stipulated that no one in Judah would own a fellow Jew as a slave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> All the leaders and people who had signed the covenant set free the slaves, men and women alike.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But a little while later, they reneged on the covenant, broke their promise and forced their former slaves to become slaves again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then Jeremiah received this Message from GOD:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "GOD, the God of Israel, says, 'I made a covenant with your ancestors when I delivered them out of their slavery in Egypt. At the time I made it clear:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "At the end of seven years, each of you must free any fellow Hebrew who has had to sell himself to you. After he has served six years, set him free." But your ancestors totally ignored me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "'And now, you--what have you done? First you turned back to the right way and did the right thing, decreeing freedom for your brothers and sisters--and you made it official in a solemn covenant in my Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> And then you turned right around and broke your word, making a mockery of both me and the covenant, and made them all slaves again, these men and women you'd just set free. You forced them back into slavery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "'So here is what I, GOD, have to say: You have not obeyed me and set your brothers and sisters free. Here is what I'm going to do: I'm going to set you free--GOD's Decree--free to get killed in war or by disease or by starvation. I'll make you a spectacle of horror. People all over the world will take one look at you and shudder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Everyone who violated my covenant, who didn't do what was solemnly promised in the covenant ceremony when they split the young bull into two halves and walked between them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> all those people that day who walked between the two halves of the bull--leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, palace officials, priests, and all the rest of the people--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> I'm handing the lot of them over to their enemies who are out to kill them. Their dead bodies will be carrion food for vultures and stray dogs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "'As for Zedekiah king of Judah and his palace staff, I'll also hand them over to their enemies, who are out to kill them. The army of the king of Babylon has pulled back for a time,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> but not for long, for I'm going to issue orders that will bring them back to this city. They'll attack and take it and burn it to the ground. The surrounding cities of Judah will fare no better. I'll turn them into ghost towns, unlivable and unlived in.'" GOD's Decree.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="35">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Message that Jeremiah received from GOD ten years earlier, during the time of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Israel:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Go visit the Recabite community. Invite them to meet with you in one of the rooms in GOD's Temple. And serve them wine."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> So I went and got Jaazaniah son of Jeremiah, son of Habazziniah, along with all his brothers and sons--the whole community of the Recabites as it turned out--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> and brought them to GOD's Temple and to the meeting room of Hanan son of Igdaliah, a man of God. It was next to the meeting room of the Temple officials and just over the apartment of Maaseiah son of Shallum, who was in charge of Temple affairs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then I set out chalices and pitchers of wine for the Recabites and said, "A toast! Drink up!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But they wouldn't do it. "We don't drink wine," they said. "Our ancestor Jonadab son of Recab commanded us, 'You are not to drink wine, you or your children, ever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Neither shall you build houses or settle down, planting fields and gardens and vineyards. Don't own property. Live in tents as nomads so that you will live well and prosper in a wandering life.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "And we've done it, done everything Jonadab son of Recab commanded. We and our wives, our sons and daughters, drink no wine at all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> We don't build houses. We don't have vineyards or fields or gardens.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> We live in tents as nomads. We've listened to our ancestor Jonadab and we've done everything he commanded us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "But when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon invaded our land, we said, 'Let's go to Jerusalem and get out of the path of the Chaldean and Aramean armies, find ourselves a safe place.' That's why we're living in Jerusalem right now."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then Jeremiah received this Message from GOD:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel, wants you to go tell the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem that I say, 'Why won't you learn your lesson and do what I tell you?' GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> 'The commands of Jonadab son of Recab to his sons have been carried out to the letter. He told them not to drink wine, and they haven't touched a drop to this very day. They honored and obeyed their ancestor's command. But look at you! I have gone to a lot of trouble to get your attention, and you've ignored me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I sent prophet after prophet to you, all of them my servants, to tell you from early morning to late at night to change your life, make a clean break with your evil past and do what is right, to not take up with every Tom, Dick, and Harry of a god that comes down the pike, but settle down and be faithful in this country I gave your ancestors. "'And what do I get from you? Deaf ears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The descendants of Jonadab son of Recab carried out to the letter what their ancestor commanded them, but this people ignores me.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "So here's what is going to happen. GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel, says, 'I will bring calamity down on the heads of the people of Judah and Jerusalem--the very calamity I warned you was coming--because you turned a deaf ear when I spoke, turned your backs when I called.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Then, turning to the Recabite community, Jeremiah said, "And this is what GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel, says to you: Because you have done what Jonadab your ancestor told you, obeyed his commands and followed through on his instructions,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> receive this Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel: There will always be a descendant of Jonadab son of Recab at my service! Always!'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="36">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, Jeremiah received this Message from GOD:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Get a scroll and write down everything I've told you regarding Israel and Judah and all the other nations from the time I first started speaking to you in Josiah's reign right up to the present day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Maybe the community of Judah will finally get it, finally understand the catastrophe that I'm planning for them, turn back from their bad lives, and let me forgive their perversity and sin."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> So Jeremiah called in Baruch son of Neriah. Jeremiah dictated and Baruch wrote down on a scroll everything that GOD had said to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then Jeremiah told Baruch, "I'm blacklisted. I can't go into GOD's Temple,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> so you'll have to go in my place. Go into the Temple and read everything you've written at my dictation. Wait for a day of fasting when everyone is there to hear you. And make sure that all the people who come from the Judean villages hear you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Maybe, just maybe, they'll start praying and GOD will hear their prayers. Maybe they'll turn back from their bad lives. This is no light matter. GOD has certainly let them know how angry he is!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Baruch son of Neriah did everything Jeremiah the prophet told him to do. In the Temple of GOD he read the Message of GOD from the scroll.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> It came about in December of the fifth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah that all the people of Jerusalem, along with all the people from the Judean villages, were there in Jerusalem to observe a fast to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Baruch took the scroll to the Temple and read out publicly the words of Jeremiah. He read from the meeting room of Gemariah son of Shaphan the secretary of state, which was in the upper court right next to the New Gate of GOD's Temple. Everyone could hear him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The moment Micaiah the son of Gemariah heard what was being read from the scroll--GOD's Message!--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> he went straight to the palace and to the chambers of the secretary of state where all the government officials were holding a meeting: Elishama the secretary, Delaiah son of Shemaiah, Elnathan son of Achbor, Gemariah son of Shaphan, Zedekiah son of Hananiah, and all the other government officials.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Micaiah reported everything he had heard Baruch read from the scroll as the officials listened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Immediately they dispatched Jehudi son of Nethaniah, son of Semaiah, son of Cushi, to Baruch, ordering him, "Take the scroll that you have read to the people and bring it here." So Baruch went and retrieved the scroll.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The officials told him, "Sit down. Read it to us, please." Baruch read it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When they had heard it all, they were upset. They talked it over. "We've got to tell the king all this."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> They asked Baruch, "Tell us, how did you come to write all this? Was it at Jeremiah's dictation?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Baruch said, "That's right. Every word right from his own mouth. And I wrote it down, word for word, with pen and ink."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The government officials told Baruch, "You need to get out of here. Go into hiding, you and Jeremiah. Don't let anyone know where you are!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The officials went to the court of the palace to report to the king, having put the scroll for safekeeping in the office of Elishama the secretary of state.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The king sent Jehudi to get the scroll. He brought it from the office of Elishama the secretary. Jehudi then read it to the king and the officials who were in the king's service.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> It was December. The king was sitting in his winter quarters in front of a charcoal fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> After Jehudi would read three or four columns, the king would cut them off the scroll with his pocketknife and throw them in the fire. He continued in this way until the entire scroll had been burned up in the fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Neither the king nor any of his officials showed the slightest twinge of conscience as they listened to the messages read.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah tried to convince the king not to burn the scroll, but he brushed them off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> He just plowed ahead and ordered Prince Jerahameel, Seraiah son of Azriel, and Shelemiah son of Abdeel to arrest Jeremiah the prophet and his secretary Baruch. But GOD had hidden them away.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> After the king had burned the scroll that Baruch had written at Jeremiah's dictation, Jeremiah received this Message from GOD:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "Get another blank scroll and do it all over again. Write out everything that was in that first scroll that Jehoiakim king of Judah burned up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "And send this personal message to Jehoiakim king of Judah: 'GOD says, You had the gall to burn this scroll and then the nerve to say, "What kind of nonsense is this written here--that the king of Babylon will come and destroy this land and kill everything in it?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "'Well, do you want to know what GOD says about Jehoiakim king of Judah? This: No descendant of his will ever rule from David's throne. His corpse will be thrown in the street and left unburied, exposed to the hot sun and the freezing night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> I will punish him and his children and the officials in his government for their blatant sin. I'll let loose on them and everyone in Jerusalem the doomsday disaster of which I warned them but they spit at.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> So Jeremiah went and got another scroll and gave it to Baruch son of Neriah, his secretary. At Jeremiah's dictation he again wrote down everything that Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire. There were also generous additions, but of the same kind of thing.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="37">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> King Zedekiah son of Josiah, a puppet king set on the throne by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon in the land of Judah, was now king in place of Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> But neither he nor his officials nor the people themselves paid a bit of attention to the Message GOD gave by Jeremiah the prophet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> However, King Zedekiah sent Jehucal son of Shelemiah, and Zephaniah the priest, son of Maaseiah, to Jeremiah the prophet, saying, "Pray for us--pray hard!--to the Master, our GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Jeremiah was still moving about freely among the people in those days. This was before he had been put in jail.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Pharaoh's army was marching up from Egypt. The Chaldeans fighting against Jerusalem heard that the Egyptians were coming and pulled back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then Jeremiah the prophet received this Message from GOD:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "I, the GOD of Israel, want you to give this Message to the king of Judah, who has just sent you to me to find out what he should do. Tell him, 'Get this: Pharaoh's army, which is on its way to help you, isn't going to stick it out. No sooner will they get here than they'll leave and go home to Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And then the Babylonians will come back and resume their attack, capture this city and burn it to the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I, GOD, am telling you: Don't kid yourselves, reassuring one another, "The Babylonians will leave in a few days." I tell you, they aren't leaving.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Why, even if you defeated the entire attacking Chaldean army and all that was left were a few wounded soldiers in their tents, the wounded would still do the job and burn this city to the ground.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> When the Chaldean army pulled back from Jerusalem,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Jeremiah left Jerusalem to go over to the territory of Benjamin to take care of some personal business.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> When he got to the Benjamin Gate, the officer on guard there, Irijah son of Shelemiah, son of Hananiah, grabbed Jeremiah the prophet, accusing him, "You're deserting to the Chaldeans!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "That's a lie," protested Jeremiah. "I wouldn't think of deserting to the Chaldeans." But Irijah wouldn't listen to him. He arrested him and took him to the police.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The police were furious with Jeremiah. They beat him up and threw him into jail in the house of Jonathan the secretary of state. (They were using the house for a prison cell.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So Jeremiah entered an underground cell in a cistern turned into a dungeon. He stayed there a long time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Later King Zedekiah had Jeremiah brought to him. The king questioned him privately, "Is there a Message from GOD?" "There certainly is," said Jeremiah. "You're going to be turned over to the king of Babylon."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Jeremiah continued speaking to King Zedekiah: "Can you tell me why you threw me into prison? What crime did I commit against you or your officials or this people?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And tell me, whatever has become of your prophets who preached all those sermons saying that the king of Babylon would never attack you or this land?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Listen to me, please, my master--my king! Please don't send me back to that dungeon in the house of Jonathan the secretary. I'll die there!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> So King Zedekiah ordered that Jeremiah be assigned to the courtyard of the palace guards. He was given a loaf of bread from Bakers' Alley every day until all the bread in the city was gone. And that's where Jeremiah remained--in the courtyard of the palace guards.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="38">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Shaphatiah son of Mattan, Gedaliah son of Pashur, Jehucal son of Shelemiah, and Pashur son of Malkijah heard what Jeremiah was telling the people, namely:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "This is GOD's Message: 'Whoever stays in this town will die--will be killed or starve to death or get sick and die. But those who go over to the Babylonians will save their necks and live.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "And, GOD's sure Word: 'This city is destined to fall to the army of the king of Babylon. He's going to take it over.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> These officials told the king, "Please, kill this man. He's got to go! He's ruining the resolve of the soldiers who are still left in the city, as well as the people themselves, by spreading these words. This man isn't looking after the good of this people. He's trying to ruin us!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> King Zedekiah caved in: "If you say so. Go ahead, handle it your way. You're too much for me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So they took Jeremiah and threw him into the cistern of Malkijah the king's son that was in the courtyard of the palace guard. They lowered him down with ropes. There wasn't any water in the cistern, only mud. Jeremiah sank into the mud.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Ebed-melek the Ethiopian, a court official assigned to the royal palace, heard that they had thrown Jeremiah into the cistern. While the king was holding court in the Benjamin Gate,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Ebed-melek went immediately from the palace to the king and said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "My master, O king--these men are committing a great crime in what they're doing, throwing Jeremiah the prophet into the cistern and leaving him there to starve. He's as good as dead. There isn't a scrap of bread left in the city."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So the king ordered Ebed-melek the Ethiopian, "Get three men and pull Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Ebed-melek got three men and went to the palace wardrobe and got some scraps of old clothing, which they tied together and lowered down with ropes to Jeremiah in the cistern.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Ebed-melek the Ethiopian called down to Jeremiah, "Put these scraps of old clothing under your armpits and around the ropes." Jeremiah did what he said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And so they pulled Jeremiah up out of the cistern by the ropes. But he was still confined in the courtyard of the palace guard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Later, King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah the prophet and had him brought to the third entrance of the Temple of GOD. The king said to Jeremiah, "I'm going to ask you something. Don't hold anything back from me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Jeremiah said, "If I told you the whole truth, you'd kill me. And no matter what I said, you wouldn't pay any attention anyway."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Zedekiah swore to Jeremiah right there, but in secret, "As sure as GOD lives, who gives us life, I won't kill you, nor will I turn you over to the men who are trying to kill you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> So Jeremiah told Zedekiah, "This is the Message from GOD, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel: 'If you will turn yourself over to the generals of the king of Babylon, you will live, this city won't be burned down, and your family will live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But if you don't turn yourself over to the generals of the king of Babylon, this city will go into the hands of the Chaldeans and they'll burn it down. And don't for a minute think there's any escape for you.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, "But I'm afraid of the Judeans who have already deserted to the Chaldeans. If they get hold of me, they'll rough me up good."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Jeremiah assured him, "They won't get hold of you. Listen, please. Listen to GOD's voice. I'm telling you this for your own good so that you'll live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But if you refuse to turn yourself over, this is what GOD has shown me will happen:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Picture this in your mind--all the women still left in the palace of the king of Judah, led out to the officers of the king of Babylon, and as they're led out they are saying: "'They lied to you and did you in, those so-called friends of yours; And now you're stuck, about knee-deep in mud, and your "friends," where are they now?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "They'll take all your wives and children and give them to the Chaldeans. And you, don't think you'll get out of this--the king of Babylon will seize you and then burn this city to the ground."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, "Don't let anyone know of this conversation, if you know what's good for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> If the government officials get wind that I've been talking with you, they may come and say, 'Tell us what went on between you and the king, what you said and what he said. Hold nothing back and we won't kill you.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> If this happens, tell them, 'I presented my case to the king so that he wouldn't send me back to the dungeon of Jonathan to die there.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> And sure enough, all the officials came to Jeremiah and asked him. He responded as the king had instructed. So they quit asking. No one had overheard the conversation</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Jeremiah lived in the courtyard of the palace guards until the day that Jerusalem was captured.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="39">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the ninth year and tenth month of Zedekiah king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came with his entire army and laid siege to Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> In the eleventh year and fourth month, on the ninth day of Zedekiah's reign, they broke through into the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> All the officers of the king of Babylon came and set themselves up as a ruling council from the Middle Gate: Nergal-sharezer of Simmagar, Nebushazban the Rabsaris, Nergal-sharezer the Rabmag, along with all the other officials of the king of Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When Zedekiah king of Judah and his remaining soldiers saw this, they ran for their lives. They slipped out at night on a path in the king's garden through the gate between two walls and headed for the wilderness, toward the Jordan Valley.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The Babylonian army chased them and caught Zedekiah in the wilderness of Jericho. They seized him and took him to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon at Riblah in the country of Hamath. Nebuchadnezzar decided his fate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The king of Babylon killed all the sons of Zedekiah in Riblah right before his eyes and then killed all the nobles of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> After Zedekiah had seen the slaughter, Nebuchadnezzar blinded him, chained him up, and then took him off to Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Meanwhile, the Babylonians burned down the royal palace, the Temple, and all the homes of the people. They leveled the walls of Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Nebuzaradan, commander of the king's bodyguard, rounded up everyone left in the city, along with those who had surrendered to him, and herded them off to exile in Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He didn't bother taking the few poor people who had nothing. He left them in the land of Judah to eke out a living as best they could in the vineyards and fields.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon gave Nebuzaradan captain of the king's bodyguard special orders regarding Jeremiah:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Look out for him. Make sure nothing bad happens to him. Give him anything he wants."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> So Nebuzaradan, chief of the king's bodyguard, along with Nebushazban the Rabsaris, Nergal-sharezer the Rabmag, and all the chief officers of the king of Babylon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> sent for Jeremiah, taking him from the courtyard of the royal guards and putting him under the care of Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, to be taken home. And so he was able to live with the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Earlier, while Jeremiah was still in custody in the courtyard of the royal guards, GOD's Message came to him:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Go and speak with Ebed-melek the Ethiopian. Tell him, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel, says, Listen carefully: I will do exactly what I said I would do to this city--bad news, not good news. When it happens, you will be there to see it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But I'll deliver you on that doomsday. You won't be handed over to those men whom you have good reason to fear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Yes, I'll most certainly save you. You won't be killed. You'll walk out of there safe and sound because you trusted me.'" GOD's Decree.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="40">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message to Jeremiah after Nebuzaradan captain of the bodyguard set him free at Ramah. When Nebuzaradan came upon him, he was in chains, along with all the other captives from Jerusalem and Judah who were being herded off to exile in Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The captain of the bodyguard singled out Jeremiah and said to him, "Your GOD pronounced doom on this place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> GOD came and did what he had warned he'd do because you all sinned against GOD and wouldn't do what he told you. So now you're all suffering the consequences.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "But today, Jeremiah, I'm setting you free, taking the chains off your hands. If you'd like to come to Babylon with me, come along. I'll take good care of you. But if you don't want to come to Babylon with me, that's just fine, too. Look, the whole land stretches out before you. Do what you like. Go and live wherever you wish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> If you want to stay home, go back to Gedaliah son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan. The king of Babylon made him governor of the cities of Judah. Stay with him and your people. Or go wherever you'd like. It's up to you." The captain of the bodyguard gave him food for the journey and a parting gift, and sent him off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Jeremiah went to Gedaliah son of Ahikam at Mizpah and made his home with him and the people who were left behind in the land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When the army leaders and their men, who had been hiding out in the fields, heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam as governor of the land, putting him in charge of the men, women, and children of the poorest of the poor who hadn't been taken off to exile in Babylon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> they came to Gedaliah at Mizpah: Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan and Jonathan the sons of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth, the sons of Ephai the Netophathite, and Jaazaniah son of the Maacathite, accompanied by their men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, promised them and their men, "You have nothing to fear from the Chaldean officials. Stay here on the land. Be subject to the king of Babylon. You'll get along just fine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "My job is to stay here in Mizpah and be your advocate before the Chaldeans when they show up. Your job is to take care of the land: Make wine, harvest the summer fruits, press olive oil. Store it all in pottery jugs and settle into the towns that you have taken over."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The Judeans who had escaped to Moab, Ammon, Edom, and other countries heard that the king of Babylon had left a few survivors in Judah and made Gedaliah son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan, governor over them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They all started coming back to Judah from all the places where they'd been scattered. They came to Judah and to Gedaliah at Mizpah and went to work gathering in a huge supply of wine and summer fruits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> One day Johanan son of Kareah and all the officers of the army who had been hiding out in the backcountry came to Gedaliah at Mizpah</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> and told him, "You know, don't you, that Baaliss king of Ammon has sent Ishmael son of Nethaniah to kill you?" But Gedaliah son of Ahikam didn't believe them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Then Johanan son of Kareah took Gedaliah aside privately in Mizpah: "Let me go and kill Ishmael son of Nethaniah. No one needs to know about it. Why should we let him kill you and plunge the land into anarchy? Why let everyone you've taken care of be scattered and what's left of Judah destroyed?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But Gedaliah son of Ahikam told Johanan son of Kareah, "Don't do it. I forbid it. You're spreading a false rumor about Ishmael."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="41">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> But in the seventh month, Ishmael son of Nethaniah, son of Elishama, came. He had royal blood in his veins and had been one of the king's high-ranking officers. He paid a visit to Gedaliah son of Ahikam at Mizpah with ten of his men. As they were eating together,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Ishmael and his ten men jumped to their feet and knocked Gedaliah down and killed him, killed the man the king of Babylon had appointed governor of the land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Ishmael also killed all the Judeans who were with Gedaliah in Mizpah, as well as the Chaldean soldiers who were stationed there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> On the second day after the murder of Gedaliah--no one yet knew of it--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> men arrived from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria, eighty of them, with their beards shaved, their clothing ripped, and gashes on their bodies. They were pilgrims carrying grain offerings and incense on their way to worship at the Temple in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Ishmael son of Nethaniah went out from Mizpah to welcome them, weeping ostentatiously. When he greeted them he invited them in: "Come and meet Gedaliah son of Ahikam."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But as soon as they were inside the city, Ishmael son of Nethaniah and his henchmen slaughtered the pilgrims and dumped the bodies in a cistern.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Ten of the men talked their way out of the massacre. They bargained with Ishmael, "Don't kill us. We have a hidden store of wheat, barley, olive oil, and honey out in the fields." So he held back and didn't kill them with their fellow pilgrims.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Ishmael's reason for dumping the bodies into a cistern was to cover up the earlier murder of Gedaliah. The cistern had been built by king Asa as a defense against Baasha king of Israel. This was the cistern that Ishmael son of Nethaniah filled with the slaughtered men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Ishmael then took everyone else in Mizpah, including the king's daughters entrusted to the care of Gedaliah son of Ahikam by Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard, as prisoners. Rounding up the prisoners, Ishmael son of Nethaniah proceeded to take them over into the country of Ammon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers with him heard about the atrocities committed by Ishmael son of Nethaniah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They set off at once after Ishmael son of Nethaniah. They found him at the large pool at Gibeon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> When all the prisoners from Mizpah who had been taken by Ishmael saw Johanan son of Kareah and the army officers with him, they couldn't believe their eyes. They were so happy!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They all rallied around Johanan son of Kareah and headed back home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But Ishmael son of Nethaniah got away, escaping from Johanan with eight men into the land of Ammon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Then Johanan son of Kareah and the army officers with him gathered together what was left of the people whom Ishmael son of Nethaniah had taken prisoner from Mizpah after the murder of Gedaliah son of Ahikam--men, women, children, eunuchs--and brought them back from Gibeon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> They set out at once for Egypt to get away from the Chaldeans, stopping on the way at Geruth-kimham near Bethlehem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They were afraid of what the Chaldeans might do in retaliation of Ishmael son of Nethaniah's murder of Gedaliah son of Ahikam, whom the king of Babylon had appointed as governor of the country.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="42">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> All the army officers, led by Johanan son of Kareah and Jezaniah son of Hoshaiah, accompanied by all the people, small and great,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> came to Jeremiah the prophet and said, "We have a request. Please listen. Pray to your GOD for us, what's left of us. You can see for yourself how few we are!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Pray that your GOD will tell us the way we should go and what we should do."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Jeremiah the prophet said, "I hear your request. And I will pray to your GOD as you have asked. Whatever GOD says, I'll pass on to you. I'll tell you everything, holding nothing back."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They said to Jeremiah, "Let GOD be our witness, a true and faithful witness against us, if we don't do everything that your GOD directs you to tell us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Whether we like it or not, we'll do it. We'll obey whatever our GOD tells us. Yes, count on us. We'll do it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Ten days later GOD's Message came to Jeremiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He called together Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers with him, including all the people, regardless of how much clout they had.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He then spoke: "This is the Message from GOD, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your prayer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He says, 'If you are ready to stick it out in this land, I will build you up and not drag you down, I will plant you and not pull you up like a weed. I feel deep compassion on account of the doom I have visited on you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> You don't have to fear the king of Babylon. Your fears are for nothing. I'm on your side, ready to save and deliver you from anything he might do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I'll pour mercy on you. What's more, he will show you mercy! He'll let you come back to your very own land.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "But do not say, 'We're not staying around this place,' refusing to obey the command of your GOD</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> and saying instead, 'No! We're off to Egypt, where things are peaceful--no wars, no attacking armies, plenty of food. We're going to live there.' If</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> what's left of Judah is headed down that road, then listen to GOD's Message. This is what GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies says: 'If you have determined to go to Egypt and make that your home,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> then the very wars you fear will catch up with you in Egypt and the starvation you dread will track you down in Egypt. You'll die there!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Every last one of you who is determined to go to Egypt and make it your home will either be killed, starve, or get sick and die. No survivors, not one! No one will escape the doom that I'll bring upon you.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "This is the Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel: 'In the same way that I swept the citizens of Jerusalem away with my anger and wrath, I'll do the same thing all over again in Egypt. You'll end up being cursed, reviled, ridiculed, and mocked. And you'll never see your homeland again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> ' "GOD has plainly told you, you leftovers from Judah, 'Don't go to Egypt.' Could anything be plainer? I warn you this day</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> that you are living out a fantasy. You're making a fatal mistake. "Didn't you just now send me to your GOD, saying, 'Pray for us to our GOD. Tell us everything that GOD says and we'll do it all'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Well, now I've told you, told you everything he said, and you haven't obeyed a word of it, not a single word of what your GOD sent me to tell you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> So now let me tell you what will happen next: You'll be killed, you'll starve to death, you'll get sick and die in the wonderful country where you've determined to go and live."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="43">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When Jeremiah finished telling all the people the whole Message that their GOD had sent him to give them--all these words--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Azariah son of Hoshaiah and Johanan son of Kareah, backed by all the self-important men, said to Jeremiah, "Liar! Our GOD never sent you with this message telling us not to go to Egypt and live there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Baruch son of Neriah is behind this. He has turned you against us. He's playing into the hands of the Babylonians so we'll either end up being killed or taken off to exile in Babylon."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Johanan son of Kareah and the army officers, and the people along with them, wouldn't listen to GOD's Message that they stay in the land of Judah and live there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Johanan son of Kareah and the army officers gathered up everyone who was left from Judah, who had come back after being scattered all over the place--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> the men, women, and children, the king's daughters, all the people that Nebuzaradan captain of the bodyguard had left in the care of Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, and last but not least, Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch son of Neriah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They entered the land of Egypt in total disobedience of GOD's Message and arrived at the city of Tahpanhes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> While in Tahpanhes, GOD's Word came to Jeremiah:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Pick up some large stones and cover them with mortar in the vicinity of the pavement that leads up to the building set aside for Pharaoh's use in Tahpanhes. Make sure some of the men of Judah are watching.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Then address them: 'This is what GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies says: Be on the lookout! I'm sending for and bringing Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon--my servant, mind you!--and he'll set up his throne on these very stones that I've had buried here and he'll spread out his canopy over them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He'll come and absolutely smash Egypt, sending each to his assigned fate: death, exile, slaughter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He'll burn down the temples of Egypt's gods. He'll either burn up the gods or haul them off as booty. Like a shepherd who picks lice from his robes, he'll pick Egypt clean. And then he'll walk away without a hand being laid on him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He'll shatter the sacred obelisks at Egypt's House of the Sun and make a huge bonfire of the temples of Egypt's gods.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="44">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Message that Jeremiah received for all the Judeans who lived in the land of Egypt, who had their homes in Migdol, Tahpanhes, Noph, and the land of Pathros:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "This is what GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel, says: 'You saw with your own eyes the terrible doom that I brought down on Jerusalem and the Judean cities. Look at what's left: ghost towns of rubble and smoking ruins,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> and all because they took up with evil ways, making me angry by going off to offer sacrifices and worship the latest in gods--no-gods that neither they nor you nor your ancestors knew the first thing about.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Morning after morning and long into the night I kept after you, sending you all those prophets, my servants, begging you, "Please, please--don't do this, don't fool around in this loathsome gutter of gods that I hate with a passion."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But do you think anyone paid the least bit of attention or repented of evil or quit offering sacrifices to the no-gods? Not one.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So I let loose with my anger, a firestorm of wrath in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, and left them in ruins and wasted. And they're still in ruins and wasted.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "This is the Message of GOD, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel: 'So why are you ruining your lives by amputating yourselves--man, woman, child, and baby--from the life of Judah, leaving yourselves isolated, unconnected?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And why do you deliberately make me angry by what you do, offering sacrifices to these no-gods in the land of Egypt where you've come to live? You'll only destroy yourselves and make yourselves an example used in curses and an object of ridicule among all the nations of the earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "'Have you so soon forgotten the evil lives of your ancestors, the evil lives of the kings of Judah and their wives, to say nothing of your own evil lives, you and your wives, the evil you flaunted in the land of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And to this day, there's not a trace of remorse, not a sign of reverence, nobody caring about living by what I tell them or following my instructions that I've set out so plainly before you and your parents!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> So this is what GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies decrees: "'Watch out! I've decided to bring doom on you and get rid of everyone connected with Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I'm going to take what's left of Judah, those who have decided to go to Egypt and live there, and finish them off. In Egypt they will either be killed or starve to death. The same fate will fall upon both the obscure and the important. Regardless of their status, they will either be killed or starve. You'll end up cursed, reviled, ridiculed, and mocked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I'll give those who are in Egypt the same medicine I gave those in Jerusalem: massacre, starvation, and disease.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> None of those who managed to get out of Judah alive and get away to Egypt are going to make it back to the Judah for which they're so homesick. None will make it back, except maybe a few fugitives.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The men who knew that their wives had been burning sacrifices to the no-gods, joined by a large crowd of women, along with virtually everyone living in Pathros of Egypt, answered Jeremiah:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "We're having nothing to do with what you tell us is GOD's Message.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> We're going to go right on offering sacrifices to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, keeping up the traditions set by our ancestors, our kings and government leaders in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem in the good old days. We had a good life then--lots of food, rising standard of living, and no bad luck.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But the moment we quit sacrificing to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out offerings to her, everything fell apart. We've had nothing but massacres and starvation ever since.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> " And then the women chimed in: "Yes! Absolutely! We're going to keep at it, offering sacrifices to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out offerings to her. Aren't our husbands behind us? They like it that we make goddess cookies and pour out our offerings to her."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Then Jeremiah spoke up, confronting the men and the women, all the people who had answered so insolently. He said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "The sacrifices that you and your parents, your kings, your government officials, and the common people of the land offered up in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem--don't you think GOD noticed? He noticed, all right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> And he got fed up. Finally, he couldn't take your evil behavior and your disgusting acts any longer. Your land became a wasteland, a death valley, a horror story, a ghost town. And it continues to be just that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> This doom has come upon you because you kept offering all those sacrifices, and you sinned against GOD! You refused to listen to him, wouldn't live the way he directed, ignored the covenant conditions."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Jeremiah kept going, but now zeroed in on the women: "Listen, all you who are from Judah and living in Egypt--please, listen to GOD's Word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel, says: 'You women! You said it and then you did it. You said, "We're going to keep the vows we made to sacrifice to the Queen of Heaven and pour out offerings to her, and nobody's going to stop us!"' "Well, go ahead. Keep your vows. Do it up big.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> But also listen to what GOD has to say about it, all you who are from Judah but live in Egypt: 'I swear by my great name, backed by everything I am--this is GOD speaking!--that never again shall my name be used in vows, such as "As sure as the Master, GOD, lives!" by anyone in the whole country of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> I've targeted each one of you for doom. The good is gone for good. "'All the Judeans in Egypt will die off by massacre or starvation until they're wiped out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The few who get out of Egypt alive and back to Judah will be very few, hardly worth counting. Then that ragtag bunch that left Judah to live in Egypt will know who had the last word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "'And this will be the evidence: I will bring punishment right here, and by this you'll know that the decrees of doom against you are the real thing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Watch for this sign of doom: I will give Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt over to his enemies, those who are out to kill him, exactly as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah to his enemy Nebuchadnezzar, who was after him.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="45">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> This is what Jeremiah told Baruch one day in the fourth year of Jehoiakim's reign as he was taking dictation from the prophet:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "These are the words of GOD, the God of Israel, to you, Baruch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You say, 'These are bad times for me! It's one thing after another. GOD is piling on the pain. I'm worn out and there's no end in sight.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "But GOD says, 'Look around. What I've built I'm about to wreck, and what I've planted I'm about to rip up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And I'm doing it everywhere--all over the whole earth! So forget about making any big plans for yourself. Things are going to get worse before they get better. But don't worry. I'll keep you alive through the whole business.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="46">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Messages through the prophet Jeremiah regarding the godless nations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The Message to Egypt and the army of Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt at the time it was defeated by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon while camped at Carchemish on the Euphrates River in the fourth year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "'Present arms! March to the front!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Harness the horses! Up in the saddles! Battle formation! Helmets on, spears sharpened, armor in place!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But what's this I see? They're scared out of their wits! They break ranks and run for cover. Their soldiers panic. They run this way and that, stampeding blindly. It's total chaos, total confusion, danger everywhere!" GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "The swiftest runners won't get away, the strongest soldiers won't escape. In the north country, along the River Euphrates, they'll stagger, stumble, and fall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Who is this like the Nile in flood? like its streams torrential?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Why, it's Egypt like the Nile in flood, like its streams torrential, Saying, 'I'll take over the world. I'll wipe out cities and peoples.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Run, horses! Roll, chariots! Advance, soldiers from Cush and Put with your shields, Soldiers from Lud, experts with bow and arrow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "But it's not your day. It's the Master's, me, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies-- the day when I have it out with my enemies, The day when Sword puts an end to my enemies, when Sword exacts vengeance. I, the Master, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, will pile them on an altar--a huge sacrifice!-- In the great north country, along the mighty Euphrates.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Oh, virgin Daughter Egypt, climb into the mountains of Gilead, get healing balm. You will vainly collect medicines, for nothing will be able to cure what ails you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The whole world will hear your anguished cries. Your wails fill the earth, As soldier falls against soldier and they all go down in a heap."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The Message that GOD gave to the prophet Jeremiah when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon was on his way to attack Egypt:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Tell Egypt, alert Migdol, post warnings in Noph and Tahpanhes: 'Wake up! Be prepared! War's coming!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Why will your bull-god Apis run off? Because GOD will drive him off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Your ragtag army will fall to pieces. The word is passing through the ranks, 'Let's get out of here while we still can. Let's head for home and save our skins.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When they get home they'll nickname Pharaoh 'Big-Talk-Bad-Luck.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> As sure as I am the living God" --the King's Decree, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies is his name-- "A conqueror is coming: like Tabor, singular among mountains; like Carmel, jutting up from the sea!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> So pack your bags for exile, you coddled daughters of Egypt, For Memphis will soon be nothing, a vacant lot grown over with weeds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "Too bad, Egypt, a beautiful sleek heifer attacked by a horsefly from the north!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> All her hired soldiers are stationed to defend her-- like well-fed calves they are. But when their lives are on the line, they'll run off, cowards every one. When the going gets tough, they'll take the easy way out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Egypt will slither and hiss like a snake as the enemy army comes in force. They will rush in, swinging axes like lumberjacks cutting down trees.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They'll level the country"--GOD's Decree--"nothing and no one standing for as far as you can see. The invaders will be a swarm of locusts, innumerable, past counting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Daughter Egypt will be ravished, raped by vandals from the north."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel, says, "Watch out when I visit doom on the god Amon of Thebes, Egypt and its gods and kings, Pharaoh and those who trust in him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> I'll turn them over to those who are out to kill them, to Nebuchadnezzar and his military. Egypt will be set back a thousand years. Eventually people will live there again." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "But you, dear Jacob my servant, you have nothing to fear. Israel, there's no need to worry. Look up! I'll save you from that far country, I'll get your children out of the land of exile. Things are going to be normal again for Jacob, safe and secure, smooth sailing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Yes, dear Jacob my servant, you have nothing to fear. Depend on it, I'm on your side. I'll finish off all the godless nations among which I've scattered you, But I won't finish you off. I have more work left to do on you. I'll punish you, but fairly. No, I'm not finished with you yet."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="47">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message to the prophet Jeremiah regarding the Philistines just before Pharaoh attacked Gaza.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> This is what GOD says: "Look out! Water will rise in the north country, swelling like a river in flood. The torrent will flood the land, washing away city and citizen. Men and women will scream in terror, wails from every door and window,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> As the thunder from the hooves of the horses will be heard, the clatter of chariots, the banging of wheels. Fathers, paralyzed by fear, won't even grab up their babies</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Because it will be doomsday for Philistines, one and all, no hope of help for Tyre and Sidon. GOD will finish off the Philistines, what's left of those from the island of Crete.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Gaza will be shaved bald as an egg, Ashkelon struck dumb as a post. You're on your last legs. How long will you keep flailing?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Oh, Sword of GOD, how long will you keep this up? Return to your scabbard. Haven't you had enough? Can't you call it quits?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "But how can it quit when I, GOD, command the action? I've ordered it to cut down Ashkelon and the seacoast."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="48">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Message on Moab from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel: "Doom to Nebo! Leveled to the ground! Kiriathaim demeaned and defeated, The mighty fortress reduced to a molehill,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Moab's glory--dust and ashes. Conspirators plot Heshbon's doom: 'Come, let's wipe Moab off the map.' Dungface Dimon will loudly lament, as killing follows killing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Listen! A cry out of Horonaim: 'Disaster--doom and more doom!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Moab will be shattered. Her cries will be heard clear down in Zoar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Up the ascent of Luhith climbers weep, And down the descent from Horonaim, cries of loss and devastation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Oh, run for your lives! Get out while you can! Survive by your wits in the wild!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You trusted in thick walls and big money, yes? But it won't help you now. Your big god Chemosh will be hauled off, his priests and managers with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> A wrecker will wreck every city. Not a city will survive. The valley fields will be ruined, the plateau pastures destroyed, just as I told you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Cover the land of Moab with salt. Make sure nothing ever grows here again. Her towns will all be ghost towns. Nobody will ever live here again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Sloppy work in GOD's name is cursed, and cursed all halfhearted use of the sword.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Moab has always taken it easy-- lazy as a dog in the sun, Never had to work for a living, never faced any trouble, Never had to grow up, never once worked up a sweat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But those days are a thing of the past. I'll put him to work at hard labor. That will wake him up to the world of hard knocks. That will smash his illusions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Moab will be as ashamed of god Chemosh as Israel was ashamed of her Bethel calf-gods, the calf-gods she thought were so great.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> For how long do you think you'll be saying, 'We're tough. We can beat anyone anywhere'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The destruction of Moab has already begun. Her choice young soldiers are lying dead right now." The King's Decree-- his full name, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Yes. Moab's doom is on countdown, disaster targeted and launched.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Weep for Moab, friends and neighbors, all who know how famous he's been. Lament, 'His mighty scepter snapped in two like a toothpick, that magnificent royal staff!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Come down from your high horse, pampered beauty of Dibon. Sit in dog dung. The destroyer of Moab will come against you. He'll wreck your safe, secure houses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Stand on the roadside, pampered women of Aroer. Interview the refugees who are running away. Ask them, 'What's happened? And why?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Moab will be an embarrassing memory, nothing left of the place. Wail and weep your eyes out! Tell the bad news along the Arnon river. Tell the world that Moab is no more.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "My judgment will come to the plateau cities: on Holon, Jahzah, and Mephaath;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> on Dibon, Nebo, and Beth-diblathaim;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> on Kiriathaim, Beth-gamul, and Beth-meon;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> on Kerioth, Bozrah, and all the cities of Moab, far and near.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "Moab's link to power is severed. Moab's arm is broken." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "Turn Moab into a drunken sot, drunk on the wine of my wrath, a dung-faced drunk, filling the country with vomit--Moab a falling-down drunk, a joke in bad taste.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Wasn't it you, Moab, who made crude jokes over Israel? And when they were caught in bad company, didn't you cluck and gossip and snicker?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "Leave town! Leave! Look for a home in the cliffs, you who grew up in Moab. Try living like a dove who nests high in the river gorge.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "We've all heard of Moab's pride, that legendary pride, The strutting, bullying, puffed-up pride, the insufferable arrogance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> I know"--GOD's Decree--"his rooster-crowing pride, the inflated claims, the sheer nothingness of Moab.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> But I will weep for Moab, yes, I will mourn for the people of Moab. I will even mourn for the people of Kir-heres.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> I'll weep for the grapevines of Sibmah and join Jazer in her weeping-- Grapevines that once reached the Dead Sea with tendrils as far as Jazer. Your summer fruit and your bursting grapes will be looted by brutal plunderers,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Lush Moab stripped of song and laughter. And yes, I'll shut down the winepresses, stop all the shouts and hurrahs of harvest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "Heshbon and Elealeh will cry out, and the people in Jahaz will hear the cries. They will hear them all the way from Zoar to Horonaim and Eglath-shelishiyah. Even the waters of Nimrim will be dried up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> "I will put a stop in Moab"--GOD's Decree--"to all hiking to the high places to offer burnt sacrifices to the gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> "My heart moans for Moab, for the men of Kir-heres, like soft flute sounds carried by the wind. They've lost it all. They've got nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> "Everywhere you look are signs of mourning: heads shaved, beards cut, Hands scratched and bleeding, clothes ripped and torn.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> "In every house in Moab there'll be loud lamentation, on every street in Moab, loud lamentation. As with a pottery jug that no one wants, I'll smash Moab to bits." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> "Moab ruined! Moab shamed and ashamed to be seen! Moab a cruel joke! The stark horror of Moab!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> GOD's verdict on Moab. Indeed! "Look! An eagle is about to swoop down and spread its wings over Moab.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> The towns will be captured, the fortresses taken. Brave warriors will double up in pain, helpless to fight, like a woman giving birth to a baby.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> There'll be nothing left of Moab, nothing at all, because of his defiant arrogance against me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> "Terror and pit and trap are what you have facing you, Moab." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> "A man running in terror will fall into a trap. A man climbing out of a pit will be caught in a trap. This is my agenda for Moab on doomsday." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> "On the outskirts of Heshbon, refugees will pull up short, worn out. Fire will flame high from Heshbon, a firestorm raging from the capital of Sihon's kingdom. It will burn off Moab's eyebrows, will scorch the skull of the braggarts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> That's all for you, Moab! You worshipers of Chemosh will be finished off! Your sons will be trucked off to prison camps; your daughters will be herded into exile.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> But yet there's a day that's coming when I'll put things right in Moab. "For now, that's the judgment on Moab."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="49">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message on the Ammonites: "Doesn't Israel have any children, no one to step into her inheritance? So why is the god Milcom taking over Gad's land, his followers moving into its towns?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> But not for long! The time's coming" --GOD's Decree-- "When I'll fill the ears of Rabbah, Ammon's big city, with battle cries. She'll end up a pile of rubble, all her towns burned to the ground. Then Israel will kick out the invaders. I, GOD, say so, and it will be so.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Wail Heshbon, Ai is in ruins. Villages of Rabbah, wring your hands! Dress in mourning, weep buckets of tears. Go into hysterics, run around in circles! Your god Milcom will be hauled off to exile, and all his priests and managers right with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Why do you brag of your once-famous strength? You're a broken-down has-been, a castoff Who fondles his trophies and dreams of glory days and vainly thinks, 'No one can lay a hand on me.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Well, think again. I'll face you with terror from all sides." Word of the Master, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies. "You'll be stampeded headlong, with no one to round up the runaways.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Still, the time will come when I will make things right with Ammon." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The Message of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies on Edom: "Is there nobody wise left in famous Teman? no one with a sense of reality? Has their wisdom gone wormy and rotten?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Run for your lives! Get out while you can! Find a good place to hide, you who live in Dedan! I'm bringing doom to Esau. It's time to settle accounts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When harvesters work your fields, don't they leave gleanings? When burglars break into your house, don't they take only what they want?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But I'll strip Esau clean. I'll search out every nook and cranny. I'll destroy everything connected with him, children and relatives and neighbors. There'll be no one left who will be able to say,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> 'I'll take care of your orphans. Your widows can depend on me.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Indeed. GOD says, "I tell you, if there are people who have to drink the cup of God's wrath even though they don't deserve it, why would you think you'd get off? You won't get off. You'll drink it. Oh yes, you'll drink every drop.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And as for Bozrah, your capital, I swear by all that I am"--GOD's Decree--"that that city will end up a pile of charred ruins, a stinking garbage dump, an obscenity--and all her daughter-cities with her."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I've just heard the latest from GOD. He's sent an envoy to the nations: "Muster your troops and attack Edom. Present arms! Go to war!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Ah, Edom, I'm dropping you to last place among nations, the bottom of the heap, kicked around.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> You think you're so great-- strutting across the stage of history, Living high in the impregnable rocks, acting like king of the mountain. You think you're above it all, don't you, like an eagle in its aerie? Well, you're headed for a fall. I'll bring you crashing to the ground." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Edom will end up trash. Stinking, despicable trash. A wonder of the world in reverse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> She'll join Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighbors in the sewers of history." GOD says so. "No one will live there, no mortal soul move in there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Watch this: Like a lion coming up from the thick jungle of the Jordan Looking for prey in the mountain pastures, I will come upon Edom and pounce. I'll take my pick of the flock--and who's to stop me? The shepherds of Edom are helpless before me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> So, listen to this plan that GOD has worked out against Edom, the blueprint of what he's prepared for those who live in Teman: "Believe it or not, the young, the vulnerable-- mere lambs and kids--will be dragged off. Believe it or not, the flock in shock, helpless to help, will watch it happen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The very earth will shudder because of their cries, cries of anguish heard at the distant Red Sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Look! An eagle soars, swoops down, spreads its wings over Bozrah. Brave warriors will double up in pain, helpless to fight, like a woman giving birth to a baby."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The Message on Damascus: "Hamath and Arpad will be in shock when they hear the bad news. Their hearts will melt in fear as they pace back and forth in worry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The blood will drain from the face of Damascus as she turns to flee. Hysterical, she'll fall to pieces, disabled, like a woman in childbirth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> And now how lonely--bereft, abandoned! The once famous city, the once happy city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Her bright young men dead in the streets, her brave warriors silent as death. On that day"--Decree of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "I'll start a fire at the wall of Damascus that will burn down all of Ben-hadad's forts."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The Message on Kedar and the sheikdoms of Hazor who were attacked by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. This is GOD's Message: "On your feet! Attack Kedar! Plunder the Bedouin nomads from the east.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Grab their blankets and pots and pans. Steal their camels. Traumatize them, shouting, 'Terror! Death! Doom! Danger everywhere!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Oh, run for your lives, You nomads from Hazor." GOD's Decree. "Find a safe place to hide. Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has plans to wipe you out, to go after you with a vengeance:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> 'After them,' he says. 'Go after these relaxed nomads who live free and easy in the desert, Who live in the open with no doors to lock, who live off by themselves.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Their camels are there for the taking, their herds and flocks, easy picking. I'll scatter them to the four winds, these defenseless nomads on the fringes of the desert. I'll bring terror from every direction. They won't know what hit them." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "Jackals will take over the camps of Hazor, camps abandoned to wind and sand. No one will live there, no mortal soul move in there."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> GOD's Message to the prophet Jeremiah on Elam at the outset of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> This is what GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies says: "Watch this! I'll break Elam's bow, her weapon of choice, across my knee.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Then I'll let four winds loose on Elam, winds from the four corners of earth. I'll blow them away in all directions, landing homeless Elamites in every country on earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> They'll live in constant fear and terror among enemies who want to kill them. I'll bring doom on them, my anger-fueled doom. I'll set murderous hounds on their heels until there's nothing left of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> And then I'll set up my throne in Elam, having thrown out the king and his henchmen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> But the time will come when I make everything right for Elam again." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="50">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Message of GOD through the prophet Jeremiah on Babylon, land of the Chaldeans:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Get the word out to the nations! Preach it! Go public with this, broadcast it far and wide: Babylon taken, god-Bel hanging his head in shame, god-Marduk exposed as a fraud. All her god-idols shuffling in shame, all her play-gods exposed as cheap frauds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> For a nation will come out of the north to attack her, reduce her cities to rubble. Empty of life--no animals, no people-- not a sound, not a movement, not a breath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "In those days, at that time"--GOD's Decree-- "the people of Israel will come, And the people of Judah with them. Walking and weeping, they'll seek me, their GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They'll ask directions to Zion and set their faces toward Zion. They'll come and hold tight to GOD, bound in a covenant eternal they'll never forget.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "My people were lost sheep. Their shepherds led them astray. They abandoned them in the mountains where they wandered aimless through the hills. They lost track of home, couldn't remember where they came from.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Everyone who met them took advantage of them. Their enemies had no qualms: 'Fair game' they said. 'They walked out on GOD. They abandoned the True Pasture, the hope of their parents.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "But now, get out of Babylon as fast as you can. Be rid of that Babylonian country. On your way. Good sheepdogs lead, but don't you be led. Lead the way home!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Do you see what I'm doing? I'm rallying a host of nations against Babylon. They'll come out of the north, attack and take her. Oh, they know how to fight, these armies. They never come home empty-handed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Babylon is ripe for picking! All her plunderers will fill their bellies!" GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "You Babylonians had a good time while it lasted, didn't you? You lived it up, exploiting and using my people, Frisky calves romping in lush pastures, wild stallions out having a good time!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Well, your mother would hardly be proud of you. The woman who bore you wouldn't be pleased. Look at what's come of you! A nothing nation! Rubble and garbage and weeds!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Emptied of life by my holy anger, a desert of death and emptiness. Travelers who pass by Babylon will gasp, appalled, shaking their heads at such a comedown.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Gang up on Babylon! Pin her down! Throw everything you have against her. Hold nothing back. Knock her flat. She's sinned--oh, how she's sinned, against me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Shout battle cries from every direction. All the fight has gone out of her. Her defenses have been flattened, her walls smashed. 'Operation GOD's Vengeance.' Pile on the vengeance! Do to her as she has done. Give her a good dose of her own medicine!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Destroy her farms and farmers, ravage her fields, empty her barns. And you captives, while the destruction rages, get out while the getting's good, get out fast and run for home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Israel is a scattered flock, hunted down by lions. The king of Assyria started the carnage. The king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, Has completed the job, gnawing the bones clean."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And now this is what GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel, has to say: "Just watch! I'm bringing doom on the king of Babylon and his land, the same doom I brought on the king of Assyria.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But Israel I'll bring home to good pastures. He'll graze on the hills of Carmel and Bashan, On the slopes of Ephraim and Gilead. He will eat to his heart's content.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> In those days and at that time"--GOD's Decree-- "they'll look high and low for a sign of Israel's guilt--nothing; Search nook and cranny for a trace of Judah's sin--nothing. These people that I've saved will start out with a clean slate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Attack Merathaim, land of rebels! Go after Pekod, country of doom! Hunt them down. Make a clean sweep." GOD's Decree. "These are my orders. Do what I tell you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "The thunderclap of battle shakes the foundations!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The Hammer has been hammered, smashed and splintered, Babylon pummeled beyond recognition.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> I set out a trap and you were caught in it. O Babylon, you never knew what hit you, Caught and held in the steel grip of that trap! That's what you get for taking on GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "I, GOD, opened my arsenal. I brought out my weapons of wrath. The Master, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, has a job to do in Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Come at her from all sides! Break into her granaries! Shovel her into piles and burn her up. Leave nothing! Leave no one!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Kill all her young turks. Send them to their doom! Doom to them! Yes, Doomsday! The clock has finally run out on them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> And here's a surprise: Runaways and escapees from Babylon Show up in Zion reporting the news of GOD's vengeance, taking vengeance for my own Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "Call in the troops against Babylon, anyone who can shoot straight! Tighten the noose! Leave no loopholes! Give her back as good as she gave, a dose of her own medicine! Her brazen insolence is an outrage against GOD, The Holy of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> And now she pays: her young strewn dead in the streets, her soldiers dead, silent forever." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "Do you get it, Mister Pride? I'm your enemy!" Decree of the Master, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies. "Time's run out on you: That's right: It's Doomsday.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Mister Pride will fall flat on his face. No one will offer him a hand. I'll set his towns on fire. The fire will spread wild through the country."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> And here's more from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies: "The people of Israel are beaten down, the people of Judah along with them. Their oppressors have them in a grip of steel. They won't let go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> But the Rescuer is strong: GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies. Yes, I will take their side, I'll come to their rescue. I'll soothe their land, but rough up the people of Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> "It's all-out war in Babylon"--GOD's Decree-- "total war against people, leaders, and the wise!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> War to the death on her boasting pretenders, fools one and all! War to the death on her soldiers, cowards to a man!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> War to the death on her hired killers, gutless wonders! War to the death on her banks--looted!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> War to the death on her water supply--drained dry! A land of make-believe gods gone crazy--hobgoblins!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> The place will be haunted with jackals and scorpions, night-owls and vampire bats. No one will ever live there again. The land will reek with the stench of death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> It will join Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighbors, the cities I did away with." GOD's Decree. "No one will live there again. No one will again draw breath in that land, ever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> "And now, watch this! People pouring out of the north, hordes of people, A mob of kings stirred up from far-off places.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Flourishing deadly weapons, barbarians they are, cruel and pitiless. Roaring and relentless, like ocean breakers, they come riding fierce stallions, In battle formation, ready to fight you, Daughter Babylon!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Babylon's king hears them coming. He goes white as a ghost, limp as a dishrag. Terror-stricken, he doubles up in pain, helpless to fight, like a woman giving birth to a baby.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> "And now watch this: Like a lion coming up from the thick jungle of the Jordan, Looking for prey in the mountain pastures, I'll take over and pounce. I'll take my pick of the flock--and who's to stop me? All the so-called shepherds are helpless before me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> So, listen to this plan that GOD has worked out against Babylon, the blueprint of what he's prepared for dealing with Chaldea: Believe it or not, the young, the vulnerable--mere lambs and kids--will be dragged off. Believe it or not, the flock in shock, helpless to help, watches it happen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> When the shout goes up, "Babylon's down!" the very earth will shudder at the sound. The news will be heard all over the world.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="51">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> There's more. GOD says more: "Watch this: I'm whipping up A death-dealing hurricane against Babylon--'Hurricane Persia'-- against all who live in that perverse land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I'm sending a cleanup crew into Babylon. They'll clean the place out from top to bottom. When they get through there'll be nothing left of her worth taking or talking about. They won't miss a thing. A total and final Doomsday!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Fighters will fight with everything they've got. It's no holds barred. They will spare nothing and no one. It's final and wholesale destruction--the end!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Babylon littered with the wounded, streets piled with corpses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> It turns out that Israel and Judah are not widowed after all. As their God, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, I am still alive and well, committed to them even though They filled their land with sin against Israel's most Holy God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Get out of Babylon as fast as you can. Run for your lives! Save your necks! Don't linger and lose your lives to my vengeance on her as I pay her back for her sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Babylon was a fancy gold chalice held in my hand, Filled with the wine of my anger to make the whole world drunk. The nations drank the wine and they've all gone crazy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Babylon herself will stagger and crash, senseless in a drunken stupor--tragic! Get anointing balm for her wound. Maybe she can be cured."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "We did our best, but she can't be helped. Babylon is past fixing. Give her up to her fate. Go home. The judgment on her will be vast, a skyscraper-memorial of vengeance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "GOD has set everything right for us. Come! Let's tell the good news Back home in Zion. Let's tell what our GOD did to set things right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Sharpen the arrows! Fill the quivers! GOD has stirred up the kings of the Medes, infecting them with war fever: 'Destroy Babylon!' GOD's on the warpath. He's out to avenge his Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Give the signal to attack Babylon's walls. Station guards around the clock. Bring in reinforcements. Set men in ambush. GOD will do what he planned, what he said he'd do to the people of Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You have more water than you need, you have more money than you need-- But your life is over, your lifeline cut."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies has solemnly sworn: "I'll fill this place with soldiers. They'll swarm through here like locusts chanting victory songs over you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> By his power he made earth. His wisdom gave shape to the world. He crafted the cosmos.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He thunders and rain pours down. He sends the clouds soaring. He embellishes the storm with lightnings, launches the wind from his warehouse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Stick-god worshipers look mighty foolish! god-makers embarrassed by their handmade gods! Their gods are frauds, dead sticks-- deadwood gods, tasteless jokes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They're nothing but stale smoke. When the smoke clears, they're gone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But the Portion-of-Jacob is the real thing; he put the whole universe together, With special attention to Israel. His name? GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> God says, "You, Babylon, are my hammer, my weapon of war. I'll use you to smash godless nations, use you to knock kingdoms to bits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I'll use you to smash horse and rider, use you to smash chariot and driver.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I'll use you to smash man and woman, use you to smash the old man and the boy. I'll use you to smash the young man and young woman,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> use you to smash shepherd and sheep. I'll use you to smash farmer and yoked oxen, use you to smash governors and senators.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "Judeans, you'll see it with your own eyes. I'll pay Babylon and all the Chaldeans back for all the evil they did in Zion." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "I'm your enemy, Babylon, Mount Destroyer, you ravager of the whole earth. I'll reach out, I'll take you in my hand, and I'll crush you till there's no mountain left. I'll turn you into a gravel pit--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> no more cornerstones cut from you, No more foundation stones quarried from you! Nothing left of you but gravel." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "Raise the signal in the land, blow the shofar-trumpet for the nations. Consecrate the nations for holy work against her. Call kingdoms into service against her. Enlist Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz. Appoint a field marshal against her, and round up horses, locust hordes of horses!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Consecrate the nations for holy work against her-- the king of the Medes, his leaders and people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "The very land trembles in terror, writhes in pain, terrorized by my plans against Babylon, Plans to turn the country of Babylon into a lifeless moonscape--a wasteland.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Babylon's soldiers have quit fighting. They hide out in ruins and caves-- Cowards who've given up without a fight, exposed as cowering milksops. Babylon's houses are going up in flames, the city gates torn off their hinges.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Runner after runner comes racing in, each on the heels of the last, Bringing reports to the king of Babylon that his city is a lost cause.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The fords of the rivers are all taken. Wildfire rages through the swamp grass. Soldiers desert left and right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> I, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, said it would happen: 'Daughter Babylon is a threshing floor at threshing time. Soon, oh very soon, her harvest will come and then the chaff will fly!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon chewed up my people and spit out the bones. He wiped his dish clean, pushed back his chair, and belched--a huge gluttonous belch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Lady Zion says, 'The brutality done to me be done to Babylon!' And Jerusalem says, 'The blood spilled from me be charged to the Chaldeans!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Then I, GOD, step in and say, 'I'm on your side, taking up your cause. I'm your Avenger. You'll get your revenge. I'll dry up her rivers, plug up her springs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Babylon will be a pile of rubble, scavenged by stray dogs and cats, A dumping ground for garbage, a godforsaken ghost town.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> "The Babylonians will be like lions and their cubs, ravenous, roaring for food.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> I'll fix them a meal, all right--a banquet, in fact. They'll drink themselves falling-down drunk. Dead drunk, they'll sleep--and sleep, and sleep . . . and they'll never wake up." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> "I'll haul these 'lions' off to the slaughterhouse like the lambs, rams, and goats, never to be heard of again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> "Babylon is finished-- the pride of the whole earth is flat on her face. What a comedown for Babylon, to end up inglorious in the sewer!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Babylon drowned in chaos, battered by waves of enemy soldiers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Her towns stink with decay and rot, the land empty and bare and sterile. No one lives in these towns anymore. Travelers give them a wide berth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> I'll bring doom on the glutton god-Bel in Babylon. I'll make him vomit up all he gulped down. No more visitors stream into this place, admiring and gawking at the wonders of Babylon. The wonders of Babylon are no more.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> Run for your lives, my dear people! Run, and don't look back! Get out of this place while you can, this place torched by GOD's raging anger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Don't lose hope. Don't ever give up when the rumors pour in hot and heavy. One year it's this, the next year it's that-- rumors of violence, rumors of war.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> Trust me, the time is coming when I'll put the no-gods of Babylon in their place. I'll show up the whole country as a sickening fraud, with dead bodies strewn all over the place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> Heaven and earth, angels and people, will throw a victory party over Babylon When the avenging armies from the north descend on her." GOD's Decree!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> "Babylon must fall-- compensation for the war dead in Israel. Babylonians will be killed because of all that Babylonian killing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> But you exiles who have escaped a Babylonian death, get out! And fast! Remember GOD in your long and distant exile. Keep Jerusalem alive in your memory."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> How we've been humiliated, taunted and abused, kicked around for so long that we hardly know who we are! And we hardly know what to think-- our old Sanctuary, GOD's house, desecrated by strangers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> "I know, but trust me: The time is coming" --GOD's Decree-- "When I will bring doom on her no-god idols, and all over this land her wounded will groan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> Even if Babylon climbed a ladder to the moon and pulled up the ladder so that no one could get to her, That wouldn't stop me. I'd make sure my avengers would reach her." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> "But now listen! Do you hear it? A cry out of Babylon! An unearthly wail out of Chaldea!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> GOD is taking his wrecking bar to Babylon. We'll be hearing the last of her noise-- Death throes like the crashing of waves, death rattles like the roar of cataracts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> The avenging destroyer is about to enter Babylon: Her soldiers are taken, her weapons are trashed. Indeed, GOD is a God who evens things out. All end up with their just deserts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> "I'll get them drunk, the whole lot of them-- princes, sages, governors, soldiers. Dead drunk, they'll sleep--and sleep and sleep . . . and never wake up." The King's Decree. His name? GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies speaks: "The city walls of Babylon--those massive walls!-- will be flattened. And those city gates--huge gates!-- will be set on fire. The harder you work at this empty life, the less you are. Nothing comes of ambition like this but ashes."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="59"> Jeremiah the prophet gave a job to Seraiah son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, when Seraiah went with Zedekiah king of Judah to Babylon. It was in the fourth year of Zedekiah's reign. Seraiah was in charge of travel arrangements.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="60"> Jeremiah had written down in a little booklet all the bad things that would come down on Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="61"> He told Seraiah, "When you get to Babylon, read this out in public.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="62"> Read, 'You, O GOD, said that you would destroy this place so that nothing could live here, neither human nor animal--a wasteland to top all wastelands, an eternal nothing.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="63"> "When you've finished reading the page, tie a stone to it, throw it into the River Euphrates, and watch it sink.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="64"> Then say, 'That's how Babylon will sink to the bottom and stay there after the disaster I'm going to bring upon her.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="52">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he started out as king. He was king in Jerusalem for eleven years. His mother's name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah. Her hometown was Libnah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> As far as GOD was concerned, Zedekiah was just one more evil king, a carbon copy of Jehoiakim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The source of all this doom to Jerusalem and Judah was GOD's anger. GOD turned his back on them as an act of judgment. Zedekiah revolted against the king of Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Nebuchadnezzar set out for Jerusalem with a full army. He set up camp and sealed off the city by building siege mounds around it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He arrived on the ninth year and tenth month of Zedekiah's reign. The city was under siege for nineteen months (until the eleventh year of Zedekiah).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> By the fourth month of Zedekiah's eleventh year, on the ninth day of the month, the famine was so bad that there wasn't so much as a crumb of bread for anyone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Then the Babylonians broke through the city walls. Under cover of the night darkness, the entire Judean army fled through an opening in the wall (it was the gate between the two walls above the King's Garden). They slipped through the lines of the Babylonians who surrounded the city and headed for the Jordan into the Arabah Valley,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> but the Babylonians were in full pursuit. They caught up with them in the Plains of Jericho. But by then Zedekiah's army had deserted and was scattered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The Babylonians captured Zedekiah and marched him off to the king of Babylon at Riblah in Hamath, who tried and sentenced him on the spot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The king of Babylon then killed Zedekiah's sons right before his eyes. The summary murder of his sons was the last thing Zedekiah saw, for they then blinded him. The king of Babylon followed that up by killing all the officials of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Securely handcuffed, Zedekiah was hauled off to Babylon. The king of Babylon threw him in prison, where he stayed until the day he died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> In the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon on the seventh day of the fifth month, Nebuzaradan, the king of Babylon's chief deputy, arrived in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He burned the Temple of GOD to the ground, went on to the royal palace, and then finished off the city. He burned the whole place down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He put the Babylonian troops he had with him to work knocking down the city walls.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Finally, he rounded up everyone left in the city, including those who had earlier deserted to the king of Babylon, and took them off into exile.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He left a few poor dirt farmers behind to tend the vineyards and what was left of the fields.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The Babylonians broke up the bronze pillars, the bronze washstands, and the huge bronze basin (the Sea) that were in the Temple of GOD, and hauled the bronze off to Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They also took the various bronze-crafted liturgical accessories, as well as the gold and silver censers and sprinkling bowls, used in the services of Temple worship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The king's deputy didn't miss a thing. He took every scrap of precious metal he could find.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The amount of bronze they got from the two pillars, the Sea, the twelve bronze bulls that supported the Sea, and the ten washstands that Solomon had made for the Temple of GOD was enormous. They couldn't weigh it all!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Each pillar stood twenty-seven feet high with a circumference of eighteen feet. The pillars were hollow, the bronze a little less than an inch thick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Each pillar was topped with an ornate capital of bronze pomegranates and filigree, which added another seven and a half feet to its height.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> There were ninety-six pomegranates evenly spaced--in all, a hundred pomegranates worked into the filigree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The king's deputy took a number of special prisoners: Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the associate priest, three wardens,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> the chief remaining army officer, seven of the king's counselors who happened to be in the city, the chief recruiting officer for the army, and sixty men of standing from among the people who were still there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Nebuzaradan the king's deputy marched them all off to the king of Babylon at Riblah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> And there at Riblah, in the land of Hamath, the king of Babylon killed the lot of them in cold blood. Judah went into exile, orphaned from her land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> 3,023 men of Judah were taken into exile by Nebuchadnezzar in the seventh year of his reign.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> 832 from Jerusalem were taken in the eighteenth year of his reign.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> 745 men from Judah were taken off by Nebuzaradan, the king's chief deputy, in Nebuchadnezzar's twenty-third year. The total number of exiles was 4,600.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> When Jehoiachin king of Judah had been in exile for thirty-seven years, Evil-Merodach became king in Babylon and let Jehoiachin out of prison. This release took place on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The king treated him most courteously and gave him preferential treatment beyond anything experienced by the political prisoners held in Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Jehoiachin took off his prison garb and from then on ate his meals in company with the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The king provided everything he needed to live comfortably for the rest of his life.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="25" bname="Lamentations">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Oh, oh, oh . . . How empty the city, once teeming with people. A widow, this city, once in the front rank of nations, once queen of the ball, she's now a drudge in the kitchen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> She cries herself to sleep each night, tears soaking her pillow. No one's left among her lovers to sit and hold her hand. Her friends have all dumped her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> After years of pain and hard labor, Judah has gone into exile. She camps out among the nations, never feels at home. Hunted by all, she's stuck between a rock and a hard place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Zion's roads weep, empty of pilgrims headed to the feasts. All her city gates are deserted, her priests in despair. Her virgins are sad. How bitter her fate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Her enemies have become her masters. Her foes are living it up because GOD laid her low, punishing her repeated rebellions. Her children, prisoners of the enemy, trudge into exile.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> All beauty has drained from Daughter Zion's face. Her princes are like deer famished for food, chased to exhaustion by hunters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Jerusalem remembers the day she lost everything, when her people fell into enemy hands, and not a soul there to help. Enemies looked on and laughed, laughed at her helpless silence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Jerusalem, who outsinned the whole world, is an outcast. All who admired her despise her now that they see beneath the surface. Miserable, she groans and turns away in shame.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> She played fast and loose with life, she never considered tomorrow, and now she's crashed royally, with no one to hold her hand: "Look at my pain, O GOD! And how the enemy cruelly struts."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The enemy reached out to take all her favorite things. She watched as pagans barged into her Sanctuary, those very people for whom you posted orders: KEEP OUT: THIS ASSEMBLY OFF-LIMITS.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> All the people groaned, so desperate for food, so desperate to stay alive that they bartered their favorite things for a bit of breakfast: "O GOD, look at me! Worthless, cheap, abject!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "And you passersby, look at me! Have you ever seen anything like this? Ever seen pain like my pain, seen what he did to me, what GOD did to me in his rage?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "He struck me with lightning, skewered me from head to foot, then he set traps all around so I could hardly move. He left me with nothing--left me sick, and sick of living.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "He wove my sins into a rope and harnessed me to captivity's yoke. I'm goaded by cruel taskmasters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "The Master piled up my best soldiers in a heap, then called in thugs to break their fine young necks. The Master crushed the life out of fair virgin Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "For all this I weep, weep buckets of tears, and not a soul within miles around cares for my soul. My children are wasted, my enemy got his way."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Zion reached out for help, but no one helped. GOD ordered Jacob's enemies to surround him, and now no one wants anything to do with Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "GOD has right on his side. I'm the one who did wrong. Listen everybody! Look at what I'm going through! My fair young women, my fine young men, all herded into exile!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "I called to my friends; they betrayed me. My priests and my leaders only looked after themselves, trying but failing to save their own skins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "O GOD, look at the trouble I'm in! My stomach in knots, my heart wrecked by a life of rebellion. Massacres in the streets, starvation in the houses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Oh, listen to my groans. No one listens, no one cares. When my enemies heard of the trouble you gave me, they cheered. Bring on Judgment Day! Let them get what I got!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Take a good look at their evil ways and give it to them! Give them what you gave me for my sins. Groaning in pain, body and soul, I've had all I can take."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Oh, oh, oh . . . How the Master has cut down Daughter Zion from the skies, dashed Israel's glorious city to earth, in his anger treated his favorite as throwaway junk.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The Master, without a second thought, took Israel in one gulp. Raging, he smashed Judah's defenses, made hash of her king and princes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> His anger blazing, he knocked Israel flat, broke Israel's arm and turned his back just as the enemy approached, came on Jacob like a wildfire from every direction.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Like an enemy, he aimed his bow, bared his sword, and killed our young men, our pride and joy. His anger, like fire, burned down the homes in Zion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The Master became the enemy. He had Israel for supper. He chewed up and spit out all the defenses. He left Daughter Judah moaning and groaning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He plowed up his old trysting place, trashed his favorite rendezvous. GOD wiped out Zion's memories of feast days and Sabbaths, angrily sacked king and priest alike.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD abandoned his altar, walked away from his holy Temple and turned the fortifications over to the enemy. As they cheered in GOD's Temple, you'd have thought it was a feast day!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD drew up plans to tear down the walls of Daughter Zion. He assembled his crew, set to work and went at it. Total demolition! The stones wept!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Her city gates, iron bars and all, disappeared in the rubble: her kings and princes off to exile--no one left to instruct or lead; her prophets useless--they neither saw nor heard anything from GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The elders of Daughter Zion sit silent on the ground. They throw dust on their heads, dress in rough penitential burlap-- the young virgins of Jerusalem, their faces creased with the dirt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> My eyes are blind with tears, my stomach in a knot. My insides have turned to jelly over my people's fate. Babies and children are fainting all over the place,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Calling to their mothers, "I'm hungry! I'm thirsty!" then fainting like dying soldiers in the streets, breathing their last in their mothers' laps.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> How can I understand your plight, dear Jerusalem? What can I say to give you comfort, dear Zion? Who can put you together again? This bust-up is past understanding.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Your prophets courted you with sweet talk. They didn't face you with your sin so that you could repent. Their sermons were all wishful thinking, deceptive illusions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Astonished, passersby can't believe what they see. They rub their eyes, they shake their heads over Jerusalem. Is this the city voted "Most Beautiful" and "Best Place to Live"?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But now your enemies gape, slack-jawed. Then they rub their hands in glee: "We've got them! We've been waiting for this! Here it is!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> GOD did carry out, item by item, exactly what he said he'd do. He always said he'd do this. Now he's done it--torn the place down. He's let your enemies walk all over you, declared them world champions!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Give out heart-cries to the Master, dear repentant Zion. Let the tears roll like a river, day and night, and keep at it--no time-outs. Keep those tears flowing!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> As each night watch begins, get up and cry out in prayer. Pour your heart out face to face with the Master. Lift high your hands. Beg for the lives of your children who are starving to death out on the streets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "Look at us, GOD. Think it over. Have you ever treated anyone like this? Should women eat their own babies, the very children they raised? Should priests and prophets be murdered in the Master's own Sanctuary?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Boys and old men lie in the gutters of the streets, my young men and women killed in their prime. Angry, you killed them in cold blood, cut them down without mercy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "You invited, like friends to a party, men to swoop down in attack so that on the big day of GOD's wrath no one would get away. The children I loved and reared--gone, gone, gone."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I'm the man who has seen trouble, trouble coming from the lash of GOD's anger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He took me by the hand and walked me into pitch-black darkness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Yes, he's given me the back of his hand over and over and over again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He turned me into a scarecrow of skin and bones, then broke the bones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He hemmed me in, ganged up on me, poured on the trouble and hard times.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He locked me up in deep darkness, like a corpse nailed inside a coffin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He shuts me in so I'll never get out, manacles my hands, shackles my feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Even when I cry out and plead for help, he locks up my prayers and throws away the key.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He sets up blockades with quarried limestone. He's got me cornered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He's a prowling bear tracking me down, a lion in hiding ready to pounce.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He knocked me from the path and ripped me to pieces. When he finished, there was nothing left of me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He took out his bow and arrows and used me for target practice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He shot me in the stomach with arrows from his quiver.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Everyone took me for a joke, made me the butt of their mocking ballads.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He forced rotten, stinking food down my throat, bloated me with vile drinks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He ground my face into the gravel. He pounded me into the mud.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I gave up on life altogether. I've forgotten what the good life is like.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I said to myself, "This is it. I'm finished. GOD is a lost cause."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I'll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness, the taste of ashes, the poison I've swallowed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> I remember it all--oh, how well I remember-- the feeling of hitting the bottom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But there's one other thing I remember, and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> GOD's loyal love couldn't have run out, his merciful love couldn't have dried up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They're created new every morning. How great your faithfulness!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> I'm sticking with GOD (I say it over and over). He's all I've got left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> GOD proves to be good to the man who passionately waits, to the woman who diligently seeks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> It's a good thing to quietly hope, quietly hope for help from GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> It's a good thing when you're young to stick it out through the hard times.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> When life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Bow in prayer. Don't ask questions: Wait for hope to appear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Don't run from trouble. Take it full-face. The "worst" is never the worst.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Why? Because the Master won't ever walk out and fail to return.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> If he works severely, he also works tenderly. His stockpiles of loyal love are immense.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> He takes no pleasure in making life hard, in throwing roadblocks in the way:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Stomping down hard on luckless prisoners,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Refusing justice to victims in the court of High God,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Tampering with evidence-- the Master does not approve of such things.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Who do you think "spoke and it happened"? It's the Master who gives such orders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Doesn't the High God speak everything, good things and hard things alike, into being?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> And why would anyone gifted with life complain when punished for sin?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Let's take a good look at the way we're living and reorder our lives under GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Let's lift our hearts and hands at one and the same time, praying to God in heaven:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> "We've been contrary and willful, and you haven't forgiven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> "You lost your temper with us, holding nothing back. You chased us and cut us down without mercy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> You wrapped yourself in thick blankets of clouds so no prayers could get through.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> You treated us like dirty dishwater, threw us out in the backyard of the nations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> "Our enemies shout abuse, their mouths full of derision, spitting invective.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> We've been to hell and back. We've nowhere to turn, nowhere to go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> Rivers of tears pour from my eyes at the smashup of my dear people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> "The tears stream from my eyes, an artesian well of tears,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Until you, GOD, look down from on high, look and see my tears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> When I see what's happened to the young women in the city, the pain breaks my heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> "Enemies with no reason to be enemies hunted me down like a bird.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> They threw me into a pit, then pelted me with stones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> Then the rains came and filled the pit. The water rose over my head. I said, 'It's all over.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> "I called out your name, O GOD, called from the bottom of the pit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> You listened when I called out, 'Don't shut your ears! Get me out of here! Save me!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> You came close when I called out. You said, 'It's going to be all right.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> "You took my side, Master; you brought me back alive!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="59"> GOD, you saw the wrongs heaped on me. Give me my day in court!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="60"> Yes, you saw their mean-minded schemes, their plots to destroy me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="61"> "You heard, GOD, their vicious gossip, their behind-my-back plots to ruin me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="62"> They never quit, these enemies of mine, dreaming up mischief, hatching out malice, day after day after day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="63"> Sitting down or standing up--just look at them!-- they mock me with vulgar doggerel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="64"> "Make them pay for what they've done, GOD. Give them their just deserts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="65"> Break their miserable hearts! Damn their eyes!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="66"> Get good and angry. Hunt them down. Make a total demolition here under your heaven!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Oh, oh, oh . . . How gold is treated like dirt, the finest gold thrown out with the garbage, Priceless jewels scattered all over, jewels loose in the gutters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> And the people of Zion, once prized, far surpassing their weight in gold, Are now treated like cheap pottery, like everyday pots and bowls mass-produced by a potter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Even wild jackals nurture their babies, give them their breasts to suckle. But my people have turned cruel to their babies, like an ostrich in the wilderness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Babies have nothing to drink. Their tongues stick to the roofs of their mouths. Little children ask for bread but no one gives them so much as a crust.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> People used to the finest cuisine forage for food in the streets. People used to the latest in fashions pick through the trash for something to wear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The evil guilt of my dear people was worse than the sin of Sodom-- The city was destroyed in a flash, and no one around to help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The splendid and sacred nobles once glowed with health. Their bodies were robust and ruddy, their beards like carved stone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But now they are smeared with soot, unrecognizable in the street, Their bones sticking out, their skin dried out like old leather.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Better to have been killed in battle than killed by starvation. Better to have died of battle wounds than to slowly starve to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Nice and kindly women boiled their own children for supper. This was the only food in town when my dear people were broken.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD let all his anger loose, held nothing back. He poured out his raging wrath. He set a fire in Zion that burned it to the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The kings of the earth couldn't believe it. World rulers were in shock, Watching old enemies march in big as you please, right through Jerusalem's gates.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Because of the sins of her prophets and the evil of her priests, Who exploited good and trusting people, robbing them of their lives,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> These prophets and priests blindly grope their way through the streets, grimy and stained from their dirty lives, Wasted by their wasted lives, shuffling from fatigue, dressed in rags.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> People yell at them, "Get out of here, dirty old men! Get lost, don't touch us, don't infect us!" They have to leave town. They wander off. Nobody wants them to stay here. Everyone knows, wherever they wander, that they've been kicked out of their own hometown.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> GOD himself scattered them. No longer does he look out for them. He has nothing to do with the priests; he cares nothing for the elders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> We watched and watched, wore our eyes out looking for help. And nothing. We mounted our lookouts and looked for the help that never showed up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They tracked us down, those hunters. It wasn't safe to go out in the street. Our end was near, our days numbered. We were doomed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They came after us faster than eagles in flight, pressed us hard in the mountains, ambushed us in the desert.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Our king, our life's breath, the anointed of GOD, was caught in their traps-- Our king under whose protection we always said we'd live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Celebrate while you can, O Edom! Live it up in Uz! For it won't be long before you drink this cup, too. You'll find out what it's like to drink God's wrath, Get drunk on God's wrath and wake up with nothing, stripped naked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> And that's it for you, Zion. The punishment's complete. You won't have to go through this exile again. But Edom, your time is coming: He'll punish your evil life, put all your sins on display.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Remember, GOD, all we've been through. Study our plight, the black mark we've made in history.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Our precious land has been given to outsiders, our homes to strangers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Orphans we are, not a father in sight, and our mothers no better than widows.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> We have to pay to drink our own water. Even our firewood comes at a price.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> We're nothing but slaves, bullied and bowed, worn out and without any rest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> We sold ourselves to Assyria and Egypt just to get something to eat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Our parents sinned and are no more, and now we're paying for the wrongs they did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Slaves rule over us; there's no escape from their grip.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> We risk our lives to gather food in the bandit-infested desert.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Our skin has turned black as an oven, dried out like old leather from the famine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Our wives were raped in the streets in Zion, and our virgins in the cities of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They hanged our princes by their hands, dishonored our elders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Strapping young men were put to women's work, mere boys forced to do men's work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The city gate is empty of wise elders. Music from the young is heard no more.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> All the joy is gone from our hearts. Our dances have turned into dirges.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The crown of glory has toppled from our head. Woe! Woe! Would that we'd never sinned!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Because of all this we're heartsick; we can't see through the tears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> On Mount Zion, wrecked and ruined, jackals pace and prowl.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And yet, GOD, you're sovereign still, your throne intact and eternal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> So why do you keep forgetting us? Why dump us and leave us like this?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Bring us back to you, GOD--we're ready to come back. Give us a fresh start.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> As it is, you've cruelly disowned us. You've been so very angry with us."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="26" bname="Ezekiel">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When I was thirty years of age, I was living with the exiles on the Kebar River. On the fifth day of the fourth month, the sky opened up and I saw visions of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> (It was the fifth day of the month in the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> that GOD's Word came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, on the banks of the Kebar River in the country of Babylon. GOD's hand came upon him that day.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I looked: I saw an immense dust storm come from the north, an immense cloud with lightning flashing from it, a huge ball of fire glowing like bronze.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Within the fire were what looked like four creatures vibrant with life. Each had the form of a human being,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> but each also had four faces and four wings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Their legs were as sturdy and straight as columns, but their feet were hoofed like those of a calf and sparkled from the fire like burnished bronze.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> On all four sides under their wings they had human hands. All four had both faces and wings,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> with the wings touching one another. They turned neither one way nor the other; they went straight forward.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Their faces looked like this: In front a human face, on the right side the face of a lion, on the left the face of an ox, and in back the face of an eagle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> So much for the faces. The wings were spread out with the tips of one pair touching the creature on either side; the other pair of wings covered its body.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Each creature went straight ahead. Wherever the spirit went, they went. They didn't turn as they went.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The four creatures looked like a blazing fire, or like fiery torches. Tongues of fire shot back and forth between the creatures, and out of the fire, bolts of lightning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The creatures flashed back and forth like strikes of lightning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> As I watched the four creatures, I saw something that looked like a wheel on the ground beside each of the four-faced creatures.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> This is what the wheels looked like: They were identical wheels, sparkling like diamonds in the sun. It looked like they were wheels within wheels, like a gyroscope.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> They went in any one of the four directions they faced, but straight, not veering off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The rims were immense, circled with eyes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> When the living creatures went, the wheels went; when the living creatures lifted off, the wheels lifted off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Wherever the spirit went, they went, the wheels sticking right with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> When the creatures went, the wheels went; when the creatures stopped, the wheels stopped; when the creatures lifted off, the wheels lifted off, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Over the heads of the living creatures was something like a dome, shimmering like a sky full of cut glass, vaulted over their heads.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Under the dome one set of wings was extended toward the others, with another set of wings covering their bodies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> When they moved I heard their wings--it was like the roar of a great waterfall, like the voice of The Strong God, like the noise of a battlefield. When they stopped, they folded their wings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> And then, as they stood with folded wings, there was a voice from above the dome over their heads.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Above the dome there was something that looked like a throne, sky-blue like a sapphire, with a humanlike figure towering above the throne.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> From what I could see, from the waist up he looked like burnished bronze and from the waist down like a blazing fire. Brightness everywhere!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The way a rainbow springs out of the sky on a rainy day--that's what it was like. It turned out to be the Glory of GOD! When I saw all this, I fell to my knees, my face to the ground. Then I heard a voice.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> It said, "Son of man, stand up. I have something to say to you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The moment I heard the voice, the Spirit entered me and put me on my feet. As he spoke to me, I listened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He said, "Son of man, I'm sending you to the family of Israel, a rebellious nation if there ever was one. They and their ancestors have fomented rebellion right up to the present.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They're a hard case, these people to whom I'm sending you--hardened in their sin. Tell them, 'This is the Message of GOD, the Master.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They are a defiant bunch. Whether or not they listen, at least they'll know that a prophet's been here.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But don't be afraid of them, son of man, and don't be afraid of anything they say. Don't be afraid when living among them is like stepping on thorns or finding scorpions in your bed. Don't be afraid of their mean words or their hard looks. They're a bunch of rebels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Your job is to speak to them. Whether they listen is not your concern. They're hardened rebels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Only take care, son of man, that you don't rebel like these rebels. Open your mouth and eat what I give you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When I looked he had his hand stretched out to me, and in the hand a book, a scroll.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He unrolled the scroll. On both sides, front and back, were written lamentations and mourning and doom.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> He told me, "Son of man, eat what you see. Eat this book. Then go and speak to the family of Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> As I opened my mouth, he gave me the scroll to eat,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> saying, "Son of man, eat this book that I am giving you. Make a full meal of it!" So I ate it. It tasted so good--just like honey.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then he told me, "Son of man, go to the family of Israel and speak my Message.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Look, I'm not sending you to a people who speak a hard-to-learn language with words you can hardly pronounce.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> If I had sent you to such people, their ears would have perked up and they would have listened immediately.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "But it won't work that way with the family of Israel. They won't listen to you because they won't listen to me. They are, as I said, a hard case, hardened in their sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But I'll make you as hard in your way as they are in theirs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'll make your face as hard as rock, harder than granite. Don't let them intimidate you. Don't be afraid of them, even though they're a bunch of rebels."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then he said, "Son of man, get all these words that I'm giving you inside you. Listen to them obediently. Make them your own.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And now go. Go to the exiles, your people, and speak. Tell them, 'This is the Message of GOD, the Master.' Speak your piece, whether they listen or not."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then the Spirit picked me up. Behind me I heard a great commotion--"Blessed be the Glory of GOD in his Sanctuary!"--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> the wings of the living creatures beating against each other, the whirling wheels, the rumble of a great earthquake.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The Spirit lifted me and took me away. I went bitterly and angrily. I didn't want to go. But GOD had me in his grip.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I arrived among the exiles who lived near the Kebar River at Tel Aviv. I came to where they were living and sat there for seven days, appalled.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> At the end of the seven days, I received this Message from GOD:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Son of man, I've made you a watchman for the family of Israel. Whenever you hear me say something, warn them for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> If I say to the wicked, 'You are going to die,' and you don't sound the alarm warning them that it's a matter of life or death, they will die and it will be your fault. I'll hold you responsible.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But if you warn the wicked and they keep right on sinning anyway, they'll most certainly die for their sin, but you won't die. You'll have saved your life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "And if the righteous turn back from living righteously and take up with evil when I step in and put them in a hard place, they'll die. If you haven't warned them, they'll die because of their sins, and none of the right things they've done will count for anything--and I'll hold you responsible.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But if you warn these righteous people not to sin and they listen to you, they'll live because they took the warning--and again, you'll have saved your life."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> GOD grabbed me by the shoulder and said, "Get up. Go out on the plain. I want to talk with you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> So I got up and went out on the plain. I couldn't believe my eyes: the Glory of GOD! Right there! It was like the Glory I had seen at the Kebar River. I fell to the ground, prostrate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Then the Spirit entered me and put me on my feet. He said, "Go home and shut the door behind you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> And then something odd: "Son of man: They'll tie you hand and foot with ropes so you can't leave the house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> I'll make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so you won't be able to talk and tell the people what they're doing wrong, even though they are a bunch of rebels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "But then when the time is ripe, I'll free your tongue and you'll say, 'This is what GOD, the Master, says: . . .' From then on it's up to them. They can listen or not listen, whichever they like. They are a bunch of rebels!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Now, son of man, take a brick and place it before you. Draw a picture of the city Jerusalem on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Then make a model of a military siege against the brick: Build siege walls, construct a ramp, set up army camps, lay in battering rams around it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then get an iron skillet and place it upright between you and the city--an iron wall. Face the model: The city shall be under siege and you shall be the besieger. This is a sign to the family of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Next lie on your left side and place the sin of the family of Israel on yourself. You will bear their sin for as many days as you lie on your side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The number of days you bear their sin will match the number of years of their sin, namely, 390. For 390 days you will bear the sin of the family of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Then, after you have done this, turn over and lie down on your right side and bear the sin of the family of Judah. Your assignment this time is to lie there for forty days, a day for each year of their sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Look straight at the siege of Jerusalem. Roll up your sleeve, shake your bare arm, and preach against her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "I will tie you up with ropes, tie you so you can't move or turn over until you have finished the days of the siege.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Next I want you to take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, dried millet and spelt, and mix them in a bowl to make a flat bread. This is your food ration for the 390 days you lie on your side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Measure out about half a pound for each day and eat it on schedule.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Also measure out your daily ration of about a pint of water and drink it on schedule.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Eat the bread as you would a muffin. Bake the muffins out in the open where everyone can see you, using dried human dung for fuel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> GOD said, "This is what the people of Israel are going to do: Among the pagan nations where I will drive them, they will eat foods that are strictly taboo to a holy people."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I said, "GOD, my Master! Never! I've never contaminated myself with food like that. Since my youth I've never eaten anything forbidden by law, nothing found dead or violated by wild animals. I've never taken a single bite of forbidden food."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "All right," he said. "I'll let you bake your bread over cow dung instead of human dung."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Then he said to me, "Son of man, I'm going to cut off all food from Jerusalem. The people will live on starvation rations, worrying where the next meal's coming from, scrounging for the next drink of water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Famine conditions. People will look at one another, see nothing but skin and bones, and shake their heads. This is what sin does."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Now, son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a straight razor, shaving your head and your beard. Then, using a set of balancing scales, divide the hair into thirds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> When the days of the siege are over, take one-third of the hair and burn it inside the city. Take another third, chop it into bits with the sword and sprinkle it around the city. The final third you'll throw to the wind. Then I'll go after them with a sword.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Retrieve a few of the hairs and slip them into your pocket.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Take some of them and throw them into the fire--burn them up. From them, fire will spread to the whole family of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "This is what GOD, the Master, says: This means Jerusalem. I set her at the center of the world, all the nations ranged around her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But she rebelled against my laws and ordinances, rebelled far worse than the nations ranged around her--sheer wickedness!--refused my guidance, ignored my directions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Therefore this is what GOD, the Master, says: You've been more headstrong and willful than any of the nations around you, refusing my guidance, ignoring my directions. You've sunk to the gutter level of those around you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Therefore this is what GOD, the Master, says: I'm setting myself against you--yes, against you, Jerusalem. I'm going to punish you in full sight of the nations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Because of your disgusting no-god idols, I'm going to do something to you that I've never done before and will never do again:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> turn families into cannibals--parents eating children, children eating parents! Punishment indeed. And whoever's left over I'll throw to the winds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Therefore, as sure as I am the living God--Decree of GOD, the Master--because you've polluted my Sanctuary with your obscenities and disgusting no-god idols, I'm pulling out. Not an ounce of pity will I show you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> A third of your people will die of either disease or hunger inside the city, a third will be killed outside the city, and a third will be thrown to the winds and chased by killers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Only then will I calm down and let my anger cool. Then you'll know that I was serious about this all along, that I'm a jealous God and not to be trifled with.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "When I get done with you, you'll be a pile of rubble. Nations who walk by will make coarse jokes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> When I finish my angry punishment and searing rebukes, you'll be reduced to an object of ridicule and mockery, turned into a horror story circulating among the surrounding nations. I, GOD, have spoken.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "When I shoot my lethal famine arrows at you, I'll shoot to kill. Then I'll step up the famine and cut off food supplies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Famine and more famine--and then I'll send in the wild animals to finish off your children. Epidemic disease, unrestrained murder, death--and I will have sent it! I, GOD, have spoken."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then the Word of GOD came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Son of man, now turn and face the mountains of Israel and preach against them</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> : 'O Mountains of Israel, listen to the Message of GOD, the Master. GOD, the Master, speaks to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and the valleys: I'm about to destroy your sacred god and goddess shrines.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'll level your altars, bust up your sun-god pillars, and kill your people as they bow down to your no-god idols.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I'll stack the dead bodies of Israelites in front of your idols and then scatter your bones around your shrines.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Every place where you've lived, the towns will be torn down and the pagan shrines demolished--altars busted up, idols smashed, all your custom-made sun-god pillars in ruins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Corpses everywhere you look! Then you'll know that I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "'But I'll let a few escape the killing as you are scattered through other lands and nations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> In the foreign countries where they're taken as prisoners of war, they'll remember me. They'll realize how devastated I was by their betrayals, by their voracious lust for gratifying themselves in their idolatries. They'll be disgusted with their evil ways, disgusting to God in the way they've lived.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They'll know that I am GOD. They'll know that my judgment against them was no empty threat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "'This is what GOD, the Master, says: Clap your hands, stamp your feet, yell out, "No, no, no!" because of all the evil obscenities rife in Israel. They're going to be killed, dying of hunger, dying of disease--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> death everywhere you look, people dropping like flies, people far away dying, people nearby dying, and whoever's left in the city starving to death. Why? Because I'm angry, furiously angry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They'll realize that I am GOD when they see their people's corpses strewn over and around all their ruined sex-and-religion shrines on the bare hills and in the lush fertility groves, in all the places where they indulged their sensual rites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'll bring my hand down hard on them, demolish the country wherever they live, turn it into wasteland from one end to the other, from the wilderness to Riblah. Then they'll know that I am GOD!'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Word came to me, saying,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "You, son of man--GOD, the Master, has this Message for the land of Israel: "'Endtime. The end of business as usual for everyone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> It's all over. The end is upon you. I've launched my anger against you. I've issued my verdict on the way you live. I'll make you pay for your disgusting obscenities.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I won't look the other way, I won't feel sorry for you. I'll make you pay for the way you've lived: Your disgusting obscenities will boomerang on you, and you'll realize that I am GOD.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "I, GOD, the Master, say: 'Disaster after disaster! Look, it comes!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Endtime-- the end comes. The end is ripe. Watch out, it's coming!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> This is your fate, you who live in this land. Time's up. It's zero hour. No dragging of feet now, no bargaining for more time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Soon now I'll pour my wrath on you, pay out my anger against you, Render my verdict on the way you've lived, make you pay for your disgusting obscenities.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I won't look the other way, I won't feel sorry for you. I'll make you pay for the way you've lived. Your disgusting obscenities will boomerang on you. Then you'll realize that it is I, GOD, who has hit you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "'Judgment Day! Fate has caught up with you. The scepter outsized and pretentious, pride bursting all bounds,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Violence strutting, brandishing the evil scepter. But there's nothing to them, and nothing will be left of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Time's up. Countdown: five, four, three, two . . . Buyer, don't crow; seller, don't worry: Judgment wrath has turned the world topsy-turvy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The bottom has dropped out of buying and selling. It will never be the same again. But don't fantasize an upturn in the market. The country is bankrupt because of its sins, and it's not going to get any better.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "'The trumpet signals the call to battle: "Present arms!" But no one marches into battle. My wrath has them paralyzed!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> On the open roads you're killed, or else you go home and die of hunger and disease. Either get murdered out in the country or die of sickness or hunger in town.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Survivors run for the hills. They moan like doves in the valleys, Each one moaning for his own sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "'Every hand hangs limp, every knee turns to rubber.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They dress in rough burlap-- sorry scarecrows, Shifty and shamefaced, with their heads shaved bald.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "'They throw their money into the gutters. Their hard-earned cash stinks like garbage. They find that it won't buy a thing they either want or need on Judgment Day. They tripped on money and fell into sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Proud and pretentious with their jewels, they deck out their vile and vulgar no-gods in finery. I'll make those god-obscenities a stench in their nostrils.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I'll give away their religious junk-- strangers will pick it up for free, the godless spit on it and make jokes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I'll turn my face so I won't have to look as my treasured place and people are violated, As violent strangers walk in and desecrate place and people--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> A bloody massacre, as crime and violence fill the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> I'll bring in the dregs of humanity to move into their houses. I'll put a stop to the boasting and strutting of the high-and-mighty, And see to it that there'll be nothing holy left in their holy places.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Catastrophe descends. They look for peace, but there's no peace to be found--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Disaster on the heels of disaster, one rumor after another. They clamor for the prophet to tell them what's up, but nobody knows anything. Priests don't have a clue; the elders don't know what to say.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The king holds his head in despair; the prince is devastated. The common people are paralyzed. Gripped by fear, they can't move. I'll deal with them where they are, judge them on their terms. They'll know that I am GOD.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the sixth year, in the sixth month and the fifth day, while I was sitting at home meeting with the leaders of Judah, it happened that the hand of my Master, GOD, gripped me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> When I looked, I was astonished. What I saw looked like a man--from the waist down like fire and from the waist up like highly burnished bronze.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He reached out what looked like a hand and grabbed me by the hair. The Spirit swept me high in the air and carried me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate of the Temple's inside court where the image of the sex goddess that makes God so angry had been set up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Right before me was the Glory of the God of Israel, exactly like the vision I had seen out on the plain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He said to me, "Son of man, look north." I looked north and saw it: Just north of the entrance loomed the altar of the sex goddess, Asherah, that makes God so angry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then he said, "Son of man, do you see what they're doing? Outrageous obscenities! And doing them right here! It's enough to drive me right out of my own Temple. But you're going to see worse yet."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He brought me to the door of the Temple court. I looked and saw a gaping hole in the wall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He said, "Son of man, dig through the wall." I dug through the wall and came upon a door.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He said, "Now walk through the door and take a look at the obscenities they're engaging in."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I entered and looked. I couldn't believe my eyes: Painted all over the walls were pictures of reptiles and animals and monsters--the whole pantheon of Egyptian gods and goddesses--being worshiped by Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> In the middle of the room were seventy of the leaders of Israel, with Jaazaniah son of Shaphan standing in the middle. Each held his censer with the incense rising in a fragrant cloud.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He said, "Son of man, do you see what the elders are doing here in the dark, each one before his favorite god-picture? They tell themselves, 'GOD doesn't see us. GOD has forsaken the country.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then he said, "You're going to see worse yet."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He took me to the entrance at the north gate of the Temple of GOD. I saw women sitting there, weeping for Tammuz, the Babylonian fertility god.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He said, "Have you gotten an eyeful, son of man? You're going to see worse yet."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Finally, he took me to the inside court of the Temple of GOD. There between the porch and the altar were about twenty-five men. Their backs were to GOD's Temple. They were facing east, bowing in worship to the sun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He said, "Have you seen enough, son of man? Isn't it bad enough that Judah engages in these outrageous obscenities? They fill the country with violence and now provoke me even further with their obscene gestures.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> That's it. They have an angry God on their hands! From now on, no mercy. They can shout all they want, but I'm not listening."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then I heard him call out loudly, "Executioners, come! And bring your deadly weapons with you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Six men came down the road from the upper gate that faces north, each carrying his lethal weapon. With them was a man dressed in linen with a writing case slung from his shoulder. They entered and stood by the bronze altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The Glory of the God of Israel ascended from his usual place above the cherubim-angels, moved to the threshold of the Temple, and called to the man with the writing case who was dressed in linen:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Go through the streets of Jerusalem and put a mark on the forehead of everyone who is in anguish over the outrageous obscenities being done in the city."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I listened as he went on to address the executioners: "Follow him through the city and kill. Feel sorry for no one. Show no compassion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Kill old men and women, young men and women, mothers and children. But don't lay a hand on anyone with the mark. Start at my Temple." They started with the leaders in front of the Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He told the executioners, "Desecrate the Temple. Fill it with corpses. Then go out and continue the killing."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> So they went out and struck the city. While the massacre went forward, I was left alone. I fell on my face in prayer: "Oh, oh, GOD, my Master! Are you going to kill everyone left in Israel in this pouring out of your anger on Jerusalem?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He said, "The guilt of Israel and Judah is enormous. The land is swollen with murder. The city is bloated with injustice. They all say, 'GOD has forsaken the country. He doesn't see anything we do.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Well, I do see, and I'm not feeling sorry for any of them. They're going to pay for what they've done."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Just then, the man dressed in linen and carrying the writing case came back and reported, "I've done what you told me."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When I next looked, oh! Above the dome over the heads of the cherubim-angels was what looked like a throne, sky-blue, like a sapphire!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD said to the man dressed in linen, "Enter the place of the wheels under the cherubim-angels. Fill your hands with burning coals from beneath the cherubim and scatter them over the city." I watched as he entered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The cherubim were standing on the south side of the Temple when the man entered. A cloud filled the inside courtyard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then the Glory of GOD ascended from the cherubim and moved to the threshold of the Temple. The cloud filled the Temple. Court and Temple were both filled with the blazing presence of the Glory of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And the sound! The wings of the cherubim were audible all the way to the outer court--the sound of the voice was like The Strong God in thunder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When GOD commanded the man dressed in linen, "Take fire from among the wheels, from between the cherubim," he went in and stood beside a wheel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> One of the cherubim reached into the fire, took some coals, and put them in the hands of the man dressed in linen. He took them and went out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Something that looked like a human hand could be seen under the wings of the cherubim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And then I saw four wheels beside the cherubim, one beside each cherub. The wheels radiating were sparkling like diamonds in the sun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> All four wheels looked alike, each like a wheel within a wheel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> When they moved, they went in any of the four directions but in a perfectly straight line. Where the cherubim went, the wheels went straight ahead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The cherubim were full of eyes in their backs, hands, and wings. The wheels likewise were full of eyes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I heard the wheels called "wheels within wheels."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Each of the cherubim had four faces: the first, of an angel; the second, a human; the third, a lion; the fourth, an eagle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Then the cherubim ascended. They were the same living creatures I had seen at the Kebar River.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When the cherubim moved, the wheels beside them moved. When the cherubim spread their wings to take off from the ground, the wheels stayed right with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When the cherubim stopped, the wheels stopped. When the cherubim rose, the wheels rose, because the spirit of the living creatures was also in the wheels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Then the Glory of GOD left the Temple entrance and hovered over the cherubim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I watched as the cherubim spread their wings and left the ground, the wheels right with them. They stopped at the entrance of the east gate of the Temple. The Glory of the God of Israel was above them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> These were the same living creatures I had seen previously beneath the God of Israel at the Kebar River. I recognized them as cherubim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Each had four faces and four wings. Under their wings was what looked like human hands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Their faces looked exactly like those I had seen at the Kebar River. Each went straight ahead.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then the Spirit picked me up and took me to the gate of the Temple that faces east. There were twenty-five men standing at the gate. I recognized the leaders, Jaazaniah son of Azzur and Pelatiah son of Benaiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD said, "Son of man, these are the men who draw up blueprints for sin, who think up new programs for evil in this city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They say, 'We can make anything happen here. We're the best. We're the choice pieces of meat in the soup pot.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Oppose them, son of man. Preach against them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then the Spirit of GOD came upon me and told me what to say: "This is what GOD says: 'That's a fine public speech, Israel, but I know what you are thinking.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> You've murdered a lot of people in this city. The streets are piled high with corpses.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Therefore this is what GOD, the Master, says: 'The corpses that you've piled in the streets are the meat and this city is the soup pot, and you're not even in the pot! I'm throwing you out!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You fear war, but war is what you're going to get. I'm bringing war against you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'm throwing you out of this city, giving you over to foreigners, and punishing you good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You'll be killed in battle. I'll carry out judgment on you at the borders of Israel. Then you'll realize that I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> This city will not be your soup pot and you won't be the choice pieces of meat in it either. Hardly. I will carry out judgment on you at the borders of Israel</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> and you'll realize that I am GOD, for you haven't followed my statutes and ordinances. Instead of following my ways, you've sunk to the level of the laws of the nations around you.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Even while I was preaching, Pelatiah son of Benaiah died. I fell down, face to the ground, and prayed loudly, "O Master, GOD! Will you completely wipe out what's left of Israel?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The answer from GOD came back:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Son of man, your brothers--I mean the whole people of Israel who are in exile with you--are the people of whom the citizens of Jerusalem are saying, 'They're in the far country, far from GOD. This land has been given to us to own.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Well, tell them this: 'This is your Message from GOD, the Master. True, I sent you to the far country and scattered you through other lands. All the same, I've provided you a temporary sanctuary in the countries where you've gone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I will gather you back from those countries and lands where you've been scattered and give you back the land of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> You'll come back and clean house, throw out all the rotten images and obscene idols.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I'll give you a new heart. I'll put a new spirit in you. I'll cut out your stone heart and replace it with a red-blooded, firm-muscled heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Then you'll obey my statutes and be careful to obey my commands. You'll be my people! I'll be your God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "'But not those who are self-willed and addicted to their rotten images and obscene idols! I'll see that they're paid in full for what they've done.' Decree of GOD, the Master."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Then the cherubim spread their wings, with the wheels beside them and the Glory of the God of Israel hovering over them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The Glory of GOD ascended from within the city and rested on the mountain to the east of the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Then, still in the vision given me by the Spirit of God, the Spirit took me and carried me back to the exiles in Babylon. And then the vision left me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> I told the exiles everything that GOD had shown me.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> God's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Son of man, you're living with a bunch of rebellious people. They have eyes but don't see a thing, they have ears but don't hear a thing. They're rebels all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> So, son of man, pack up your exile duffel bags. Leave in broad daylight with everyone watching and go off, as if into exile. Maybe then they'll understand what's going on, rebels though they are.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You'll take up your baggage while they watch, a bundle of the bare necessities of someone going into exile, and toward evening leave, just like a person going off into exile.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> As they watch, dig through the wall of the house and carry your bundle through it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> In full sight of the people, put the bundle on your shoulder and walk out into the night. Cover your face so you won't have to look at what you'll never see again. I'm using you as a sign for the family of Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I did exactly as he commanded me. I got my stuff together and brought it out in the street where everyone could see me, bundled it up the way someone being taken off into exile would, and then, as the sun went down, made a hole in the wall of the house with my hands. As it grew dark and as they watched, I left, throwing my bundle across my shoulders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The next morning GOD spoke to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Son of man, when anyone in Israel, that bunch of rebels, asks you, 'What are you doing?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Tell them, 'GOD, the Master, says that this Message especially concerns the prince in Jerusalem--Zedekiah--but includes all the people of Israel.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Also tell them, 'I am drawing a picture for you. As I am now doing, it will be done to all the people of Israel. They will go into exile as captives.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "The prince will put his bundle on his shoulders in the dark and leave. He'll dig through the wall of the house, covering his face so he won't have to look at the land he'll never see again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But I'll make sure he gets caught and is taken to Babylon. Blinded, he'll never see that land in which he'll die.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'll scatter to the four winds those who helped him escape, along with his troops, and many will die in battle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They'll realize that I am GOD when I scatter them among foreign countries.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "I'll permit a few of them to escape the killing, starvation, and deadly sickness so that they can confess among the foreign countries all the disgusting obscenities they've been involved in. They will realize that I am GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Son of man, eat your meals shaking in your boots, drink your water trembling with fear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Tell the people of this land, everyone living in Jerusalem and Israel, GOD's Message: 'You'll eat your meals shaking in your boots and drink your water in terror because your land is going to be stripped bare as punishment for the brutality rampant in it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> All the cities and villages will be emptied out and the fields destroyed. Then you'll realize that I am GOD.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Son of man, what's this proverb making the rounds in the land of Israel that says, 'Everything goes on the same as ever; all the prophetic warnings are false alarms'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "Tell them, 'GOD, the Master, says, This proverb's going to have a short life!' "Tell them, 'Time's about up. Every warning is about to come true.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> False alarms and easygoing preaching are a thing of the past in the life of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> I, GOD, am doing the speaking. What I say happens. None of what I say is on hold. What I say, I'll do--and soon, you rebels!' Decree of God the Master."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "Son of man, do you hear what Israel is saying: that the alarm the prophet raises is for a long time off, that he's preaching about the far-off future?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Well, tell them, 'GOD, the Master, says, "Nothing of what I say is on hold. What I say happens."' Decree of GOD, the Master."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Son of man, preach against the prophets of Israel who are making things up out of their own heads and calling it 'prophesying.' "Preach to them the real thing. Tell them, 'Listen to GOD's Message!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> GOD, the Master, pronounces doom on the empty-headed prophets who do their own thing and know nothing of what's going on!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Your prophets, Israel, are like jackals scavenging through the ruins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They haven't lifted a finger to repair the defenses of the city and have risked nothing to help Israel stand on GOD's Day of Judgment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> All they do is fantasize comforting illusions and preach lying sermons. They say 'GOD says . . .' when GOD hasn't so much as breathed in their direction. And yet they stand around thinking that something they said is going to happen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Haven't you fantasized sheer nonsense? Aren't your sermons tissues of lies, saying 'GOD says . . .' when I've done nothing of the kind?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Therefore--and this is the Message of GOD, the Master, remember--I'm dead set against prophets who substitute illusions for visions and use sermons to tell lies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'm going to ban them from the council of my people, remove them from membership in Israel, and outlaw them from the land of Israel. Then you'll realize that I am GOD, the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "The fact is that they've lied to my people. They've said, 'No problem; everything's just fine,' when things are not at all fine. When people build a wall, they're right behind them slapping on whitewash.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Tell those who are slapping on the whitewash, 'When a torrent of rain comes and the hailstones crash down and the hurricane sweeps in</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> and the wall collapses, what's the good of the whitewash that you slapped on so liberally, making it look so good?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "And that's exactly what will happen. I, GOD, the Master, say so: 'I'll let the hurricane of my wrath loose, a torrent of my hailstone-anger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'll make that wall you've slapped with whitewash collapse. I'll level it to the ground so that only the foundation stones will be left. And in the ruin you'll all die. You'll realize then that I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "'I'll dump my wrath on that wall, all of it, and on those who plastered it with whitewash. I will say to them, There is no wall, and those who did such a good job of whitewashing it wasted their time,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> those prophets of Israel who preached to Jerusalem and announced all their visions telling us things were just fine when they weren't at all fine. Decree of GOD, the Master.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "And the women prophets--son of man, take your stand against the women prophets who make up stuff out of their own minds. Oppose them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Say 'Doom' to the women who sew magic bracelets and head scarves to suit every taste, devices to trap souls. Say, 'Will you kill the souls of my people, use living souls to make yourselves rich and popular?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> You have profaned me among my people just to get ahead yourselves, used me to make yourselves look good--killing souls who should never have died and coddling souls who shouldn't live. You've lied to people who love listening to lies.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "Therefore GOD says, 'I am against all the devices and techniques you use to hunt down souls. I'll rip them out of your hands. I'll free the souls you're trying to catch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I'll rip your magic bracelets and scarves to shreds and deliver my people from your influence so they'll no longer be victimized by you. That's how you'll come to realize that I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "'Because you've confounded and confused good people, unsuspecting and innocent people, with your lies, and because you've made it easy for others to persist in evil so that it wouldn't even dawn on them to turn to me so I could save them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> as of now you're finished. No more delusion-mongering from you, no more sermonic lies. I'm going to rescue my people from your clutches. And you'll realize that I am GOD.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Some of the leaders of Israel approached me and sat down with me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Son of Man, these people have installed idols in their hearts. They have embraced the wickedness that will ruin them. Why should I even bother with their prayers?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Therefore tell them, 'The Message of GOD, the Master: All in Israel who install idols in their hearts and embrace the wickedness that will ruin them and still have the gall to come to a prophet, be on notice: I, GOD, will step in and personally answer them as they come dragging along their mob of idols.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I am ready to go to work on the hearts of the house of Israel, all of whom have left me for their idols.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Therefore, say to the house of Israel: 'GOD, the Master, says, Repent! Turn your backs on your no-god idols. Turn your backs on all your outrageous obscenities.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> To every last person from the house of Israel, including any of the resident aliens who live in Israel--all who turn their backs on me and embrace idols, who install the wickedness that will ruin them at the center of their lives and then have the gall to go to the prophet to ask me questions--I, GOD, will step in and give the answer myself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I'll oppose those people to their faces, make an example of them--a warning lesson--and get rid of them so you will realize that I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "'If a prophet is deceived and tells these idolaters the lies they want to hear, I, GOD, get blamed for those lies. He won't get by with it. I'll grab him by the scruff of the neck and get him out of there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They'll be equally guilty, the prophet and the one who goes to the prophet,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> so that the house of Israel will never again wander off my paths and make themselves filthy in their rebellions, but will rather be my people, just as I am their God. Decree of GOD, the Master.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Son of man, when a country sins against me by living faithlessly and I reach out and destroy its food supply by bringing on a famine, wiping out humans and animals alike,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> even if Noah, Daniel, and Job--the Big Three--were alive at the time, it wouldn't do the population any good. Their righteousness would only save their own lives." Decree of GOD, the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Or, if I make wild animals go through the country so that everyone has to leave and the country becomes wilderness and no one dares enter it anymore because of the wild animals,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> even if these three men were living there, as sure as I am the living God, neither their sons nor daughters would be rescued, but only those three, and the country would revert to wilderness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Or, if I bring war on that country and give the order, 'Let the killing begin!' leaving both people and animals dead,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> even if those three men were alive at the time, as sure as I am the living God, neither sons nor daughters would be rescued, but only these three.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Or, if I visit a deadly disease on that country, pouring out my lethal anger, killing both people and animals,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> and Noah, Daniel, and Job happened to be alive at the time, as sure as I am the living God, not a son, not a daughter, would be rescued. Only these three would be delivered because of their righteousness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Now then, that's the picture," says GOD, the Master, "once I've sent my four catastrophic judgments on Jerusalem--war, famine, wild animals, disease--to kill off people and animals alike. But look!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Believe it or not, there'll be survivors. Some of their sons and daughters will be brought out. When they come out to you and their salvation is right in your face, you'll see for yourself the life they've been saved from. You'll know that this severe judgment I brought on Jerusalem was worth it, that it had to be.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Yes, when you see in detail the kind of lives they've been living, you'll feel much better. You'll see the reason behind all that I've done in Jerusalem." Decree of GOD, the Master.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Son of man, how would you compare the wood of a vine with the branches of any tree you'd find in the forest?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Is vine wood ever used to make anything? Is it used to make pegs to hang things from?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "I don't think so. At best it's good for fuel. Look at it: a flimsy piece of vine, thrown in the fire and then rescued--the ends burned off and the middle charred. Now is it good for anything?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Hardly. When it was whole it wasn't good for anything. Half-burned is no improvement. What's it good for?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "So here's the Message of GOD, the Master: Like the wood of the vine I selected from among the trees of the forest and used as fuel for the fire, just so I'll treat those who live in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I am dead set against them. Even though at one time they got out of the fire charred, the fire's going to burn them up. When I take my stand against them, you'll realize that I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I'll turn this country into a wilderness because they've been faithless." Decree of GOD, the Master.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Son of man, confront Jerusalem with her outrageous violations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Say this: 'The Message of GOD, the Master, to Jerusalem: You were born and bred among Canaanites. Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "'On the day you were born your umbilical cord was not cut, you weren't bathed and cleaned up, you weren't rubbed with salt, you weren't wrapped in a baby blanket.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> No one cared a fig for you. No one did one thing to care for you tenderly in these ways. You were thrown out into a vacant lot and left there, dirty and unwashed--a newborn nobody wanted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "'And then I came by. I saw you all miserable and bloody. Yes, I said to you, lying there helpless and filthy, "Live!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Grow up like a plant in the field!" And you did. You grew up. You grew tall and matured as a woman, full-breasted, with flowing hair. But you were naked and vulnerable, fragile and exposed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "'I came by again and saw you, saw that you were ready for love and a lover. I took care of you, dressed you and protected you. I promised you my love and entered the covenant of marriage with you. I, GOD, the Master, gave my word. You became mine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I gave you a good bath, washing off all that old blood, and anointed you with aromatic oils.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I dressed you in a colorful gown and put leather sandals on your feet. I gave you linen blouses and a fashionable wardrobe of expensive clothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I adorned you with jewelry: I placed bracelets on your wrists, fitted you out with a necklace,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> emerald rings, sapphire earrings, and a diamond tiara.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You were provided with everything precious and beautiful: with exquisite clothes and elegant food, garnished with honey and oil. You were absolutely stunning. You were a queen!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> You became world-famous, a legendary beauty brought to perfection by my adornments. Decree of GOD, the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "'But your beauty went to your head and you became a common whore, grabbing anyone coming down the street and taking him into your bed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> You took your fine dresses and made "tents" of them, using them as brothels in which you practiced your trade. This kind of thing should never happen, never.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "'And then you took all that fine jewelry I gave you, my gold and my silver, and made pornographic images of them for your brothels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> You decorated your beds with fashionable silks and cottons, and perfumed them with my aromatic oils and incense.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And then you set out the wonderful foods I provided--the fresh breads and fruits, with fine herbs and spices, which were my gifts to you--and you served them as delicacies in your whorehouses. That's what happened, says GOD, the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "'And then you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had given birth to as my children, and you killed them, sacrificing them to idols. Wasn't it bad enough that you had become a whore?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And now you're a murderer, killing my children and sacrificing them to idols.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "'Not once during these years of outrageous obscenities and whorings did you remember your infancy, when you were naked and exposed, a blood-smeared newborn.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "'And then to top off all your evil acts, you built your bold brothels in every town square. Doom! Doom to you, says GOD, the Master!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> At every major intersection you built your bold brothels and exposed your sluttish sex, spreading your legs for everyone who passed by.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "'And then you went international with your whoring.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> You fornicated with the Egyptians, seeking them out in their sex orgies. The more promiscuous you became, the angrier I got.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Finally, I intervened, reduced your borders and turned you over to the rapacity of your enemies. Even the Philistine women--can you believe it?--were shocked at your sluttish life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "'You went on to fornicate with the Assyrians. Your appetite was insatiable. But still you weren't satisfied.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> You took on the Babylonians, a country of businessmen, and still you weren't satisfied.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "'What a sick soul! Doing all this stuff--the champion whore!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> You built your bold brothels at every major intersection, opened up your whorehouses in every neighborhood, but you were different from regular whores in that you wouldn't accept a fee.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "'Wives who are unfaithful to their husbands accept gifts from their lovers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> And men commonly pay their whores. But you pay your lovers! You bribe men from all over to come to bed with you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> You're just the opposite of the regular whores who get paid for sex. Instead, you pay men for their favors! You even pervert whoredom!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> "'Therefore, whore, listen to GOD's Message:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> I, GOD, the Master, say, Because you've been unrestrained in your promiscuity, stripped down for every lover, flaunting your sex, and because of your pornographic idols and all the slaughtered children you offered to them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> therefore, because of all this, I'm going to get all your lovers together, all those you've used for your own pleasure, the ones you loved and the ones you loathed. I'll assemble them as a courtroom of spectators around you. In broad daylight I'll strip you naked before them--they'll see what you really look like.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Then I'll sentence you to the punishment for an adulterous woman and a murderous woman. I'll give you a taste of my wrath!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> "'I'll gather all your lovers around you and turn you over to them. They'll tear down your bold brothels and sex shrines. They'll rip off your clothes, take your jewels, and leave you naked and exposed. Then</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> they'll call for a mass meeting. The mob will stone you and hack you to pieces with their swords.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> They'll burn down your houses. A massive judgment--with all the women watching! "'I'll have put a full stop to your whoring life--no more paying lovers to come to your bed!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> By then my anger will be played out. My jealousy will subside.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> "'Because you didn't remember what happened when you were young but made me angry with all this behavior, I'll make you pay for your waywardness. Didn't you just exponentially compound your outrageous obscenities with all your sluttish ways?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> "'Everyone who likes to use proverbs will use this one: "Like mother, like daughter."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> You're the daughter of your mother, who couldn't stand her husband and children. And you're a true sister of your sisters, who couldn't stand their husbands and children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> "'Your older sister is Samaria. She lived to the north of you with her daughters. Your younger sister is Sodom, who lived to the south of you with her daughters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> Haven't you lived just like they did? Haven't you engaged in outrageous obscenities just like they did? In fact, it didn't take you long to catch up and pass them!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> As sure as I am the living God!--Decree of GOD, the Master--your sister Sodom and her daughters never even came close to what you and your daughters have done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> "'The sin of your sister Sodom was this: She lived with her daughters in the lap of luxury--proud, gluttonous, and lazy. They ignored the oppressed and the poor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> They put on airs and lived obscene lives. And you know what happened: I did away with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> "'And Samaria. Samaria didn't sin half as much as you. You've committed far more obscenities than she ever did. Why, you make your two sisters look good in comparison with what you've done!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> Face it, your sisters look mighty good compared with you. Because you've outsinned them so completely, you've actually made them look righteous. Aren't you ashamed? But you're going to have to live with it. What a reputation to carry into history: outsinning your two sisters!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> "'But I'm going to reverse their fortunes, the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters and the fortunes of Samaria and her daughters. And--get this--your fortunes right along with them!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> Still, you're going to have to live with your shame. And by facing and accepting your shame, you're going to provide some comfort to your two sisters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> Your sisters, Sodom with her daughters and Samaria with her daughters, will become what they were before, and you will become what you were before.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> Remember the days when you were putting on airs, acting so high and mighty, looking down on sister Sodom?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> That was before your evil ways were exposed. And now you're the butt of contempt, despised by the Edomite women, the Philistine women, and everybody else around.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> But you have to face it, to accept the shame of your obscene and vile life. Decree of GOD, the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="59"> "'GOD, the Master, says, I'll do to you just as you have already done, you who have treated my oath with contempt and broken the covenant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="60"> All the same, I'll remember the covenant I made with you when you were young and I'll make a new covenant with you that will last forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="61"> You'll remember your sorry past and be properly contrite when you receive back your sisters, both the older and the younger. I'll give them to you as daughters, but not as participants in your covenant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="62"> I'll firmly establish my covenant with you and you'll know that I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="63"> You'll remember your past life and face the shame of it, but when I make atonement for you, make everything right after all you've done, it will leave you speechless.'" Decree of GOD, the Master.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="17">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Son of man, make a riddle for the house of Israel. Tell them a story.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Say, 'GOD, the Master, says: "'A great eagle with a huge wingspan and long feathers, In full plumage and bright colors, came to Lebanon And took the top off a cedar,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> broke off the top branch, Took it to a land of traders, and set it down in a city of shopkeepers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then he took a cutting from the land and planted it in good, well-watered soil, like a willow on a riverbank.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> It sprouted into a flourishing vine, low to the ground. Its branches grew toward the eagle and the roots became established-- A vine putting out shoots, developing branches.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "'There was another great eagle with a huge wingspan and thickly feathered. This vine sent out its roots toward him from the place where it was planted. Its branches reached out to him so he could water it from a long distance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> It had been planted in good, well-watered soil, And it put out branches and bore fruit, and became a noble vine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "'GOD, the Master, says, Will it thrive? Won't he just pull it up by the roots and leave the grapes to rot And the branches to shrivel up, a withered, dead vine? It won't take much strength or many hands to pull it up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Even if it's transplanted, will it thrive? When the hot east wind strikes it, won't it shrivel up? Won't it dry up and blow away from the place where it was planted?'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Tell this house of rebels, 'Do you get it? Do you know what this means?' "Tell them, 'The king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and took its king and its leaders back to Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He took one of the royal family and made a covenant with him, making him swear his loyalty. The king of Babylon took all the top leaders into exile</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> to make sure that this kingdom stayed weak--didn't get any big ideas of itself--and kept the covenant with him so that it would have a future.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "'But he rebelled and sent emissaries to Egypt to recruit horses and a big army. Do you think that's going to work? Are they going to get by with this? Does anyone break a covenant and get off scot-free?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "'As sure as I am the living God, this king who broke his pledge of loyalty and his covenant will die in that country, in Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Pharaoh with his big army--all those soldiers!--won't lift a finger to fight for him when Babylon sets siege to the city and kills everyone inside.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Because he broke his word and broke the covenant, even though he gave his solemn promise, because he went ahead and did all these things anyway, he won't escape.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "'Therefore, GOD, the Master, says, As sure as I am the living God, because the king despised my oath and broke my covenant, I'll bring the consequences crashing down on his head.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> I'll send out a search party and catch him. I'll take him to Babylon and have him brought to trial because of his total disregard for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> All his elite soldiers, along with the rest of the army, will be killed in battle, and whoever is left will be scattered to the four winds. Then you'll realize that I, GOD, have spoken.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "'GOD, the Master, says, I personally will take a shoot from the top of the towering cedar, a cutting from the crown of the tree, and plant it on a high and towering mountain,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> on the high mountain of Israel. It will grow, putting out branches and fruit--a majestic cedar. Birds of every sort and kind will live under it. They'll build nests in the shade of its branches.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> All the trees of the field will recognize that I, GOD, made the great tree small and the small tree great, made the green tree turn dry and the dry tree sprout green branches. I, GOD, said it--and I did it.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="18">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "What do you people mean by going around the country repeating the saying, The parents ate green apples, The children got stomachache?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "As sure as I'm the living God, you're not going to repeat this saying in Israel any longer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Every soul--man, woman, child--belongs to me, parent and child alike. You die for your own sin, not another's.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Imagine a person who lives well, treating others fairly, keeping good relationships--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> doesn't eat at the pagan shrines, doesn't worship the idols so popular in Israel, doesn't seduce a neighbor's spouse, doesn't indulge in casual sex,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> doesn't bully anyone, doesn't pile up bad debts, doesn't steal, doesn't refuse food to the hungry, doesn't refuse clothing to the ill-clad,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> doesn't exploit the poor, doesn't live by impulse and greed, doesn't treat one person better than another,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But lives by my statutes and faithfully honors and obeys my laws. This person who lives upright and well shall live a full and true life. Decree of GOD, the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "But if this person has a child who turns violent and murders and goes off and does any of these things,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> even though the parent has done none of them-- eats at the pagan shrines, seduces his neighbor's spouse,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> bullies the weak, steals, piles up bad debts, admires idols, commits outrageous obscenities,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> exploits the poor "--do you think this person, the child, will live? Not a chance! Because he's done all these vile things, he'll die. And his death will be his own fault.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Now look: Suppose that this child has a child who sees all the sins done by his parent. The child sees them, but doesn't follow in the parent's footsteps--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> doesn't eat at the pagan shrines, doesn't worship the popular idols of Israel, doesn't seduce his neighbor's spouse,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> doesn't bully anyone, doesn't refuse to loan money, doesn't steal, doesn't refuse food to the hungry, doesn't refuse to give clothes to the ill-clad,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> doesn't live by impulse and greed, doesn't exploit the poor. He does what I say; he performs my laws and lives by my statutes. "This person will not die for the sins of the parent; he will live truly and well.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But the parent will die for what the parent did, for the sins of-- oppressing the weak, robbing brothers and sisters, doing what is dead wrong in the community.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Do you need to ask, 'So why does the child not share the guilt of the parent?' "Isn't it plain? It's because the child did what is fair and right. Since the child was careful to do what is lawful and right, the child will live truly and well.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The soul that sins is the soul that dies. The child does not share the guilt of the parent, nor the parent the guilt of the child. If you live upright and well, you get the credit; if you live a wicked life, you're guilty as charged.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "But a wicked person who turns his back on that life of sin and keeps all my statutes, living a just and righteous life, he'll live, really live. He won't die.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I won't keep a list of all the things he did wrong. He will live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Do you think I take any pleasure in the death of wicked men and women? Isn't it my pleasure that they turn around, no longer living wrong but living right--really living?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "The same thing goes for a good person who turns his back on an upright life and starts sinning, plunging into the same vile obscenities that the wicked person practices. Will this person live? I don't keep a list of all the things this person did right, like money in the bank he can draw on. Because of his defection, because he accumulates sin, he'll die.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "Do I hear you saying, 'That's not fair! God's not fair!'? "Listen, Israel. I'm not fair? You're the ones who aren't fair!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> If a good person turns away from his good life and takes up sinning, he'll die for it. He'll die for his own sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Likewise, if a bad person turns away from his bad life and starts living a good life, a fair life, he will save his life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Because he faces up to all the wrongs he's committed and puts them behind him, he will live, really live. He won't die.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "And yet Israel keeps on whining, 'That's not fair! God's not fair.' "I'm not fair, Israel? You're the ones who aren't fair.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "The upshot is this, Israel: I'll judge each of you according to the way you live. So turn around! Turn your backs on your rebellious living so that sin won't drag you down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Clean house. No more rebellions, please. Get a new heart! Get a new spirit! Why would you choose to die, Israel?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> I take no pleasure in anyone's death. Decree of GOD, the Master. "Make a clean break! Live!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="19">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Sing the blues over the princes of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Say: What a lioness was your mother among lions! She crouched in a pride of young lions. Her cubs grew large.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> She reared one of her cubs to maturity, a robust young lion. He learned to hunt. He ate men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Nations sounded the alarm. He was caught in a trap. They took him with hooks and dragged him to Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When the lioness saw she was luckless, that her hope for that cub was gone, She took her other cub and made him a strong young lion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He prowled with the lions, a robust young lion. He learned to hunt. He ate men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He rampaged through their defenses, left their cities in ruins. The country and everyone in it was terrorized by the roars of the lion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The nations got together to hunt him. Everyone joined the hunt. They set out their traps and caught him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They put a wooden collar on him and took him to the king of Babylon. No more would that voice be heard disturbing the peace in the mountains of Israel!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Here's another way to put it: Your mother was like a vine in a vineyard, transplanted alongside streams of water, Luxurious in branches and grapes because of the ample water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> It grew sturdy branches fit to be carved into a royal scepter. It grew high, reaching into the clouds. Its branches filled the horizon, and everyone could see it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then it was ripped up in a rage and thrown to the ground. The hot east wind shriveled it up and stripped its fruit. The sturdy branches dried out, fit for nothing but kindling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Now it's a stick stuck out in the desert, a bare stick in a desert of death,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Good for nothing but making fires, campfires in the desert. Not a hint now of those sturdy branches fit for use as a royal scepter! (This is a sad song, a text for singing the blues.)</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="20">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the seventh year, the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month, some of the leaders of Israel came to ask for guidance from GOD. They sat down before me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Then GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Son of man, talk with the leaders of Israel. Tell them, 'GOD, the Master, says, "Have you come to ask me questions? As sure as I am the living God, I'll not put up with questions from you. Decree of GOD, the Master."'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Son of man, why don't you do it? Yes, go ahead. Hold them accountable. Confront them with the outrageous obscenities of their parents.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Tell them that GOD, the Master, says: "'On the day I chose Israel, I revealed myself to them in the country of Egypt, raising my hand in a solemn oath to the people of Jacob, in which I said, "I am GOD, your personal God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> On the same day that I raised my hand in the solemn oath, I promised them that I would take them out of the country of Egypt and bring them into a country that I had searched out just for them, a country flowing with milk and honey, a jewel of a country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "'At that time I told them, "Get rid of all the vile things that you've become addicted to. Don't make yourselves filthy with the Egyptian no-god idols. I alone am GOD, your God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "'But they rebelled against me, wouldn't listen to a word I said. None got rid of the vile things they were addicted to. They held on to the no-gods of Egypt as if for dear life. I seriously considered inflicting my anger on them in force right there in Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then I thought better of it. I acted out of who I was, not by how I felt. And I acted in a way that would evoke honor, not blasphemy, from the nations around them, nations who had seen me reveal myself by promising to lead my people out of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And then I did it: I led them out of Egypt into the desert.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "'I gave them laws for living, showed them how to live well and obediently before me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I also gave them my weekly holy rest days, my "Sabbaths," a kind of signpost erected between me and them to show them that I, GOD, am in the business of making them holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "'But Israel rebelled against me in the desert. They didn't follow my statutes. They despised my laws for living well and obediently in the ways I had set out. And they totally desecrated my holy Sabbaths. I seriously considered unleashing my anger on them right there in the desert.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But I thought better of it and acted out of who I was, not by what I felt, so that I might be honored and not blasphemed by the nations who had seen me bring them out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But I did lift my hand in a solemn oath there in the desert and promise them that I would not bring them into the country flowing with milk and honey that I had chosen for them, that jewel among all lands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I canceled my promise because they despised my laws for living obediently, wouldn't follow my statutes, and went ahead and desecrated my holy Sabbaths. They preferred living by their no-god idols.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But I didn't go all the way: I didn't wipe them out, didn't finish them off in the desert.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "'Then I addressed myself to their children in the desert: "Don't do what your parents did. Don't take up their practices. Don't make yourselves filthy with their no-god idols.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I myself am GOD, your God: Keep my statutes and live by my laws.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Keep my Sabbaths as holy rest days, signposts between me and you, signaling that I am GOD, your God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "'But the children also rebelled against me. They neither followed my statutes nor kept my laws for living upright and well. And they desecrated my Sabbaths. I seriously considered dumping my anger on them, right there in the desert.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But I thought better of it and acted out of who I was, not by what I felt, so that I might be honored and not blasphemed by the nations who had seen me bring them out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "'But I did lift my hand in solemn oath there in the desert, and swore that I would scatter them all over the world, disperse them every which way</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> because they didn't keep my laws nor live by my statutes. They desecrated my Sabbaths and remained addicted to the no-god idols of their parents.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Since they were determined to live bad lives, I myself gave them statutes that could not produce goodness and laws that did not produce life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> I abandoned them. Filthy in the gutter, they perversely sacrificed their firstborn children in the fire. The very horror should have shocked them into recognizing that I am GOD.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "Therefore, speak to Israel, son of man. Tell them that GOD says, 'As if that wasn't enough, your parents further insulted me by betraying me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> When I brought them into that land that I had solemnly promised with my upraised hand to give them, every time they saw a hill with a sex-and-religion shrine on it or a grove of trees where the sacred whores practiced, they were there, buying into the whole pagan system.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> I said to them, "What hill do you go to?"' (It's still called "Whore Hills.")</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "Therefore, say to Israel, 'The Message of GOD, the Master: You're making your lives filthy by copying the ways of your parents. In repeating their vile practices, you've become whores yourselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> In burning your children as sacrifices, you've become as filthy as your no-god idols--as recently as today! "'Am I going to put up with questions from people like you, Israel? As sure as I am the living God, I, GOD, the Master, refuse to be called into question by you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "'What you're secretly thinking is never going to happen. You're thinking, "We're going to be like everybody else, just like the other nations. We're going to worship gods we can make and control."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> '"As sure as I am the living God, says GOD, the Master, think again! With a mighty show of strength and a terrifying rush of anger, I will be King over you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> I'll bring you back from the nations, collect you out of the countries to which you've been scattered, with a mighty show of strength and a terrifying rush of anger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> I'll bring you to the desert of nations and haul you into court, where you'll be face to face with judgment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> "'As I faced your parents with judgment in the desert of Egypt, so I'll face you with judgment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> I'll scrutinize and search every person as you arrive, and I'll bring you under the bond of the covenant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> I'll cull out the rebels and traitors. I'll lead them out of their exile, but I won't bring them back to Israel. "'Then you'll realize that I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> "'But you, people of Israel, this is the Message of GOD, the Master, to you: Go ahead, serve your no-god idols! But later, you'll think better of it and quit throwing filth and mud on me with your pagan offerings and no-god idols.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> For on my holy mountain, the high mountain of Israel, I, GOD, the Master, tell you that the entire people of Israel will worship me. I'll receive them there with open arms. I'll demand your best gifts and offerings, all your holy sacrifices.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> What's more, I'll receive you as the best kind of offerings when I bring you back from all the lands and countries in which you've been scattered. I'll demonstrate in the eyes of the world that I am The Holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> When I return you to the land of Israel, the land that I solemnly promised with upraised arm to give to your parents, you'll realize that I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Then and there you'll remember all that you've done, the way you've lived that has made you so filthy--and you'll loathe yourselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> "'But, dear Israel, you'll also realize that I am GOD when I respond to you out of who I am, not by what I feel about the evil lives you've lived, the corrupt history you've compiled. Decree of GOD, the Master.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> "Son of man, face south. Let the Message roll out against the south. Prophesy against the wilderness forest of the south.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> "Tell the forest of the south, 'Listen to the Message of GOD! GOD, the Master, says, I'll set a fire in you that will burn up every tree, dead trees and live trees alike. Nobody will put out the fire. The whole country from south to north will be blackened by it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> Everyone is going to see that I, GOD, started the fire and that it's not going to be put out.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> And I said, "O GOD, everyone is saying of me, 'He just makes up stories.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="21">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Son of man, now face Jerusalem and let the Message roll out against the Sanctuary. Prophesy against the land of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Say, 'GOD's Message: I'm against you. I'm pulling my sword from its sheath and killing both the wicked and the righteous.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Because I'm treating everyone the same, good and bad, everyone from south to north is going to feel my sword!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Everyone will know that I mean business.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "So, son of man, groan! Double up in pain. Make a scene!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "When they ask you, 'Why all this groaning, this carrying on?' say, 'Because of the news that's coming. It'll knock the breath out of everyone. Hearts will stop cold, knees turn to rubber. Yes, it's coming. No stopping it. Decree of GOD, the Master.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD's Message to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Son of man, prophesy. Tell them, 'The Master says: "'A sword! A sword! razor-sharp and polished,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Sharpened to kill, polished to flash like lightning! "'My child, you've despised the scepter of Judah by worshiping every tree-idol.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "'The sword is made to glisten, to be held and brandished. It's sharpened and polished, ready to be brandished by the killer.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Yell out and wail, son of man. The sword is against my people! The princes of Israel and my people--abandoned to the sword! Wring your hands! Tear out your hair!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "'Testing comes. Why have you despised discipline? You can't get around it. Decree of GOD, the Master.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "So, prophesy, son of man! Clap your hands. Get their attention. Tell them that the sword's coming down once, twice, three times. It's a sword to kill, a sword for a massacre, A sword relentless, a sword inescapable--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> People collapsing right and left, going down like dominoes. I've stationed a murderous sword at every gate in the city, Flashing like lightning, brandished murderously.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Cut to the right, thrust to the left, murderous, sharp-edged sword!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then I'll clap my hands, a signal that my anger is spent. I, GOD, have spoken."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Son of man, lay out two roads for the sword of the king of Babylon to take. Start them from the same place. Place a signpost at the beginning of each road.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Post one sign to mark the road of the sword to Rabbah of the Ammonites. Post the other to mark the road to Judah and Fort Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The king of Babylon stands at the fork in the road and he decides by divination which of the two roads to take. He draws straws, he throws god-dice, he examines a goat liver.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> He opens his right hand: The omen says, 'Head for Jerusalem!' So he's on his way with battering rams, roused to kill, sounding the battle cry, pounding down city gates, building siege works.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "To the Judah leaders, who themselves have sworn oaths, it will seem like a false divination, but he will remind them of their guilt, and so they'll be captured.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "So this is what GOD, the Master, says: 'Because your sin is now out in the open so everyone can see what you've been doing, you'll be taken captive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "'O Zedekiah, blasphemous and evil prince of Israel: Time's up. It's "punishment payday."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> GOD says, Take your royal crown off your head. No more "business as usual." The underdog will be promoted and the top dog will be demoted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Ruins, ruins, ruins! I'll turn the whole place into ruins. And ruins it will remain until the one comes who has a right to it. Then I'll give it to him.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "But, son of man, your job is to prophesy. Tell them, 'This is the Message from GOD, the Master, against the Ammonites and against their cruel taunts: "'A sword! A sword! Bared to kill, Sharp as a razor, flashing like lightning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Despite false sword propaganda circulated in Ammon, The sword will sever Ammonite necks, for whom it's punishment payday.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Return the sword to the sheath! I'll judge you in your home country, in the land where you grew up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> I'll empty out my wrath on you, breathe hot anger down your neck. I'll give you to vicious men skilled in torture.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> You'll end up as stove-wood. Corpses will litter your land. Not so much as a memory will be left of you. I, GOD, have said so.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="22">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Son of man, are you going to judge this bloody city or not? Come now, are you going to judge her? Do it! Face her with all her outrageous obscenities.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Tell her, 'This is what GOD, the Master, says: You're a city murderous at the core, just asking for punishment. You're a city obsessed with no-god idols, making yourself filthy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> In all your killing, you've piled up guilt. In all your idol-making, you've become filthy. You've forced a premature end to your existence. I'll put you on exhibit as the scarecrow of the nations, the world's worst joke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> From far and near they'll deride you as infamous in filth, notorious for chaos.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "'Your leaders, the princes of Israel among you, compete in crime.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You're a community that's insolent to parents, abusive to outsiders, oppressive against orphans and widows.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You treat my holy things with contempt and desecrate my Sabbaths.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You have people spreading lies and spilling blood, flocking to the hills to the sex shrines and fornicating unrestrained.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Incest is common. Men force themselves on women regardless of whether they're ready or willing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Sex is now anarchy. Anyone is fair game: neighbor, daughter-in-law, sister.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Murder is for hire, usury is rampant, extortion is commonplace. "'And you've forgotten me. Decree of GOD, the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "'Now look! I've clapped my hands, calling everyone's attention to your rapacious greed and your bloody brutalities.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Can you stick with it? Will you be able to keep at this once I start dealing with you? "'I, GOD, have spoken. I'll put an end to this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I'll throw you to the four winds. I'll scatter you all over the world. I'll put a full stop to your filthy living.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> You will be defiled, spattered with your own mud in the eyes of the nations. And you'll recognize that I am GOD.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Son of man, the people of Israel are slag to me, the useless byproduct of refined copper, tin, iron, and lead left at the smelter--a worthless slag heap.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> So tell them, 'GOD, the Master, has spoken: Because you've all become worthless slag, you're on notice: I'll assemble you in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> As men gather silver, copper, iron, lead, and tin into a furnace and blow fire on it to melt it down, so in my wrath I'll gather you and melt you down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I'll blow on you with the fire of my wrath to melt you down in the furnace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> As silver is melted down, you'll be melted down. That should get through to you. Then you'll recognize that I, GOD, have let my wrath loose on you.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "Son of man, tell her, 'You're a land that during the time I was angry with you got no rain, not so much as a spring shower.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The leaders among you became desperate, like roaring, ravaging lions killing indiscriminately. They grabbed and looted, leaving widows in their wake.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "'Your priests violated my law and desecrated my holy things. They can't tell the difference between sacred and secular. They tell people there's no difference between right and wrong. They're contemptuous of my holy Sabbaths, profaning me by trying to pull me down to their level.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Your politicians are like wolves prowling and killing and rapaciously taking whatever they want.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Your preachers cover up for the politicians by pretending to have received visions and special revelations. They say, "This is what GOD, the Master, says . . ." when GOD hasn't said so much as one word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Extortion is rife, robbery is epidemic, the poor and needy are abused, outsiders are kicked around at will, with no access to justice.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "I looked for someone to stand up for me against all this, to repair the defenses of the city, to take a stand for me and stand in the gap to protect this land so I wouldn't have to destroy it. I couldn't find anyone. Not one.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> So I'll empty out my wrath on them, burn them to a crisp with my hot anger, serve them with the consequences of all they've done. Decree of GOD, the Master."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="23">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Son of man, there were two women, daughters of the same mother.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They became whores in Egypt, whores from a young age. Their breasts were fondled, their young bosoms caressed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The older sister was named Oholah, the younger was Oholibah. They were my daughters, and they gave birth to sons and daughters. "Oholah is Samaria and Oholibah is Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Oholah started whoring while she was still mine. She lusted after Assyrians as lovers: military men</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> smartly uniformed in blue, ambassadors and governors, good-looking young men mounted on fine horses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Her lust was unrestrained. She was a whore to the Assyrian elite. She compounded her filth with the idols of those to whom she gave herself in lust.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> She never slowed down. The whoring she began while young in Egypt she continued, sleeping with men who played with her breasts and spent their lust on her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "So I left her to her Assyrian lovers, for whom she was so obsessed with lust.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They ripped off her clothes, took away her children, and then, the final indignity, killed her. Among women her name became Shame--history's judgment on her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Her sister Oholibah saw all this, but she became even worse than her sister in lust and whoring, if you can believe it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> She also went crazy with lust for Assyrians: ambassadors and governors, military men smartly dressed and mounted on fine horses--the Assyrian elite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And I saw that she also had become incredibly filthy. Both women followed the same path.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But Oholibah surpassed her sister. When she saw figures of Babylonians carved in relief on the walls and painted red,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> fancy belts around their waists, elaborate turbans on their heads, all of them looking important--famous Babylonians!--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> she went wild with lust and sent invitations to them in Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The Babylonians came on the run, fornicated with her, made her dirty inside and out. When they had thoroughly debased her, she lost interest in them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Then she went public with her fornication. She exhibited her sex to the world. "I turned my back on her just as I had on her sister.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But that didn't slow her down. She went at her whoring harder than ever. She remembered when she was young, just starting out as a whore in Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> That whetted her appetite for more virile, vulgar, and violent lovers--stallions obsessive in their lust.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> She longed for the sexual prowess of her youth back in Egypt, where her firm young breasts were caressed and fondled.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "'Therefore, Oholibah, this is the Message from GOD, the Master: I will incite your old lovers against you, lovers you got tired of and left in disgust. I'll bring them against you from every direction,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod, Shoa, and Koa, and all Assyrians--good-looking young men, ambassadors and governors, elite officers and celebrities--all of them mounted on fine, spirited horses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> They'll come down on you out of the north, armed to the teeth, bringing chariots and troops from all sides. I'll turn over the task of judgment to them. They'll punish you according to their rules.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> I'll stand totally and relentlessly against you as they rip into you furiously. They'll mutilate you, cutting off your ears and nose, killing at random. They'll enslave your children--and anybody left over will be burned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> They'll rip off your clothes and steal your jewelry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> I'll put a stop to your sluttish sex, the whoring life you began in Egypt. You won't look on whoring with fondness anymore. You won't think back on Egypt with stars in your eyes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "'A Message from GOD, the Master: I'm at the point of abandoning you to those you hate, to those by whom you're repulsed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> They'll treat you hatefully, leave you publicly naked, your whore's body exposed in the cruel glare of the sun. Your sluttish lust</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> will be exposed. Your lust has brought you to this condition because you whored with pagan nations and made yourself filthy with their no-god idols.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "'You copied the life of your sister. Now I'll let you drink the cup she drank.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "'This is the Message of GOD, the Master: "'You'll drink your sister's cup, a cup canyon-deep and ocean-wide. You'll be shunned and taunted as you drink from that cup, full to the brim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> You'll be falling-down-drunk and the tears will flow as you drink from that cup titanic with terror: It's the cup of your sister Samaria.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> You'll drink it dry, then smash it to bits and eat the pieces, and end up tearing at your breasts. I've given the word-- Decree of GOD, the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> "'Therefore GOD, the Master, says, Because you've forgotten all about me, pushing me into the background, you now must pay for what you've done--pay for your sluttish sex and whoring life.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Then GOD said to me, "Son of man, will you confront Oholah and Oholibah with what they've done? Make them face their outrageous obscenities,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> obscenities ranging from adultery to murder. They committed adultery with their no-god idols, sacrificed the children they bore me in order to feed their idols!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> And there is also this: They've defiled my holy Sanctuary and desecrated my holy Sabbaths.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> The same day that they sacrificed their children to their idols, they walked into my Sanctuary and defiled it. That's what they did--in my house!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> "Furthermore, they even sent out invitations by special messenger to men far away--and, sure enough, they came. They bathed themselves, put on makeup and provocative lingerie.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> They reclined on a sumptuous bed, aromatic with incense and oils--my incense and oils!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> The crowd gathered, jostling and pushing, a drunken rabble. They adorned the sisters with bracelets on their arms and tiaras on their heads.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> "I said, 'She's burned out on sex!' but that didn't stop them. They kept banging on her doors night and day</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> as men do when they're after a whore. That's how they used Oholah and Oholibah, the worn-out whores.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> "Righteous men will pronounce judgment on them, giving out sentences for adultery and murder. That was their lifework: adultery and murder."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> "GOD says, 'Let a mob loose on them: Terror! Plunder!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> Let the mob stone them and hack them to pieces--kill all their children, burn down their houses!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> "'I'll put an end to sluttish sex in this country so that all women will be well warned and not copy you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> You'll pay the price for all your obsessive sex. You'll pay in full for your promiscuous affairs with idols. And you'll realize that I am GOD, the Master.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="24">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Message of GOD came to me in the ninth year, the tenth month, and the tenth day of the month:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Son of man, write down this date. The king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem this very day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Tell this company of rebels a story: "'Put on the soup pot. Fill it with water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Put chunks of meat into it, all the choice pieces--loin and brisket. Pick out the best soup bones</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> from the best of the sheep in the flock. Pile wood beneath the pot. Bring it to a boil and cook the soup.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "'GOD, the Master, says: "'Doom to the city of murder, to the pot thick with scum, thick with a filth that can't be scoured. Empty the pot piece by piece; don't bother who gets what.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "'The blood from murders has stained the whole city; Blood runs bold on the street stones, with no one bothering to wash it off--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Blood out in the open to public view to provoke my wrath, to trigger my vengeance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "'Therefore, this is what GOD, the Master, says: "'Doom to the city of murder! I, too, will pile on the wood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Stack the wood high, light the match, Cook the meat, spice it well, pour out the broth, and then burn the bones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then I'll set the empty pot on the coals and heat it red-hot so the bronze glows, So the germs are killed and the corruption is burned off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But it's hopeless. It's too far gone. The filth is too thick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "'Your encrusted filth is your filthy sex. I wanted to clean you up, but you wouldn't let me. I'll make no more attempts at cleaning you up until my anger quiets down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I, GOD, have said it, and I'll do it. I'm not holding back. I've run out of compassion. I'm not changing my mind. You're getting exactly what's coming to you. Decree of GOD, the Master.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Son of man, I'm about to take from you the delight of your life--a real blow, I know. But, please, no tears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Keep your grief to yourself. No public mourning. Get dressed as usual and go about your work--none of the usual funeral rituals."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I preached to the people in the morning. That evening my wife died. The next morning I did as I'd been told.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The people came to me, saying, "Tell us why you're acting like this. What does it mean, anyway?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> So I told them, "GOD's Word came to me, saying,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> 'Tell the family of Israel, This is what GOD, the Master, says: I will desecrate my Sanctuary, your proud impregnable fort, the delight of your life, your heart's desire. The children you left behind will be killed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "'Then you'll do exactly as I've done. You'll perform none of the usual funeral rituals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> You'll get dressed as usual and go about your work. No tears. But your sins will eat away at you from within and you'll groan among yourselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Ezekiel will be your example. The way he did it is the way you'll do it. "'When this happens you'll recognize that I am GOD, the Master.'''</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "And you, son of man: The day I take away the people's refuge, their great joy, the delight of their life, what they've most longed for, along with all their children--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> on that very day a survivor will arrive and tell you what happened to the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> You'll break your silence and start talking again, talking to the survivor. Again, you'll be an example for them. And they'll recognize that I am GOD."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="25">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Son of man, face Ammon and preach against the people:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Listen to the Message of GOD, the Master. This is what GOD has to say: Because you cheered when my Sanctuary was desecrated and the land of Judah was devastated and the people of Israel were taken into exile,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'm giving you over to the people of the east. They'll move in and make themselves at home, eating the food right off your tables and drinking your milk.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I'll turn your capital, Rabbah, into pasture for camels and all your villages into corrals for flocks. Then you'll realize that I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "GOD, the Master, says, Because you clapped and cheered, venting all your malicious contempt against the land of Israel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I'll step in and hand you out as loot--first come, first served. I'll cross you off the roster of nations. There'll be nothing left of you. And you'll realize that I am GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "GOD, the Master, says: Because Moab said, 'Look, Judah's nothing special,'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'll lay wide open the flank of Moab by exposing its lovely frontier villages to attack: Beth-jeshimoth, Baal-meon, and Kiriathaim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I'll lump Moab in with Ammon and give them to the people of the east for the taking. Ammon won't be heard from again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I'll punish Moab severely. And they'll realize that I am GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "GOD, the Master, says: Because Edom reacted against the people of Judah in spiteful revenge and was so criminally vengeful against them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> therefore I, GOD, the Master, will oppose Edom and kill the lot of them, people and animals both. I'll waste it--corpses stretched from Teman to Dedan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'll use my people Israel to bring my vengeance down on Edom. My wrath will fuel their action. And they'll realize it's my vengeance. Decree of GOD the Master."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "GOD, the Master, says: Because the Philistines were so spitefully vengeful--all those centuries of stored-up malice!--and did their best to destroy Judah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> therefore I, GOD, the Master, will oppose the Philistines and cut down the Cretans and anybody else left along the seacoast.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Huge acts of vengeance, massive punishments! When I bring vengeance, they'll realize that I am GOD."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="26">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the eleventh year, on the first day of the month, God's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Son of man, Tyre cheered when they got the news of Jerusalem, exclaiming, "'Good! The gateway city is smashed! Now all her business comes my way. She's in ruins and I'm in clover.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Therefore, GOD, the Master, has this to say: "'I'm against you, Tyre, and I'll bring many nations surging against you, as the waves of the sea surging against the shore.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They'll smash the city walls of Tyre and break down her towers. I'll wash away the soil and leave nothing but bare rock.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> She'll be an island of bare rock in the ocean, good for nothing but drying fishnets. Yes, I've said so.' Decree of GOD, the Master. 'She'll be loot, free pickings for the nations!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Her surrounding villages will be butchered. Then they'll realize that I am GOD.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "GOD, the Master, says: Look! Out of the north I'm bringing Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, a king's king, down on Tyre. He'll come with chariots and horses and riders--a huge army.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He'll massacre your surrounding villages and lay siege to you. He'll build siege ramps against your walls. A forest of shields will advance against you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He'll pummel your walls with his battering rams and shatter your towers with his iron weapons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You'll be covered with dust from his horde of horses--a thundering herd of war horses pouring through the breaches, pulling chariots. Oh, it will be an earthquake of an army and a city in shock!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Horses will stampede through the streets. Your people will be slaughtered and your huge pillars strewn like matchsticks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The invaders will steal and loot--all that wealth, all that stuff! They'll knock down your fine houses and dump the stone and timber rubble into the sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And your parties, your famous good-time parties, will be no more. No more songs, no more lutes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'll reduce you to an island of bare rock, good for nothing but drying fishnets. You'll never be rebuilt. I, GOD, have said so. Decree of GOD, the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "This is the Message of GOD, the Master, to Tyre: Won't the ocean islands shake at the crash of your collapse, at the groans of your wounded, at your mayhem and massacre?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "All up and down the coast, the princes will come down from their thrones, take off their royal robes and fancy clothes, and wrap themselves in sheer terror. They'll sit on the ground, shaken to the core, horrified at you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then they'll begin chanting a funeral song over you: "'Sunk! Sunk to the bottom of the sea, famous city on the sea! Power of the seas, you and your people, Intimidating everyone who lived in your shadows.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But now the islands are shaking at the sound of your crash, Ocean islands in tremors from the impact of your fall.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "The Message of GOD, the Master: 'When I turn you into a wasted city, a city empty of people, a ghost town, and when I bring up the great ocean deeps and cover you,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> then I'll push you down among those who go to the grave, the long, long dead. I'll make you live there, in the grave in old ruins, with the buried dead. You'll never see the land of the living again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I'll introduce you to the terrors of death and that'll be the end of you. They'll send out search parties for you, but you'll never be found. Decree of GOD, the Master.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="27">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "You, son of man, raise a funeral song over Tyre.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Tell Tyre, gateway to the sea, merchant to the world, trader among the far-off islands, 'This is what GOD, the Master, says: "'You boast, Tyre: "I'm the perfect ship--stately, handsome."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You ruled the high seas from a real beauty, crafted to perfection.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Your planking came from Mount Hermon junipers. A Lebanon cedar supplied your mast.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They made your oars from sturdy Bashan oaks. Cypress from Cyprus inlaid with ivory was used for the decks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Your sail and flag were of colorful embroidered linen from Egypt. Your purple deck awnings also came from Cyprus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Men of Sidon and Arvad pulled the oars. Your seasoned seamen, O Tyre, were the crew.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Ship's carpenters were old salts from Byblos. All the ships of the sea and their sailors clustered around you to barter for your goods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "'Your army was composed of soldiers from Paras, Lud, and Put, Elite troops in uniformed splendor. They put you on the map!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Your city police were imported from Arvad, Helech, and Gammad. They hung their shields from the city walls, a final, perfect touch to your beauty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "'Tarshish carried on business with you because of your great wealth. They worked for you, trading in silver, iron, tin, and lead for your products.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "'Greece, Tubal, and Meshech did business with you, trading slaves and bronze for your products.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "'Beth-togarmah traded work horses, war horses, and mules for your products.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "'The people of Rhodes did business with you. Many far-off islands traded with you in ivory and ebony.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "'Edom did business with you because of all your goods. They traded for your products with agate, purple textiles, embroidered cloth, fine linen, coral, and rubies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "'Judah and Israel did business with you. They traded for your products with premium wheat, millet, honey, oil, and balm.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "'Damascus, attracted by your vast array of products and well-stocked warehouses, carried on business with you, trading in wine from Helbon and wool from Zahar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "'Danites and Greeks from Uzal traded with you, using wrought iron, cinnamon, and spices.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "'Dedan traded with you for saddle blankets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "'Arabia and all the Bedouin sheiks of Kedar traded lambs, rams, and goats with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "'Traders from Sheba and Raamah in South Arabia carried on business with you in premium spices, precious stones, and gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "'Haran, Canneh, and Eden from the east in Assyria and Media traded with you,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> bringing elegant clothes, dyed textiles, and elaborate carpets to your bazaars.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "'The great Tarshish ships were your freighters, importing and exporting. Oh, it was big business for you, trafficking the seaways!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "'Your sailors row mightily, taking you into the high seas. Then a storm out of the east shatters your ship in the ocean deep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Everything sinks--your rich goods and products, sailors and crew, ship's carpenters and soldiers, Sink to the bottom of the sea. Total shipwreck.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The cries of your sailors reverberate on shore.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Sailors everywhere abandon ship. Veteran seamen swim for dry land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> They cry out in grief, a choir of bitter lament over you. They smear their faces with ashes,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> shave their heads, Wear rough burlap, wildly keening their loss.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> They raise their funeral song: "Who on the high seas is like Tyre!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "'As you crisscrossed the seas with your products, you satisfied many peoples. Your worldwide trade made earth's kings rich.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> And now you're battered to bits by the waves, sunk to the bottom of the sea, And everything you've bought and sold has sunk to the bottom with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Everyone on shore looks on in terror. The hair of kings stands on end, their faces drawn and haggard!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> The buyers and sellers of the world throw up their hands: This horror can't happen! Oh, this has happened!'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="28">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message came to me,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Son of man, tell the prince of Tyre, 'This is what GOD, the Master, says: "'Your heart is proud, going around saying, "I'm a god. I sit on God's divine throne, ruling the sea"-- You, a mere mortal, not even close to being a god, A mere mortal trying to be a god.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Look, you think you're smarter than Daniel. No enigmas can stump you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Your sharp intelligence made you world-wealthy. You piled up gold and silver in your banks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You used your head well, worked good deals, made a lot of money. But the money has gone to your head, swelled your head--what a big head!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "'Therefore, GOD, the Master, says: "'Because you're acting like a god, pretending to be a god,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I'm giving fair warning: I'm bringing strangers down on you, the most vicious of all nations. They'll pull their swords and make hash of your reputation for knowing it all. They'll puncture the balloon of your god-pretensions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They'll bring you down from your self-made pedestal and bury you in the deep blue sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Will you protest to your assassins, "You can't do that! I'm a god"? To them you're a mere mortal. They're killing a man, not a god.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You'll die like a stray dog, killed by strangers--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Because I said so. Decree of GOD, the Master.'" GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Son of man, raise a funeral song over the king of Tyre. Tell him, A Message from GOD, the Master: "You had everything going for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You were in Eden, God's garden. You were dressed in splendor, your robe studded with jewels: Carnelian, peridot, and moonstone, beryl, onyx, and jasper, Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald, all in settings of engraved gold. A robe was prepared for you the same day you were created.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> You were the anointed cherub. I placed you on the mountain of God. You strolled in magnificence among the stones of fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> From the day of your creation you were sheer perfection . . . and then imperfection--evil!--was detected in you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> In much buying and selling you turned violent, you sinned! I threw you, disgraced, off the mountain of God. I threw you out--you, the anointed angel-cherub. No more strolling among the gems of fire for you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Your beauty went to your head. You corrupted wisdom by using it to get worldly fame. I threw you to the ground, sent you sprawling before an audience of kings and let them gloat over your demise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> By sin after sin after sin, by your corrupt ways of doing business, you defiled your holy places of worship. So I set a fire around and within you. It burned you up. I reduced you to ashes. All anyone sees now when they look for you is ashes, a pitiful mound of ashes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> All who once knew you now throw up their hands: 'This can't have happened! This has happened!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> GOD's Message came to me</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> : "Son of man, confront Sidon. Preach against it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Say, 'Message from GOD, the Master: "'Look! I'm against you, Sidon. I intend to be known for who I truly am among you.' They'll know that I am GOD when I set things right and reveal my holy presence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> I'll order an epidemic of disease there, along with murder and mayhem in the streets. People will drop dead right and left, as war presses in from every side. Then they'll realize that I mean business, that I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "No longer will Israel have to put up with their thistle-and-thorn neighbors Who have treated them so contemptuously. And they also will realize that I am GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> GOD, the Master, says, "When I gather Israel from the peoples among whom they've been scattered and put my holiness on display among them with all the nations looking on, then they'll live in their own land that I gave to my servant Jacob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> They'll live there in safety. They'll build houses. They'll plant vineyards, living in safety. Meanwhile, I'll bring judgment on all the neighbors who have treated them with such contempt. And they'll realize that I am GOD."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="29">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the tenth year, in the tenth month, on the twelfth day, GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Son of man, confront Pharaoh king of Egypt. Preach against him and all the Egyptians.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Tell him, 'GOD, the Master, says: "'Watch yourself, Pharaoh, king of Egypt. I'm dead set against you, You lumbering old dragon, lolling and flaccid in the Nile, Saying, "It's my Nile. I made it. It's mine."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'll set hooks in your jaw; I'll make the fish of the Nile stick to your scales. I'll pull you out of the Nile, with all the fish stuck to your scales.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then I'll drag you out into the desert, you and all the Nile fish sticking to your scales. You'll lie there in the open, rotting in the sun, meat to the wild animals and carrion birds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Everybody living in Egypt will realize that I am GOD. "'Because you've been a flimsy reed crutch to Israel</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> so that when they gripped you, you splintered and cut their hand, and when they leaned on you, you broke and sent them sprawling--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Message of GOD, the Master--I'll bring war against you, do away with people and animals alike,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> and turn the country into an empty desert so they'll realize that I am GOD. "'Because you said, "It's my Nile. I made it. It's all mine,"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> therefore I am against you and your rivers. I'll reduce Egypt to an empty, desolate wasteland all the way from Migdol in the north to Syene and the border of Ethiopia in the south.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Not a human will be seen in it, nor will an animal move through it. It'll be just empty desert, empty for forty years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "'I'll make Egypt the most desolate of all desolations. For forty years I'll make her cities the most wasted of all wasted cities. I'll scatter Egyptians to the four winds, send them off every which way into exile.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "'But,' says GOD, the Master, 'that's not the end of it. After the forty years, I'll gather up the Egyptians from all the places where they've been scattered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'll put things back together again for Egypt. I'll bring her back to Pathros where she got her start long ago. There she'll start over again from scratch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> She'll take her place at the bottom of the ladder and there she'll stay, never to climb that ladder again, never to be a world power again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Never again will Israel be tempted to rely on Egypt. All she'll be to Israel is a reminder of old sin. Then Egypt will realize that I am GOD, the Master.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> In the twenty-seventh year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, has worn out his army against Tyre. They've worked their fingers to the bone and have nothing to show for it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Therefore, GOD, the Master, says, 'I'm giving Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. He'll haul away its wealth, pick the place clean. He'll pay his army with Egyptian plunder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He's been working for me all these years without pay. This is his pay: Egypt. Decree of GOD, the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "'And then I'll stir up fresh hope in Israel--the dawn of deliverance!--and I'll give you, Ezekiel, bold and confident words to speak. And they'll realize that I am GOD.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="30">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD, the Master, spoke to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Son of man, preach. Give them the Message of GOD, the Master. Wail:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "'Doomsday!' Time's up! GOD's big day of judgment is near. Thick clouds are rolling in. It's doomsday for the nations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Death will rain down on Egypt. Terror will paralyze Ethiopia When they see the Egyptians killed, their wealth hauled off, their foundations demolished,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And Ethiopia, Put, Lud, Arabia, Libya --all of Egypt's old allies-- killed right along with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "'GOD says: "'Egypt's allies will fall and her proud strength will collapse-- From Migdol in the north to Syene in the south, a great slaughter in Egypt! Decree of GOD, the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Egypt, most desolate of the desolate, her cities wasted beyond wasting,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Will realize that I am GOD when I burn her down and her helpers are knocked flat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "'When that happens, I'll send out messengers by ship to sound the alarm among the easygoing Ethiopians. They'll be terrorized. Egypt's doomed! Judgment's coming!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "'GOD, the Master, says: "'I'll put a stop to Egypt's arrogance. I'll use Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to do it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He and his army, the most brutal of nations, shall be used to destroy the country. They'll brandish their swords and fill Egypt with corpses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I'll dry up the Nile and sell off the land to a bunch of crooks. I'll hire outsiders to come in and waste the country, strip it clean. I, GOD, have said so.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "'And now this is what GOD, the Master, says: "'I'll smash all the no-god idols; I'll topple all those huge statues in Memphis. The prince of Egypt will be gone for good, and in his place I'll put fear--fear throughout Egypt!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'll demolish Pathros, burn Zoan to the ground, and punish Thebes,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Pour my wrath on Pelusium, Egypt's fort, and knock Thebes off its proud pedestal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I'll set Egypt on fire: Pelusium will writhe in pain, Thebes blown away, Memphis raped.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The young warriors of On and Pi-beseth will be killed and the cities exiled.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> A dark day for Tahpanhes when I shatter Egypt, When I break Egyptian power and put an end to her arrogant oppression! She'll disappear in a cloud of dust, her cities hauled off as exiles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> That's how I'll punish Egypt, and that's how she'll realize that I am GOD.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> In the eleventh year, on the seventh day of the first month, GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Son of man, I've broken the arm of Pharaoh king of Egypt. And look! It hasn't been set. No splint has been put on it so the bones can knit and heal, so he can use a sword again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Therefore, GOD, the Master, says, I am dead set against Pharaoh king of Egypt and will go ahead and break his other arm--both arms broken! There's no way he'll ever swing a sword again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> I'll scatter Egyptians all over the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> I'll make the arms of the king of Babylon strong and put my sword in his hand, but I'll break the arms of Pharaoh and he'll groan like one who is mortally wounded.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> I'll make the arms of the king of Babylon strong, but the arms of Pharaoh shall go limp. The Egyptians will realize that I am GOD when I place my sword in the hand of the king of Babylon. He'll wield it against Egypt</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> and I'll scatter Egyptians all over the world. Then they'll realize that I am GOD."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="31">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the eleventh year, on the first day of the third month, GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Son of man, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt, that pompous old goat: "'Who do you, astride the world, think you really are?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Look! Assyria was a Big Tree, huge as a Lebanon cedar, beautiful limbs offering cool shade, Skyscraper high, piercing the clouds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The waters gave it drink, the primordial deep lifted it high, Gushing out rivers around the place where it was planted, And then branching out in streams to all the trees in the forest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> It was immense, dwarfing all the trees in the forest-- Thick boughs, long limbs, roots delving deep into earth's waters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> All the birds of the air nested in its boughs. All the wild animals gave birth under its branches. All the mighty nations lived in its shade.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> It was stunning in its majesty-- the reach of its branches! the depth of its water-seeking roots!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Not a cedar in God's garden came close to it. No pine tree was anything like it. Mighty oaks looked like bushes growing alongside it. Not a tree in God's garden was in the same class of beauty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I made it beautiful, a work of art in limbs and leaves, The envy of every tree in Eden, every last tree in God's garden.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Therefore, GOD, the Master, says, "'Because it skyscrapered upwards, piercing the clouds, swaggering and proud of its stature,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I turned it over to a world-famous leader to call its evil to account. I'd had enough.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Outsiders, unbelievably brutal, felled it across the mountain ranges. Its branches were strewn through all the valleys, its leafy boughs clogging all the streams and rivers. Because its shade was gone, everybody walked off. No longer a tree--just a log.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> On that dead log birds perch. Wild animals burrow under it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "'That marks the end of the "big tree" nations. No more trees nourished from the great deep, no more cloud-piercing trees, no more earth- born trees taking over. They're all slated for death--back to earth, right along with men and women, for whom it's "dust to dust."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "'The Message of GOD, the Master: On the day of the funeral of the Big Tree, I threw the great deep into mourning. I stopped the flow of its rivers, held back great seas, and wrapped the Lebanon mountains in black. All the trees of the forest fainted and fell.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I made the whole world quake when it crashed, and threw it into the underworld to take its place with all else that gets buried. All the trees of Eden and the finest and best trees of Lebanon, well-watered, were relieved--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> they had descended to the underworld with it--along with everyone who had lived in its shade and all who had been killed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "'Which of the trees of Eden came anywhere close to you in splendor and size? But you're slated to be cut down to take your place in the underworld with the trees of Eden, to be a dead log stacked with all the other dead logs, among the other uncircumcised who are dead and buried. "'This means Pharaoh, the pompous old goat. "'Decree of GOD, the Master.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="32">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the twelfth year, on the first day of the twelfth month, GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Son of man, sing a funeral lament over Pharaoh king of Egypt. Tell him: "'You think you're a young lion prowling through the nations. You're more like a dragon in the ocean, snorting and thrashing about.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "'GOD, the Master, says: "'I'm going to throw my net over you --many nations will get in on this operation-- and haul you out with my dragnet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'll dump you on the ground out in an open field And bring in all the crows and vultures for a sumptuous carrion lunch. I'll invite wild animals from all over the world to gorge on your guts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I'll scatter hunks of your meat in the mountains and strew your bones in the valleys.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The country, right up to the mountains, will be drenched with your blood, your blood filling every ditch and channel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When I blot you out, I'll pull the curtain on the skies and shut out the stars. I'll throw a cloud across the sun and turn off the moonlight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I'll turn out every light in the sky above you and put your land in the dark. Decree of GOD, the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'll shake up everyone worldwide when I take you off captive to strange and far-off countries.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I'll shock people with you. Kings will take one look and shudder. I'll shake my sword and they'll shake in their boots. On the day you crash, they'll tremble, thinking, "That could be me!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "'GOD, the Master, says: "'The sword of the king of Babylon is coming against you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I'll use the swords of champions to lay your pride low, Use the most brutal of nations to knock Egypt off her high horse, to puncture that hot-air pomposity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I'll destroy all their livestock that graze along the river. Neither human foot nor animal hoof will muddy those waters anymore.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'll clear their springs and streams, make their rivers flow clean and smooth. Decree of GOD, the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> When I turn Egypt back to the wild and strip her clean of all her abundant produce, When I strike dead all who live there, then they'll realize that I am GOD.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "This is a funeral song. Chant it. Daughters of the nations, chant it. Chant it over Egypt for the death of its pomp." Decree of GOD, the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> In the twelfth year, on the fifteenth day of the first month, GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Son of man, lament over Egypt's pompous ways. Send her on her way. Dispatch Egypt and her proud daughter nations To the underworld, down to the country of the dead and buried.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Say, 'You think you're so high and mighty? Down! Take your place with the heathen in that unhallowed grave!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "She'll be dumped in with those killed in battle. The sword is bared. Drag her off in all her proud pomp!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> All the big men and their helpers down among the dead and buried will greet them: 'Welcome to the grave of the heathen! Join the ranks of the victims of war!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Assyria is there and its congregation, the whole nation a cemetery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Their graves are in the deepest part of the underworld, a congregation of graves, all killed in battle, these people who terrorized the land of the living.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "Elam is there in all her pride, a cemetery--all killed in battle, dumped in her heathen grave with the dead and buried, these people who terrorized the land of the living. They carry their shame with them, along with the others in the grave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> They turned Elam into a resort for the pompous dead, landscaped with heathen graves, slaughtered in battle. They once terrorized the land of the living. Now they carry their shame down with the others in deep earth. They're in the section set aside for the slain in battle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "Meshech-tubal is there in all her pride, a cemetery in uncircumcised ground, dumped in with those slaughtered in battle--just deserts for terrorizing the land of the living. Now they carry their shame down with the others in deep earth. They're in the section set aside for the slain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> They're segregated from the heroes, the old-time giants who entered the grave in full battle dress, their swords placed under their heads and their shields covering their bones, those heroes who spread terror through the land of the living.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "And you, Egypt, will be dumped in a heathen grave, along with all the rest, in the section set aside for the slain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "Edom is there, with her kings and princes. In spite of her vaunted greatness, she is dumped in a heathen grave with the others headed for the grave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "The princes of the north are there, the whole lot of them, and all the Sidonians who carry their shame to their graves--all that terror they spread with their brute power!--dumped in unhallowed ground with those killed in battle, carrying their shame with the others headed for deep earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "Pharaoh will see them all and, pompous old goat that he is, take comfort in the company he'll keep--Pharaoh and his slaughtered army. Decree of GOD, the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "I used him to spread terror in the land of the living and now I'm dumping him in heathen ground with those killed by the sword--Pharaoh and all his pomp. Decree of GOD, the Master."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="33">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Son of man, speak to your people. Tell them: 'If I bring war on this land and the people take one of their citizens and make him their watchman,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> and if the watchman sees war coming and blows the trumpet, warning the people,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> then if anyone hears the sound of the trumpet and ignores it and war comes and takes him off, it's his own fault.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He heard the alarm, he ignored it--it's his own fault. If he had listened, he would have saved his life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "'But if the watchman sees war coming and doesn't blow the trumpet, warning the people, and war comes and takes anyone off, I'll hold the watchman responsible for the bloodshed of any unwarned sinner.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "You, son of man, are the watchman. I've made you a watchman for Israel. The minute you hear a message from me, warn them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> If I say to the wicked, 'Wicked man, wicked woman, you're on the fast track to death!' and you don't speak up and warn the wicked to change their ways, the wicked will die unwarned in their sins and I'll hold you responsible for their bloodshed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But if you warn the wicked to change their ways and they don't do it, they'll die in their sins well-warned and at least you will have saved your own life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Son of man, speak to Israel. Tell them: 'You've said, "Our rebellions and sins are weighing us down. We're wasting away. How can we go on living?"'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Tell them, 'As sure as I am the living God, I take no pleasure from the death of the wicked. I want the wicked to change their ways and live. Turn your life around! Reverse your evil ways! Why die, Israel?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "There's more, son of man. Tell your people: 'A good person's good life won't save him when he decides to rebel, and a bad person's bad life won't prevent him from repenting of his rebellion. A good person who sins can't expect to live when he chooses to sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> It's true that I tell good people, "Live! Be alive!" But if they trust in their good deeds and turn to evil, that good life won't amount to a hill of beans. They'll die for their evil life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "'On the other hand, if I tell a wicked person, "You'll die for your wicked life," and he repents of his sin and starts living a righteous and just life--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> being generous to the down-and-out, restoring what he had stolen, cultivating life-nourishing ways that don't hurt others--he'll live. He won't die.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> None of his sins will be kept on the books. He's doing what's right, living a good life. He'll live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "'Your people say, "The Master's way isn't fair." But it's the way they're living that isn't fair.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When good people turn back from living good lives and plunge into sin, they'll die for it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And when a wicked person turns away from his wicked life and starts living a just and righteous life, he'll come alive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "'Still, you keep on saying, "The Master's way isn't fair." We'll see, Israel. I'll decide on each of you exactly according to how you live.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> In the twelfth year of our exile, on the fifth day of the tenth month, a survivor from Jerusalem came to me and said, "The city's fallen."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The evening before the survivor arrived, the hand of GOD had been on me and restored my speech. By the time he arrived in the morning I was able to speak. I could talk again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "Son of man, those who are living in the ruins back in Israel are saying, 'Abraham was only one man and he owned the whole country. But there are lots of us. Our ownership is even more certain.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "So tell them, 'GOD the Master says, You eat flesh that contains blood, you worship no-god idols, you murder at will--and you expect to own this land?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> You rely on the sword, you engage in obscenities, you indulge in sex at random--anyone, anytime. And you still expect to own this land?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "Tell them this, Ezekiel: 'The Message of GOD, the Master. As sure as I am the living God, those who are still alive in the ruins will be killed. Anyone out in the field I'll give to wild animals for food. Anyone hiding out in mountain forts and caves will die of disease.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> I'll make this country an empty wasteland--no more arrogant bullying! Israel's mountains will become dangerously desolate. No one will dare pass through them.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "They'll realize that I am GOD when I devastate the country because of all the obscenities they've practiced.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "As for you, son of man, you've become quite the talk of the town. Your people meet on street corners and in front of their houses and say, 'Let's go hear the latest news from GOD.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> They show up, as people tend to do, and sit in your company. They listen to you speak, but don't do a thing you say. They flatter you with compliments, but all they care about is making money and getting ahead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> To them you're merely entertainment--a country singer of sad love songs, playing a guitar. They love to hear you talk, but nothing comes of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "But when all this happens--and it is going to happen!--they'll realize that a prophet was among them."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="34">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Son of man, prophesy against the shepherd-leaders of Israel. Yes, prophesy! Tell those shepherds, 'GOD, the Master, says: Doom to you shepherds of Israel, feeding your own mouths! Aren't shepherds supposed to feed sheep?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You drink the milk, you make clothes from the wool, you roast the lambs, but you don't feed the sheep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You don't build up the weak ones, don't heal the sick, don't doctor the injured, don't go after the strays, don't look for the lost. You bully and badger them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And now they're scattered every which way because there was no shepherd--scattered and easy pickings for wolves and coyotes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Scattered--my sheep!--exposed and vulnerable across mountains and hills. My sheep scattered all over the world, and no one out looking for them!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "'Therefore, shepherds, listen to the Message of GOD:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> As sure as I am the living God--Decree of GOD, the Master--because my sheep have been turned into mere prey, into easy meals for wolves because you shepherds ignored them and only fed yourselves,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> listen to what GOD has to say:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "'Watch out! I'm coming down on the shepherds and taking my sheep back. They're fired as shepherds of my sheep. No more shepherds who just feed themselves! I'll rescue my sheep from their greed. They're not going to feed off my sheep any longer!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "'GOD, the Master, says: From now on, I myself am the shepherd. I'm going looking for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> As shepherds go after their flocks when they get scattered, I'm going after my sheep. I'll rescue them from all the places they've been scattered to in the storms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I'll bring them back from foreign peoples, gather them from foreign countries, and bring them back to their home country. I'll feed them on the mountains of Israel, along the streams, among their own people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'll lead them into lush pasture so they can roam the mountain pastures of Israel, graze at leisure, feed in the rich pastures on the mountains of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep. I myself will make sure they get plenty of rest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I'll go after the lost, I'll collect the strays, I'll doctor the injured, I'll build up the weak ones and oversee the strong ones so they're not exploited.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "'And as for you, my dear flock, I'm stepping in and judging between one sheep and another, between rams and goats.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Aren't you satisfied to feed in good pasture without taking over the whole place? Can't you be satisfied to drink from the clear stream without muddying the water with your feet?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Why do the rest of my sheep have to make do with grass that's trampled down and water that's been muddied?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "'Therefore, GOD, the Master, says: I myself am stepping in and making things right between the plump sheep and the skinny sheep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Because you forced your way with shoulder and rump and butted at all the weaker animals with your horns till you scattered them all over the hills,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I'll come in and save my dear flock, no longer let them be pushed around. I'll step in and set things right between one sheep and another.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "'I'll appoint one shepherd over them all: my servant David. He'll feed them. He'll be their shepherd.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> And I, GOD, will be their God. My servant David will be their prince. I, GOD, have spoken.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "'I'll make a covenant of peace with them. I'll banish fierce animals from the country so the sheep can live safely in the wilderness and sleep in the forest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> I'll make them and everything around my hill a blessing. I'll send down plenty of rain in season--showers of blessing!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The trees in the orchards will bear fruit, the ground will produce, they'll feel content and safe on their land, and they'll realize that I am GOD when I break them out of their slavery and rescue them from their slave masters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "'No longer will they be exploited by outsiders and ravaged by fierce beasts. They'll live safe and sound, fearless and free.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> I'll give them rich gardens, lavish in vegetables--no more living half-starved, no longer taunted by outsiders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "'They'll know, beyond doubting, that I, GOD, am their God, that I'm with them and that they, the people Israel, are my people. Decree of GOD, the Master:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> You are my dear flock, the flock of my pasture, my human flock, And I am your God. Decree of GOD, the Master.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="35">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Son of man, confront Mount Seir. Prophesy against it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Tell them, 'GOD, the Master, says: "'I'm coming down hard on you, Mount Seir. I'm stepping in and turning you to a pile of rubble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'll reduce your towns to piles of rocks. There'll be nothing left of you. Then you'll realize that I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "'I'm doing this because you've kept this age-old grudge going against Israel: You viciously attacked them when they were already down, looking their final punishment in the face.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Therefore, as sure as I am the living God, I'm lining you up for a real bloodbath. Since you loved blood so much, you'll be chased by rivers of blood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I'll reduce Mount Seir to a heap of rubble. No one will either come or go from that place!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I'll blanket your mountains with corpses. Massacred bodies will cover your hills and fill up your valleys and ditches.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'll reduce you to ruins and all your towns will be ghost towns--population zero. Then you'll realize that I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "'Because you said, "These two nations, these two countries, are mine. I'm taking over" (even though GOD is right there watching, right there listening),</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I'll turn your hate-bloated anger and rage right back on you. You'll know I mean business when I bring judgment on you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> You'll realize then that I, GOD, have overheard all the vile abuse you've poured out against the mountains of Israel, saying, "They're roadkill and we're going to eat them up."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You've strutted around, talking so big, insolently pitting yourselves against me. And I've heard it all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "'This is the verdict of GOD, the Master: With the whole earth applauding, I'll demolish you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Since you danced in the streets, thinking it was so wonderful when Israel's inheritance was demolished, I'll give you the same treatment: demolition. Mount Seir demolished--yes, every square inch of Edom. Then they'll realize that I am GOD!'</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="36">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "And now, son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel. Say, 'Mountains of Israel, listen to GOD's Message.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD, the Master, says, Because the enemy crowed over you, "Good! Those old hills are now ours!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> now here is a prophecy in the name of GOD, the Master: Because nations came at you from all sides, ripping and plundering, hauling pieces of you off every which way, and you've become the butt of cheap gossip and jokes,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> therefore, Mountains of Israel, listen to the Message of GOD, the Master. My Message to mountains and hills, to ditches and valleys, to the heaps of rubble and the emptied towns that are looted for plunder and turned into jokes by all the surrounding nations:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Therefore, says GOD, the Master, now I'm speaking in a fiery rage against the rest of the nations, but especially against Edom, who in an orgy of violence and shameless insolence robbed me of my land, grabbed it for themselves.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Therefore prophesy over the land of Israel, preach to the mountains and hills, to every ditch and valley: 'The Message of GOD, the Master: Look! Listen! I'm angry--and I care. I'm speaking to you because you've been humiliated among the nations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Therefore I, GOD, the Master, am telling you that I've solemnly sworn that the nations around you are next. It's their turn to be humiliated.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "'But you, Mountains of Israel, will burst with new growth, putting out branches and bearing fruit for my people Israel. My people are coming home!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Do you see? I'm back again. I'm on your side. You'll be plowed and planted as before!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I'll see to it that your population grows all over Israel, that the towns fill up with people, that the ruins are rebuilt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I'll make this place teem with life--human and animal. The country will burst into life, life, and more life, your towns and villages full of people just as in the old days. I'll treat you better than I ever have. And you'll realize that I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I'll put people over you--my own people Israel! They'll take care of you and you'll be their inheritance. Never again will you be a harsh and unforgiving land to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "'GOD, the Master, says: Because you have a reputation of being a land that eats people alive and makes women barren,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'm now telling you that you'll never eat people alive again nor make women barren. Decree of GOD, the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And I'll never again let the taunts of outsiders be heard over you nor permit nations to look down on you. You'll no longer be a land that makes women barren. Decree of GOD, the Master.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Son of man, when the people of Israel lived in their land, they polluted it by the way they lived. I poured out my anger on them because of the polluted blood they poured out on the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And so I got thoroughly angry with them polluting the country with their wanton murders and dirty gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I kicked them out, exiled them to other countries. I sentenced them according to how they had lived.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Wherever they went, they gave me a bad name. People said, 'These are GOD's people, but they got kicked off his land.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I suffered much pain over my holy reputation, which the people of Israel blackened in every country they entered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Therefore, tell Israel, 'Message of GOD, the Master: I'm not doing this for you, Israel. I'm doing it for me, to save my character, my holy name, which you've blackened in every country where you've gone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> I'm going to put my great and holy name on display, the name that has been ruined in so many countries, the name that you blackened wherever you went. Then the nations will realize who I really am, that I am GOD, when I show my holiness through you so that they can see it with their own eyes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "'For here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to take you out of these countries, gather you from all over, and bring you back to your own land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> I'll pour pure water over you and scrub you clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> I'll give you a new heart, put a new spirit in you. I'll remove the stone heart from your body and replace it with a heart that's God-willed, not self-willed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> I'll put my Spirit in you and make it possible for you to do what I tell you and live by my commands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> You'll once again live in the land I gave your ancestors. You'll be my people! I'll be your God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "'I'll pull you out of that stinking pollution. I'll give personal orders to the wheat fields, telling them to grow bumper crops. I'll send no more famines.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> I'll make sure your fruit trees and field crops flourish. Other nations won't be able to hold you in contempt again because of famine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "'And then you'll think back over your terrible lives--the evil, the shame--and be thoroughly disgusted with yourselves, realizing how badly you've lived--all those obscenities you've carried out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "'I'm not doing this for you. Get this through your thick heads! Shame on you. What a mess you made of things, Israel!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "'Message of GOD, the Master: On the day I scrub you clean from all your filthy living, I'll also make your cities livable. The ruins will be rebuilt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The neglected land will be worked again, no longer overgrown with weeds and thistles, worthless in the eyes of passersby.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> People will exclaim, "Why, this weed patch has been turned into a Garden of Eden! And the ruined cities, smashed into oblivion, are now thriving!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> The nations around you that are still in existence will realize that I, GOD, rebuild ruins and replant empty waste places. I, GOD, said so, and I'll do it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> "'Message of GOD, the Master: Yet again I'm going to do what Israel asks. I'll increase their population as with a flock of sheep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Like the milling flocks of sheep brought for sacrifices in Jerusalem during the appointed feasts, the ruined cities will be filled with flocks of people. And they'll realize that I am GOD.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="37">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD grabbed me. GOD's Spirit took me up and sat me down in the middle of an open plain strewn with bones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He led me around and among them--a lot of bones! There were bones all over the plain--dry bones, bleached by the sun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He said to me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" I said, "Master GOD, only you know that."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He said to me, "Prophesy over these bones: 'Dry bones, listen to the Message of GOD!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD, the Master, told the dry bones, "Watch this: I'm bringing the breath of life to you and you'll come to life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I'll attach sinews to you, put meat on your bones, cover you with skin, and breathe life into you. You'll come alive and you'll realize that I am GOD!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I prophesied just as I'd been commanded. As I prophesied, there was a sound and, oh, rustling! The bones moved and came together, bone to bone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I kept watching. Sinews formed, then muscles on the bones, then skin stretched over them. But they had no breath in them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He said to me, "Prophesy to the breath. Prophesy, son of man. Tell the breath, 'GOD, the Master, says, Come from the four winds. Come, breath. Breathe on these slain bodies. Breathe life!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So I prophesied, just as he commanded me. The breath entered them and they came alive! They stood up on their feet, a huge army.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then God said to me, "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Listen to what they're saying: 'Our bones are dried up, our hope is gone, there's nothing left of us.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Therefore, prophesy. Tell them, 'GOD, the Master, says: I'll dig up your graves and bring you out alive--O my people! Then I'll take you straight to the land of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> When I dig up graves and bring you out as my people, you'll realize that I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'll breathe my life into you and you'll live. Then I'll lead you straight back to your land and you'll realize that I am GOD. I've said it and I'll do it. GOD's Decree.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "You, son of man: Take a stick and write on it, 'For Judah, with his Israelite companions.' Then take another stick and write on it, 'For Joseph--Ephraim's stick, together with all his Israelite companions.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then tie the two sticks together so that you're holding one stick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "When your people ask you, 'Are you going to tell us what you're doing?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> tell them, 'GOD, the Master, says, Watch me! I'll take the Joseph stick that is in Ephraim's hand, with the tribes of Israel connected with him, and lay the Judah stick on it. I'll make them into one stick. I'm holding one stick.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "Then take the sticks you've inscribed and hold them up so the people can see them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Tell them, 'GOD, the Master, says, Watch me! I'm taking the Israelites out of the nations in which they've been exiled. I'll gather them in from all directions and bring them back home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I'll make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel, and give them one king--one king over all of them. Never again will they be divided into two nations, two kingdoms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Never again will they pollute their lives with their no-god idols and all those vile obscenities and rebellions. I'll save them out of all their old sinful haunts. I'll clean them up. They'll be my people! I'll be their God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> My servant David will be king over them. They'll all be under one shepherd. "'They'll follow my laws and keep my statutes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> They'll live in the same land I gave my servant Jacob, the land where your ancestors lived. They and their children and their grandchildren will live there forever, and my servant David will be their prince forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> I'll make a covenant of peace with them that will hold everything together, an everlasting covenant. I'll make them secure and place my holy place of worship at the center of their lives forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> I'll live right there with them. I'll be their God! They'll be my people!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "'The nations will realize that I, GOD, make Israel holy when my holy place of worship is established at the center of their lives forever.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="38">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Son of man, confront Gog from the country of Magog, head of Meshech and Tubal. Prophesy against him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Say, 'GOD, the Master, says: Be warned, Gog. I am against you, head of Meshech and Tubal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'm going to turn you around, put hooks in your jaws, and drag you off with your whole army, your horses and riders in full armor--all those shields and bucklers and swords--fighting men armed to the teeth!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Persia and Cush and Put will be in the ranks, also well-armed, as will</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Gomer and its army and Beth-togarmah out of the north with its army. Many nations will be with you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "'Get ready to fight, you and the whole company that's been called out. Take charge and wait for orders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> After a long time, you'll be given your orders. In the distant future you'll arrive at a country that has recovered from a devastating war. People from many nations will be gathered there on the mountains of Israel, for a long time now a wasteland. These people have been brought back from many countries and now live safe and secure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You'll rise like a thunderstorm and roll in like clouds and cover the land, you and the massed troops with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "'Message of GOD, the Master: At that time you'll start thinking things over and cook up an evil plot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> You'll say, "I'm going to invade a country without defenses, attack an unsuspecting, carefree people going about their business--no gates to their cities, no locks on their doors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And I'm going to plunder the place, march right in and clean them out, this rebuilt country risen from the ashes, these returned exiles and their booming economy centered down at the navel of the earth."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "'Sheba and Dedan and Tarshish, traders all out to make a fast buck, will say, "So! You've opened a new market for plunder! You've brought in your troops to get rich quick!"'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Therefore, son of man, prophesy! Tell Gog, 'A Message from GOD, the Master: When my people Israel are established securely, will you make your move?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Will you come down out of the far north, you and that mob of armies, charging out on your horses like a tidal wave across the land,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> and invade my people Israel, covering the country like a cloud? When the time's ripe, I'll unleash you against my land in such a way that the nations will recognize me, realize that through you, Gog, in full view of the nations, I am putting my holiness on display.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "'A Message of GOD, the Master: Years ago when I spoke through my servants, the prophets of Israel, wasn't it you I was talking about? Year after year they prophesied that I would bring you against them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And when the day comes, Gog, you will attack that land of Israel. Decree of GOD, the Master. My raging anger will erupt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Fueled by blazing jealousy, I tell you that then there will be an earthquake that rocks the land of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Fish and birds and wild animals--even ants and beetles!--and every human being will tremble and shake before me. Mountains will disintegrate, terraces will crumble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I'll order all-out war against you, Gog--Decree of GOD, the Master--Gog killing Gog on all the mountains of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I'll deluge Gog with judgment: disease and massacre, torrential rain and hail, volcanic lava pouring down on you and your mobs of troops and people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "'I'll show you how great I am, how holy I am. I'll make myself known all over the world. Then you'll realize that I am GOD.'</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="39">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Son of man, prophesy against Gog. Say, 'A Message of GOD, the Master: I'm against you, Gog, head of Meshech and Tubal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I'm going to turn you around and drag you out, drag you out of the far north and down on the mountains of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then I'll knock your bow out of your left hand and your arrows from your right hand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> On the mountains of Israel you'll be slaughtered, you and all your troops and the people with you. I'll serve you up as a meal to carrion birds and scavenging animals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You'll be killed in the open field. I've given my word. Decree of GOD, the Master.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "I'll set fire to Magog and the far-off islands, where people are so seemingly secure. And they'll realize that I am GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "I'll reveal my holy name among my people Israel. Never again will I let my holy name be dragged in the mud. Then the nations will realize that I, GOD, am The Holy in Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "It's coming! Yes, it will happen! This is the day I've been telling you about.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "People will come out of the cities of Israel and make a huge bonfire of the weapons of war, piling on shields large and small, bows and arrows, clubs and spears, a fire they'll keep going for seven years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They won't need to go into the woods to get fuel for the fire. There'll be plenty of weapons to keep it going. They'll strip those who stripped them. They'll rob those who robbed them. Decree of GOD, the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "At that time I'll set aside a burial ground for Gog in Israel at Traveler's Rest, just east of the sea. It will obstruct the route of travelers, blocking their way, the mass grave of Gog and his mob of an army. They'll call the place Gog's Mob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Israel will bury the corpses in order to clean up the land. It will take them seven months.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> All the people will turn out to help with the burials. It will be a big day for the people when it's all done and I'm given my due.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Men will be hired full-time for the cleanup burial operation and will go through the country looking for defiling, decomposing corpses. At the end of seven months, there'll be an all-out final search.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Anyone who sees a bone will mark the place with a stick so the buriers can get it and bury it in the mass burial site, Gog's Mob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> (A town nearby is called Mobville, or Hamonah.) That's how they'll clean up the land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Son of man, GOD, the Master, says: Call the birds! Call the wild animals! Call out, 'Gather and come, gather around my sacrificial meal that I'm preparing for you on the mountains of Israel. You'll eat meat and drink blood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> You'll eat off the bodies of great heroes and drink the blood of famous princes as if they were so many rams and lambs, goats and bulls, the choicest grain-fed animals of Bashan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> At the sacrificial meal I'm fixing for you, you'll eat fat till you're stuffed and drink blood till you're drunk.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> At the table I set for you, you'll stuff yourselves with horses and riders, heroes and fighters of every kind.' Decree of GOD, the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "I'll put my glory on display among the nations and they'll all see the judgment I execute, see me at work handing out judgment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> From that day on, Israel will realize that I am their GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> And the nations will get the message that it was because of their sins that Israel went into exile. They were disloyal to me and I turned away from them. I turned them over to their enemies and they were all killed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> I treated them as their polluted and sin-sated lives deserved. I turned away from them, refused to look at them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "But now I will return Jacob back from exile, I'll be compassionate with all the people of Israel, and I'll be zealous for my holy name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Eventually the memory will fade, the memory of their shame over their betrayals of me when they lived securely in their own land, safe and unafraid.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Once I've brought them back from foreign parts, gathered them in from enemy territories, I'll use them to demonstrate my holiness with all the nations watching.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Then they'll realize for sure that I am their GOD, for even though I sent them off into exile, I will gather them back to their own land, leaving not one soul behind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> After I've poured my Spirit on Israel, filled them with my life, I'll no longer turn away. I'll look them full in the face. Decree of GOD, the Master."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="40">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year on the tenth of the month--it was the fourteenth year after the city fell--GOD touched me and brought me here.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He brought me in divine vision to the land of Israel and set me down on a high mountain. To the south there were buildings that looked like a city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He took me there and I met a man deeply tanned, like bronze. He stood at the entrance holding a linen cord and a measuring stick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The man said to me, "Son of man, look and listen carefully. Pay close attention to everything I'm going to show you. That's why you've been brought here. And then tell Israel everything you see."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> First I saw a wall around the outside of the Temple complex. The measuring stick in the man's hand was about ten feet long. He measured the thickness of the wall: about ten feet. The height was also about ten feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He went into the gate complex that faced the east and went up the seven steps.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He measured the depth of the outside threshold of the gate complex: ten feet. There were alcoves flanking the gate corridor, each ten feet square, each separated by a wall seven and a half feet thick. The inside threshold of the gate complex that led to the porch facing into the Temple courtyard was ten feet deep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He measured the inside porch of the gate complex:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> twelve feet deep, flanked by pillars three feet thick. The porch opened onto the Temple courtyard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Inside this east gate complex were three alcoves on each side. Each room was the same size and the separating walls were identical.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He measured the outside entrance to the gate complex: fifteen feet wide and nineteen and a half feet deep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> In front of each alcove was a low wall eighteen inches high. The alcoves were ten feet square.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He measured the width of the gate complex from the outside edge of the alcove roof on one side to the outside edge of the alcove roof on the other: thirty-seven and a half feet from one top edge to the other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He measured the inside walls of the gate complex: ninety feet to the porch leading into the courtyard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The distance from the entrance of the gate complex to the far end of the porch was seventy-five feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The alcoves and their connecting walls inside the gate complex were topped by narrow windows all the way around. The porch also. All the windows faced inward. The doorjambs between the alcoves were decorated with palm trees.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The man then led me to the outside courtyard and all its rooms. A paved walkway had been built connecting the courtyard gates. Thirty rooms lined the courtyard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The walkway was the same length as the gateways. It flanked them and ran their entire length. This was the walkway for the outside courtyard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He measured the distance from the front of the entrance gateway across to the entrance of the inner court: one hundred fifty feet. Then he took me to the north side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Here was another gate complex facing north, exiting the outside courtyard. He measured its length and width.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> It had three alcoves on each side. Its gateposts and porch were the same as in the first gate: eighty-seven and a half feet by forty-three and three-quarters feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The windows and palm trees were identical to the east gateway. Seven steps led up to it, and its porch faced inward.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Opposite this gate complex was a gate complex to the inside courtyard, on the north as on the east. The distance between the two was one hundred seventy-five feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Then he took me to the south side, to the south gate complex. He measured its gateposts and its porch. It was the same size as the others.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The porch with its windows was the same size as those previously mentioned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> It also had seven steps up to it. Its porch opened onto the outside courtyard, with palm trees decorating its gateposts on both sides.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Opposite to it, the gate complex for the inner court faced south. He measured the distance across the courtyard from gate to gate: one hundred seventy-five feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> He led me into the inside courtyard through the south gate complex. He measured it and found it the same as the outside ones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Its alcoves, connecting walls, and vestibule were the same. The gate complex and porch, windowed all around, measured eighty-seven and a half by forty-three and three-quarters feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The vestibule of each of the gate complexes leading to the inside courtyard was forty-three and three-quarters by eight and three-quarters feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Each vestibule faced the outside courtyard. Palm trees were carved on its doorposts. Eight steps led up to it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> He then took me to the inside courtyard on the east and measured the gate complex. It was identical to the others--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> alcoves, connecting walls, and vestibule all the same. The gate complex and vestibule had windows all around. It measured eighty-seven and a half by forty-three and three-quarters feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Its porch faced the outside courtyard. There were palm trees on the doorposts on both sides. And it had eight steps.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> He brought me to the gate complex to the north and measured it: same measurements.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> The alcoves, connecting walls, and vestibule with its windows: eighty-seven and a half by forty-three and three-quarters feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Its porch faced the outside courtyard. There were palm trees on its doorposts on both sides. And it had eight steps.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> There was a room with a door at the vestibule of the gate complex where the burnt offerings were cleaned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Two tables were placed within the vestibule, one on either side, on which the animals for burnt offerings, sin offerings, and guilt offerings were slaughtered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Two tables were also placed against both outside walls of the vestibule--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> four tables inside and four tables outside, eight tables in all for slaughtering the sacrificial animals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> The four tables used for the burnt offerings were thirty-one and a half inches square and twenty-one inches high. The tools for slaughtering the sacrificial animals and other sacrifices were kept there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Meat hooks, three inches long, were fastened to the walls. The tables were for the sacrificial animals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Right where the inside gate complex opened onto the inside courtyard there were two rooms, one at the north gate facing south and the one at the south gate facing north.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> The man told me, "The room facing south is for the priests who are in charge of the Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> And the room facing north is for the priests who are in charge of the altar. These priests are the sons of Zadok, the only sons of Levi permitted to come near to GOD to serve him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> He measured the inside courtyard: a hundred seventy-five feet square. The altar was in front of the Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> He led me to the porch of the Temple and measured the gateposts of the porch: eight and three-quarters feet high on both sides.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> The entrance to the gate complex was twenty-one feet wide and its connecting walls were four and a half feet thick. The vestibule itself was thirty-five feet wide and twenty-one feet deep. Ten steps led up to the porch. Columns flanked the gateposts.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="41">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> He brought me into the Temple itself and measured the doorposts on each side. Each was ten and a half feet thick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The entrance was seventeen and a half feet wide. The walls on each side were eight and three-quarters feet thick. He also measured the Temple Sanctuary: seventy feet by thirty-five feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He went further in and measured the doorposts at the entrance: Each was three and a half feet thick. The entrance itself was ten and a half feet wide, and the entrance walls were twelve and a quarter feet thick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He measured the inside Sanctuary, thirty-five feet square, set at the end of the main Sanctuary. He told me, "This is The Holy of Holies."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He measured the wall of the Temple. It was ten and a half feet thick. The side rooms around the Temple were seven feet wide.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> There were three floors of these side rooms, thirty rooms on each of the three floors. There were supporting beams around the Temple wall to hold up the side rooms, but they were freestanding, not attached to the wall itself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The side rooms around the Temple became wider from first floor to second floor to third floor. A staircase went from the bottom floor, through the middle, and then to the top floor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I observed that the Temple had a ten-and-a-half-foot-thick raised base around it, which provided a foundation for the side rooms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The outside walls of the side rooms were eight and three-quarters feet thick. The open area between the side rooms of the Temple</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> and the priests' rooms was a thirty-five-foot-wide strip all around the Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> There were two entrances to the side rooms from the open area, one placed on the north side, the other on the south. There were eight and three-quarters feet of open space all around.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The house that faced the Temple courtyard to the west was one hundred twenty-two and a half feet wide, with eight-and-three-quarters-foot-thick walls. The length of the wall and building was one hundred fifty-seven and a half feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He measured the Temple: one hundred seventy-five feet long. The Temple courtyard and the house, including its walls, measured a hundred seventy-five feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The breadth of the front of the Temple and the open area to the east was a hundred seventy-five feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He measured the length of the house facing the courtyard at the back of the Temple, including the shelters on each side: one hundred seventy-five feet. The main Sanctuary, the inner Sanctuary, and the vestibule facing the courtyard</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> were paneled with wood, and had window frames and door frames in all three sections. From floor to windows the walls were paneled.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Above the outside entrance to the inner Sanctuary and on the walls at regular intervals all around the inner Sanctuary and the main Sanctuary,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> angel-cherubim and palm trees were carved in alternating sequence. Each angel-cherub had two faces:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> a human face toward the palm tree on the right and the face of a lion toward the palm tree on the left. They were carved around the entire Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The cherubim-palm tree motif was carved from floor to door height on the wall of the main Sanctuary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The main Sanctuary had a rectangular doorframe. In front of the Holy Place was something that looked like</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> an altar of wood, five and a quarter feet high and three and a half feet square. Its corners, base, and sides were of wood. The man said to me, "This is the table that stands before GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Both the main Sanctuary and the Holy Place had double doors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Each door had two leaves: two hinged leaves for each door, one set swinging inward and the other set outward.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The doors of the main Sanctuary were carved with angel-cherubim and palm trees. There was a canopy of wood in front of the vestibule outside.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> There were narrow windows alternating with carved palm trees on both sides of the porch.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="42">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The man led me north into the outside courtyard and brought me to the rooms that are in front of the open space and the house facing north.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The length of the house on the north was one hundred seventy-five feet, and its width eighty-seven and a half feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Across the thirty-five feet that separated the inside courtyard from the paved walkway at the edge of the outside courtyard, the rooms rose level by level for three stories.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> In front of the rooms on the inside was a hallway seventeen and a half feet wide and one hundred seventy-five feet long. Its entrances were from the north.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The upper rooms themselves were narrower, their galleries being wider than on the first and second floors of the building.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The rooms on the third floor had no pillars like the pillars in the outside courtyard and were smaller than the rooms on the first and second floors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> There was an outside wall parallel to the rooms and the outside courtyard. It fronted the rooms for eighty-seven and a half feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The row of rooms facing the outside courtyard was eighty-seven and a half feet long. The row on the side nearest the Sanctuary was one hundred seventy-five feet long.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The first-floor rooms had their entrance from the east, coming in from the outside courtyard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> On the south side along the length of the courtyard's outside wall and fronting on the Temple courtyard were rooms</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> with a walkway in front of them. These were just like the rooms on the north--same exits and dimensions--with the main entrance from the east leading to the hallway and the doors to the rooms the same as those on the north side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The design on the south was a mirror image of that on the north.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then he said to me, "The north and south rooms adjacent to the open area are holy rooms where the priests who come before GOD eat the holy offerings. There they place the holy offerings--grain offerings, sin offerings, and guilt offerings. These are set-apart rooms, holy space.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> After the priests have entered the Sanctuary, they must not return to the outside courtyard and mingle among the people until they change the sacred garments in which they minister and put on their regular clothes."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> After he had finished measuring what was inside the Temple area, he took me out the east gate and measured it from the outside.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Using his measuring stick, he measured the east side: eight hundred seventy-five feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He measured the north side: eight hundred seventy-five feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> He measured the south side: eight hundred seventy-five feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Last of all he went to the west side and measured it: eight hundred seventy-five feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He measured the wall on all four sides. Each wall was eight hundred seventy-five feet. The walls separated the holy from the ordinary.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="43">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The man brought me to the east gate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Oh! The bright Glory of the God of Israel rivered out of the east sounding like the roar of floodwaters, and the earth itself glowed with the bright Glory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> It looked just like what I had seen when he came to destroy the city, exactly like what I had seen earlier at the Kebar River. And again I fell, face to the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The bright Glory of GOD poured into the Temple through the east gate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The Spirit put me on my feet and led me to the inside courtyard and--oh! the bright Glory of GOD filled the Temple!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I heard someone speaking to me from inside the Temple while the man stood beside me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He said, "Son of man, this is the place for my throne, the place I'll plant my feet. This is the place where I'll live with the Israelites forever. Neither the people of Israel nor their kings will ever again drag my holy name through the mud with their whoring and the no-god idols their kings set up at all the wayside shrines.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> When they set up their worship shrines right alongside mine with only a thin wall between them, they dragged my holy name through the mud with their obscene and vile worship. Is it any wonder that I destroyed them in anger?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So let them get rid of their whoring ways and the stinking no-god idols introduced by their kings and I'll move in and live with them forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Son of man, tell the people of Israel all about the Temple so they'll be dismayed by their wayward lives. Get them to go over the layout.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> That will bring them up short. Show them the whole plan of the Temple, its ins and outs, the proportions, the regulations, and the laws. Draw a picture so they can see the design and meaning and live by its design and intent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "This is the law of the Temple: As it radiates from the top of the mountain, everything around it becomes holy ground. Yes, this is law, the meaning, of the Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "These are the dimensions of the altar, using the long (twenty-one-inch) ruler. The gutter at its base is twenty-one inches</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> deep and twenty-one inches wide, with a four-inch lip around its edge. "The height of the altar is three and a half feet from the base to the first ledge and twenty inches wide. From the first ledge to the second ledge it is seven feet high and twenty-one inches wide.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The altar hearth is another seven feet high. Four horns stick upward from the hearth twenty-one inches high.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "The top of the altar, the hearth, is square, twenty-one by twenty-one feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The upper ledge is also square, twenty-four and a half feet on each side, with a ten-and-a-half-inch lip and a twenty-one-inch-wide gutter all the way around. "The steps of the altar ascend from the east."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Then the man said to me, "Son of man, GOD, the Master, says: 'These are the ordinances for conduct at the altar when it is built, for sacrificing burnt offerings and sprinkling blood on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "'For a sin offering, give a bull to the priests, the Levitical priests who are from the family of Zadok who come into my presence to serve me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Take some of its blood and smear it on the four horns of the altar that project from the four corners of the top ledge and all around the lip. That's to purify the altar and make it fit for the sacrifice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then take the bull for the sin offerings and burn it in the place set aside for this in the courtyard outside the Sanctuary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "'On the second day, offer a male goat without blemish for a sin offering. Purify the altar the same as you purified it for the bull.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Then, when you have purified it, offer a bull without blemish and a ram without blemish from the flock.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Present them before GOD. Sprinkle salt on them and offer them as a burnt offering to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "'For seven days, prepare a goat for a sin offering daily, and also a bull and a ram from the flock, animals without blemish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> For seven days the priests are to get the altar ready for its work, purifying it. This is how you dedicate it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "'After these seven days of dedication, from the eighth day on, the priests will present your burnt offerings and your peace offerings. And I'll accept you with pleasure, with delight! Decree of GOD, the Master.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="44">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then the man brought me back to the outside gate complex of the Sanctuary that faces east. But it was shut.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD spoke to me: "This gate is shut and it's to stay shut. No one is to go through it because GOD, the God of Israel, has gone through it. It stays shut.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Only the prince, because he's the prince, may sit there to eat in the presence of GOD. He is to enter the gate complex through the porch and leave by the same way."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The man led me through the north gate to the front of the Temple. I looked, and--oh!--the bright Glory of GOD filling the Temple of GOD! I fell on my face in worship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD said to me, "Son of man, get a grip on yourself. Use your eyes, use your ears, pay careful attention to everything I tell you about the ordinances of this Temple of GOD, the way all the laws work, instructions regarding it and all the entrances and exits of the Sanctuary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Tell this bunch of rebels, this family Israel, 'Message of GOD, the Master: No more of these vile obscenities, Israel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> dragging irreverent and unrepentant outsiders, uncircumcised in heart and flesh, into my Sanctuary, feeding them the sacrificial offerings as if it were the food for a neighborhood picnic. With all your vile obscenities, you've broken trust with me, the solemn covenant I made with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You haven't taken care of my holy things. You've hired out the work to foreigners who care nothing for this place, my Sanctuary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> No irreverent and unrepentant aliens, uncircumcised in heart or flesh, not even the ones who live among Israelites, are to enter my Sanctuary.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "The Levites who walked off and left me, along with everyone else--all Israel--who took up with all the no-god idols, will pay for everything they did wrong.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> From now on they'll do only the menial work in the Sanctuary: guard the gates and help out with the Temple chores--and also kill the sacrificial animals for the people and serve them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Because they acted as priests to the no-god idols and made my people Israel stumble and fall, I've taken an oath to punish them. Decree of GOD, the Master. Yes, they'll pay for what they've done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They're fired from the priesthood. No longer will they come into my presence and take care of my holy things. No more access to The Holy Place! They'll have to live with what they've done, carry the shame of their vile and obscene lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> From now on, their job is to sweep up and run errands. That's it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "But the Levitical priests who descend from Zadok, who faithfully took care of my Sanctuary when everyone else went off and left me, are going to come into my presence and serve me. They are going to carry out the priestly work of offering the solemn sacrifices of worship. Decree of GOD, the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They're the only ones permitted to enter my Sanctuary. They're the only ones to approach my table and serve me, accompanying me in my work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "When they enter the gate complex of the inside courtyard, they are to dress in linen. No woolens are to be worn while serving at the gate complex of the inside courtyard or inside the Temple itself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They're to wear linen turbans on their heads and linen underclothes--nothing that makes them sweat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> When they go out into the outside courtyard where the people gather, they must first change out of the clothes they have been serving in, leaving them in the sacred rooms where they change to their everyday clothes, so that they don't trivialize their holy work by the way they dress.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "They are to neither shave their heads nor let their hair become unkempt, but must keep their hair trimmed and neat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "No priest is to drink on the job--no wine while in the inside courtyard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Priests are not to marry widows or divorcees, but only Israelite virgins or widows of priests.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "Their job is to teach my people the difference between the holy and the common, to show them how to discern between unclean and clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "When there's a difference of opinion, the priests will arbitrate. They'll decide on the basis of my judgments, laws, and statutes. They are in charge of making sure the appointed feasts are honored and my Sabbaths kept holy in the ways I've commanded.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "A priest must not contaminate himself by going near a corpse. But when the dead person is his father or mother, son or daughter, brother or unmarried sister, he can approach the dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> But after he has been purified, he must wait another seven days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Then, when he returns to the inside courtyard of the Sanctuary to do his priestly work in the Sanctuary, he must first offer a sin offering for himself. Decree of GOD, the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "As to priests owning land, I am their inheritance. Don't give any land in Israel to them. I am their 'land,' their inheritance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> They'll take their meals from the grain offerings, the sin offerings, and the guilt offerings. Everything in Israel offered to GOD in worship is theirs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The best of everything grown, plus all special gifts, comes to the priests. All that is given in worship to GOD goes to them. Serve them first. Serve from your best and your home will be blessed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "Priests are not to eat any meat from bird or animal unfit for ordinary human consumption, such as carcasses found dead on the road or in the field.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="45">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "When you divide up the inheritance of the land, you must set aside part of the land as sacred space for GOD: approximately seven miles long by six miles wide, all of it holy ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Within this rectangle, reserve a seven-hundred-fifty-foot square for the Sanctuary with a seventy-five-foot buffer zone surrounding it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Mark off within the sacred reserve a section seven miles long by three miles wide. The Sanctuary with its Holy of Holies will be placed there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> This is where the priests will live, those who lead worship in the Sanctuary and serve GOD there. Their houses will be there along with The Holy Place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "To the north of the sacred reserve, an area roughly seven miles long and two and a quarter miles wide will be set aside as land for the villages of the Levites who administer the affairs of worship in the Sanctuary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "To the south of the sacred reserve, measure off a section seven miles long and about a mile and a half wide for the city itself, an area held in common by the whole family of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "The prince gets the land abutting the seven-mile east and west borders of the central sacred square, extending eastward toward the Jordan and westward toward the Mediterranean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> This is the prince's possession in Israel. My princes will no longer bully my people, running roughshod over them. They'll respect the land as it has been allotted to the tribes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "This is the Message of GOD, the Master: 'I've put up with you long enough, princes of Israel! Quit bullying and taking advantage of my people. Do what's just and right for a change.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Use honest scales--honest weights and honest measures.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Every pound must have sixteen ounces. Every gallon must measure four quarts. The ounce is the basic measure for both.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And your coins must be honest--no wooden nickels!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "'These are the prescribed offerings you are to supply: one-sixtieth part of your wheat, one-sixtieth part of your barley,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> one-hundredth part of your oil,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> one sheep out of every two hundred from the lush pastures of Israel. These will be used for the grain offerings, burnt offerings, and peace offerings for making the atonement sacrifices for the people. Decree of GOD, the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "'Everyone in the land must contribute to these special offerings that the prince in Israel will administer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> It's the prince's job to provide the burnt offerings, grain offerings, and drink offerings at the Holy Festivals, the New Moons, and the Sabbaths--all the commanded feasts among the people of Israel. Sin offerings, grain offerings, burnt offerings, and peace offerings for making atonement for the people of Israel are his responsibility.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "'This is the Message from GOD, the Master: On the first day of the first month, take an unblemished bull calf and purify the Sanctuary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The priest is to take blood from the sin offerings and rub it on the doorposts of the Temple, on the four corners of the ledge of the altar, and on the gate entrance to the inside courtyard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Repeat this ritual on the seventh day of the month for anyone who sins without knowing it. In this way you make atonement for the Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "'On the fourteenth day of the first month, you will observe the Passover, a feast of seven days. During the feast you will eat bread made without yeast.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "'On Passover, the prince supplies a bull as a sin offering for himself and all the people of the country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Each day for each of the seven days of the feast, he will supply seven bulls and seven rams unblemished as a burnt offering to GOD, and also each day a male goat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "'He will supply about five and a half gallons of grain offering and a gallon of oil for each bull and each ram.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "'On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, and on each of the seven days of the feast, he is to supply the same materials for sin offerings, burnt offerings, grain offerings, and oil.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="46">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "'Message from GOD, the Master: The gate of the inside courtyard on the east is to be shut on the six working days, but open on the Sabbath. It is also to be open on the New Moon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The prince will enter through the entrance area of the gate complex and stand at the gateposts as the priests present his burnt offerings and peace offerings while he worships there on the porch. He will then leave, but the gate won't be shut until evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> On Sabbaths and New Moons, the people are to worship before GOD at the outside entrance to that gate complex.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "'The prince supplies for GOD the burnt offering for the Sabbath--six unblemished lambs and an unblemished ram.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The grain offering to go with the ram is about five and a half gallons plus a gallon of oil, and a handful of grain for each lamb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "'At the New Moon he is to supply a bull calf, six lambs, and a ram, all without blemish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He will also supply five and a half gallons of grain offering and a gallon of oil for both ram and bull, and a handful of grain offering for each lamb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "'When the prince enters, he will go through the entrance vestibule of the gate complex and leave the same way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "'But when the people of the land come to worship GOD at the commanded feasts, those who enter through the north gate will exit from the south gate, and those who enter though the south gate will exit from the north gate. You don't exit the gate through which you enter, but through the opposite gate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The prince is to be there, mingling with them, going in and out with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "'At the festivals and the commanded feasts, the appropriate grain offering is five and a half gallons, with a gallon of oil for the bull and ram and a handful of grain for each lamb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "'When the prince brings a freewill offering to GOD, whether a burnt offering or a peace offering, the east gate is to be opened for him. He offers his burnt or peace offering the same as he does on the Sabbath. Then he leaves, and after he is out, the gate is shut.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "'Every morning you are to bring a yearling lamb unblemished for a burnt offering to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Also, every morning bring a grain offering of about a gallon of grain with a quart or so of oil to moisten it. Presenting this grain offering to GOD is standard procedure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The lamb, the grain offering, and the oil for the burnt offering are a regular daily ritual.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "'A Message from GOD, the Master: If the prince deeds a gift from his inheritance to one of his sons, it stays in the family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But if he deeds a gift from his inheritance to a servant, the servant keeps it only until the year of liberation (the Jubilee year). After that, it comes back to the prince. His inheritance is only for his sons. It stays in the family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The prince must not take the inheritance from any of the people, dispossessing them of their land. He can give his sons only what he himself owns. None of my people are to be run off their land.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Then the man brought me through the north gate into the holy chambers assigned to the priests and showed me a back room to the west.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He said, "This is the kitchen where the priests will cook the guilt offering and sin offering and bake the grain offering so that they won't have to do it in the outside courtyard and endanger the unprepared people out there with The Holy."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He proceeded to take me to the outside courtyard and around to each of its four corners. In each corner I observed another court.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> In each of the four corners of the outside courtyard were smaller courts sixty by forty-five feet, each the same size.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> On the inside walls of the courts was a stone shelf, and beneath the shelves, hearths for cooking.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He said, "These are the kitchens where those who serve in the Temple will cook the sacrifices of the people."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="47">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Now he brought me back to the entrance to the Temple. I saw water pouring out from under the Temple porch to the east (the Temple faced east). The water poured from the south side of the Temple, south of the altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He then took me out through the north gate and led me around the outside to the gate complex on the east. The water was gushing from under the south front of the Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He walked to the east with a measuring tape and measured off fifteen hundred feet, leading me through water that was ankle-deep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He measured off another fifteen hundred feet, leading me through water that was knee-deep. He measured off another fifteen hundred feet, leading me through water waist-deep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He measured off another fifteen hundred feet. By now it was a river over my head, water to swim in, water no one could possibly walk through.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He said, "Son of man, have you had a good look?" Then he took me back to the riverbank.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> While sitting on the bank, I noticed a lot of trees on both sides of the river.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He told me, "This water flows east, descends to the Arabah and then into the sea, the sea of stagnant waters. When it empties into those waters, the sea will become fresh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Wherever the river flows, life will flourish--great schools of fish--because the river is turning the salt sea into fresh water. Where the river flows, life abounds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Fishermen will stand shoulder to shoulder along the shore from En-gedi all the way north to En-eglaim, casting their nets. The sea will teem with fish of all kinds, like the fish of the Great Mediterranean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "The swamps and marshes won't become fresh. They'll stay salty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "But the river itself, on both banks, will grow fruit trees of all kinds. Their leaves won't wither, the fruit won't fail. Every month they'll bear fresh fruit because the river from the Sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> A Message from GOD, the Master: "These are the boundaries by which you are to divide up the inheritance of the land for the twelve tribes of Israel, with Joseph getting two parcels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> It is to be divided up equally. I swore in a solemn oath to give it to your ancestors, swore that this land would be your inheritance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "These are the boundaries of the land: "The northern boundary runs from the Great Mediterranean Sea along the Hethlon road to where you turn off to the entrance of Hamath, Zedad,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Berothah, and Sibraim, which lies between the territory of Damascus and the territory of Hamath, and on to Hazor-hatticon on the border of Hauran.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The boundary runs from the Sea to Hazor-enon, with the territories of Damascus and Hamath to the north. That is the northern boundary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "The eastern boundary runs between Damascus and Hauran, down along the Jordan between Gilead and the land of Israel to the Eastern Sea as far as Tamar. This is the eastern boundary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "The southern boundary runs west from Tamar to the waters of Meribah-kadesh, along the Brook of Egypt, and out to the Great Mediterranean Sea. This is the southern boundary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "The western boundary is formed by the Great Mediterranean Sea north to where the road turns east toward the entrance to Hamath. This is the western boundary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Divide up this land among the twelve tribes of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Divide it up as your inheritance, and include in it the resident aliens who have made themselves at home among you and now have children. Treat them as if they were born there, just like yourselves. They also get an inheritance among the tribes of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> In whatever tribe the resident alien lives, there he gets his inheritance. Decree of GOD, the Master.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="48">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "These are the tribes: "Dan: one portion, along the northern boundary, following the Hethlon road that turns off to the entrance of Hamath as far as Hazor-enon so that the territory of Damascus lies to the north alongside Hamath, the northern border stretching from east to west.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Asher: one portion, bordering Dan from east to west.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Naphtali: one portion, bordering Asher from east to west.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Manasseh: one portion, bordering Naphtali from east to west.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Ephraim: one portion, bordering Manasseh from east to west.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Reuben: one portion, bordering Ephraim from east to west.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Judah: one portion, bordering Reuben from east to west.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Bordering Judah from east to west is the consecrated area that you will set aside as holy: a square approximately seven by seven miles, with the Sanctuary set at the center.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The consecrated area reserved for GOD is to be seven miles long and a little less than three miles wide.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "This is how it will be parceled out. The priest will get the area measuring seven miles on the north and south boundaries, with a width of a little more than three miles at the east and west boundaries. The Sanctuary of GOD will be at the center.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> This is for the consecrated priests, the Zadokites who stayed true in their service to me and didn't get off track as the Levites did when Israel wandered off the main road.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> This is their special gift, a gift from the land itself, most holy ground, bordering the section of the Levites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "The Levites get a section equal in size to that of the priests, roughly seven by three miles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They are not permitted to sell or trade any of it. It's the choice part of the land, to say nothing of being holy to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "What's left of the 'sacred square'--each side measures out at seven miles by a mile and a half--is for ordinary use: the city and its buildings with open country around it, but the city at the center.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The north, south, east, and west sides of the city are each about a mile and a half in length.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> A strip of pasture, one hundred twenty-five yards wide, will border the city on all sides.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The remainder of this portion, three miles of countryside to the east and to the west of the sacred precinct, is for farming. It will supply food for the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Workers from all the tribes of Israel will serve as field hands to farm the land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "This dedicated area, set apart for holy purposes, will be a square, seven miles by seven miles, a 'holy square,' which includes the part set aside for the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "The rest of this land, the country stretching east to the Jordan and west to the Mediterranean from the seven-mile sides of the 'holy square,' belongs to the prince. His land is sandwiched between the tribal portions north and south, and goes out both east and west from the 'sacred square' with its Temple at the center.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The land set aside for the Levites on one side and the city on the other is in the middle of the territory assigned to the prince. The 'sacred square' is flanked east and west by the prince's land and bordered on the north and south by the territories of Judah and Benjamin respectively.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "And then the rest of the tribes: "Benjamin: one portion, stretching from the eastern to the western boundary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "Simeon: one portion, bordering Benjamin from east to west.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "Issachar: one portion, bordering Simeon from east to west.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "Zebulun: one portion, bordering Issachar from east to west.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "Gad: one portion, bordering Zebulun from east to west.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "The southern boundary of Gad will run south from Tamar to the waters of Meribah-kadesh, along the Brook of Egypt and then out to the Great Mediterranean Sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "This is the land that you are to divide up among the tribes of Israel as their inheritance. These are their portions." Decree of GOD, the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "These are the gates of the city. On the north side, which is 2,250 yards long</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> (the gates of the city are named after the tribes of Israel), three gates: the gate of Reuben, the gate of Judah, the gate of Levi.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "On the east side, measuring 2,250 yards, three gates: the gate of Joseph, the gate of Benjamin, the gate of Dan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "On the south side, measuring 2,250 yards, three gates: the gate of Simeon, the gate of Issachar, the gate of Zebulun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "On the west side, measuring 2,250 yards, three gates: the gate of Gad, the gate of Asher, the gate of Naphtali.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> "The four sides of the city measure to a total of nearly six miles. "From now on the name of the city will be YAHWEH-SHAMMAH: "GOD-IS-THERE."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="27" bname="Daniel">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> It was the third year of King Jehoiakim's reign in Judah when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon declared war on Jerusalem and besieged the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The Master handed King Jehoiakim of Judah over to him, along with some of the furnishings from the Temple of God. Nebuchadnezzar took king and furnishings to the country of Babylon, the ancient Shinar. He put the furnishings in the sacred treasury.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The king told Ashpenaz, head of the palace staff, to get some Israelites from the royal family and nobility--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> young men who were healthy and handsome, intelligent and well-educated, good prospects for leadership positions in the government, perfect specimens!--and indoctrinate them in the Babylonian language and the lore of magic and fortunetelling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The king then ordered that they be served from the same menu as the royal table--the best food, the finest wine. After three years of training they would be given positions in the king's court.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Four young men from Judah--Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah--were among those selected.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The head of the palace staff gave them Babylonian names: Daniel was named Belteshazzar, Hananiah was named Shadrach, Mishael was named Meshach, Azariah was named Abednego.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But Daniel determined that he would not defile himself by eating the king's food or drinking his wine, so he asked the head of the palace staff to exempt him from the royal diet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The head of the palace staff, by God's grace, liked Daniel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> but he warned him, "I'm afraid of what my master the king will do. He is the one who assigned this diet and if he sees that you are not as healthy as the rest, he'll have my head!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But Daniel appealed to a steward who had been assigned by the head of the palace staff to be in charge of Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Try us out for ten days on a simple diet of vegetables and water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then compare us with the young men who eat from the royal menu. Make your decision on the basis of what you see."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The steward agreed to do it and fed them vegetables and water for ten days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> At the end of the ten days they looked better and more robust than all the others who had been eating from the royal menu.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So the steward continued to exempt them from the royal menu of food and drink and served them only vegetables.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> God gave these four young men knowledge and skill in both books and life. In addition, Daniel was gifted in understanding all sorts of visions and dreams.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> At the end of the time set by the king for their training, the head of the royal staff brought them in to Nebuchadnezzar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> When the king interviewed them, he found them far superior to all the other young men. None were a match for Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. And so they took their place in the king's service.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Whenever the king consulted them on anything, on books or on life, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his kingdom put together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Daniel continued in the king's service until the first year in the reign of King Cyrus.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the second year of his reign, King Nebuchadnezzar started having dreams that disturbed him deeply. He couldn't sleep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He called in all the Babylonian magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, and fortunetellers to interpret his dreams for him. When they came and lined up before the king,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> he said to them, "I had a dream that I can't get out of my mind. I can't sleep until I know what it means."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The fortunetellers, speaking in the Aramaic language, said, "Long live the king! Tell us the dream and we will interpret it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The king answered the fortunetellers, "This is my decree: If you can't tell me both the dream itself and its interpretation, I'll have you ripped to pieces, limb from limb, and your homes torn down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But if you tell me both the dream and its interpretation, I'll lavish you with gifts and honors. So go to it: Tell me the dream and its interpretation."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They answered, "If it please your majesty, tell us the dream. We'll give the interpretation."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But the king said, "I know what you're up to--you're just playing for time. You know you're up a tree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You know that if you can't tell me my dream, you're doomed. I see right through you--you're going to cook up some fancy stories and confuse the issue until I change my mind. Nothing doing! First tell me the dream, then I'll know that you're on the up and up with the interpretation and not just blowing smoke in my eyes."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The fortunetellers said, "Nobody anywhere can do what you ask. And no king, great or small, has ever demanded anything like this from any magician, enchanter, or fortuneteller.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> What you're asking is impossible unless some god or goddess should reveal it--and they don't hang around with people like us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> That set the king off. He lost his temper and ordered the whole company of Babylonian wise men killed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> When the death warrant was issued, Daniel and his companions were included. They also were marked for execution.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> When Arioch, chief of the royal guards, was making arrangements for the execution, Daniel wisely took him aside</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> and quietly asked what was going on: "Why this all of a sudden?" After Arioch filled in the background,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Daniel went to the king and asked for a little time so that he could interpret the dream.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Daniel then went home and told his companions Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah what was going on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> He asked them to pray to the God of heaven for mercy in solving this mystery so that the four of them wouldn't be killed along with the whole company of Babylonian wise men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> That night the answer to the mystery was given to Daniel in a vision. Daniel blessed the God of heaven,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> saying, "Blessed be the name of God, forever and ever. He knows all, does all:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He changes the seasons and guides history, He raises up kings and also brings them down, he provides both intelligence and discernment,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> He opens up the depths, tells secrets, sees in the dark--light spills out of him!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> God of all my ancestors, all thanks! all praise! You made me wise and strong. And now you've shown us what we asked for. You've solved the king's mystery."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> So Daniel went back to Arioch, who had been put in charge of the execution. He said, "Call off the execution! Take me to the king and I'll interpret his dream."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Arioch didn't lose a minute. He ran to the king, bringing Daniel with him, and said, "I've found a man from the exiles of Judah who can interpret the king's dream!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The king asked Daniel (renamed in Babylonian, Belteshazzar), "Are you sure you can do this--tell me the dream I had and interpret it for me?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Daniel answered the king, "No mere human can solve the king's mystery, I don't care who it is--no wise man, enchanter, magician, diviner.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> But there is a God in heaven who solves mysteries, and he has solved this one. He is letting King Nebuchadnezzar in on what is going to happen in the days ahead. This is the dream you had when you were lying on your bed, the vision that filled your mind:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "While you were stretched out on your bed, O king, thoughts came to you regarding what is coming in the days ahead. The Revealer of Mysteries showed you what will happen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> But the interpretation is given through me, not because I'm any smarter than anyone else in the country, but so that you will know what it means, so that you will understand what you dreamed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "What you saw, O king, was a huge statue standing before you, striking in appearance. And terrifying.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The head of the statue was pure gold, the chest and arms were silver, the belly and hips were bronze,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> the legs were iron, and the feet were an iron-ceramic mixture.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> While you were looking at this statue, a stone cut out of a mountain by an invisible hand hit the statue, smashing its iron-ceramic feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Then the whole thing fell to pieces--iron, tile, bronze, silver, and gold, smashed to bits. It was like scraps of old newspapers in a vacant lot in a hot dry summer, blown every which way by the wind, scattered to oblivion. But the stone that hit the statue became a huge mountain, dominating the horizon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> This was your dream. "And now we'll interpret it for the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> You, O king, are the most powerful king on earth. The God of heaven has given you the works: rule, power, strength, and glory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> He has put you in charge of men and women, wild animals and birds, all over the world--you're the head ruler, you are the head of gold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> But your rule will be taken over by another kingdom, inferior to yours, and that one by a third, a bronze kingdom, but still ruling the whole land,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> and after that by a fourth kingdom, iron-like in strength. Just as iron smashes things to bits, breaking and pulverizing, it will bust up the previous kingdoms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> "But then the feet and toes that ended up as a mixture of ceramic and iron will deteriorate into a mongrel kingdom with some remains of iron in it. Just as the toes of the feet were part ceramic and part iron,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> it will end up a mixed bag of the breakable and unbreakable.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> That kingdom won't bond, won't hold together any more than iron and clay hold together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> "But throughout the history of these kingdoms, the God of heaven will be building a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will this kingdom ever fall under the domination of another. In the end it will crush the other kingdoms and finish them off and come through it all standing strong and eternal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> It will be like the stone cut from the mountain by the invisible hand that crushed the iron, the bronze, the ceramic, the silver, and the gold. "The great God has let the king know what will happen in the years to come. This is an accurate telling of the dream, and the interpretation is also accurate."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> When Daniel finished, King Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face in awe before Daniel. He ordered the offering of sacrifices and burning of incense in Daniel's honor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> He said to Daniel, "Your God is beyond question the God of all gods, the Master of all kings. And he solves all mysteries, I know, because you've solved this mystery."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> Then the king promoted Daniel to a high position in the kingdom, lavished him with gifts, and made him governor over the entire province of Babylon and the chief in charge of all the Babylonian wise men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> At Daniel's request the king appointed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to administrative posts throughout Babylon, while Daniel governed from the royal headquarters.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> King Nebuchadnezzar built a gold statue, ninety feet high and nine feet thick. He set it up on the Dura plain in the province of Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He then ordered all the important leaders in the province, everybody who was anybody, to the dedication ceremony of the statue.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They all came for the dedication, all the important people, and took their places before the statue that Nebuchadnezzar had erected.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> A herald then proclaimed in a loud voice: "Attention, everyone! Every race, color, and creed, listen!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When you hear the band strike up--all the trumpets and trombones, the tubas and baritones, the drums and cymbals--fall to your knees and worship the gold statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Anyone who does not kneel and worship shall be thrown immediately into a roaring furnace."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The band started to play, a huge band equipped with all the musical instruments of Babylon, and everyone--every race, color, and creed--fell to their knees and worshiped the gold statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Just then, some Babylonian fortunetellers stepped up and accused the Jews.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They said to King Nebuchadnezzar, "Long live the king!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You gave strict orders, O king, that when the big band started playing, everyone had to fall to their knees and worship the gold statue,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> and whoever did not go to their knees and worship it had to be pitched into a roaring furnace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Well, there are some Jews here--Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego--whom you have placed in high positions in the province of Babylon. These men are ignoring you, O king. They don't respect your gods and they won't worship the gold statue you set up."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Furious, King Nebuchadnezzar ordered Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to be brought in. When the men were brought in,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Nebuchadnezzar asked, "Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you don't respect my gods and refuse to worship the gold statue that I have set up?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I'm giving you a second chance--but from now on, when the big band strikes up you must go to your knees and worship the statue I have made. If you don't worship it, you will be pitched into a roaring furnace, no questions asked. Who is the god who can rescue you from my power?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered King Nebuchadnezzar, "Your threat means nothing to us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> If you throw us in the fire, the God we serve can rescue us from your roaring furnace and anything else you might cook up, O king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But even if he doesn't, it wouldn't make a bit of difference, O king. We still wouldn't serve your gods or worship the gold statue you set up."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Nebuchadnezzar, his face purple with anger, cut off Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He ordered the furnace fired up seven times hotter than usual.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He ordered some strong men from the army to tie them up, hands and feet, and throw them into the roaring furnace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, bound hand and foot, fully dressed from head to toe, were pitched into the roaring fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Because the king was in such a hurry and the furnace was so hot, flames from the furnace killed the men who carried Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to it,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> while the fire raged around Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Suddenly King Nebuchadnezzar jumped up in alarm and said, "Didn't we throw three men, bound hand and foot, into the fire?" "That's right, O king," they said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "But look!" he said. "I see four men, walking around freely in the fire, completely unharmed! And the fourth man looks like a son of the gods!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Nebuchadnezzar went to the door of the roaring furnace and called in, "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the High God, come out here!" Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego walked out of the fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> All the important people, the government leaders and king's counselors, gathered around to examine them and discovered that the fire hadn't so much as touched the three men--not a hair singed, not a scorch mark on their clothes, not even the smell of fire on them!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Nebuchadnezzar said, "Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego! He sent his angel and rescued his servants who trusted in him! They ignored the king's orders and laid their bodies on the line rather than serve or worship any god but their own.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "Therefore I issue this decree: Anyone anywhere, of any race, color, or creed, who says anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego will be ripped to pieces, limb from limb, and their houses torn down. There has never been a god who can pull off a rescue like this."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> King Nebuchadnezzar to everyone, everywhere--every race, color, and creed: "Peace and prosperity to all!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> It is my privilege to report to you the gracious miracles that the High God has done for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "His miracles are staggering, his wonders are surprising. His kingdom lasts and lasts, his sovereign rule goes on forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at home taking it easy in my palace, without a care in the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But as I was stretched out on my bed I had a dream that scared me--a nightmare that shook me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I sent for all the wise men of Babylon so that they could interpret the dream for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When they were all assembled--magicians, enchanters, fortunetellers, witches--I told them the dream. None could tell me what it meant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "And then Daniel came in. His Babylonian name is Belteshazzar, named after my god, a man full of the divine Holy Spirit. I told him my dream.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "'Belteshazzar,' I said, 'chief of the magicians, I know that you are a man full of the divine Holy Spirit and that there is no mystery that you can't solve. Listen to this dream that I had and interpret it for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "'This is what I saw as I was stretched out on my bed. I saw a big towering tree at the center of the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> As I watched, the tree grew huge and strong. Its top reached the sky and it could be seen from the four corners of the earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Its leaves were beautiful, its fruit abundant--enough food for everyone! Wild animals found shelter under it, birds nested in its branches, everything living was fed and sheltered by it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "'And this also is what I saw as I was stretched out on my bed. I saw a holy watchman descend from heaven,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> and call out: Chop down the tree, lop off its branches, strip its leaves and scatter its fruit. Chase the animals from beneath it and shoo the birds from its branches.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But leave the stump and roots in the ground, belted with a strap of iron and bronze in the grassy meadow. Let him be soaked in heaven's dew and take his meals with the animals that graze.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Let him lose his mind and get an animal's mind in exchange, And let this go on for seven seasons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The angels announce this decree, the holy watchmen bring this sentence, So that everyone living will know that the High God rules human kingdoms. He arranges kingdom affairs however he wishes, and makes leaders out of losers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "'This is what I, King Nebuchadnezzar, dreamed. It's your turn, Belteshazzar--interpret it for me. None of the wise men of Babylon could make heads or tails of it, but I'm sure you can do it. You're full of the divine Holy Spirit.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> At first Daniel, who had been renamed Belteshazzar in Babylon, was upset. The thoughts that came swarming into his mind terrified him. "Belteshazzar," the king said, "stay calm. Don't let the dream and its interpretation scare you." "My master," said Belteshazzar, "I wish this dream were about your enemies and its interpretation for your foes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "The tree you saw that grew so large and sturdy with its top touching the sky, visible from the four corners of the world;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> the tree with the luxuriant foliage and abundant fruit, enough for everyone; the tree under which animals took cover and in which birds built nests--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> you, O king, are that tree. "You have grown great and strong. Your royal majesty reaches sky-high, and your sovereign rule stretches to the four corners of the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "But the part about the holy angel descending from heaven and proclaiming, 'Chop down the tree, destroy it, but leave stump and roots in the ground belted with a strap of iron and bronze in the grassy meadow; let him be soaked with heaven's dew and take his meals with the grazing animals for seven seasons'--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> this, O king, also refers to you. It means that the High God has sentenced my master the king:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> You will be driven away from human company and live with the wild animals. You will graze on grass like an ox. You will be soaked in heaven's dew. This will go on for seven seasons, and you will learn that the High God rules over human kingdoms and that he arranges all kingdom affairs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "The part about the tree stump and roots being left means that your kingdom will still be there for you after you learn that it is heaven that runs things.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "So, king, take my advice: Make a clean break with your sins and start living for others. Quit your wicked life and look after the needs of the down-and-out. Then you will continue to have a good life."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> All this happened to King Nebuchadnezzar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Just twelve months later, he was walking on the balcony of the royal palace in Babylon</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> and boasted, "Look at this, Babylon the great! And I built it all by myself, a royal palace adequate to display my honor and glory!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The words were no sooner out of his mouth than a voice out of heaven spoke, "This is the verdict on you, King Nebuchadnezzar: Your kingdom is taken from you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> You will be driven out of human company and live with the wild animals. You will eat grass like an ox. The sentence is for seven seasons, enough time to learn that the High God rules human kingdoms and puts whomever he wishes in charge."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> It happened at once. Nebuchadnezzar was driven out of human company, ate grass like an ox, and was soaked in heaven's dew. His hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of a hawk.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "At the end of the seven years, I, Nebuchadnezzar, looked to heaven. I was given my mind back and I blessed the High God, thanking and glorifying God, who lives forever. "His sovereign rule lasts and lasts, his kingdom never declines and falls.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Life on this earth doesn't add up to much, but God's heavenly army keeps everything going. No one can interrupt his work, no one can call his rule into question.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> "At the same time that I was given back my mind, I was also given back my majesty and splendor, making my kingdom shine. All the leaders and important people came looking for me. I was reestablished as king in my kingdom and became greater than ever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> And that's why I'm singing--I, Nebuchadnezzar--singing and praising the King of Heaven: "Everything he does is right, and he does it the right way. He knows how to turn a proud person into a humble man or woman."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> King Belshazzar held a great feast for his one thousand nobles. The wine flowed freely.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Belshazzar, heady with the wine, ordered that the gold and silver chalices his father Nebuchadnezzar had stolen from God's Temple of Jerusalem be brought in so that he and his nobles, his wives and concubines, could drink from them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When the gold and silver chalices were brought in, the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines, drank wine from them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They drank the wine and drunkenly praised their gods made of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> At that very moment, the fingers of a human hand appeared and began writing on the lamp-illumined, whitewashed wall of the palace. When the king saw the disembodied hand writing away,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> he went white as a ghost, scared out of his wits. His legs went limp and his knees knocked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He yelled out for the enchanters, the fortunetellers, and the diviners to come. He told these Babylonian magi, "Anyone who can read this writing on the wall and tell me what it means will be famous and rich--purple robe, the great gold chain--and be third-in-command in the kingdom."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> One after the other they tried, but could make no sense of it. They could neither read what was written nor interpret it to the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So now the king was really frightened. All the blood drained from his face. The nobles were in a panic.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The queen heard of the hysteria among the king and his nobles and came to the banquet hall. She said, "Long live the king! Don't be upset. Don't sit around looking like ghosts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> There is a man in your kingdom who is full of the divine Holy Spirit. During your father's time he was well known for his intellectual brilliance and spiritual wisdom. He was so good that your father, King Nebuchadnezzar, made him the head of all the magicians, enchanters, fortunetellers, and diviners.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> There was no one quite like him. He could do anything--interpret dreams, solve mysteries, explain puzzles. His name is Daniel, but he was renamed Belteshazzar by the king. Have Daniel called in. He'll tell you what is going on here."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> So Daniel was called in. The king asked him, "Are you the Daniel who was one of the Jewish exiles my father brought here from Judah?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I've heard about you--that you're full of the Holy Spirit, that you've got a brilliant mind, that you are incredibly wise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The wise men and enchanters were brought in here to read this writing on the wall and interpret it for me. They couldn't figure it out--not a word, not a syllable.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But I've heard that you interpret dreams and solve mysteries. So--if you can read the writing and interpret it for me, you'll be rich and famous--a purple robe, the great gold chain around your neck--and third-in-command in the kingdom."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Daniel answered the king, "You can keep your gifts, or give them to someone else. But I will read the writing for the king and tell him what it means.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Listen, O king! The High God gave your father Nebuchadnezzar a great kingdom and a glorious reputation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Because God made him so famous, people from everywhere, whatever their race, color, and creed, were totally intimidated by him. He killed or spared people on whim. He promoted or humiliated people capriciously.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He developed a big head and a hard spirit. Then God knocked him off his high horse and stripped him of his fame.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He was thrown out of human company, lost his mind, and lived like a wild animal. He ate grass like an ox and was soaked by heaven's dew until he learned his lesson: that the High God rules human kingdoms and puts anyone he wants in charge.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "You are his son and have known all this, yet you're as arrogant as he ever was.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Look at you, setting yourself up in competition against the Master of heaven! You had the sacred chalices from his Temple brought into your drunken party so that you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines, could drink from them. You used the sacred chalices to toast your gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone--blind, deaf, and imbecile gods. But you treat with contempt the living God who holds your entire life from birth to death in his hand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "God sent the hand that wrote on the wall,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> and this is what is written: MENE, TEQEL, and PERES.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> This is what the words mean: "Mene: God has numbered the days of your rule and they don't add up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "Teqel: You have been weighed on the scales and you don't weigh much.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "Peres: Your kingdom has been divided up and handed over to the Medes and Persians."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Belshazzar did what he had promised. He robed Daniel in purple, draped the great gold chain around his neck, and promoted him to third-in-charge in the kingdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> That same night the Babylonian king Belshazzar was murdered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> He was sixty-two years old. Darius the Mede succeeded him as king.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Darius reorganized his kingdom. He appointed one hundred twenty governors to administer all the parts of his realm.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Over them were three vice-regents, one of whom was Daniel. The governors reported to the vice-regents, who made sure that everything was in order for the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But Daniel, brimming with spirit and intelligence, so completely outclassed the other vice-regents and governors that the king decided to put him in charge of the whole kingdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The vice-regents and governors got together to find some old scandal or skeleton in Daniel's life that they could use against him, but they couldn't dig up anything. He was totally exemplary and trustworthy. They could find no evidence of negligence or misconduct.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> So they finally gave up and said, "We're never going to find anything against this Daniel unless we can cook up something religious."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The vice-regents and governors conspired together and then went to the king and said, "King Darius, live forever!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> We've convened your vice-regents, governors, and all your leading officials, and have agreed that the king should issue the following decree: For the next thirty days no one is to pray to any god or mortal except you, O king. Anyone who disobeys will be thrown into the lions' den.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Issue this decree, O king, and make it unconditional, as if written in stone like all the laws of the Medes and the Persians."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> King Darius signed the decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When Daniel learned that the decree had been signed and posted, he continued to pray just as he had always done. His house had windows in the upstairs that opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he knelt there in prayer, thanking and praising his God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The conspirators came and found him praying, asking God for help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They went straight to the king and reminded him of the royal decree that he had signed. "Did you not," they said, "sign a decree forbidding anyone to pray to any god or man except you for the next thirty days? And anyone caught doing it would be thrown into the lions' den?" "Absolutely," said the king. "Written in stone, like all the laws of the Medes and Persians."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then they said, "Daniel, one of the Jewish exiles, ignores you, O king, and defies your decree. Three times a day he prays."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> At this, the king was very upset and tried his best to get Daniel out of the fix he'd put him in. He worked at it the whole day long.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But then the conspirators were back: "Remember, O king, it's the law of the Medes and Persians that the king's decree can never be changed."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The king caved in and ordered Daniel brought and thrown into the lions' den. But he said to Daniel, "Your God, to whom you are so loyal, is going to get you out of this."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> A stone slab was placed over the opening of the den. The king sealed the cover with his signet ring and the signet rings of all his nobles, fixing Daniel's fate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The king then went back to his palace. He refused supper. He couldn't sleep. He spent the night fasting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> At daybreak the king got up and hurried to the lions' den.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> As he approached the den, he called out anxiously, "Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve so loyally, saved you from the lions?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "O king, live forever!" said Daniel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "My God sent his angel, who closed the mouths of the lions so that they would not hurt me. I've been found innocent before God and also before you, O king. I've done nothing to harm you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> When the king heard these words, he was happy. He ordered Daniel taken up out of the den. When he was hauled up, there wasn't a scratch on him. He had trusted his God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Then the king commanded that the conspirators who had informed on Daniel be thrown into the lions' den, along with their wives and children. Before they hit the floor, the lions had them in their jaws, tearing them to pieces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> King Darius published this proclamation to every race, color, and creed on earth: Peace to you! Abundant peace!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> I decree that Daniel's God shall be worshiped and feared in all parts of my kingdom. He is the living God, world without end. His kingdom never falls. His rule continues eternally.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> He is a savior and rescuer. He performs astonishing miracles in heaven and on earth. He saved Daniel from the power of the lions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> From then on, Daniel was treated well during the reign of Darius, and also in the following reign of Cyrus the Persian.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the first year of the reign of King Belshazzar of Babylon, Daniel had a dream. What he saw as he slept in his bed terrified him--a real nightmare. Then he wrote out his dream:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "In my dream that night I saw the four winds of heaven whipping up a great storm on the sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Four huge animals, each different from the others, ascended out of the sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "The first animal looked like a lion, but it had the wings of an eagle. While I watched, its wings were pulled off. It was then pulled erect so that it was standing on two feet like a man. Then a human heart was placed in it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Then I saw a second animal that looked like a bear. It lurched from side to side, holding three ribs in its jaws. It was told, 'Attack! Devour! Fill your belly!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Next I saw another animal. This one looked like a panther. It had four birdlike wings on its back. This animal had four heads and was made to rule.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "After that, a fourth animal appeared in my dream. This one was a grisly horror--hideous. It had huge iron teeth. It crunched and swallowed its victims. Anything left over, it trampled into the ground. It was different from the other animals--this one was a real monster. It had ten horns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "As I was staring at the horns and trying to figure out what they meant, another horn sprouted up, a little horn. Three of the original horns were pulled out to make room for it. There were human eyes in this little horn, and a big mouth speaking arrogantly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "As I was watching all this, "Thrones were set in place and The Old One sat down. His robes were white as snow, his hair was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, its wheels blazing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> A river of fire poured out of the throne. Thousands upon thousands served him, tens of thousands attended him. The courtroom was called to order, and the books were opened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "I kept watching. The little horn was speaking arrogantly. Then, as I watched, the monster was killed and its body cremated in a roaring fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The other animals lived on for a limited time, but they didn't really do anything, had no power to rule.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> My dream continued. "I saw a human form, a son of man, arriving in a whirl of clouds. He came to The Old One and was presented to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He was given power to rule--all the glory of royalty. Everyone--race, color, and creed--had to serve him. His rule would be forever, never ending. His kingly rule would never be replaced.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "But as for me, Daniel, I was disturbed. All these dream-visions had me agitated.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So I went up to one of those standing by and asked him the meaning of all this. And he told me, interpreting the dream for me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "'These four huge animals,' he said, 'mean that four kingdoms will appear on earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But eventually the holy people of the High God will be given the kingdom and have it ever after--yes, forever and ever.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "But I wanted to know more. I was curious about the fourth animal, the one so different from the others, the hideous monster with the iron teeth and the bronze claws, gulping down what it ripped to pieces and trampling the leftovers into the dirt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And I wanted to know about the ten horns on its head and the other horn that sprouted up while three of the original horns were removed. This new horn had eyes and a big mouth and spoke arrogantly, dominating the other horns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I watched as this horn was making war on God's holy people and getting the best of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But then The Old One intervened and decided things in favor of the people of the High God. In the end, God's holy people took over the kingdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "The bystander continued, telling me this: 'The fourth animal is a fourth kingdom that will appear on earth. It will be different from the first three kingdoms, a monster kingdom that will chew up everyone in sight and spit them out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The ten horns are ten kings, one after another, that will come from this kingdom. But then another king will arrive. He will be different from the earlier kings. He will begin by toppling three kings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Then he will blaspheme the High God, persecute the followers of the High God, and try to get rid of sacred worship and moral practice. God's holy people will be persecuted by him for a time, two times, half a time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "'But when the court comes to order, the horn will be stripped of its power and totally destroyed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Then the royal rule and the authority and the glory of all the kingdoms under heaven will be handed over to the people of the High God. Their royal rule will last forever. All other rulers will serve and obey them.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "And there it ended. I, Daniel, was in shock. I was like a man who had seen a ghost. But I kept it all to myself.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "In King Belshazzar's third year as king, another vision came to me, Daniel. This was now the second vision.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "In the vision, I saw myself in Susa, the capital city of the province Elam, standing at the Ulai Canal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Looking around, I was surprised to see a ram also standing at the gate. The ram had two huge horns, one bigger than the other, but the bigger horn was the last to appear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I watched as the ram charged: first west, then north, then south. No beast could stand up to him. He did just as he pleased, strutting as if he were king of the beasts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "While I was watching this, wondering what it all meant, I saw a billy goat with an immense horn in the middle of its forehead come up out of the west and fly across the whole country, not once touching the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The billy goat approached the double-horned ram that I had earlier seen standing at the gate and, enraged, charged it viciously.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I watched as, mad with rage, it charged the ram and hit it so hard that it broke off its two horns. The ram didn't stand a chance against it. The billy goat knocked the ram to the ground and stomped all over it. Nothing could have saved the ram from the goat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Then the billy goat swelled to an enormous size. At the height of its power its immense horn broke off and four other big horns sprouted in its place, pointing to the four points of the compass.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And then from one of these big horns another horn sprouted. It started small, but then grew to an enormous size, facing south and east--toward lovely Palestine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The horn grew tall, reaching to the stars, the heavenly army, and threw some of the stars to the earth and stomped on them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> It even dared to challenge the power of God, Prince of the Celestial Army! And then it threw out daily worship and desecrated the Sanctuary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> As judgment against their sin, the holy people of God got the same treatment as the daily worship. The horn cast God's Truth aside. High-handed, it took over everything and everyone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Then I overheard two holy angels talking. One asked, 'How long is what we see here going to last--the abolishing of daily worship, this devastating judgment against sin, the kicking around of God's holy people and the Sanctuary?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "The other answered, 'Over the course of 2,300 sacrifices, evening and morning. Then the Sanctuary will be set right again.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "While I, Daniel, was trying to make sense of what I was seeing, suddenly there was a humanlike figure standing before me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Then I heard a man's voice from over by the Ulai Canal calling out, 'Gabriel, tell this man what is going on. Explain the vision to him.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He came up to me, but when he got close I became terrified and fell facedown on the ground. "He said, 'Understand that this vision has to do with the time of the end.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> As soon as he spoke, I fainted, my face in the dirt. But he picked me up and put me on my feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "And then he continued, 'I want to tell you what is going to happen as the judgment days of wrath wind down, for there is going to be an end to all this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "'The double-horned ram you saw stands for the two kings of the Medes and Persians.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The billy goat stands for the kingdom of the Greeks. The huge horn on its forehead is the first Greek king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The four horns that sprouted after it was broken off are the four kings that come after him, but without his power.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "'As their kingdoms cool down and rebellions heat up, A king will show up, hard-faced, a master trickster.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> His power will swell enormously. He'll talk big, high-handedly, Doing whatever he pleases, knocking off heroes and holy ones left and right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> He'll plot and scheme to make crime flourish-- and oh, how it will flourish! He'll think he's invincible and get rid of anyone who gets in his way. But when he takes on the Prince of all princes, he'll be smashed to bits-- but not by human hands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> This vision of the 2,300 sacrifices, evening and morning, is accurate but confidential. Keep it to yourself. It refers to the far future.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "I, Daniel, walked around in a daze, unwell for days. Then I got a grip on myself and went back to work taking care of the king's affairs. But I continued to be upset by the vision. I couldn't make sense of it.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Darius, son of Ahasuerus, born a Mede, became king over the land of Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, was meditating on the Scriptures that gave, according to the Word of GOD to the prophet Jeremiah, the number of years that Jerusalem had to lie in ruins, namely, seventy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I turned to the Master God, asking for an answer--praying earnestly, fasting from meals, wearing rough penitential burlap, and kneeling in the ashes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I poured out my heart, baring my soul to GOD, my God: "'O Master, great and august God. You never waver in your covenant commitment, never give up on those who love you and do what you say.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Yet we have sinned in every way imaginable. We've done evil things, rebelled, dodged and taken detours around your clearly marked paths.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> We've turned a deaf ear to your servants the prophets, who preached your Word to our kings and leaders, our parents, and all the people in the land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You have done everything right, Master, but all we have to show for our lives is guilt and shame, the whole lot of us--people of Judah, citizens of Jerusalem, Israel at home and Israel in exile in all the places we've been banished to because of our betrayal of you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Oh yes, GOD, we've been exposed in our shame, all of us--our kings, leaders, parents--before the whole world. And deservedly so, because of our sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "'Compassion is our only hope, the compassion of you, the Master, our God, since in our rebellion we've forfeited our rights.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> We paid no attention to you when you told us how to live, the clear teaching that came through your servants the prophets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> All of us in Israel ignored what you said. We defied your instructions and did what we pleased. And now we're paying for it: The solemn curse written out plainly in the revelation to God's servant Moses is now doing its work among us, the wages of our sin against you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> You did to us and our rulers what you said you would do: You brought this catastrophic disaster on us, the worst disaster on record--and in Jerusalem!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "'Just as written in God's revelation to Moses, the catastrophe was total. Nothing was held back. We kept at our sinning, never giving you a second thought, oblivious to your clear warning,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> and so you had no choice but to let the disaster loose on us in full force. You, our GOD, had a perfect right to do this since we persistently and defiantly ignored you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "'Master, you are our God, for you delivered your people from the land of Egypt in a show of power--people are still talking about it! We confess that we have sinned, that we have lived bad lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Following the lines of what you have always done in setting things right, setting people right, please stop being so angry with Jerusalem, your very own city, your holy mountain. We know it's our fault that this has happened, all because of our sins and our parents' sins, and now we're an embarrassment to everyone around us. We're a blot on the neighborhood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> So listen, God, to this determined prayer of your servant. Have mercy on your ruined Sanctuary. Act out of who you are, not out of what we are.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "'Turn your ears our way, God, and listen. Open your eyes and take a long look at our ruined city, this city named after you. We know that we don't deserve a hearing from you. Our appeal is to your compassion. This prayer is our last and only hope:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "'Master, listen to us! Master, forgive us! Master, look at us and do something! Master, don't put us off! Your city and your people are named after you: You have a stake in us!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "While I was pouring out my heart, baring my sins and the sins of my people Israel, praying my life out before my God, interceding for the holy mountain of my God--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> while I was absorbed in this praying, the humanlike Gabriel, the one I had seen in an earlier vision, approached me, flying in like a bird about the time of evening worship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "He stood before me and said, 'Daniel, I have come to make things plain to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> You had no sooner started your prayer when the answer was given. And now I'm here to deliver the answer to you. You are much loved! So listen carefully to the answer, the plain meaning of what is revealed:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "'Seventy sevens are set for your people and for your holy city to throttle rebellion, stop sin, wipe out crime, set things right forever, confirm what the prophet saw, and anoint The Holy of Holies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "'Here is what you must understand: From the time the word goes out to rebuild Jerusalem until the coming of the Anointed Leader, there will be seven sevens. The rebuilding will take sixty-two sevens, including building streets and digging a moat. Those will be rough times.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> After the sixty-two sevens, the Anointed Leader will be killed--the end of him. The city and Sanctuary will be laid in ruins by the army of the newly arriving leader. The end will come in a rush, like a flood. War will rage right up to the end, desolation the order of the day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "'Then for one seven, he will forge many and strong alliances, but halfway through the seven he will banish worship and prayers. At the place of worship, a desecrating obscenity will be set up and remain until finally the desecrator himself is decisively destroyed.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the third year of the reign of King Cyrus of Persia, a message was made plain to Daniel, whose Babylonian name was Belteshazzar. The message was true. It dealt with a big war. He understood the message, the understanding coming by revelation:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "During those days, I, Daniel, went into mourning over Jerusalem for three weeks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I ate only plain and simple food, no seasoning or meat or wine. I neither bathed nor shaved until the three weeks were up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "On the twenty-fourth day of the first month I was standing on the bank of the great river, the Tigris.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I looked up and to my surprise saw a man dressed in linen with a belt of pure gold around his waist.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> His body was hard and glistening, as if sculpted from a precious stone, his face radiant, his eyes bright and penetrating like torches, his arms and feet glistening like polished bronze, and his voice, deep and resonant, sounded like a huge choir of voices.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "I, Daniel, was the only one to see this. The men who were with me, although they didn't see it, were overcome with fear and ran off and hid, fearing the worst.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Left alone after the appearance, abandoned by my friends, I went weak in the knees, the blood drained from my face.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "I heard his voice. At the sound of it I fainted, fell flat on the ground, face in the dirt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> A hand touched me and pulled me to my hands and knees.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "'Daniel,' he said, 'man of quality, listen carefully to my message. And get up on your feet. Stand at attention. I've been sent to bring you news.' "When he had said this, I stood up, but I was still shaking.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "'Relax, Daniel,' he continued, 'don't be afraid. From the moment you decided to humble yourself to receive understanding, your prayer was heard, and I set out to come to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But I was waylaid by the angel-prince of the kingdom of Persia</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> and was delayed for a good three weeks. But then Michael, one of the chief angel-princes, intervened to help me. I left him there with the prince of the kingdom of Persia. And now I'm here to help you understand what will eventually happen to your people. The vision has to do with what's ahead.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "While he was saying all this, I looked at the ground and said nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Then I was surprised by something like a human hand that touched my lips. I opened my mouth and started talking to the messenger: 'When I saw you, master, I was terror-stricken. My knees turned to water. I couldn't move.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> How can I, a lowly servant, speak to you, my master? I'm paralyzed. I can hardly breathe!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Then this humanlike figure touched me again and gave me strength.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He said, 'Don't be afraid, friend. Peace. Everything is going to be all right. Take courage. Be strong.' "Even as he spoke, courage surged up within me. I said, 'Go ahead, let my master speak. You've given me courage.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "He said, 'Do you know why I've come here to you? I now have to go back to fight against the angel-prince of Persia, and when I get him out of the way, the angel-prince of Greece will arrive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But first let me tell you what's written in The True Book. No one helps me in my fight against these beings except Michael, your angel-prince.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "'And I, in my turn, have been helping him out as best I can ever since the first year in the reign of Darius the Mede.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "'But now let me tell you the truth of how things stand: Three more kings of Persia will show up, and then a fourth will become richer than all of them. When he senses that he is powerful enough as a result of his wealth, he will go to war against the entire kingdom of Greece.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "'Then a powerful king will show up and take over a huge territory and run things just as he pleases.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But at the height of his power, with everything seemingly under control, his kingdom will split into four parts, like the four points of the compass. But his heirs won't get in on it. There will be no continuity with his kingship. Others will tear it to pieces and grab whatever they can get for themselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "'Next the king of the south will grow strong, but one of his princes will grow stronger than he and rule an even larger territory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> After a few years, the two of them will make a pact, and the daughter of the king of the south will marry the king of the north to cement the peace agreement. But her influence will weaken and her child will not survive. She and her servants, her child, and her husband will be betrayed. "'Sometime later</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> a member of the royal family will show up and take over. He will take command of his army and invade the defenses of the king of the north and win a resounding victory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He will load up their tin gods and all the gold and silver trinkets that go with them and cart them off to Egypt. Eventually, the king of the north will recover</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> and invade the country of the king of the south, but unsuccessfully. He will have to retreat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "'But then his sons will raise a huge army and rush down like a flood, a torrential attack, on the defenses of the south.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "'Furious, the king of the south will come out and engage the king of the north and his huge army in battle and rout them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> As the corpses are cleared from the field, the king, inflamed with bloodlust, will go on a bloodletting rampage, massacring tens of thousands. But his victory won't last long,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> for the king of the north will put together another army bigger than the last one, and after a few years he'll come back to do battle again with his immense army and endless supplies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "'In those times, many others will get into the act and go off to fight against the king of the south. Hotheads from your own people, drunk on dreams, will join them. But they'll sputter out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "'When the king of the north arrives, he'll build siege works and capture the outpost fortress city. The armies of the south will fall to pieces before him. Not even their famous commando shock troops will slow down the attacker.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He'll march in big as you please, as if he owned the place. He'll take over that beautiful country, Palestine, and make himself at home in it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then he'll proceed to get everything, lock, stock, and barrel, in his control. He'll cook up a peace treaty and even give his daughter in marriage to the king of the south in a plot to destroy him totally. But the plot will fizzle. It won't succeed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "'Later, he'll turn his attention to the coastal regions and capture a bunch of prisoners, but a general will step in and put a stop to his bullying ways. The bully will be bullied!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He'll go back home and tend to his own military affairs. But by then he'll be washed up and soon will be heard of no more.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "'He will be replaced shortly by a real loser, his rule, reputation, and authority already in shreds. And he won't last long. He'll slip out of history quietly, without even a fight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "'His place will be taken by a reject, a man spurned and passed over for advancement. He'll surprise everyone, seemingly coming out of nowhere, and will seize the kingdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> He'll come in like a steamroller, flattening the opposition. Even the Prince of the Covenant will be crushed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> After negotiating a cease-fire, he'll betray its terms. With a few henchmen, he'll take total control.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Arbitrarily and impulsively, he'll invade the richest provinces. He'll surpass all his ancestors, near and distant, in his rape of the country, grabbing and looting, living with his cronies in corrupt and lavish luxury. "'He will make plans against the fortress cities, but they'll turn out to be shortsighted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> He'll get a great army together, all charged up to fight the king of the south. The king of the south in response will get his army--an even greater army--in place, ready to fight. But he won't be able to sustain that intensity for long because of the treacherous intrigue</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> in his own ranks, his court having been honeycombed with vicious plots. His army will be smashed, the battlefield filled with corpses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "'The two kings, each with evil designs on the other, will sit at the conference table and trade lies. Nothing will come of the treaty, which is nothing but a tissue of lies anyway. But that's not the end of it. There's more to this story.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "'The king of the north will go home loaded down with plunder, but his mind will be set on destroying the holy covenant as he passes through the country on his way home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "'One year later he will mount a fresh invasion of the south. But the second invasion won't compare to the first.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> When the Roman ships arrive, he will turn tail and go back home. But as he passes through the country, he will be filled with anger at the holy covenant. He will take up with all those who betray the holy covenant, favoring them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The bodyguards surrounding him will march in and desecrate the Sanctuary and citadel. They'll throw out the daily worship and set up in its place the obscene sacrilege.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The king of the north will play up to those who betray the holy covenant, corrupting them even further with his seductive talk, but those who stay courageously loyal to their God will take a strong stand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "'Those who keep their heads on straight will teach the crowds right from wrong by their example. They'll be put to severe testing for a season: some killed, some burned, some exiled, some robbed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> When the testing is intense, they'll get some help, but not much. Many of the helpers will be halfhearted at best.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> The testing will refine, cleanse, and purify those who keep their heads on straight and stay true, for there is still more to come.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> "'Meanwhile, the king of the north will do whatever he pleases. He'll puff himself up and posture himself as greater than any god. He will even dare to brag and boast in defiance of the God of gods. And he'll get by with it for a while--until this time of wrathful judgment is completed, for what is decreed must be done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> He will have no respect for the gods of his ancestors, not even that popular favorite among women, Adonis. Contemptuous of every god and goddess, the king of the north will puff himself up greater than all of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> He'll even stoop to despising the God of the holy ones, and in the place where God is worshiped he will put on exhibit, with a lavish show of silver and gold and jewels, a new god that no one has ever heard of.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Marching under the banner of a strange god, he will attack the key fortresses. He will promote everyone who falls into line behind this god, putting them in positions of power and paying them off with grants of land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> "'In the final wrap-up of this story, the king of the south will confront him. But the king of the north will come at him like a tornado. Unleashing chariots and horses and an armada of ships, he'll blow away anything in his path.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> As he enters the beautiful land, people will fall before him like dominoes. Only Edom, Moab, and a few Ammonites will escape.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> As he reaches out, grabbing country after country, not even Egypt will be exempt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> He will confiscate the treasuries of Egyptian gold and silver and other valuables. The Libyans and Ethiopians will fall in with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Then disturbing reports will come in from the north and east that will throw him into a panic. Towering in rage, he'll rush to stamp out the threat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> But he'll no sooner have pitched camp between the Mediterranean Sea and the Holy Mountain--all those royal tents!--than he'll meet his end. And not a soul around who can help!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "'That's when Michael, the great angel-prince, champion of your people, will step in. It will be a time of trouble, the worst trouble the world has ever seen. But your people will be saved from the trouble, every last one found written in the Book.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Many who have been long dead and buried will wake up, some to eternal life, others to eternal shame.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "'Men and women who have lived wisely and well will shine brilliantly, like the cloudless, star-strewn night skies. And those who put others on the right path to life will glow like stars forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "'This is a confidential report, Daniel, for your eyes and ears only. Keep it secret. Put the book under lock and key until the end. In the interim there is going to be a lot of frantic running around, trying to figure out what's going on.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "As I, Daniel, took all this in, two figures appeared, one standing on this bank of the river and one on the other bank.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> One of them asked a third man who was dressed in linen and who straddled the river, 'How long is this astonishing story to go on?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "The man dressed in linen, who straddled the river, raised both hands to the skies. I heard him solemnly swear by the Eternal One that it would be a time, two times, and half a time, that when the oppressor of the holy people was brought down the story would be complete.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "I heard all this plainly enough, but I didn't understand it. So I asked, 'Master, can you explain this to me?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "'Go on about your business, Daniel,' he said. 'The message is confidential and under lock and key until the end, until things are about to be wrapped up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The populace will be washed clean and made like new. But the wicked will just keep on being wicked, without a clue about what is happening. Those who live wisely and well will understand what's going on.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "From the time that the daily worship is banished from the Temple and the obscene desecration is set up in its place, there will be 1,290 days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Blessed are those who patiently make it through the 1,335 days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "And you? Go about your business without fretting or worrying. Relax. When it's all over, you will be on your feet to receive your reward."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="28" bname="Hosea">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> This is God's Message to Hosea son of Beeri. It came to him during the royal reigns of Judah's kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. This was also the time that Jeroboam son of Joash was king over Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The first time GOD spoke to Hosea he said: "Find a whore and marry her. Make this whore the mother of your children. And here's why: This whole country has become a whorehouse, unfaithful to me, GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Hosea did it. He picked Gomer daughter of Diblaim. She got pregnant and gave him a son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then GOD told him: "Name him Jezreel. It won't be long now before I'll make the people of Israel pay for the massacre at Jezreel. I'm calling it quits on the kingdom of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Payday is coming! I'm going to chop Israel's bows and arrows into kindling in the valley of Jezreel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Gomer got pregnant again. This time she had a daughter. GOD told Hosea: "Name this one No-Mercy. I'm fed up with Israel. I've run out of mercy. There's no more forgiveness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Judah's another story. I'll continue having mercy on them. I'll save them. It will be their GOD who saves them, Not their armaments and armies, not their horsepower and manpower."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> After Gomer had weaned No-Mercy, she got pregnant yet again and had a son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD said: "Name him Nobody. You've become nobodies to me, and I, GOD, am a nobody to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "But down the road the population of Israel is going to explode past counting, like sand on the ocean beaches. In the very place where they were once named Nobody, they will be named God's Somebody.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Everybody in Judah and everybody in Israel will be assembled as one people. They'll choose a single leader. There'll be no stopping them--a great day in Jezreel!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Rename your brothers 'God's Somebody.' Rename your sisters 'All Mercy.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Haul your mother into court. Accuse her! She's no longer my wife. I'm no longer her husband. Tell her to quit dressing like a whore, displaying her breasts for sale.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> If she refuses, I'll rip off her clothes and expose her, naked as a newborn. I'll turn her skin into dried-out leather, her body into a badlands landscape, a rack of bones in the desert.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'll have nothing to do with her children, born one and all in a whorehouse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Face it: Your mother's been a whore, bringing bastard children into the world. She said, 'I'm off to see my lovers! They'll wine and dine me, Dress and caress me, perfume and adorn me!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But I'll fix her: I'll dump her in a field of thistles, then lose her in a dead-end alley.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> She'll go on the hunt for her lovers but not bring down a single one. She'll look high and low but won't find a one. Then she'll say, 'I'm going back to my husband, the one I started out with. That was a better life by far than this one.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> She didn't know that it was I all along who wined and dined and adorned her, That I was the one who dressed her up in the big-city fashions and jewelry that she wasted on wild Baal-orgies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'm about to bring her up short: No more wining and dining! Silk lingerie and gowns are a thing of the past.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I'll expose her genitals to the public. All her fly-by-night lovers will be helpless to help her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Party time is over. I'm calling a halt to the whole business, her wild weekends and unholy holidays.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I'll wreck her sumptuous gardens and ornamental fountains, of which she bragged, 'Whoring paid for all this!' They will soon be dumping grounds for garbage, feeding grounds for stray dogs and cats.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I'll make her pay for her indulgence in promiscuous religion-- all that sensuous Baal worship And all the promiscuous sex that went with it, stalking her lovers, dressed to kill, And not a thought for me." GOD's Message!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "And now, here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to start all over again. I'm taking her back out into the wilderness where we had our first date, and I'll court her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I'll give her bouquets of roses. I'll turn Heartbreak Valley into Acres of Hope. She'll respond like she did as a young girl, those days when she was fresh out of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "At that time"--this is GOD's Message still-- "you'll address me, 'Dear husband!' Never again will you address me, 'My slave-master!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I'll wash your mouth out with soap, get rid of all the dirty false-god names, not so much as a whisper of those names again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> At the same time I'll make a peace treaty between you and wild animals and birds and reptiles, And get rid of all weapons of war. Think of it! Safe from beasts and bullies!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And then I'll marry you for good--forever! I'll marry you true and proper, in love and tenderness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Yes, I'll marry you and neither leave you nor let you go. You'll know me, GOD, for who I really am.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "On the very same day, I'll answer"--this is GOD's Message-- "I'll answer the sky, sky will answer earth,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Earth will answer grain and wine and olive oil, and they'll all answer Jezreel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> I'll plant her in the good earth. I'll have mercy on No-Mercy. I'll say to Nobody, 'You're my dear Somebody,' and he'll say 'You're my God!'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then GOD ordered me, "Start all over: Love your wife again, your wife who's in bed with her latest boyfriend, your cheating wife. Love her the way I, GOD, love the Israelite people, even as they flirt and party with every god that takes their fancy."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I did it. I paid good money to get her back. It cost me the price of a slave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then I told her, "From now on you're living with me. No more whoring, no more sleeping around. You're living with me and I'm living with you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The people of Israel are going to live a long time stripped of security and protection, without religion and comfort, godless and prayerless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But in time they'll come back, these Israelites, come back looking for their GOD and their David-King. They'll come back chastened to reverence before GOD and his good gifts, ready for the End of the story of his love.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Attention all Israelites! GOD's Message! GOD indicts the whole population: "No one is faithful. No one loves. No one knows the first thing about God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> All this cussing and lying and killing, theft and loose sex, sheer anarchy, one murder after another!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And because of all this, the very land itself weeps and everything in it is grief-stricken-- animals in the fields and birds on the wing, even the fish in the sea are listless, lifeless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "But don't look for someone to blame. No finger pointing! You, priest, are the one in the dock.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You stumble around in broad daylight, And then the prophets take over and stumble all night. Your mother is as bad as you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> My people are ruined because they don't know what's right or true. Because you've turned your back on knowledge, I've turned my back on you priests. Because you refuse to recognize the revelation of God, I'm no longer recognizing your children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The more priests, the more sin. They traded in their glory for shame.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They pig out on my people's sins. They can't wait for the latest in evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The result: You can't tell the people from the priests, the priests from the people. I'm on my way to make them both pay and take the consequences of the bad lives they've lived.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They'll eat and be as hungry as ever, have sex and get no satisfaction. They walked out on me, their GOD, for a life of rutting with whores.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Wine and whiskey leave my people in a stupor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They ask questions of a dead tree, expect answers from a sturdy walking stick. Drunk on sex, they can't find their way home. They've replaced their God with their genitals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They worship on the tops of mountains, make a picnic out of religion. Under the oaks and elms on the hills they stretch out and take it easy. Before you know it, your daughters are whores and the wives of your sons are sleeping around.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But I'm not going after your whoring daughters or the adulterous wives of your sons. It's the men who pick up the whores that I'm after, the men who worship at the holy whorehouses-- a stupid people, ruined by whores!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "You've ruined your own life, Israel-- but don't drag Judah down with you! Don't go to the sex shrine at Gilgal, don't go to that sin city Bethel, Don't go around saying 'GOD bless you' and not mean it, taking God's name in vain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Israel is stubborn as a mule. How can GOD lead him like a lamb to open pasture?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Ephraim is addicted to idols. Let him go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When the beer runs out, it's sex, sex, and more sex. Bold and sordid debauchery-- how they love it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The whirlwind has them in its clutches. Their sex-worship leaves them finally impotent.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Listen to this, priests! Attention, people of Israel! Royal family--all ears! You're in charge of justice around here. But what have you done? Exploited people at Mizpah, ripped them off on Tabor,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Victimized them at Shittim. I'm going to punish the lot of you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "I know you, Ephraim, inside and out. Yes, Israel, I see right through you! Ephraim, you've played your sex-and-religion games long enough. All Israel is thoroughly polluted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They couldn't turn to God if they wanted to. Their evil life is a bad habit. Every breath they take is a whore's breath. They wouldn't recognize GOD if they saw me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Bloated by arrogance, big as a house, they're a public disgrace, The lot of them--Israel, Ephraim, Judah-- lurching and weaving down their guilty streets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When they decide to get their lives together and go off looking for GOD once again, They'll find it's too late. I, GOD, will be long gone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They've played fast and loose with me for too long, filling the country with their bastard offspring. A plague of locusts will devastate their violated land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Blow the ram's horn shofar in Gibeah, the bugle in Ramah! Signal the invasion of Sin City! Scare the daylights out of Benjamin!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Ephraim will be left wasted, a lifeless moonscape. I'm telling it straight, the unvarnished truth, to the tribes of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Israel's rulers are crooks and thieves, cheating the people of their land, And I'm angry, good and angry. Every inch of their bodies is going to feel my anger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Brutal Ephraim is himself brutalized-- a taste of his own medicine! He was so determined to do it his own worthless way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Therefore I'm pus to Ephraim, dry rot in the house of Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "When Ephraim saw he was sick and Judah saw his pus-filled sores, Ephraim went running to Assyria, went for help to the big king. But he can't heal you. He can't cure your oozing sores.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "I'm a grizzly charging Ephraim, a grizzly with cubs charging Judah. I'll rip them to pieces--yes, I will! No one can stop me now. I'll drag them off. No one can help them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Then I'll go back to where I came from until they come to their senses. When they finally hit rock bottom, maybe they'll come looking for me."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Come on, let's go back to GOD. He hurt us, but he'll heal us. He hit us hard, but he'll put us right again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> In a couple of days we'll feel better. By the third day he'll have made us brand-new, Alive and on our feet, fit to face him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> We're ready to study GOD, eager for God-knowledge. As sure as dawn breaks, so sure is his daily arrival. He comes as rain comes, as spring rain refreshing the ground."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "What am I to do with you, Ephraim? What do I make of you, Judah? Your declarations of love last no longer than morning mist and predawn dew.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> That's why I use prophets to shake you to attention, why my words cut you to the quick: To wake you up to my judgment blazing like light.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I'm after love that lasts, not more religion. I want you to know GOD, not go to more prayer meetings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You broke the covenant--just like Adam! You broke faith with me--ungrateful wretches!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Gilead has become Crime City-- blood on the sidewalks, blood on the streets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> It used to be robbers who mugged pedestrians. Now it's gangs of priests Assaulting worshipers on their way to Shechem. Nothing is sacred to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "I saw a shocking thing in the country of Israel: Ephraim worshiping in a religious whorehouse, and Israel in the mud right there with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "You're as bad as the worst of them, Judah. You've been sowing wild oats. Now it's harvest time.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Every time I gave Israel a fresh start, wiped the slate clean and got them going again, Ephraim soon filled the slate with new sins, the treachery of Samaria written out in bold print. Two-faced and double-tongued, they steal you blind, pick you clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> It never crosses their mind that I keep account of their every crime. They're mud-spattered head to toe with the residue of sin. I see who they are and what they've done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "They entertain the king with their evil circus, delight the princes with their acrobatic lies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They're a bunch of overheated adulterers, like an oven that holds its heat From the kneading of the dough to the rising of the bread.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> On the royal holiday the princes get drunk on wine and the frenzy of the mocking mob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They're like wood stoves, red-hot with lust. Through the night their passion is banked; in the morning it blazes up, flames hungrily licking.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Murderous and volcanic, they incinerate their rulers. Their kings fall one by one, and no one pays any attention to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Ephraim mingles with the pagans, dissipating himself. Ephraim is half-baked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Strangers suck him dry but he doesn't even notice. His hair has turned gray-- he doesn't notice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Bloated by arrogance, big as a house, Israel's a public disgrace. Israel lumbers along oblivious to GOD, despite all the signs, ignoring GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Ephraim is bird-brained, mindless, clueless, First chirping after Egypt, then fluttering after Assyria.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I'll throw my net over them. I'll clip their wings. I'll teach them to mind me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Doom! They've run away from home. Now they're really in trouble! They've defied me. And I'm supposed to help them while they feed me a line of lies?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Instead of crying out to me in heartfelt prayer, they whoop it up in bed with their whores, Gash themselves bloody in their sex-and-religion orgies, but turn their backs on me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I'm the one who gave them good minds and healthy bodies, and how am I repaid? With evil scheming!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They turn, but not to me-- turn here, then there, like a weather vane. Their rulers will be cut down, murdered-- just deserts for their mocking blasphemies. And the final sentence? Ridicule in the court of world opinion.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Blow the trumpet! Sound the alarm! Vultures are circling over God's people Who have broken my covenant and defied my revelation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Predictably, Israel cries out, 'My God! We know you!' But they don't act like it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Israel will have nothing to do with what's good, and now the enemy is after them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "They crown kings, but without asking me. They set up princes but don't let me in on it. Instead, they make idols, using silver and gold, idols that will be their ruin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Throw that gold calf-god on the trash heap, Samaria! I'm seething with anger against that rubbish! How long before they shape up?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And they're Israelites! A sculptor made that thing-- it's not God. That Samaritan calf will be broken to bits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Look at them! Planting wind-seeds, they'll harvest tornadoes. Wheat with no head produces no flour. And even if it did, strangers would gulp it down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Israel is swallowed up and spit out. Among the pagans they're a piece of junk.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They trotted off to Assyria: Why, even wild donkeys stick to their own kind, but donkey-Ephraim goes out and pays to get lovers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Now, because of their whoring life among the pagans, I'm going to gather them together and confront them. They're going to reap the consequences soon, feel what it's like to be oppressed by the big king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Ephraim has built a lot of altars, and then uses them for sinning. Can you believe it? Altars for sinning!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I write out my revelation for them in detail and they pretend they can't read it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They offer sacrifices to me and then they feast on the meat. GOD is not pleased! I'm fed up--I'll keep remembering their guilt. I'll punish their sins and send them back to Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Israel has forgotten his Maker and gotten busy making palaces. Judah has gone in for a lot of fortress cities. I'm sending fire on their cities to burn down their fortifications."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Don't waste your life in wild orgies, Israel. Don't party away your life with the heathen. You walk away from your God at the drop of a hat and like a whore sell yourself promiscuously at every sex-and-religion party on the street.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> All that party food won't fill you up. You'll end up hungrier than ever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> At this rate you'll not last long in GOD's land: Some of you are going to end up bankrupt in Egypt. Some of you will be disillusioned in Assyria.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> As refugees in Egypt and Assyria, you won't have much chance to worship GOD-- Sentenced to rations of bread and water, and your souls polluted by the spirit-dirty air. You'll be starved for GOD, exiled from GOD's own country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Will you be homesick for the old Holy Days? Will you miss festival worship of GOD?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Be warned! When you escape from the frying pan of disaster, you'll fall into the fire of Egypt. Egypt will give you a fine funeral! What use will all your god-inspired silver be then as you eke out a living in a field of weeds?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Time's up. Doom's at the doorstep. It's payday! Did Israel bluster, "The prophet is crazy! The 'man of the Spirit' is nuts!"? Think again. Because of your great guilt, you're in big trouble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The prophet is looking out for Ephraim, working under God's orders. But everyone is trying to trip him up. He's hated right in God's house, of all places.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The people are going from bad to worse, rivaling that ancient and unspeakable crime at Gibeah. God's keeping track of their guilt. He'll make them pay for their sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Long ago when I came upon Israel, it was like finding grapes out in the desert. When I found your ancestors, it was like finding a fig tree bearing fruit for the first time. But when they arrived at Baal-peor, that pagan shrine, they took to sin like a pig to filth, wallowing in the mud with their newfound friends.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Ephraim is fickle and scattered, like a flock of blackbirds, their beauty dissipated in confusion and clamor, Frenetic and noisy, frigid and barren, and nothing to show for it--neither conception nor childbirth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Even if they did give birth, I'd declare them unfit parents and take away their children! Yes indeed--a black day for them when I turn my back and walk off!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I see Ephraim letting his children run wild. He might just as well take them and kill them outright!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Give it to them, GOD! But what? Give them a dried-up womb and shriveled breasts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "All their evil came out into the open at the pagan shrine at Gilgal. Oh, how I hated them there! Because of their evil practices, I'll kick them off my land. I'm wasting no more love on them. Their leaders are a bunch of rebellious adolescents.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Ephraim is hit hard-- roots withered, no more fruit. Even if by some miracle they had children, the dear babies wouldn't live--I'd make sure of that!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> My God has washed his hands of them. They wouldn't listen. They're doomed to be wanderers, vagabonds among the godless nations.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Israel was once a lush vine, bountiful in grapes. The more lavish the harvest, the more promiscuous the worship. The more money they got, the more they squandered on gods-in-their-own-image.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Their sweet smiles are sheer lies. They're guilty as sin. God will smash their worship shrines, pulverize their god-images.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They go around saying, "Who needs a king? We couldn't care less about GOD, so why bother with a king? What difference would he make?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They talk big, lie through their teeth, make deals. But their high-sounding words turn out to be empty words, litter in the gutters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The people of Samaria travel over to Crime City to worship the golden calf-god. They go all out, prancing and hollering, taken in by their showmen priests. They act so important around the calf-god, but are oblivious to the sham, the shame.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They have plans to take it to Assyria, present it as a gift to the great king. And so Ephraim makes a fool of himself, disgraces Israel with his stupid idols.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Samaria is history. Its king is a dead branch floating down the river.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Israel's favorite sin centers will all be torn down. Thistles and crabgrass will decorate their ruined altars. Then they'll say to the mountains, "Bury us!" and to the hills, "Fall on us!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You got your start in sin at Gibeah-- that ancient, unspeakable, shocking sin-- And you've been at it ever since. And Gibeah will mark the end of it in a war to end all the sinning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I'll come to teach them a lesson. Nations will gang up on them, Making them learn the hard way the sum of Gibeah plus Gibeah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Ephraim was a trained heifer that loved to thresh. Passing by and seeing her strong, sleek neck, I wanted to harness Ephraim, Put Ephraim to work in the fields-- Judah plowing, Jacob harrowing:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Sow righteousness, reap love. It's time to till the ready earth, it's time to dig in with GOD, Until he arrives with righteousness ripe for harvest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But instead you plowed wicked ways, reaped a crop of evil and ate a salad of lies. You thought you could do it all on your own, flush with weapons and manpower.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But the volcano of war will erupt among your people. All your defense posts will be leveled As viciously as king Shalman leveled the town of Beth-arba, When mothers and their babies were smashed on the rocks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> That's what's ahead for you, you so-called people of God, because of your off-the-charts evil. Some morning you're going to wake up and find Israel, king and kingdom, a blank--nothing.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "When Israel was only a child, I loved him. I called out, 'My son!'--called him out of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> But when others called him, he ran off and left me. He worshiped the popular sex gods, he played at religion with toy gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Still, I stuck with him. I led Ephraim. I rescued him from human bondage, But he never acknowledged my help,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> never admitted that I was the one pulling his wagon, That I lifted him, like a baby, to my cheek, that I bent down to feed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Now he wants to go back to Egypt or go over to Assyria-- anything but return to me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> That's why his cities are unsafe--the murder rate skyrockets and every plan to improve things falls to pieces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> My people are hell-bent on leaving me. They pray to god Baal for help. He doesn't lift a finger to help them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But how can I give up on you, Ephraim? How can I turn you loose, Israel? How can I leave you to be ruined like Admah, devastated like luckless Zeboim? I can't bear to even think such thoughts. My insides churn in protest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And so I'm not going to act on my anger. I'm not going to destroy Ephraim. And why? Because I am God and not a human. I'm The Holy One and I'm here--in your very midst.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "The people will end up following GOD. I will roar like a lion-- Oh, how I'll roar! My frightened children will come running from the west.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Like frightened birds they'll come from Egypt, from Assyria like scared doves. I'll move them back into their homes." GOD's Word!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Ephraim tells lies right and left. Not a word of Israel can be trusted. Judah, meanwhile, is no better, addicted to cheap gods.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Ephraim, obsessed with god-fantasies, chases ghosts and phantoms. He tells lies nonstop, soul-destroying lies. Both Ephraim and Judah made deals with Assyria and tried to get an inside track with Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD is bringing charges against Israel. Jacob's children are hauled into court to be punished.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> In the womb, that heel, Jacob, got the best of his brother. When he grew up, he tried to get the best of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But GOD would not be bested. GOD bested him. Brought to his knees, Jacob wept and prayed. GOD found him at Bethel. That's where he spoke with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> GOD is God-of-the-Angel-Armies, GOD-Revealed, GOD-Known.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> What are you waiting for? Return to your God! Commit yourself in love, in justice! Wait for your God, and don't give up on him--ever!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The businessmen engage in wholesale fraud. They love to rip people off!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Ephraim boasted, "Look, I'm rich! I've made it big! And look how well I've covered my tracks: not a hint of fraud, not a sign of sin!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "But not so fast! I'm GOD, your God! Your God from the days in Egypt! I'm going to put you back to living in tents, as in the old days when you worshiped in the wilderness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I speak through the prophets to give clear pictures of the way things are. Using prophets, I tell revealing stories.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I show Gilead rampant with religious scandal and Gilgal teeming with empty-headed religion. I expose their worship centers as stinking piles of garbage in their gardens."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Are you going to repeat the life of your ancestor Jacob? He ran off guilty to Aram, Then sold his soul to get ahead, and made it big through treachery and deceit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Your real identity is formed through God-sent prophets, who led you out of Egypt and served as faithful pastors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> As it is, Ephraim has continually and inexcusably insulted God. Now he has to pay for his life-destroying ways. His Master will do to him what he has done.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> God once let loose against Ephraim a terrifying sentence against Israel: Caught and convicted in the lewd sex-worship of Baal--they died!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> And now they're back in the sin business again, manufacturing god-images they can use, Religion customized to taste. Professionals see to it: Anything you want in a god you can get. Can you believe it? They sacrifice live babies to these dead gods-- kill living babies and kiss golden calves!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And now there's nothing left to these people: hollow men, desiccated women, Like scraps of paper blown down the street, like smoke in a gusty wind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "I'm still your GOD, the God who saved you out of Egypt. I'm the only real God you've ever known. I'm the one and only God who delivers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I took care of you during the wilderness hard times, those years when you had nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I took care of you, took care of all your needs, gave you everything you needed. You were spoiled. You thought you didn't need me. You forgot me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "I'll charge them like a lion, like a leopard stalking in the brush.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I'll jump them like a sow grizzly robbed of her cubs. I'll rip out their guts. Coyotes will make a meal of them. Crows will clean their bones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'm going to destroy you, Israel. Who is going to stop me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Where is your trusty king you thought would save you? Where are all the local leaders you wanted so badly? All these rulers you insisted on having, demanding, 'Give me a king! Give me leaders!'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Well, long ago I gave you a king, but I wasn't happy about it. Now, fed up, I've gotten rid of him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I have a detailed record of your infidelities-- Ephraim's sin documented and stored in a safe-deposit box.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "When birth pangs signaled it was time to be born, Ephraim was too stupid to come out of the womb. When the passage into life opened up, he didn't show.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Shall I intervene and pull them into life? Shall I snatch them from a certain death? Who is afraid of you, Death? Who cares about your threats, Tomb? In the end I'm abolishing regret, banishing sorrow,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Even though Ephraim ran wild, the black sheep of the family. "GOD's tornado is on its way, roaring out of the desert. It will devastate the country, leaving a trail of ruin and wreckage. The cities will be gutted, dear possessions gone for good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Now Samaria has to face the charges because she has rebelled against her God: Her people will be killed, babies smashed on the rocks, pregnant women ripped open."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> O Israel, come back! Return to your GOD! You're down but you're not out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Prepare your confession and come back to GOD. Pray to him, "Take away our sin, accept our confession. Receive as restitution our repentant prayers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Assyria won't save us; horses won't get us where we want to go. We'll never again say 'our god' to something we've made or made up. You're our last hope. Is it not true that in you the orphan finds mercy?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "I will heal their waywardness. I will love them lavishly. My anger is played out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I will make a fresh start with Israel. He'll burst into bloom like a crocus in the spring. He'll put down deep oak tree roots,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> he'll become a forest of oaks! He'll become splendid--like a giant sequoia, his fragrance like a grove of cedars!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Those who live near him will be blessed by him, be blessed and prosper like golden grain. Everyone will be talking about them, spreading their fame as the vintage children of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Ephraim is finished with gods that are no-gods. From now on I'm the one who answers and satisfies him. I am like a luxuriant fruit tree. Everything you need is to be found in me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> If you want to live well, make sure you understand all of this. If you know what's good for you, you'll learn this inside and out. GOD's paths get you where you want to go. Right-living people walk them easily; wrong-living people are always tripping and stumbling.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="29" bname="Joel">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message to Joel son of Pethuel:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Attention, elder statesmen! Listen closely, everyone, whoever and wherever you are! Have you ever heard of anything like this? Has anything like this ever happened before--ever?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Make sure you tell your children, and your children tell their children, And their children their children. Don't let this message die out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> What the chewing locust left, the gobbling locust ate; What the gobbling locust left, the munching locust ate; What the munching locust left, the chomping locust ate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Sober up, you drunks! Get in touch with reality--and weep! Your supply of booze is cut off. You're on the wagon, like it or not.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> My country's being invaded by an army invincible, past numbering, Teeth like those of a lion, fangs like those of a tiger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> It has ruined my vineyards, stripped my orchards, And clear-cut the country. The landscape's a moonscape.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Weep like a young virgin dressed in black, mourning the loss of her fianc�</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Without grain and grapes, worship has been brought to a standstill in the Sanctuary of GOD. The priests are at a loss. GOD's ministers don't know what to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The fields are sterile. The very ground grieves. The wheat fields are lifeless, vineyards dried up, olive oil gone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Dirt farmers, despair! Grape growers, wring your hands! Lament the loss of wheat and barley. All crops have failed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Vineyards dried up, fig trees withered, Pomegranates, date palms, and apple trees-- deadwood everywhere! And joy is dried up and withered in the hearts of the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And also you priests, put on your robes and join the outcry. You who lead people in worship, lead them in lament. Spend the night dressed in gunnysacks, you servants of my God. Nothing's going on in the place of worship, no offerings, no prayers--nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Declare a holy fast, call a special meeting, get the leaders together, Round up everyone in the country. Get them into GOD's Sanctuary for serious prayer to GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> What a day! Doomsday! GOD's Judgment Day has come. The Strong God has arrived. This is serious business!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Food is just a memory at our tables, as are joy and singing from God's Sanctuary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The seeds in the field are dead, barns deserted, Grain silos abandoned. Who needs them? The crops have failed!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The farm animals groan--oh, how they groan! The cattle mill around. There's nothing for them to eat. Not even the sheep find anything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> GOD! I pray, I cry out to you! The fields are burning up, The country is a dust bowl, forest and prairie fires rage unchecked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Wild animals, dying of thirst, look to you for a drink. Springs and streams are dried up. The whole country is burning up.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Blow the ram's horn trumpet in Zion! Trumpet the alarm on my holy mountain! Shake the country up! GOD's Judgment's on its way--the Day's almost here!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> A black day! A Doomsday! Clouds with no silver lining! Like dawn light moving over the mountains, a huge army is coming. There's never been anything like it and never will be again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Wildfire burns everything before this army and fire licks up everything in its wake. Before it arrives, the country is like the Garden of Eden. When it leaves, it is Death Valley. Nothing escapes unscathed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The locust army seems all horses-- galloping horses, an army of horses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> It sounds like thunder leaping on mountain ridges, Or like the roar of wildfire through grass and brush, Or like an invincible army shouting for blood, ready to fight, straining at the bit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> At the sight of this army, the people panic, faces white with terror.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The invaders charge. They climb barricades. Nothing stops them. Each soldier does what he's told, so disciplined, so determined.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They don't get in each other's way. Each one knows his job and does it. Undaunted and fearless, unswerving, unstoppable.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They storm the city, swarm its defenses, Loot the houses, breaking down doors, smashing windows.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They arrive like an earthquake, sweep through like a tornado. Sun and moon turn out their lights, stars black out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD himself bellows in thunder as he commands his forces. Look at the size of that army! And the strength of those who obey him! GOD's Judgment Day--great and terrible. Who can possibly survive this?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But there's also this, it's not too late-- GOD's personal Message!-- "Come back to me and really mean it! Come fasting and weeping, sorry for your sins!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Change your life, not just your clothes. Come back to GOD, your God. And here's why: God is kind and merciful. He takes a deep breath, puts up with a lot, This most patient God, extravagant in love, always ready to cancel catastrophe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Who knows? Maybe he'll do it now, maybe he'll turn around and show pity. Maybe, when all's said and done, there'll be blessings full and robust for your GOD!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Blow the ram's horn trumpet in Zion! Declare a day of repentance, a holy fast day. Call a public meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Get everyone there. Consecrate the congregation. Make sure the elders come, but bring in the children, too, even the nursing babies, Even men and women on their honeymoon-- interrupt them and get them there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Between Sanctuary entrance and altar, let the priests, GOD's servants, weep tears of repentance. Let them intercede: "Have mercy, GOD, on your people! Don't abandon your heritage to contempt. Don't let the pagans take over and rule them and sneer, 'And so where is this God of theirs?'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> At that, GOD went into action to get his land back. He took pity on his people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> GOD answered and spoke to his people, "Look, listen--I'm sending a gift: Grain and wine and olive oil. The fast is over--eat your fill! I won't expose you any longer to contempt among the pagans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> I'll head off the final enemy coming out of the north and dump them in a wasteland. Half of them will end up in the Dead Sea, the other half in the Mediterranean. There they'll rot, a stench to high heaven. The bigger the enemy, the stronger the stench!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Fear not, earth! Be glad and celebrate! GOD has done great things.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Fear not, wild animals! The fields and meadows are greening up. The trees are bearing fruit again: a bumper crop of fig trees and vines!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Children of Zion, celebrate! Be glad in your GOD. He's giving you a teacher to train you how to live right-- Teaching, like rain out of heaven, showers of words to refresh and nourish your soul, just as he used to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> And plenty of food for your body--silos full of grain, casks of wine and barrels of olive oil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "I'll make up for the years of the locust, the great locust devastation-- Locusts savage, locusts deadly, fierce locusts, locusts of doom, That great locust invasion I sent your way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> You'll eat your fill of good food. You'll be full of praises to your GOD, The God who has set you back on your heels in wonder. Never again will my people be despised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> You'll know without question that I'm in the thick of life with Israel, That I'm your GOD, yes, your GOD, the one and only real God. Never again will my people be despised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "And that's just the beginning: After that-- "I will pour out my Spirit on every kind of people: Your sons will prophesy, also your daughters. Your old men will dream, your young men will see visions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> I'll even pour out my Spirit on the servants, men and women both.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> I'll set wonders in the sky above and signs on the earth below: Blood and fire and billowing smoke,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> the sun turning black and the moon blood-red, Before the Judgment Day of GOD, the Day tremendous and awesome.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Whoever calls, 'Help, GOD!' gets help. On Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be a great rescue--just as GOD said. Included in the survivors are those that GOD calls.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "In those days, yes, at that very time when I put life back together again for Judah and Jerusalem,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I'll assemble all the godless nations. I'll lead them down into Judgment Valley And put them all on trial, and judge them one and all because of their treatment of my own people Israel. They scattered my people all over the pagan world and grabbed my land for themselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They threw dice for my people and used them for barter. They would trade a boy for a whore, sell a girl for a bottle of wine when they wanted a drink.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "As for you, Tyre and Sidon and Philistia, why should I bother with you? Are you trying to get back at me for something I did to you? If you are, forget it. I'll see to it that it boomerangs on you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You robbed me, cleaned me out of silver and gold, carted off everything valuable to furnish your own temples.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem into slavery to the Greeks in faraway places.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But I'm going to reverse your crime. I'm going to free those slaves. I'll have done to you what you did to them:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I'll sell your children as slaves to your neighbors, And they'll sell them to the far-off Sabeans." GOD's Verdict.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Announce this to the godless nations: Prepare for battle! Soldiers at attention! Present arms! Advance!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Turn your shovels into swords, turn your hoes into spears. Let the weak one throw out his chest and say, "I'm tough, I'm a fighter."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Hurry up, pagans! Wherever you are, get a move on! Get your act together. Prepare to be shattered by GOD!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Let the pagan nations set out for Judgment Valley. There I'll take my place at the bench and judge all the surrounding nations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Swing the sickle-- the harvest is ready. Stomp on the grapes-- the winepress is full. The wine vats are full, overflowing with vintage evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Mass confusion, mob uproar-- in Decision Valley! GOD's Judgment Day has arrived in Decision Valley.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "The sky turns black, sun and moon go dark, stars burn out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> GOD roars from Zion, shouts from Jerusalem. Earth and sky quake in terror. But GOD is a safe hiding place, a granite safe house for the children of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then you'll know for sure that I'm your GOD, Living in Zion, my sacred mountain. Jerusalem will be a sacred city, posted: 'NO TRESPASSING.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "What a day! Wine streaming off the mountains, Milk rivering out of the hills, water flowing everywhere in Judah, A fountain pouring out of GOD's Sanctuary, watering all the parks and gardens!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But Egypt will be reduced to weeds in a vacant lot, Edom turned into barren badlands, All because of brutalities to the Judean people, the atrocities and murders of helpless innocents.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Meanwhile, Judah will be filled with people, Jerusalem inhabited forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The sins I haven't already forgiven, I'll forgive." GOD has moved into Zion for good.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="30" bname="Amos">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Message of Amos, one of the shepherds of Tekoa, that he received on behalf of Israel. It came to him in visions during the time that Uzziah was king of Judah and Jeroboam II son of Joash was king of Israel, two years before the big earthquake.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The Message: GOD roars from Zion, shouts from Jerusalem! The thunderclap voice withers the pastures tended by shepherds, shrivels Mount Carmel's proud peak.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> GOD's Message: "Because of the three great sins of Damascus --make that four--I'm not putting up with her any longer. She pounded Gilead to a pulp, pounded her senseless with iron hammers and mauls.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> For that, I'm setting the palace of Hazael on fire. I'm torching Ben-hadad's forts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I'm going to smash the Damascus gates and banish the crime king who lives in Sin Valley, the vice boss who gives orders from Paradise Palace. The people of the land will be sent back to where they came from--to Kir." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD's Message: "Because of the three great sins of Gaza --make that four--I'm not putting up with her any longer. She deported whole towns and then sold the people to Edom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> For that, I'm burning down the walls of Gaza, burning up all her forts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I'll banish the crime king from Ashdod, the vice boss from Ashkelon. I'll raise my fist against Ekron, and what's left of the Philistines will die." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD's Message: "Because of the three great sins of Tyre --make that four--I'm not putting up with her any longer. She deported whole towns to Edom, breaking the treaty she had with her kin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> For that, I'm burning down the walls of Tyre, burning up all her forts."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD's Message: "Because of the three great sins of Edom --make that four--I'm not putting up with her any longer. She hunts down her brother to murder him. She has no pity, she has no heart. Her anger rampages day and night. Her meanness never takes a timeout.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> For that, I'm burning down her capital, Teman, burning up the forts of Bozrah."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> GOD's Message: "Because of the three great sins of Ammon --make that four--I'm not putting up with her any longer. She ripped open pregnant women in Gilead to get more land for herself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> For that, I'm burning down the walls of her capital, Rabbah, burning up her forts. Battle shouts! War whoops! with a tornado to finish things off!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The king has been carted off to exile, the king and his princes with him." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message: "Because of the three great sins of Moab --make that four--I'm not putting up with her any longer. She violated the corpse of Edom's king, burning it to cinders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> For that, I'm burning down Moab, burning down the forts of Kerioth. Moab will die in the shouting, go out in the blare of war trumpets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I'll remove the king from the center and kill all his princes with him." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD's Message: "Because of the three great sins of Judah --make that four--I'm not putting up with them any longer. They rejected GOD's revelation, refused to keep my commands. But they swallowed the same old lies that got their ancestors onto dead-end roads.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> For that, I'm burning down Judah, burning down all the forts of Jerusalem."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD's Message: "Because of the three great sins of Israel --make that four--I'm not putting up with them any longer. They buy and sell upstanding people. People for them are only things--ways of making money. They'd sell a poor man for a pair of shoes. They'd sell their own grandmother!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They grind the penniless into the dirt, shove the luckless into the ditch. Everyone and his brother sleeps with the 'sacred whore'-- a sacrilege against my Holy Name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Stuff they've extorted from the poor is piled up at the shrine of their god, While they sit around drinking wine they've conned from their victims.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "In contrast, I was always on your side. I destroyed the Amorites who confronted you, Amorites with the stature of great cedars, tough as thick oaks. I destroyed them from the top branches down. I destroyed them from the roots up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And yes, I'm the One who delivered you from Egypt, led you safely through the wilderness for forty years And then handed you the country of the Amorites like a piece of cake on a platter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I raised up some of your young men to be prophets, set aside your best youth for training in holiness. Isn't this so, Israel?" GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "But you made the youth-in-training break training, and you told the young prophets, 'Don't prophesy!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You're too much for me. I'm hard-pressed--to the breaking point. I'm like a wagon piled high and overloaded, creaking and groaning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "When I go into action, what will you do? There's no place to run no matter how fast you run. The strength of the strong won't count. Fighters won't make it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Skilled archers won't make it. Fast runners won't make it. Chariot drivers won't make it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Even the bravest of all your warriors Won't make it. He'll run off for dear life, stripped naked." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Listen to this, Israel. GOD is calling you to account--and I mean all of you, everyone connected with the family that he delivered out of Egypt. Listen!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Out of all the families on earth, I picked you. Therefore, because of your special calling, I'm holding you responsible for all your sins."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Do two people walk hand in hand if they aren't going to the same place?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Does a lion roar in the forest if there's no carcass to devour? Does a young lion growl with pleasure if he hasn't caught his supper?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Does a bird fall to the ground if it hasn't been hit with a stone? Does a trap spring shut if nothing trips it?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When the alarm goes off in the city, aren't people alarmed? And when disaster strikes the city, doesn't GOD stand behind it?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The fact is, GOD, the Master, does nothing without first telling his prophets the whole story.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The lion has roared-- who isn't frightened? GOD has spoken-- what prophet can keep quiet?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Announce to the forts of Assyria, announce to the forts of Egypt-- Tell them, "Gather on the Samaritan mountains, take a good, hard look: what a snake pit of brutality and terror!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They can't--or won't--do one thing right." GOD said so. "They stockpile violence and blight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Therefore"--this is GOD's Word--"an enemy will surround the country. He'll strip you of your power and plunder your forts."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> GOD's Message: "In the same way that a shepherd trying to save a lamb from a lion Manages to recover just a pair of legs or the scrap of an ear, So will little be saved of the Israelites who live in Samaria-- A couple of old chairs at most, the broken leg of a table.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Listen and bring witness against Jacob's family"-- this is God's Word, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Note well! The day I make Israel pay for its sins, pay for the sin-altars of worship at Bethel, The horned altars will all be dehorned and scattered around.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I'll tear down the winter palace, smash the summer palace--all your fancy buildings. The luxury homes will be demolished, all those pretentious houses." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Listen to this, you cows of Bashan grazing on the slopes of Samaria. You women! Mean to the poor, cruel to the down-and-out! Indolent and pampered, you demand of your husbands, 'Bring us a tall, cool drink!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "This is serious--I, GOD, have sworn by my holiness! Be well warned: Judgment Day is coming! They're going to rope you up and haul you off, keep the stragglers in line with cattle prods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They'll drag you through the ruined city walls, forcing you out single file, And kick you to kingdom come." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Come along to Bethel and sin! And then to Gilgal and sin some more! Bring your sacrifices for morning worship. Every third day bring your tithe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Burn pure sacrifices--thank offerings. Speak up--announce freewill offerings! That's the sort of religious show you Israelites just love." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "You know, don't you, that I'm the One who emptied your pantries and cleaned out your cupboards, Who left you hungry and standing in bread lines? But you never got hungry for me. You continued to ignore me." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Yes, and I'm the One who stopped the rains three months short of harvest. I'd make it rain on one village but not on another. I'd make it rain on one field but not on another--and that one would dry up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> People would stagger from village to village crazed for water and never quenching their thirst. But you never got thirsty for me. You ignored me." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "I hit your crops with disease and withered your orchards and gardens. Locusts devoured your olive and fig trees, but you continued to ignore me." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "I revisited you with the old Egyptian plagues, killed your choice young men and prize horses. The stink of rot in your camps was so strong that you held your noses-- But you didn't notice me. You continued to ignore me." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "I hit you with earthquake and fire, left you devastated like Sodom and Gomorrah. You were like a burning stick snatched from the flames. But you never looked my way. You continued to ignore me." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "All this I have done to you, Israel, and this is why I have done it. Time's up, O Israel! Prepare to meet your God!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Look who's here: Mountain-Shaper! Wind-Maker! He laid out the whole plot before Adam. He brings everything out of nothing, like dawn out of darkness. He strides across the alpine ridges. His name is GOD, God-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Listen to this, family of Israel, this Message I'm sending in bold print, this tragic warning:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Virgin Israel has fallen flat on her face. She'll never stand up again. She's been left where she's fallen. No one offers to help her up."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> This is the Message, GOD's Word: "The city that marches out with a thousand will end up with a hundred. The city that marches out with a hundred will end up with ten. Oh, family of Israel!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD's Message to the family of Israel: "Seek me and live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Don't fool around at those shrines of Bethel, Don't waste time taking trips to Gilgal, and don't bother going down to Beer-sheba. Gilgal is here today and gone tomorrow and Bethel is all show, no substance."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So seek GOD and live! You don't want to end up with nothing to show for your life But a pile of ashes, a house burned to the ground. For God will send just such a fire, and the firefighters will show up too late.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Woe to you who turn justice to vinegar and stomp righteousness into the mud.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Do you realize where you are? You're in a cosmos star-flung with constellations by God, A world God wakes up each morning and puts to bed each night. God dips water from the ocean and gives the land a drink. GOD, God-revealed, does all this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And he can destroy it as easily as make it. He can turn this vast wonder into total waste.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> People hate this kind of talk. Raw truth is never popular.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But here it is, bluntly spoken: Because you run roughshod over the poor and take the bread right out of their mouths, You're never going to move into the luxury homes you have built. You're never going to drink wine from the expensive vineyards you've planted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I know precisely the extent of your violations, the enormity of your sins. Appalling! You bully right-living people, taking bribes right and left and kicking the poor when they're down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Justice is a lost cause. Evil is epidemic. Decent people throw up their hands. Protest and rebuke are useless, a waste of breath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Seek good and not evil-- and live! You talk about GOD, the God-of-the-Angel-Armies, being your best friend. Well, live like it, and maybe it will happen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Hate evil and love good, then work it out in the public square. Maybe GOD, the God-of-the-Angel-Armies, will notice your remnant and be gracious.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Now again, my Master's Message, GOD, God-of-the-Angel-Armies: "Go out into the streets and lament loudly! Fill the malls and shops with cries of doom! Weep loudly, 'Not me! Not us, Not now!' Empty offices, stores, factories, workplaces. Enlist everyone in the general lament.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I want to hear it loud and clear when I make my visit." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Woe to all of you who want GOD's Judgment Day! Why would you want to see GOD, want him to come? When GOD comes, it will be bad news before it's good news, the worst of times, not the best of times.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Here's what it's like: A man runs from a lion right into the jaws of a bear. A woman goes home after a hard day's work and is raped by a neighbor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> At GOD's coming we face hard reality, not fantasy-- a black cloud with no silver lining.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "I can't stand your religious meetings. I'm fed up with your conferences and conventions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals. I'm sick of your fund-raising schemes, your public relations and image making.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> I've had all I can take of your noisy ego-music. When was the last time you sang to me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Do you know what I want? I want justice--oceans of it. I want fairness--rivers of it. That's what I want. That's all I want.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "Didn't you, dear family of Israel, worship me faithfully for forty years in the wilderness, bringing the sacrifices and offerings I commanded?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> How is it you've stooped to dragging gimcrack statues of your so-called rulers around, hauling the cheap images of all your star-gods here and there?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Since you like them so much, you can take them with you when I drive you into exile beyond Damascus." GOD's Message, God-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Woe to you who think you live on easy street in Zion, who think Mount Samaria is the good life. You assume you're at the top of the heap, voted the number-one best place to live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Well, wake up and look around. Get off your pedestal. Take a look at Calneh. Go and visit Great Hamath. Look in on Gath of the Philistines. Doesn't that take you off your high horse? Compared to them, you're not much, are you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Woe to you who are rushing headlong to disaster! Catastrophe is just around the corner!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Woe to those who live in luxury and expect everyone else to serve them!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Woe to those who live only for today, indifferent to the fate of others! Woe to the playboys, the playgirls, who think life is a party held just for them!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Woe to those addicted to feeling good--life without pain! those obsessed with looking good--life without wrinkles! They could not care less about their country going to ruin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But here's what's really coming: a forced march into exile. They'll leave the country whining, a rag-tag bunch of good-for-nothings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD, the Master, has sworn, and solemnly stands by his Word. The God-of-the-Angel-Armies speaks: "I hate the arrogance of Jacob. I have nothing but contempt for his forts. I'm about to hand over the city and everyone in it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Ten men are in a house, all dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> A relative comes and gets the bodies to prepare them for a decent burial. He discovers a survivor huddled in a closet and asks, "Are there any more?" The answer: "Not a soul. But hush! GOD must not be mentioned in this desecrated place."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Note well: GOD issues the orders. He'll knock large houses to smithereens. He'll smash little houses to bits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Do you hold a horse race in a field of rocks? Do you plow the sea with oxen? You'd cripple the horses and drown the oxen. And yet you've made a shambles of justice, a bloated corpse of righteousness,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Bragging of your trivial pursuits, beating up on the weak and crowing, "Look what I've done!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Enjoy it while you can, you Israelites. I've got a pagan army on the move against you" --this is your GOD speaking, God-of-the-Angel-Armies-- "And they'll make hash of you, from one end of the country to the other."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD, my Master, showed me this vision: He was preparing a locust swarm. The first cutting, which went to the king, was complete, and the second crop was just sprouting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The locusts ate everything green. Not even a blade of grass was left. I called out, "GOD, my Master! Excuse me, but what's going to come of Jacob? He's so small."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> GOD gave in. "It won't happen," he said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD showed me this vision: Oh! GOD, my Master GOD was calling up a firestorm. It burned up the ocean. Then it burned up the Promised Land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I said, "God, my Master! Hold it--please! What's going to come of Jacob? He's so small."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD gave in. "All right, this won't happen either," GOD, my Master, said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD showed me this vision: My Master was standing beside a wall. In his hand he held a plumb line.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD said to me, "What do you see, Amos?" I said, "A plumb line." Then my Master said, "Look what I've done. I've hung a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel. I've spared them for the last time. This is it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Isaac's sex-and-religion shrines will be smashed, Israel's unholy shrines will be knocked to pieces. I'm raising my sword against the royal family of Jeroboam.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Amaziah, priest at the shrine at Bethel, sent a message to Jeroboam, king of Israel: "Amos is plotting to get rid of you; and he's doing it as an insider, working from within Israel. His talk will destroy the country. He's got to be silenced. Do you know what Amos is saying?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Jeroboam will be killed. Israel is headed for exile."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then Amaziah confronted Amos: "Seer, be on your way! Get out of here and go back to Judah where you came from!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Hang out there. Do your preaching there. But no more preaching at Bethel! Don't show your face here again. This is the king's chapel. This is a royal shrine."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But Amos stood up to Amaziah: "I never set up to be a preacher, never had plans to be a preacher. I raised cattle and I pruned trees.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Then GOD took me off the farm and said, 'Go preach to my people Israel.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "So listen to GOD's Word. You tell me, 'Don't preach to Israel. Don't say anything against the family of Isaac.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But here's what GOD is telling you: Your wife will become a whore in town. Your children will get killed. Your land will be auctioned off. You will die homeless and friendless. And Israel will be hauled off to exile, far from home."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> My Master GOD showed me this vision: A bowl of fresh fruit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He said, "What do you see, Amos?" I said, "A bowl of fresh, ripe fruit." GOD said, "Right. So, I'm calling it quits with my people Israel. I'm no longer acting as if everything is just fine."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "The royal singers will wail when it happens." My Master GOD said so. "Corpses will be strewn here, there, and everywhere. Hush!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Listen to this, you who walk all over the weak, you who treat poor people as less than nothing,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Who say, "When's my next paycheck coming so I can go out and live it up? How long till the weekend when I can go out and have a good time?" Who give little and take much, and never do an honest day's work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> You exploit the poor, using them-- and then, when they're used up, you discard them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD swears against the arrogance of Jacob: "I'm keeping track of their every last sin."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> God's oath will shake earth's foundations, dissolve the whole world into tears. God's oath will sweep in like a river that rises, flooding houses and lands, And then recedes, leaving behind a sea of mud.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "On Judgment Day, watch out!" These are the words of GOD, my Master. "I'll turn off the sun at noon. In the middle of the day the earth will go black.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I'll turn your parties into funerals and make every song you sing a dirge. Everyone will walk around in rags, with sunken eyes and bald heads. Think of the worst that could happen --your only son, say, murdered. That's a hint of Judgment Day --that and much more.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Oh yes, Judgment Day is coming!" These are the words of my Master GOD. "I'll send a famine through the whole country. It won't be food or water that's lacking, but my Word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> People will drift from one end of the country to the other, roam to the north, wander to the east. They'll go anywhere, listen to anyone, hoping to hear GOD's Word--but they won't hear it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "On Judgment Day, lovely young girls will faint of Word-thirst, robust young men will faint of God-thirst,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Along with those who take oaths at the Samaria Sin-and-Sex Center, saying, 'As the lord god of Dan is my witness!' and 'The lady goddess of Beer-sheba bless you!' Their lives will fall to pieces. They'll never put it together again."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I saw my Master standing beside the altar at the shrine. He said: "Hit the tops of the shrine's pillars, make the floor shake. The roof's about to fall on the heads of the people, and whoever's still alive, I'll kill. No one will get away, no runaways will make it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> If they dig their way down into the underworld, I'll find them and bring them up. If they climb to the stars, I'll find them and bring them down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> If they hide out at the top of Mount Carmel, I'll find them and bring them back. If they dive to the bottom of the ocean, I'll send Dragon to swallow them up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> If they're captured alive by their enemies, I'll send Sword to kill them. I've made up my mind to hurt them, not help them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> My Master, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, touches the earth, a mere touch, and it trembles. The whole world goes into mourning. Earth swells like the Nile at flood stage; then the water subsides, like the great Nile of Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> God builds his palace--towers soaring high in the skies, foundations set on the rock-firm earth. He calls ocean waters and they come, then he ladles them out on the earth. GOD, your God, does all this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Do you Israelites think you're any better than the far-off Cushites?" GOD's Decree. "Am I not involved with all nations? Didn't I bring Israel up from Egypt, the Philistines from Caphtor, the Arameans from Qir?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But you can be sure that I, GOD, the Master, have my eye on the Kingdom of Sin. I'm going to wipe it off the face of the earth. Still, I won't totally destroy the family of Jacob." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "I'm still giving the orders around here. I'm throwing Israel into a sieve among all the nations and shaking them good, shaking out all the sin, all the sinners. No real grain will be lost,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> but all the sinners will be sifted out and thrown away, the people who say, 'Nothing bad will ever happen in our lifetime. It won't even come close.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "But also on that Judgment Day I will restore David's house that has fallen to pieces. I'll repair the holes in the roof, replace the broken windows, fix it up like new. David's people will be strong again</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> and seize what's left of enemy Edom, plus everyone else under my sovereign judgment." GOD's Decree. He will do this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Yes indeed, it won't be long now." GOD's Decree. "Things are going to happen so fast your head will swim, one thing fast on the heels of the other. You won't be able to keep up. Everything will be happening at once--and everywhere you look, blessings! Blessings like wine pouring off the mountains and hills.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'll make everything right again for my people Israel: "They'll rebuild their ruined cities. They'll plant vineyards and drink good wine. They'll work their gardens and eat fresh vegetables.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And I'll plant them, plant them on their own land. They'll never again be uprooted from the land I've given them." GOD, your God, says so.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="31" bname="Obadiah">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Obadiah's Message to Edom from GOD, the Master. We got the news straight from GOD by a special messenger sent out to the godless nations: "On your feet, prepare for battle; get ready to make war on Edom!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Listen to this, Edom: I'm turning you to a no-account, the runt of the godless nations, despised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You thought you were so great, perched high among the rocks, king of the mountain, Thinking to yourself, 'Nobody can get to me! Nobody can touch me!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Think again. Even if, like an eagle, you hang out on a high cliff-face, Even if you build your nest in the stars, I'll bring you down to earth." GOD's sure Word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "If thieves crept up on you, they'd rob you blind--isn't that so? If they mugged you on the streets at night, they'd pick you clean--isn't that so?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Oh, they'll take Esau apart, piece by piece, empty his purse and pockets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> All your old partners will drive you to the edge. Your old friends will lie to your face. Your old drinking buddies will stab you in the back. Your world will collapse. You won't know what hit you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> So don't be surprised"--it's GOD's sure Word!-- "when I wipe out all sages from Edom and rid the Esau mountains of its famous wise men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Your great heroes will desert you, Teman. There'll be nobody left in Esau's mountains.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Because of the murderous history compiled against your brother Jacob, You will be looked down on by everyone. You'll lose your place in history.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> On that day you stood there and didn't do anything. Strangers took your brother's army into exile. Godless foreigners invaded and pillaged Jerusalem. You stood there and watched. You were as bad as they were.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> You shouldn't have gloated over your brother when he was down-and-out. You shouldn't have laughed and joked at Judah's sons when they were facedown in the mud. You shouldn't have talked so big when everything was so bad.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You shouldn't have taken advantage of my people when their lives had fallen apart. You of all people should not have been amused by their troubles, their wrecked nation. You shouldn't have taken the shirt off their back when they were knocked flat, defenseless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And you shouldn't have stood waiting at the outskirts and cut off refugees, And traitorously turned in helpless survivors who had lost everything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "GOD's Judgment Day is near for all the godless nations. As you have done, it will be done to you. What you did will boomerang back and hit your own head.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Just as you partied on my holy mountain, all the godless nations will drink God's wrath. They'll drink and drink and drink-- they'll drink themselves to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But not so on Mount Zion--there's respite there! a safe and holy place! The family of Jacob will take back their possessions from those who took them from them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> That's when the family of Jacob will catch fire, the family of Joseph become fierce flame, while the family of Esau will be straw. Esau will go up in flames, nothing left of Esau but a pile of ashes." GOD said it, and it is so.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> People from the south will take over the Esau mountains; people from the foothills will overrun the Philistines. They'll take the farms of Ephraim and Samaria, and Benjamin will take Gilead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Earlier, Israelite exiles will come back and take Canaanite land to the north at Zarephath. Jerusalem exiles from the far northwest in Sepharad will come back and take the cities in the south.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The remnant of the saved in Mount Zion will go into the mountains of Esau And rule justly and fairly, a rule that honors GOD's kingdom.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="32" bname="Jonah">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> One day long ago, GOD's Word came to Jonah, Amittai's son:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They're in a bad way and I can't ignore it any longer."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But Jonah got up and went the other direction to Tarshish, running away from GOD. He went down to the port of Joppa and found a ship headed for Tarshish. He paid the fare and went on board, joining those going to Tarshish--as far away from GOD as he could get.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But GOD sent a huge storm at sea, the waves towering. The ship was about to break into pieces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The sailors were terrified. They called out in desperation to their gods. They threw everything they were carrying overboard to lighten the ship. Meanwhile, Jonah had gone down into the hold of the ship to take a nap. He was sound asleep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The captain came to him and said, "What's this? Sleeping! Get up! Pray to your god! Maybe your god will see we're in trouble and rescue us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Then the sailors said to one another, "Let's get to the bottom of this. Let's draw straws to identify the culprit on this ship who's responsible for this disaster." So they drew straws. Jonah got the short straw.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then they grilled him: "Confess. Why this disaster? What is your work? Where do you come from? What country? What family?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He told them, "I'm a Hebrew. I worship GOD, the God of heaven who made sea and land."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> At that, the men were frightened, really frightened, and said, "What on earth have you done!" As Jonah talked, the sailors realized that he was running away from GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They said to him, "What are we going to do with you--to get rid of this storm?" By this time the sea was wild, totally out of control.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Jonah said, "Throw me overboard, into the sea. Then the storm will stop. It's all my fault. I'm the cause of the storm. Get rid of me and you'll get rid of the storm."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But no. The men tried rowing back to shore. They made no headway. The storm only got worse and worse, wild and raging.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Then they prayed to GOD, "O GOD! Don't let us drown because of this man's life, and don't blame us for his death. You are GOD. Do what you think is best."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They took Jonah and threw him overboard. Immediately the sea was quieted down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The sailors were impressed, no longer terrified by the sea, but in awe of GOD. They worshiped GOD, offered a sacrifice, and made vows.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then GOD assigned a huge fish to swallow Jonah. Jonah was in the fish's belly three days and nights.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then Jonah prayed to his God from the belly of the fish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He prayed: "In trouble, deep trouble, I prayed to GOD. He answered me. From the belly of the grave I cried, 'Help!' You heard my cry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You threw me into ocean's depths, into a watery grave, With ocean waves, ocean breakers crashing over me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I said, 'I've been thrown away, thrown out, out of your sight. I'll never again lay eyes on your Holy Temple.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Ocean gripped me by the throat. The ancient Abyss grabbed me and held tight. My head was all tangled in seaweed</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> at the bottom of the sea where the mountains take root. I was as far down as a body can go, and the gates were slamming shut behind me forever-- Yet you pulled me up from that grave alive, O GOD, my God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When my life was slipping away, I remembered GOD, And my prayer got through to you, made it all the way to your Holy Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Those who worship hollow gods, god-frauds, walk away from their only true love.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But I'm worshiping you, GOD, calling out in thanksgiving! And I'll do what I promised I'd do! Salvation belongs to GOD!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then GOD spoke to the fish, and it vomited up Jonah on the seashore.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Next, GOD spoke to Jonah a second time:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They're in a bad way and I can't ignore it any longer."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> This time Jonah started off straight for Nineveh, obeying GOD's orders to the letter. Nineveh was a big city, very big--it took three days to walk across it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Jonah entered the city, went one day's walk and preached, "In forty days Nineveh will be smashed."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The people of Nineveh listened, and trusted God. They proclaimed a citywide fast and dressed in burlap to show their repentance. Everyone did it--rich and poor, famous and obscure, leaders and followers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When the message reached the king of Nineveh, he got up off his throne, threw down his royal robes, dressed in burlap, and sat down in the dirt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Then he issued a public proclamation throughout Nineveh, authorized by him and his leaders: "Not one drop of water, not one bite of food for man, woman, or animal, including your herds and flocks!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Dress them all, both people and animals, in burlap, and send up a cry for help to God. Everyone must turn around, turn back from an evil life and the violent ways that stain their hands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Who knows? Maybe God will turn around and change his mind about us, quit being angry with us and let us live!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> God saw what they had done, that they had turned away from their evil lives. He did change his mind about them. What he said he would do to them he didn't do.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Jonah was furious. He lost his temper.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He yelled at GOD, "GOD! I knew it--when I was back home, I knew this was going to happen! That's why I ran off to Tarshish! I knew you were sheer grace and mercy, not easily angered, rich in love, and ready at the drop of a hat to turn your plans of punishment into a program of forgiveness!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "So, GOD, if you won't kill them, kill me! I'm better off dead!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD said, "What do you have to be angry about?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But Jonah just left. He went out of the city to the east and sat down in a sulk. He put together a makeshift shelter of leafy branches and sat there in the shade to see what would happen to the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD arranged for a broad-leafed tree to spring up. It grew over Jonah to cool him off and get him out of his angry sulk. Jonah was pleased and enjoyed the shade. Life was looking up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But then God sent a worm. By dawn of the next day, the worm had bored into the shade tree and it withered away.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The sun came up and God sent a hot, blistering wind from the east. The sun beat down on Jonah's head and he started to faint. He prayed to die: "I'm better off dead!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then God said to Jonah, "What right do you have to get angry about this shade tree?" Jonah said, "Plenty of right. It's made me angry enough to die!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> GOD said, "What's this? How is it that you can change your feelings from pleasure to anger overnight about a mere shade tree that you did nothing to get? You neither planted nor watered it. It grew up one night and died the next night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> So, why can't I likewise change what I feel about Nineveh from anger to pleasure, this big city of more than a hundred and twenty thousand childlike people who don't yet know right from wrong, to say nothing of all the innocent animals?"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="33" bname="Micah">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message as it came to Micah of Moresheth. It came during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. It had to do with what was going on in Samaria and Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Listen, people--all of you. Listen, earth, and everyone in it: The Master, GOD, takes the witness stand against you, the Master from his Holy Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Look, here he comes! GOD, from his place! He comes down and strides across mountains and hills.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Mountains sink under his feet, valleys split apart; The rock mountains crumble into gravel, the river valleys leak like sieves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> All this because of Jacob's sin, because Israel's family did wrong. You ask, "So what is Jacob's sin?" Just look at Samaria--isn't it obvious? And all the sex-and-religion shrines in Judah-- isn't Jerusalem responsible?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "I'm turning Samaria into a heap of rubble, a vacant lot littered with garbage. I'll dump the stones from her buildings in the valley and leave her abandoned foundations exposed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> All her carved and cast gods and goddesses will be sold for stove wood and scrap metal, All her sacred fertility groves burned to the ground, All the sticks and stones she worshiped as gods, destroyed. These were her earnings from her life as a whore. This is what happens to the fees of a whore."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> This is why I lament and mourn. This is why I go around in rags and barefoot. This is why I howl like a pack of coyotes, and moan like a mournful owl in the night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD has inflicted punishing wounds; Judah has been wounded with no healing in sight. Judgment has marched through the city gates. Jerusalem must face the charges.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Don't gossip about this in Telltown. Don't waste your tears. In Dustville, roll in the dust.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> In Alarmtown, the alarm is sounded. The citizens of Exitburgh will never get out alive. Lament, Last-Stand City: There's nothing in you left standing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The villagers of Bittertown wait in vain for sweet peace. Harsh judgment has come from GOD and entered Peace City.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> All you who live in Chariotville, get in your chariots for flight. You led the daughter of Zion into trusting not God but chariots. Similar sins in Israel also got their start in you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Go ahead and give your good-bye gifts to Good-byeville. Miragetown beckoned but disappointed Israel's kings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Inheritance City has lost its inheritance. Glorytown has seen its last of glory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Shave your heads in mourning over the loss of your precious towns. Go bald as a goose egg--they've gone into exile and aren't coming back.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Doom to those who plot evil, who go to bed dreaming up crimes! As soon at it's morning, they're off, full of energy, doing what they've planned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They covet fields and grab them, find homes and take them. They bully the neighbor and his family, see people only for what they can get out of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> GOD has had enough. He says, "I have some plans of my own: Disaster because of this interbreeding evil! Your necks are on the line. You're not walking away from this. It's doomsday for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Mocking ballads will be sung of you, and you yourselves will sing the blues: 'Our lives are ruined, our homes and lands auctioned off. They take everything, leave us nothing! All is sold to the highest bidder.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And there'll be no one to stand up for you, no one to speak for you before GOD and his jury.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Don't preach," say the preachers. "Don't preach such stuff. Nothing bad will happen to us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Talk like this to the family of Jacob? Does GOD lose his temper? Is this the way he acts? Isn't he on the side of good people? Doesn't he help those who help themselves?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "What do you mean, 'good people'! You're the enemy of my people! You rob unsuspecting people out for an evening stroll. You take their coats off their backs like soldiers who plunder the defenseless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You drive the women of my people out of their ample homes. You make victims of the children and leave them vulnerable to violence and vice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Get out of here, the lot of you. You can't take it easy here! You've polluted this place, and now you're polluted--ruined!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> If someone showed up with a good smile and glib tongue and told lies from morning to night-- 'I'll preach sermons that will tell you how you can get anything you want from God: More money, the best wines . . . you name it'-- you'd hire him on the spot as your preacher!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "I'm calling a meeting, Jacob. I want everyone back--all the survivors of Israel. I'll get them together in one place-- like sheep in a fold, like cattle in a corral-- a milling throng of homebound people!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then I, GOD, will burst all confinements and lead them out into the open. They'll follow their King. I will be out in front leading them."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then I said: "Listen, leaders of Jacob, leaders of Israel: Don't you know anything of justice?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Haters of good, lovers of evil: Isn't justice in your job description? But you skin my people alive. You rip the meat off their bones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You break up the bones, chop the meat, and throw it in a pot for cannibal stew."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The time's coming, though, when these same leaders will cry out for help to GOD, but he won't listen. He'll turn his face the other way because of their history of evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Here is GOD's Message to the prophets, the preachers who lie to my people: "For as long as they're well paid and well fed, the prophets preach, 'Isn't life wonderful! Peace to all!' But if you don't pay up and jump on their bandwagon, their 'God bless you' turns into 'God damn you.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Therefore, you're going blind. You'll see nothing. You'll live in deep shadows and know nothing. The sun has set on the prophets. They've had their day; from now on it's night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Visionaries will be confused, experts will be all mixed up. They'll hide behind their reputations and make lame excuses to cover up their God-ignorance."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But me--I'm filled with GOD's power, filled with GOD's Spirit of justice and strength, Ready to confront Jacob's crime and Israel's sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The leaders of Jacob and the leaders of Israel are Leaders contemptuous of justice, who twist and distort right living,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Leaders who build Zion by killing people, who expand Jerusalem by committing crimes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Judges sell verdicts to the highest bidder, priests mass-market their teaching, prophets preach for high fees, All the while posturing and pretending dependence on GOD: "We've got GOD on our side. He'll protect us from disaster."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Because of people like you, Zion will be turned back into farmland, Jerusalem end up as a pile of rubble, and instead of the Temple on the mountain, a few scraggly scrub pines.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> But when all is said and done, GOD's Temple on the mountain, Firmly fixed, will dominate all mountains, towering above surrounding hills. People will stream to it</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> and many nations set out for it, Saying, "Come, let's climb GOD's mountain. Let's go to the Temple of Jacob's God. He will teach us how to live. We'll know how to live God's way." True teaching will issue from Zion, GOD's revelation from Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He'll establish justice in the rabble of nations and settle disputes in faraway places. They'll trade in their swords for shovels, their spears for rakes and hoes. Nations will quit fighting each other, quit learning how to kill one another.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Each man will sit under his own shade tree, each woman in safety will tend her own garden. GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies says so, and he means what he says.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Meanwhile, all the other people live however they wish, picking and choosing their gods. But we live honoring GOD, and we're loyal to our God forever and ever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "On that great day," GOD says, "I will round up all the hurt and homeless, everyone I have bruised or banished.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I will transform the battered into a company of the elite. I will make a strong nation out of the long lost, A showcase exhibit of GOD's rule in action, as I rule from Mount Zion, from here to eternity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "And you stragglers around Jerusalem, eking out a living in shantytowns: The glory that once was will be again. Jerusalem's daughter will be the kingdom center."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So why the doomsday hysterics? You still have a king, don't you? But maybe he's not doing his job and you're panicked like a woman in labor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Well, go ahead--twist and scream, Daughter Jerusalem. You are like a woman in childbirth. You'll soon be out of the city, on your way and camping in the open country. And then you'll arrive in Babylon. What you lost in Jerusalem will be found in Babylon. GOD will give you new life again. He'll redeem you from your enemies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But for right now, they're ganged up against you, many godless peoples, saying, "Kick her when she's down! Violate her! We want to see Zion grovel in the dirt."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> These blasphemers have no idea what GOD is thinking and doing in this. They don't know that this is the making of GOD's people, that they are wheat being threshed, gold being refined.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> On your feet, Daughter of Zion! Be threshed of chaff, be refined of dross. I'm remaking you into a people invincible, into God's juggernaut to crush the godless peoples. You'll bring their plunder as holy offerings to GOD, their wealth to the Master of the earth.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> But for now, prepare for the worst, victim daughter! The siege is set against us. They humiliate Israel's king, slapping him around like a rag doll.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> But you, Bethlehem, David's country, the runt of the litter-- From you will come the leader who will shepherd-rule Israel. He'll be no upstart, no pretender. His family tree is ancient and distinguished.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Meanwhile, Israel will be in foster homes until the birth pangs are over and the child is born, And the scattered brothers come back home to the family of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He will stand tall in his shepherd-rule by GOD's strength, centered in the majesty of GOD-Revealed. And the people will have a good and safe home, for the whole world will hold him in respect-- Peacemaker of the world!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And if some bullying Assyrian shows up, invades and violates our land, don't worry. We'll put him in his place, send him packing, and watch his every move.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Shepherd-rule will extend as far as needed, to Assyria and all other Nimrod-bullies. Our shepherd-ruler will save us from old or new enemies, from anyone who invades or violates our land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The purged and select company of Jacob will be like an island in the sea of peoples. They'll be like dew from GOD, like summer showers Not mentioned in the weather forecast, not subject to calculation or control.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Yes, the purged and select company of Jacob will be like an island in the sea of peoples, Like the king of beasts among wild beasts, like a young lion loose in a flock of sheep, Killing and devouring the lambs and no one able to stop him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> With your arms raised in triumph over your foes, your enemies will be no more!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "The day is coming" --GOD's Decree-- "When there will be no more war. None. I'll slaughter your war horses and demolish your chariots.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I'll dismantle military posts and level your fortifications.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I'll abolish your religious black markets, your underworld traffic in black magic.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I will smash your carved and cast gods and chop down your phallic posts. No more taking control of the world, worshiping what you do or make.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'll root out your sacred sex-and-power centers and destroy the God-defiant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> In raging anger, I'll make a clean sweep of godless nations who haven't listened."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Listen now, listen to GOD: "Take your stand in court. If you have a complaint, tell the mountains; make your case to the hills.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> And now, Mountains, hear GOD's case; listen, Jury Earth-- For I am bringing charges against my people. I am building a case against Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Dear people, how have I done you wrong? Have I burdened you, worn you out? Answer!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I delivered you from a bad life in Egypt; I paid a good price to get you out of slavery. I sent Moses to lead you-- and Aaron and Miriam to boot!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Remember what Balak king of Moab tried to pull, and how Balaam son of Beor turned the tables on him. Remember all those stories about Shittim and Gilgal. Keep all GOD's salvation stories fresh and present."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> How can I stand up before GOD and show proper respect to the high God? Should I bring an armload of offerings topped off with yearling calves?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Would GOD be impressed with thousands of rams, with buckets and barrels of olive oil? Would he be moved if I sacrificed my firstborn child, my precious baby, to cancel my sin?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But he's already made it plain how to live, what to do, what GOD is looking for in men and women. It's quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, And don't take yourself too seriously-- take God seriously.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Attention! GOD calls out to the city! If you know what's good for you, you'll listen. So listen, all of you! This is serious business.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Do you expect me to overlook obscene wealth you've piled up by cheating and fraud?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Do you think I'll tolerate shady deals and shifty scheming?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I'm tired of the violent rich bullying their way with bluffs and lies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I'm fed up. Beginning now, you're finished. You'll pay for your sins down to your last cent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> No matter how much you get, it will never be enough-- hollow stomachs, empty hearts. No matter how hard you work, you'll have nothing to show for it-- bankrupt lives, wasted souls.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> You'll plant grass but never get a lawn. You'll make jelly but never spread it on your bread. You'll press apples but never drink the cider.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> You have lived by the standards of your king, Omri, the decadent lifestyle of the family of Ahab. Because you've slavishly followed their fashions, I'm forcing you into bankruptcy. Your way of life will be laughed at, a tasteless joke. Your lives will be derided as futile and fake."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I'm overwhelmed with sorrow! sunk in a swamp of despair! I'm like someone who goes to the garden to pick cabbages and carrots and corn And returns empty-handed, finds nothing for soup or sandwich or salad.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> There's not a decent person in sight. Right-living humans are extinct. They're all out for one another's blood, animals preying on each other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They've all become experts in evil. Corrupt leaders demand bribes. The powerful rich make sure they get what they want.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The best and brightest are thistles. The top of the line is crabgrass. But no longer: It's exam time. Look at them slinking away in disgrace!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Don't trust your neighbor, don't confide in your friend. Watch your words, even with your spouse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Neighborhoods and families are falling to pieces. The closer they are--sons, daughters, in-laws-- The worse they can be. Your own family is the enemy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But me, I'm not giving up. I'm sticking around to see what GOD will do. I'm waiting for God to make things right. I'm counting on God to listen to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Don't, enemy, crow over me. I'm down, but I'm not out. I'm sitting in the dark right now, but GOD is my light.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I can take GOD's punishing rage. I deserve it--I sinned. But it's not forever. He's on my side and is going to get me out of this. He'll turn on the lights and show me his ways. I'll see the whole picture and how right he is.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And my enemy will see it, too, and be discredited--yes, disgraced! This enemy who kept taunting, "So where is this GOD of yours?" I'm going to see it with these, my own eyes-- my enemy disgraced, trash in the gutter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Oh, that will be a day! A day for rebuilding your city, a day for stretching your arms, spreading your wings!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> All your dispersed and scattered people will come back, old friends and family from faraway places, From Assyria in the east to Egypt in the west, from across the seas and out of the mountains.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But there'll be a reversal for everyone else--massive depopulation-- because of the way they lived, the things they did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Shepherd, O GOD, your people with your staff, your dear and precious flock. Uniquely yours in a grove of trees, centered in lotus land. Let them graze in lush Bashan as in the old days in green Gilead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Reproduce the miracle-wonders of our exodus from Egypt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> And the godless nations: Put them in their place-- humiliated in their arrogance, speechless and clueless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Make them slink like snakes, crawl like cockroaches, come out of their holes from under their rocks And face our GOD. Fill them with holy fear and trembling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Where is the god who can compare with you-- wiping the slate clean of guilt, Turning a blind eye, a deaf ear, to the past sins of your purged and precious people? You don't nurse your anger and don't stay angry long, for mercy is your specialty. That's what you love most.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And compassion is on its way to us. You'll stamp out our wrongdoing. You'll sink our sins to the bottom of the ocean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> You'll stay true to your word to Father Jacob and continue the compassion you showed Grandfather Abraham-- Everything you promised our ancestors from a long time ago.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="34" bname="Nahum">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A report on the problem of Nineveh, the way God gave Nahum of Elkosh to see it:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD is serious business. He won't be trifled with. He avenges his foes. He stands up against his enemies, fierce and raging.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But GOD doesn't lose his temper. He's powerful, but it's a patient power. Still, no one gets by with anything. Sooner or later, everyone pays. Tornadoes and hurricanes are the wake of his passage, Storm clouds are the dust he shakes off his feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He yells at the sea: It dries up. All the rivers run dry. The Bashan and Carmel mountains shrivel, the Lebanon orchards shrivel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Mountains quake in their roots, hills dissolve into mud flats. Earth shakes in fear of GOD. The whole world's in a panic.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Who can face such towering anger? Who can stand up to this fierce rage? His anger spills out like a river of lava, his fury shatters boulders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> GOD is good, a hiding place in tough times. He recognizes and welcomes anyone looking for help,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> No matter how desperate the trouble. But cozy islands of escape He wipes right off the map. No one gets away from God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Why waste time conniving against GOD? He's putting an end to all such scheming. For troublemakers, no second chances.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Like a pile of dry brush, Soaked in oil, they'll go up in flames.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Nineveh's an anthill of evil plots against GOD, A think tank for lies that seduce and betray.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And GOD has something to say about all this: "Even though you're on top of the world, With all the applause and all the votes, you'll be mowed down flat. "I've afflicted you, Judah, true, but I won't afflict you again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> From now on I'm taking the yoke from your neck and splitting it up for kindling. I'm cutting you free from the ropes of your bondage."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> GOD's orders on Nineveh: "You're the end of the line. It's all over with Nineveh. I'm gutting your temple. Your gods and goddesses go in the trash. I'm digging your grave. It's an unmarked grave. You're nothing--no, you're less than nothing!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Look! Striding across the mountains-- a messenger bringing the latest good news: peace! A holiday, Judah! Celebrate! Worship and recommit to God! No more worries about this enemy. This one is history. Close the books.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The juggernaut's coming! Post guards, lay in supplies. Get yourselves together, get ready for the big battle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD has restored the Pride of Jacob, the Pride of Israel. Israel's lived through hard times. He's been to hell and back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Weapons flash in the sun, the soldiers splendid in battle dress, Chariots burnished and glistening, ready to charge, A spiked forest of brandished spears, lethal on the horizon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The chariots pour into the streets. They fill the public squares, Flaming like torches in the sun, like lightning darting and flashing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The Assyrian king rallies his men, but they stagger and stumble. They run to the ramparts to stem the tide, but it's too late.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Soldiers pour through the gates. The palace is demolished.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Soon it's all over: Nineveh stripped, Nineveh doomed, Maids and slaves moaning like doves, beating their breasts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Nineveh is a tub from which they've pulled the plug. Cries go up, "Do something! Do something!" but it's too late. Nineveh's soon empty--nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Other cries come: "Plunder the silver! Plunder the gold! A bonanza of plunder! Take everything you want!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Doom! Damnation! Desolation! Hearts sink, knees fold, stomachs retch, faces blanch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> So, what happened to the famous and fierce Assyrian lion And all those cute Assyrian cubs? To the lion and lioness Cozy with their cubs, fierce and fearless?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> To the lion who always returned from the hunt with fresh kills for lioness and cubs, The lion lair heaped with bloody meat, blood and bones for the royal lion feast?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Assyria, I'm your enemy," says GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies. "I'll torch your chariots. They'll go up in smoke. 'Lion Country' will be strewn with carcasses. The war business is over--you're out of work: You'll have no more wars to report, No more victories to announce. You're out of war work forever."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Doom to Murder City-- full of lies, bursting with loot, addicted to violence!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Horns blaring, wheels clattering, horses rearing, chariots lurching,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Horsemen galloping, brandishing swords and spears, Dead bodies rotting in the street, corpses stacked like cordwood, Bodies in every gutter and alley, clogging every intersection!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> And whores! Whores without end! Whore City, Fatally seductive, you're the Witch of Seduction, luring nations to their ruin with your evil spells.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "I'm your enemy, Whore Nineveh-- I, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies! I'll strip you of your seductive silk robes and expose you on the world stage. I'll let the nations get their fill of the ugly truth of who you really are and have been all along.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I'll pelt you with dog dung and place you on a pedestal: 'Slut on Exhibit.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Everyone who sees you will gag and say, 'Nineveh's a pigsty: What on earth did we ever see in her? Who would give her a second look? Ugh!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Do you think you're superior to Egyptian Thebes, proudly invincible on the River Nile, Protected by the great River, walled in by the River, secure?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Ethiopia stood guard to the south, Egypt to the north. Put and Libya, strong friends, were ready to step in and help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But you know what happened to her: The whole city was marched off to a refugee camp, Her babies smashed to death in public view on the streets, Her prize leaders auctioned off, her celebrities put in chain gangs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Expect the same treatment, Nineveh. You'll soon be staggering like a bunch of drunks, Wondering what hit you, looking for a place to sleep it off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> All your forts are like peach trees, the lush peaches ripe, ready for the picking. One shake of the tree and they fall straight into hungry mouths.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Face it: Your warriors are wimps. You're sitting ducks. Your borders are gaping doors, inviting your enemies in. And who's to stop them?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Store up water for the siege. Shore up your defenses. Get down to basics: Work the clay and make bricks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Sorry. Too late. Enemy fire will burn you up. Swords will cut you to pieces. You'll be chewed up as if by locusts. Yes, as if by locusts--a fitting fate, for you yourselves are a locust plague.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> You've multiplied shops and shopkeepers-- more buyers and sellers than stars in the sky! A plague of locusts, cleaning out the neighborhood and then flying off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Your bureaucrats are locusts, your brokers and bankers are locusts. Early on, they're all at your service, full of smiles and promises, But later when you return with questions or complaints, you'll find they've flown off and are nowhere to be found.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> King of Assyria! Your shepherd-leaders, in charge of caring for your people, Are busy doing everything else but. They're not doing their job, And your people are scattered and lost. There's no one to look after them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> You're past the point of no return. Your wound is fatal. When the story of your fate gets out, the whole world will applaud and cry "Encore!" Your cruel evil has seeped into every nook and cranny of the world. Everyone has felt it and suffered.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="35" bname="Habakkuk">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The problem as God gave Habakkuk to see it:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD, how long do I have to cry out for help before you listen? How many times do I have to yell, "Help! Murder! Police!" before you come to the rescue?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Why do you force me to look at evil, stare trouble in the face day after day? Anarchy and violence break out, quarrels and fights all over the place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Law and order fall to pieces. Justice is a joke. The wicked have the righteous hamstrung and stand justice on its head.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Look around at the godless nations. Look long and hard. Brace yourself for a shock. Something's about to take place and you're going to find it hard to believe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I'm about to raise up Babylonians to punish you, Babylonians, fierce and ferocious-- World-conquering Babylon, grabbing up nations right and left,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> A dreadful and terrible people, making up its own rules as it goes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Their horses run like the wind, attack like bloodthirsty wolves. A stampede of galloping horses thunders out of nowhere. They descend like vultures circling in on carrion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They're out to kill. Death is on their minds. They collect victims like squirrels gathering nuts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They mock kings, poke fun at generals, Spit on forts, and leave them in the dust.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They'll all be blown away by the wind. Brazen in sin, they call strength their god."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> GOD, you're from eternity, aren't you? Holy God, we aren't going to die, are we? GOD, you chose Babylonians for your judgment work? Rock-Solid God, you gave them the job of discipline?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But you can't be serious! You can't condone evil! So why don't you do something about this? Why are you silent now? This outrage! Evil men swallow up the righteous and you stand around and watch!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> You're treating men and women as so many fish in the ocean, Swimming without direction, swimming but not getting anywhere.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Then this evil Babylonian arrives and goes fishing. He pulls in a good catch. He catches his limit and fills his creel-- a good day of fishing! He's happy!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He praises his rod and reel, piles his fishing gear on an altar and worships it! It's made his day, and he's going to eat well tonight!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Are you going to let this go on and on? Will you let this Babylonian fisherman Fish like a weekend angler, killing people as if they're nothing but fish?</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> What's God going to say to my questions? I'm braced for the worst. I'll climb to the lookout tower and scan the horizon. I'll wait to see what God says, how he'll answer my complaint.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> And then GOD answered: "Write this. Write what you see. Write it out in big block letters so that it can be read on the run.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> This vision-message is a witness pointing to what's coming. It aches for the coming--it can hardly wait! And it doesn't lie. If it seems slow in coming, wait. It's on its way. It will come right on time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Look at that man, bloated by self-importance-- full of himself but soul-empty. But the person in right standing before God through loyal and steady believing is fully alive, really alive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Note well: Money deceives. The arrogant rich don't last. They are more hungry for wealth than the grave is for cadavers. Like death, they always want more, but the 'more' they get is dead bodies. They are cemeteries filled with dead nations, graveyards filled with corpses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Don't give people like this a second thought. Soon the whole world will be taunting them: "'Who do you think you are-- getting rich by stealing and extortion? How long do you think you can get away with this?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Indeed, how long before your victims wake up, stand up and make you the victim?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You've plundered nation after nation. Now you'll get a taste of your own medicine. All the survivors are out to plunder you, a payback for all your murders and massacres.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Who do you think you are-- recklessly grabbing and looting, Living it up, acting like king of the mountain, acting above it all, above trials and troubles?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You've engineered the ruin of your own house. In ruining others you've ruined yourself. You've undermined your foundations, rotted out your own soul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The bricks of your house will speak up and accuse you. The woodwork will step forward with evidence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Who do you think you are-- building a town by murder, a city with crime?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Don't you know that GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies makes sure nothing comes of that but ashes, Makes sure the harder you work at that kind of thing, the less you are?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Meanwhile the earth fills up with awareness of GOD's glory as the waters cover the sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Who do you think you are-- inviting your neighbors to your drunken parties, Giving them too much to drink, roping them into your sexual orgies?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> You thought you were having the time of your life. Wrong! It's a time of disgrace. All the time you were drinking, you were drinking from the cup of God's wrath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> You'll wake up holding your throbbing head, hung over-- hung over from Lebanon violence, Hung over from animal massacres, hung over from murder and mayhem, From multiple violations of place and people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "What's the use of a carved god so skillfully carved by its sculptor? What good is a fancy cast god when all it tells is lies? What sense does it make to be a pious god-maker who makes gods that can't even talk?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Who do you think you are-- saying to a stick of wood, 'Wake up,' Or to a dumb stone, 'Get up'? Can they teach you anything about anything? There's nothing to them but surface. There's nothing on the inside.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "But oh! GOD is in his holy Temple! Quiet everyone--a holy silence. Listen!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A prayer of the prophet Habakkuk, with orchestra:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD, I've heard what our ancestors say about you, and I'm stopped in my tracks, down on my knees. Do among us what you did among them. Work among us as you worked among them. And as you bring judgment, as you surely must, remember mercy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> God's on his way again, retracing the old salvation route, Coming up from the south through Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran. Skies are blazing with his splendor, his praises sounding through the earth,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> His cloud-brightness like dawn, exploding, spreading, forked-lightning shooting from his hand-- what power hidden in that fist!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Plague marches before him, pestilence at his heels!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He stops. He shakes Earth. He looks around. Nations tremble. The age-old mountains fall to pieces; ancient hills collapse like a spent balloon. The paths God takes are older than the oldest mountains and hills.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I saw everyone worried, in a panic: Old wilderness adversaries, Cushan and Midian, were terrified, hoping he wouldn't notice them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD, is it River you're mad at? Angry at old River? Were you raging at Sea when you rode horse and chariot through to salvation?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You unfurled your bow and let loose a volley of arrows. You split Earth with rivers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Mountains saw what was coming. They twisted in pain. Flood Waters poured in. Ocean roared and reared huge waves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Sun and Moon stopped in their tracks. Your flashing arrows stopped them, your lightning-strike spears impaled them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Angry, you stomped through Earth. Furious, you crushed the godless nations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You were out to save your people, to save your specially chosen people. You beat the stuffing out of King Wicked, Stripped him naked from head to toe,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Set his severed head on his own spear and blew away his army. Scattered they were to the four winds-- and ended up food for the sharks!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> You galloped through the Sea on your horses, racing on the crest of the waves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When I heard it, my stomach did flips. I stammered and stuttered. My bones turned to water. I staggered and stumbled. I sit back and wait for Doomsday to descend on our attackers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Though the cherry trees don't blossom and the strawberries don't ripen, Though the apples are worm-eaten and the wheat fields stunted, Though the sheep pens are sheepless and the cattle barns empty,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I'm singing joyful praise to GOD. I'm turning cartwheels of joy to my Savior God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Counting on GOD's Rule to prevail, I take heart and gain strength. I run like a deer. I feel like I'm king of the mountain! (For congregational use, with a full orchestra.)</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="36" bname="Zephaniah">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> GOD's Message to Zephaniah son of Cushi, son of Gedaliah, son of Amariah, son of Hezekiah. It came during the reign of Josiah son of Amon, who was king of Judah:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "I'm going to make a clean sweep of the earth, a thorough housecleaning." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Men and women and animals, including birds and fish-- Anything and everything that causes sin--will go, but especially people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "I'll start with Judah and everybody who lives in Jerusalem. I'll sweep the place clean of every trace of the sex-and-religion Baal shrines and their priests.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I'll get rid of the people who sneak up to their rooftops at night to worship the star gods and goddesses; Also those who continue to worship GOD but cover their bases by worshiping other king-gods as well;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Not to mention those who've dumped GOD altogether, no longer giving him a thought or offering a prayer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Quiet now! Reverent silence before me, GOD, the Master! Time's up. My Judgment Day is near: The Holy Day is all set, the invited guests made holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> On the Holy Day, GOD's Judgment Day, I will punish the leaders and the royal sons; I will punish those who dress up like foreign priests and priestesses,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Who introduce pagan prayers and practices; And I'll punish all who import pagan superstitions that turn holy places into hellholes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Judgment Day!" GOD's Decree! "Cries of panic from the city's Fish Gate, Cries of terror from the city's Second Quarter, sounds of great crashing from the hills!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Wail, you shopkeepers on Market Street! Moneymaking has had its day. The god Money is dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> On Judgment Day, I'll search through every closet and alley in Jerusalem. I'll find and punish those who are sitting it out, fat and lazy, amusing themselves and taking it easy, Who think, 'GOD doesn't do anything, good or bad. He isn't involved, so neither are we.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But just wait. They'll lose everything they have, money and house and land. They'll build a house and never move in. They'll plant vineyards and never taste the wine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "The Great Judgment Day of GOD is almost here. It's countdown time: . . . seven, six, five, four . . . Bitter and noisy cries on my Judgment Day, even strong men screaming for help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Judgment Day is payday--my anger paid out: a day of distress and anguish, a day of catastrophic doom, a day of darkness at noon, a day of black storm clouds,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> a day of bloodcurdling war cries, as forts are assaulted, as defenses are smashed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I'll make things so bad they won't know what hit them. They'll walk around groping like the blind. They've sinned against GOD! Their blood will be poured out like old dishwater, their guts shoveled into slop buckets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Don't plan on buying your way out. Your money is worthless for this. This is the Day of GOD's Judgment--my wrath! I care about sin with fiery passion-- A fire to burn up the corrupted world, a wildfire finish to the corrupting people."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> So get yourselves together. Shape up! You're a nation without a clue about what it wants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Do it before you're blown away like leaves in a windstorm, Before GOD's Judgment-anger sweeps down on you, Before GOD's Judgment Day wrath descends with full force.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Seek GOD, all you quietly disciplined people who live by GOD's justice. Seek GOD's right ways. Seek a quiet and disciplined life. Perhaps you'll be hidden on the Day of GOD's anger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Gaza is scheduled for demolition, Ashdod will be cleaned out by high noon, Ekron pulled out by the roots.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Doom to the seaside people, the seafaring people from Crete! The Word of GOD is bad news for you who settled Canaan, the Philistine country: "You're slated for destruction-- no survivors!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The lands of the seafarers will become pastureland, A country for shepherds and sheep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> What's left of the family of Judah will get it. Day after day they'll pasture by the sea, and go home in the evening to Ashkelon to sleep. Their very own GOD will look out for them. He'll make things as good as before.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "I've heard the crude taunts of Moab, the mockeries flung by Ammon, The cruel talk they've used to put down my people, their self-important strutting along Israel's borders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Therefore, as sure as I am the living God," says GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, Israel's personal God, "Moab will become a ruin like Sodom, Ammon a ghost town like Gomorrah, One a field of rocks, the other a sterile salt flat, a moonscape forever. What's left of my people will finish them off, will pick them clean and take over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> This is what they get for their bloated pride, their taunts and mockeries of the people of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> GOD will be seen as truly terrible--a Holy Terror. All earth-made gods will shrivel up and blow away; And everyone, wherever they are, far or near, will fall to the ground and worship him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Also you Ethiopians, you too will die--I'll see to it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then GOD will reach into the north and destroy Assyria. He will waste Nineveh, leave her dry and treeless as a desert.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The ghost town of a city, the haunt of wild animals, Nineveh will be home to raccoons and coyotes-- they'll bed down in its ruins. Owls will hoot in the windows, ravens will croak in the doorways-- all that fancy woodwork now a perch for birds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Can this be the famous Fun City that had it made, That boasted, "I'm the Number-One City! I'm King of the Mountain!" So why is the place deserted, a lair for wild animals? Passersby hardly give it a look; they dismiss it with a gesture.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Doom to the rebellious city, the home of oppressors--Sewer City!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The city that wouldn't take advice, wouldn't accept correction, Wouldn't trust GOD, wouldn't even get close to her own god!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Her very own leaders are rapacious lions, Her judges are rapacious timber wolves out every morning prowling for a fresh kill.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Her prophets are out for what they can get. They're opportunists--you can't trust them. Her priests desecrate the Sanctuary. They use God's law as a weapon to maim and kill souls.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Yet GOD remains righteous in her midst, untouched by the evil. He stays at it, day after day, meting out justice. At evening he's still at it, strong as ever. But evil men and women, without conscience and without shame, persist in evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "So I cut off the godless nations. I knocked down their defense posts, Filled her roads with rubble so no one could get through. Her cities were bombed-out ruins, unlivable and unlived in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "I thought, 'Surely she'll honor me now, accept my discipline and correction, Find a way of escape from the trouble she's in, find relief from the punishment I'm bringing.' But it didn't faze her. Bright and early she was up at it again, doing the same old things.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Well, if that's what you want, stick around." GOD's Decree. "Your day in court is coming, but remember I'll be there to bring evidence. I'll bring all the nations to the courtroom, round up all the kingdoms, And let them feel the brunt of my anger, my raging wrath. My zeal is a fire that will purge and purify the earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "In the end I will turn things around for the people. I'll give them a language undistorted, unpolluted, Words to address GOD in worship and, united, to serve me with their shoulders to the wheel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They'll come from beyond the Ethiopian rivers, they'll come praying-- All my scattered, exiled people will come home with offerings for worship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> You'll no longer have to be ashamed of all those acts of rebellion. I'll have gotten rid of your arrogant leaders. No more pious strutting on my holy hill!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I'll leave a core of people among you who are poor in spirit-- What's left of Israel that's really Israel. They'll make their home in GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> This core holy people will not do wrong. They won't lie, won't use words to flatter or seduce. Content with who they are and where they are, unanxious, they'll live at peace."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> So sing, Daughter Zion! Raise the rafters, Israel! Daughter Jerusalem, be happy! celebrate!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> GOD has reversed his judgments against you and sent your enemies off chasing their tails. From now on, GOD is Israel's king, in charge at the center. There's nothing to fear from evil ever again!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Jerusalem will be told: "Don't be afraid. Dear Zion, don't despair.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Your GOD is present among you, a strong Warrior there to save you. Happy to have you back, he'll calm you with his love and delight you with his songs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "The accumulated sorrows of your exile will dissipate. I, your God, will get rid of them for you. You've carried those burdens long enough.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> At the same time, I'll get rid of all those who've made your life miserable. I'll heal the maimed; I'll bring home the homeless. In the very countries where they were hated they will be venerated.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> On Judgment Day I'll bring you back home--a great family gathering! You'll be famous and honored all over the world. You'll see it with your own eyes-- all those painful partings turned into reunions!" GOD's Promise.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="37" bname="Haggai">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> On the first day of the sixth month of the second year in the reign of King Darius of Persia, GOD's Message was delivered by the prophet Haggai to the governor of Judah, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, and to the high priest, Joshua son of Jehozadak:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> A Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies: "The people procrastinate. They say this isn't the right time to rebuild my Temple, the Temple of GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Shortly after that, GOD said more and Haggai spoke it:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "How is it that it's the 'right time' for you to live in your fine new homes while the Home, GOD's Temple, is in ruins?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And then a little later, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies spoke out again: "Take a good, hard look at your life. Think it over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> You have spent a lot of money, but you haven't much to show for it. You keep filling your plates, but you never get filled up. You keep drinking and drinking and drinking, but you're always thirsty. You put on layer after layer of clothes, but you can't get warm. And the people who work for you, what are they getting out of it? Not much-- a leaky, rusted-out bucket, that's what.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> That's why GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies said: "Take a good, hard look at your life. Think it over."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then GOD said: "Here's what I want you to do: Climb into the hills and cut some timber. Bring it down and rebuild the Temple. Do it just for me. Honor me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You've had great ambitions for yourselves, but nothing has come of it. The little you have brought to my Temple I've blown away--there was nothing to it. "And why?" (This is a Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, remember.) "Because while you've run around, caught up with taking care of your own houses, my Home is in ruins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> That's why. Because of your stinginess. And so I've given you a dry summer and a skimpy crop.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I've matched your tight-fisted stinginess by decreeing a season of drought, drying up fields and hills, withering gardens and orchards, stunting vegetables and fruit. Nothing--not man or woman, not animal or crop--is going to thrive."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then the governor, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, and the high priest, Joshua son of Jehozadak, and all the people with them listened, really listened, to the voice of their GOD. When GOD sent the prophet Haggai to them, they paid attention to him. In listening to Haggai, they honored GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then Haggai, GOD's messenger, preached GOD's Message to the people: "I am with you!" GOD's Word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> This is how GOD got Zerubbabel, Joshua, and all the people moving--got them working on the Temple of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> This happened on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month in the second year of King Darius.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> On the twenty-first day of the seventh month, the Word of GOD came through the prophet Haggai: "Tell Governor Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and High Priest Joshua son of Jehozadak</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> and all the people:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> 'Is there anyone here who saw the Temple the way it used to be, all glorious? And what do you see now? Not much, right?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "'So get to work, Zerubbabel!'--GOD is speaking. "'Get to work, Joshua son of Jehozadak--high priest!' "'Get to work, all you people!'--GOD is speaking. "'Yes, get to work! For I am with you.' The GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies is speaking!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> 'Put into action the word I covenanted with you when you left Egypt. I'm living and breathing among you right now. Don't be timid. Don't hold back.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "This is what GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies said: 'Before you know it, I will shake up sky and earth, ocean and fields.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And I'll shake down all the godless nations. They'll bring bushels of wealth and I will fill this Temple with splendor.' GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies says so.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> 'I own the silver, I own the gold.' Decree of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "'This Temple is going to end up far better than it started out, a glorious beginning but an even more glorious finish: a place in which I will hand out wholeness and holiness.' Decree of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month (again, this was in the second year of Darius), GOD's Message came to Haggai:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies speaks: Consult the priests for a ruling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> If someone carries a piece of sacred meat in his pocket, meat that is set apart for sacrifice on the altar, and the pocket touches a loaf of bread, a dish of stew, a bottle of wine or oil, or any other food, will these foods be made holy by such contact?" The priests said, "No."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then Haggai said, "How about someone who is contaminated by touching a corpse--if that person touches one of these foods, will it be contaminated?" The priests said, "Yes, it will be contaminated."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Then Haggai said, "'So, this people is contaminated. Their nation is contaminated. Everything they do is contaminated. Whatever they do for me is contaminated.' GOD says so.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "'Think back. Before you set out to lay the first foundation stones for the rebuilding of my Temple,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> how did it go with you? Isn't it true that your foot-dragging, halfhearted efforts at rebuilding the Temple of GOD were reflected in a sluggish, halfway return on your crops--half the grain you were used to getting, half the wine?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I hit you with drought and blight and hail. Everything you were doing got hit. But it didn't seem to faze you. You continued to ignore me.' GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "'Now think ahead from this same date--this twenty-fourth day of the ninth month. Think ahead from when the Temple rebuilding was launched.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Has anything in your fields--vine, fig tree, pomegranate, olive tree--failed to flourish? From now on you can count on a blessing.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> GOD's Message came a second time to Haggai on that most memorable day, the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Speak to Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah: "'I am about to shake up everything, to turn everything upside down and start over from top to bottom--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> overthrow governments, destroy foreign powers, dismantle the world of weapons and armaments, throw armies into confusion, so that they end up killing one another.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> And on that day'"--this is GOD's Message--"'I will take you, O Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, as my personal servant and I will set you as a signet ring, the sign of my sovereign presence and authority. I've looked over the field and chosen you for this work.'" The Message of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="38" bname="Zechariah">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the eighth month of the second year in the reign of Darius, GOD's Message came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berechiah, son of Iddo:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "GOD was very angry with your ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> So give to the people this Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies: 'Come back to me and I'll come back to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Don't be like your parents. The old-time prophets called out to them, "A Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies: Leave your evil life. Quit your evil practices." But they ignored everything I said to them, stubbornly refused to listen.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "And where are your ancestors now? Dead and buried. And the prophets who preached to them? Also dead and buried. But the Message that my servants the prophets spoke, that isn't dead and buried.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> That Message did its work on your ancestors, did it not? It woke them up and they came back, saying, 'He did what he said he would do, sure enough. We didn't get by with a thing.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month in the second year of the reign of Darius, the Message of GOD was given to the prophet Zechariah son of Berechiah, son of Iddo:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> One night I looked out and saw a man astride a red horse. He was in the shadows in a grove of birches. Behind him were more horses--a red, a chestnut, and a white.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I said, "Sir, what are these horses doing here? What's the meaning of this?" The Angel-Messenger said, "Let me show you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then the rider in the birch grove spoke up, "These are the riders that GOD sent to check things out on earth."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They reported their findings to the Angel of GOD in the birch grove: "We have looked over the whole earth and all is well. Everything's under control."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The Angel of GOD reported back, "O GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, how long are you going to stay angry with Jerusalem and the cities of Judah? When are you going to let up? Isn't seventy years long enough?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> GOD reassured the Angel-Messenger--good words, comforting words--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> who then addressed me: "Tell them this. Tell them that GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies has spoken. This is GOD's Message: 'I care deeply for Jerusalem and Zion. I feel very possessive of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But I'm thoroughly angry with the godless nations that act as if they own the whole world. I was only moderately angry earlier, but now they've gone too far. I'm going into action.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "'I've come back to Jerusalem, but with compassion this time.' This is GOD speaking. 'I'll see to it that my Temple is rebuilt.' A Decree of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies! 'The rebuilding operation is already staked out.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Say it again--a Decree of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies: 'My cities will prosper again, GOD will comfort Zion again, Jerusalem will be back in my favor again.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I looked up, and was surprised by another vision: four horns!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I asked the Messenger-Angel, "And what's the meaning of this?" He said, "These are the powers that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem abroad."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Then GOD expanded the vision to include four blacksmiths.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I asked, "And what are these all about?" He said, "Since the 'horns' scattered Judah so badly that no one had any hope left, these blacksmiths have arrived to combat the horns. They'll dehorn the godless nations who used their horns to scatter Judah to the four winds."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I looked up and was surprised to see a man holding a tape measure in his hand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I said, "What are you up to?" "I'm on my way," he said, "to survey Jerusalem, to measure its width and length."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Just then the Messenger-Angel on his way out met another angel coming in</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> and said, "Run! Tell the Surveyor, 'Jerusalem will burst its walls-- bursting with people, bursting with animals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And I'll be right there with her'--GOD's Decree--'a wall of fire around unwalled Jerusalem and a radiant presence within.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Up on your feet! Get out of there--and now!" GOD says so. "Return from your far exile. I scattered you to the four winds." GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Escape from Babylon, Zion, and come home--now!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the One of Glory who sent me on my mission, commenting on the godless nations who stripped you and left you homeless, said, "Anyone who hits you, hits me--bloodies my nose, blackens my eye.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Yes, and at the right time I'll give the signal and they'll be stripped and thrown out by their own servants." Then you'll know for sure that GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies sent me on this mission.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Shout and celebrate, Daughter of Zion! I'm on my way. I'm moving into your neighborhood!" GOD's Decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Many godless nations will be linked up with GOD at that time. ("They will become my family! I'll live in their homes!") And then you'll know for sure that GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies sent me on this mission.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> GOD will reclaim his Judah inheritance in the Holy Land. He'll again make clear that Jerusalem is his choice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Quiet, everyone! Shh! Silence before GOD. Something's afoot in his holy house. He's on the move!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Next the Messenger-Angel showed me the high priest Joshua. He was standing before GOD's Angel where the Accuser showed up to accuse him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Then GOD said to the Accuser, "I, GOD, rebuke you, Accuser! I rebuke you and choose Jerusalem. Surprise! Everything is going up in flames, but I reach in and pull out Jerusalem!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Joshua, standing before the angel, was dressed in dirty clothes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The angel spoke to his attendants, "Get him out of those filthy clothes," and then said to Joshua, "Look, I've stripped you of your sin and dressed you up in clean clothes."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I spoke up and said, "How about a clean new turban for his head also?" And they did it--put a clean new turban on his head. Then they finished dressing him, with GOD's Angel looking on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD's Angel then charged Joshua,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Orders from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies: 'If you live the way I tell you and remain obedient in my service, then you'll make the decisions around here and oversee my affairs. And all my attendants standing here will be at your service.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "'Careful, High Priest Joshua--both you and your friends sitting here with you, for your friends are in on this, too! Here's what I'm doing next: I'm introducing my servant Branch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And note this: This stone that I'm placing before Joshua, a single stone with seven eyes'--Decree of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies--'I'll engrave with these words: "I'll strip this land of its filthy sin, all at once, in a single day."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "'At that time, everyone will get along with one another, with friendly visits across the fence, friendly visits on one another's porches.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Messenger-Angel again called me to attention. It was like being wakened out of deep sleep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He said, "What do you see?" I answered, "I see a lampstand of solid gold with a bowl on top. Seven lamps, each with seven spouts, are set on the bowl.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And there are two olive trees, one on either side of the bowl."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then I asked the Messenger-Angel, "What does this mean, sir?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The Messenger-Angel said, "Can't you tell?" "No, sir," I said. Then he said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "This is GOD's Message to Zerubbabel: 'You can't force these things. They only come about through my Spirit,' says GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> 'So, big mountain, who do you think you are? Next to Zerubbabel you're nothing but a molehill. He'll proceed to set the Cornerstone in place, accompanied by cheers: Yes! Yes! Do it!'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> After that, the Word of GOD came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Zerubbabel started rebuilding this Temple and he will complete it. That will be your confirmation that GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies sent me to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Does anyone dare despise this day of small beginnings? They'll change their tune when they see Zerubbabel setting the last stone in place!" Going back to the vision, the Messenger-Angel said, "The seven lamps are the eyes of GOD probing the dark corners of the world like searchlights."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "And the two olive trees on either side of the lampstand?" I asked. "What's the meaning of them?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And while you're at it, the two branches of the olive trees that feed oil to the lamps--what do they mean?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He said, "You haven't figured that out?" I said, "No, sir."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He said, "These are the two who stand beside the Master of the whole earth and supply golden lamp oil worldwide."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I looked up again and saw--surprise!--a book on the wing! A book flying!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The Messenger-Angel said to me, "What do you see now?" I said, "I see a book flying, a huge book--thirty feet long and fifteen wide!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He told me, "This book is the verdict going out worldwide against thieves and liars. The first half of the book disposes of everyone who steals; the second half takes care of everyone who lies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I launched it"--Decree of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies--"and so it will fly into the house of every thief and every liar. It will land in each house and tear it down, timbers and stones."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The Messenger-Angel appeared and said, "Look up. Tell me what you see."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I said, "What in the world is that?" He said, "This is a bushel basket on a journey. It holds the sin of everyone, everywhere."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Then the lid made of lead was removed from the basket--and there was a woman sitting in it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He said, "This is Miss Wicked." He pushed her back down into the basket and clamped the lead lid over her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then I looked up and to my surprise saw two women flying. On outstretched wings they airlifted the bushel basket into the sky.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I said to the Messenger-Angel, "Where are they taking the bushel basket?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He said, "East to the land of Shinar. They will build a garage to house it. When it's finished, the basket will be stored there."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Once again I looked up--another strange sight! Four chariots charging out from between two mountains. The mountains were bronze.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The first chariot was drawn by red horses, the second chariot by black horses,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> the third chariot by white horses, and the fourth chariot by dappled horses. All the horses were powerful.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I asked the Messenger-Angel, "Sir, what's the meaning here?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The angel answered, "These are the four winds of heaven, which originate with the Master of the whole earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The black horses are headed north with the white ones right after them. The dappled horses are headed south."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The powerful horses galloped out, bursting with energy, eager to patrol through the earth. The Messenger-Angel commanded: "On your way! Survey the earth!" and they were off in every direction.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then he called to me and said, "Look at them go! The ones going north are conveying a sense of my Spirit, serene and secure. No more trouble from that direction."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then this Message from GOD came to me:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Take up a collection from the exiles. Target Heldai, Tobiah, and Jedaiah. They've just arrived from Babylon. You'll find them at the home of Josiah son of Zephaniah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Collect silver and gold from them and fashion crowns. Place one on the head of Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> and give him this message: "'A Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies. Be alert. We have a man here whose name is Branch. He will branch out from where he is and build the Temple of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Yes, he's the one. He'll build the Temple of GOD. Then he'll assume the role of royalty, take his place on the throne and rule--a priest sitting on the throne!--showing that king and priest can coexist in harmony.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "The other crown will be in the Temple of GOD as a symbol of royalty, under the custodial care of Helem, Tobiah, Jedaiah, and Hen son of Zephaniah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "People will come from faraway places to pitch in and rebuild the Temple of GOD. This will confirm that GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies did, in fact, send me to you. All this follows as you put your minds to a life of responsive obedience to the voice of your GOD."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> On the fourth day of the ninth month, in the fourth year of the reign of King Darius, GOD's Message again came to Zechariah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The town of Bethel had sent a delegation headed by Sarezer and Regem-Melech to pray for GOD's blessing</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> and to confer with the priests of the Temple of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, and also with the prophets. They posed this question: "Should we plan for a day of mourning and abstinence next August, the seventieth anniversary of Jerusalem's fall, as we have been doing all these years?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies gave me this Message for them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> for all the people and for the priests: "When you held days of fasting every fifth and seventh month all these seventy years, were you doing it for me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And when you held feasts, was that for me? Hardly. You're interested in religion, I'm interested in people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "There's nothing new to say on the subject. Don't you still have the message of the earlier prophets from the time when Jerusalem was still a thriving, bustling city and the outlying countryside, the Negev and Shephelah, was populated?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> [This is the message that GOD gave Zechariah.]</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Well, the message hasn't changed. GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies said then and says now: "'Treat one another justly. Love your neighbors. Be compassionate with each other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Don't take advantage of widows, orphans, visitors, and the poor. Don't plot and scheme against one another--that's evil.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "But did your ancestors listen? No, they set their jaws in defiance. They shut their ears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They steeled themselves against GOD's revelation and the Spirit-filled sermons preached by the earlier prophets by order of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies. And GOD became angry, really angry,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> because he told them everything plainly and they wouldn't listen to a word he said. "So [this is what GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies said]if they won't listen to me, I won't listen to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I scattered them to the four winds. They ended up strangers wherever they were. Their 'promised land' became a vacant lot--weeds and tin cans and thistles. Not a sign of life. They turned a dreamland into a wasteland."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> And then these Messages from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies: A Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "I am zealous for Zion--I care! I'm angry about Zion--I'm involved!" GOD's Message:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "I've come back to Zion, I've moved back to Jerusalem. Jerusalem's new names will be Truth City, and Mountain of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, and Mount Holiness."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> A Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies: "Old men and old women will come back to Jerusalem, sit on benches on the streets and spin tales, move around safely with their canes--a good city to grow old in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And boys and girls will fill the public parks, laughing and playing--a good city to grow up in."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> A Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies: "Do the problems of returning and rebuilding by just a few survivors seem too much? But is anything too much for me? Not if I have my say."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> A Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies: "I'll collect my people from countries to the east and countries to the west.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I'll bring them back and move them into Jerusalem. They'll be my people and I'll be their God. I'll stick with them and do right by them." A Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Get a grip on things. Hold tight, you who are listening to what I say through the preaching of the prophets. The Temple of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies has been reestablished. The Temple is being rebuilt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> We've come through a hard time: You worked for a pittance and were lucky to get that; the streets were dangerous; you could never let down your guard; I had turned the world into an armed camp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "But things have changed. I'm taking the side of my core of surviving people:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Sowing and harvesting will resume, Vines will grow grapes, Gardens will flourish, Dew and rain will make everything green. "My core survivors will get everything they need--and more.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You've gotten a reputation as a bad-news people, you people of Judah and Israel, but I'm coming to save you. From now on, you're the good-news people. Don't be afraid. Keep a firm grip on what I'm doing."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> A Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies: "In the same way that I decided to punish you when your ancestors made me angry, and didn't pull my punches,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> at this time I've decided to bless Jerusalem and the country of Judah. Don't be afraid.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> And now here's what I want you to do: Tell the truth, the whole truth, when you speak. Do the right thing by one another, both personally and in your courts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Don't cook up plans to take unfair advantage of others. Don't do or say what isn't so. I hate all that stuff. Keep your lives simple and honest." Decree of GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Again I received a Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "The days of mourning set for the fourth, fifth, seventh, and tenth months will be turned into days of feasting for Judah--celebration and holiday. Embrace truth! Love peace!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> A Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies: "People and their leaders will come from all over to see what's going on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The leaders will confer with one another: 'Shouldn't we try to get in on this? Get in on GOD's blessings? Pray to GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies? What's keeping us? Let's go!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Lots of people, powerful nations--they'll come to Jerusalem looking for what they can get from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, looking to get a blessing from GOD."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> A Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies: "At that time, ten men speaking a variety of languages will grab the sleeve of one Jew, hold tight, and say, 'Let us go with you. We've heard that God is with you.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> War Bulletin: GOD's Message challenges the country of Hadrach. It will settle on Damascus. The whole world has its eyes on GOD. Israel isn't the only one.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> That includes Hamath at the border, and Tyre and Sidon, clever as they think they are.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Tyre has put together quite a kingdom for herself; she has stacked up silver like cordwood, piled gold high as haystacks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But God will certainly bankrupt her; he will dump all that wealth into the ocean and burn up what's left in a big fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Ashkelon will see it and panic, Gaza will wring its hands, Ekron will face a dead end. Gaza's king will die. Ashkelon will be emptied out,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And a villain will take over in Ashdod. "I'll take proud Philistia down a peg:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I'll make him spit out his bloody booty and abandon his vile ways." What's left will be all God's--a core of survivors, a family brought together in Judah-- But enemies like Ekron will go the way of the Jebusites, into the dustbin of history.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "I will set up camp in my home country and defend it against invaders. Nobody is going to hurt my people ever again. I'm keeping my eye on them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Shout and cheer, Daughter Zion! Raise the roof, Daughter Jerusalem! Your king is coming! a good king who makes all things right, a humble king riding a donkey, a mere colt of a donkey.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I've had it with war--no more chariots in Ephraim, no more war horses in Jerusalem, no more swords and spears, bows and arrows. He will offer peace to the nations, a peaceful rule worldwide, from the four winds to the seven seas.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "And you, because of my blood covenant with you, I'll release your prisoners from their hopeless cells.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Come home, hope-filled prisoners! This very day I'm declaring a double bonus-- everything you lost returned twice-over!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Judah is now my weapon, the bow I'll pull, setting Ephraim as an arrow to the string. I'll wake up your sons, O Zion, to counter your sons, O Greece. From now on people are my swords."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Then GOD will come into view, his arrows flashing like lightning! Master GOD will blast his trumpet and set out in a whirlwind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies will protect them-- all-out war, The war to end all wars, no holds barred.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Their GOD will save the day. He'll rescue them. They'll become like sheep, gentle and soft, Or like gemstones in a crown, catching all the colors of the sun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then how they'll shine! shimmer! glow! the young men robust, the young women lovely!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Pray to GOD for rain--it's time for the spring rain-- to GOD, the rainmaker, Spring thunderstorm maker, maker of grain and barley.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Store-bought gods babble gibberish. Religious experts spout rubbish. They pontificate hot air. Their prescriptions are nothing but smoke. And so the people wander like lost sheep, poor lost sheep without a shepherd.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I'm furious with the so-called shepherds. They're worse than billy goats, and I'll treat them like goats." GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies will step in and take care of his flock, the people of Judah. He'll revive their spirits, make them proud to be on God's side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> God will use them in his work of rebuilding, use them as foundations and pillars, Use them as tools and instruments, use them to oversee his work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They'll be a workforce to be proud of, working as one, their heads held high, striding through swamps and mud, Courageous and vigorous because GOD is with them, undeterred by the world's thugs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "I'll put muscle in the people of Judah; I'll save the people of Joseph. I know their pain and will make them good as new. They'll get a fresh start, as if nothing had ever happened. And why? Because I am their very own GOD, I'll do what needs to be done for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The people of Ephraim will be famous, their lives brimming with joy. Their children will get in on it, too-- oh, let them feel blessed by GOD!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I'll whistle and they'll all come running. I've set them free--oh, how they'll flourish!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Even though I scattered them to the far corners of earth, they'll remember me in the faraway places. They'll keep the story alive in their children, and they will come back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I'll bring them back from the Egyptian west and round them up from the Assyrian east. I'll bring them back to sweet Gilead, back to leafy Lebanon. Every square foot of land will be marked by homecoming.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They'll sail through troubled seas, brush aside brash ocean waves. Roaring rivers will turn to a trickle. Gaudy Assyria will be stripped bare, bully Egypt exposed as a fraud.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But my people--oh, I'll make them strong, GOD-strong! and they'll live my way." GOD says so!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Open your borders to the immigrants, proud Lebanon! Your sentinel trees will burn.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Weep, great pine trees! Mourn, you sister cedars! Your towering trees are cordwood. Weep Bashan oak trees! Your thick forest is now a field of stumps.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Do you hear the wailing of shepherds? They've lost everything they once owned. Do you hear the outrage of the lions? The mighty jungle of the Jordan is wasted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Make room for the returning exiles! GOD commanded me, "Shepherd the sheep that are soon to be slaughtered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The people who buy them will butcher them for quick and easy money. What's worse, they'll get away with it. The people who sell them will say, 'Lucky me! God's on my side; I've got it made!' They have shepherds who couldn't care less about them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> GOD's Decree: "I'm washing my hands of the people of this land. From now on they're all on their own. It's dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest, and the devil take the hindmost. Don't look for help from me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So I took over from the crass, money-grubbing owners, and shepherded the sheep marked for slaughter. I got myself two shepherd staffs. I named one Lovely and the other Harmony. Then I went to work shepherding the sheep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Within a month I got rid of the corrupt shepherds. I got tired of putting up with them--and they couldn't stand me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And then I got tired of the sheep and said, "I've had it with you--no more shepherding from me. If you die, you die; if you're attacked, you're attacked. Whoever survives can eat what's left."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then I took the staff named Lovely and broke it across my knee, breaking the beautiful covenant I had made with all the peoples.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> In one stroke, both staff and covenant were broken. The money-hungry owners saw me do it and knew GOD was behind it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then I addressed them: "Pay me what you think I'm worth." They paid me an insulting sum, counting out thirty silver coins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> GOD told me, "Throw it in the poor box." This stingy wage was all they thought of me and my work! So I took the thirty silver coins and threw them into the poor box in GOD's Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Then I broke the other staff, Harmony, across my knee, breaking the concord between Judah and Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> GOD then said, "Dress up like a stupid shepherd.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I'm going to install just such a shepherd in this land--a shepherd indifferent to victims, who ignores the lost, abandons the injured, and disdains decent citizens. He'll only be in it for what he can get out of it, using and abusing any and all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Doom to you, useless shepherd, walking off and leaving the sheep! A curse on your arm! A curse on your right eye! Your arm will hang limp and useless. Your right eye will go stone blind."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> War Bulletin: GOD's Message concerning Israel, GOD's Decree--the very GOD who threw the skies into space, set earth on a firm foundation, and breathed his own life into men and women:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Watch for this: I'm about to turn Jerusalem into a cup of strong drink that will have the people who have set siege to Judah and Jerusalem staggering in a drunken stupor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "On the Big Day, I'll turn Jerusalem into a huge stone blocking the way for everyone. All who try to lift it will rupture themselves. All the pagan nations will come together and try to get rid of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "On the Big Day"--this is GOD speaking--"I'll throw all the war horses into a crazed panic, and their riders along with them. But I'll keep my eye on Judah, watching out for her at the same time that I make the enemy horses go blind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The families of Judah will then realize, 'Why, our leaders are strong and able through GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, their personal God.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "On the Big Day, I'll turn the families of Judah into something like a burning match in a tinder-dry forest, like a fiercely flaming torch in a barn full of hay. They'll burn up everything and everyone in sight--people to the right, people to the left--while Jerusalem fills up with people moving in and making themselves at home--home again in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "I, GOD, will begin by restoring the common households of Judah so that the glory of David's family and the leaders in Jerusalem won't overshadow the ordinary people in Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> On the Big Day, I'll look after everyone who lives in Jerusalem so that the lowliest, weakest person will be as glorious as David and the family of David itself will be godlike, like the Angel of GOD leading the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "On the Big Day, I'll make a clean sweep of all the godless nations that fought against Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Next I'll deal with the family of David and those who live in Jerusalem. I'll pour a spirit of grace and prayer over them. They'll then be able to recognize me as the One they so grievously wounded--that piercing spear-thrust! And they'll weep--oh, how they'll weep! Deep mourning as of a parent grieving the loss of the firstborn child.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The lamentation in Jerusalem that day will be massive, as famous as the lamentation over Hadad-Rimmon on the fields of Megiddo:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Everyone will weep and grieve, the land and everyone in it: The family of David off by itself and their women off by themselves; The family of Nathan off by itself and their women off by themselves;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The family of Levi off by itself and their women off by themselves; The family of Shimei off by itself and their women off by themselves;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And all the rest of the families off by themselves and their women off by themselves.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "On the Big Day, a fountain will be opened for the family of David and all the leaders of Jerusalem for washing away their sins, for scrubbing their stained and soiled lives clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "On the Big Day"--this is GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies speaking--"I will wipe out the store-bought gods, erase their names from memory. People will forget they ever heard of them. And I'll get rid of the prophets who polluted the air with their diseased words.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> If anyone dares persist in spreading diseased, polluting words, his very own parents will step in and say, 'That's it! You're finished! Your lies about GOD put everyone in danger,' and then they'll stab him to death in the very act of prophesying lies about GOD--his own parents, mind you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "On the Big Day, the lying prophets will be publicly exposed and humiliated. Then they'll wish they'd never swindled people with their 'visions.' No more masquerading in prophet clothes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But they'll deny they've even heard of such things: 'Me, a prophet? Not me. I'm a farmer--grew up on the farm.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And if someone says, 'And so where did you get that black eye?' they'll say, 'I ran into a door at a friend's house.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Sword, get moving against my shepherd, against my close associate!" Decree of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies. "Kill the shepherd! Scatter the sheep! The back of my hand against even the lambs!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> All across the country"--GOD's Decree-- "two-thirds will be devastated and one-third survive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'll deliver the surviving third to the refinery fires. I'll refine them as silver is refined, test them for purity as gold is tested. Then they'll pray to me by name and I'll answer them personally. I'll say, 'That's my people.' They'll say, 'GOD--my God!'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Note well: GOD's Judgment Day is on the way: "Plunder will be piled high and handed out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I'm bringing all the godless nations to war against Jerusalem-- Houses plundered, women raped, Half the city taken into exile, the other half left behind."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But then GOD will march out against the godless nations and fight--a great war!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> That's the Day he'll take his stand on the Mount of Olives, facing Jerusalem from the east. The Mount of Olives will be split right down the middle, from east to west, leaving a wide valley. Half the mountain will shift north, the other half south.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then you will run for your lives down the valley, your escape route that will take you all the way to Azal. You'll run for your lives, just as you ran on the day of the great earthquake in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah. Then my GOD will arrive and all the holy angels with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> What a Day that will be! No more cold nights--in fact, no more nights!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The Day is coming--the timing is GOD's--when it will be continuous day. Every evening will be a fresh morning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> What a Day that will be! Fresh flowing rivers out of Jerusalem, half to the eastern sea, half to the western sea, flowing year-round, summer and winter!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> GOD will be king over all the earth, one GOD and only one. What a Day that will be!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The land will stretch out spaciously around Jerusalem--to Geba in the north and Rimmon in the south, with Jerusalem towering at the center, and the commanding city gates--Gate of Benjamin to First Gate to Corner Gate to Hananel Tower to the Royal Winery--ringing the city</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> full of people. Never again will Jerusalem be totally destroyed. From now on it will be a safe city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But this is what will happen to all who fought against Jerusalem: GOD will visit them with a terrible plague. People's flesh will rot off their bones while they are walking around; their eyes will rot in their sockets and their tongues in their mouths; people will be dying on their feet!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Mass hysteria when that happens--total panic! Fellow soldiers fighting and killing each other--holy terror!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And then Judah will jump into the fray! Treasures from all the nations will be piled high--gold, silver, the latest fashions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The plague will also hit the animals--horses, mules, camels, donkeys. Everything alive in the military camps will be hit by the plague.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> All the survivors from the godless nations that fought against Jerusalem will travel to Jerusalem every year to worship the King, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, and celebrate the Feast of Booths.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> If any of these survivors fail to make the annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem to worship the King, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, there will be no rain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> If the Egyptians don't make the pilgrimage and worship, there will be no rain for them. Every nation that does not go up to celebrate the Feast of Booths will be hit with the plague.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Egypt and any other nation that does not make pilgrimage to celebrate the Feast of Booths gets punished.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> On that Day, the Big Day, all the horses' harness bells will be inscribed "Holy to GOD." The cooking pots in the Temple of GOD will be as sacred as chalices and plates on the altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> In fact, all the pots and pans in all the kitchens of Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies. People who come to worship, preparing meals and sacrifices, will use them. On that Big Day there will be no buying or selling in the Temple of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="39" bname="Malachi">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A Message. GOD's Word to Israel through Malachi:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> GOD said, "I love you." You replied, "Really? How have you loved us?" "Look at history" (this is GOD's answer). "Look at how differently I've treated you, Jacob, from Esau: I loved Jacob</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> and hated Esau. I reduced pretentious Esau to a molehill, turned his whole country into a ghost town."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When Edom (Esau) said, "We've been knocked down, but we'll get up and start over, good as new," GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies said, "Just try it and see how far you get. When I knock you down, you stay down. People will take one look at you and say, 'Land of Evil!' and 'the GOD-cursed tribe!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Yes, take a good look. Then you'll see how faithfully I've loved you and you'll want even more, saying, 'May GOD be even greater, beyond the borders of Israel!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Isn't it true that a son honors his father and a worker his master? So if I'm your Father, where's the honor? If I'm your Master, where's the respect?" GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies is calling you on the carpet: "You priests despise me! "You say, 'Not so! How do we despise you?' "By your shoddy, sloppy, defiling worship. "You ask, 'What do you mean, "defiling"? What's defiling about it?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "When you say, 'The altar of GOD is not important anymore; worship of GOD is no longer a priority,' that's defiling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And when you offer worthless animals for sacrifices in worship, animals that you're trying to get rid of--blind and sick and crippled animals--isn't that defiling? Try a trick like that with your banker or your senator--how far do you think it will get you?" GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies asks you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Get on your knees and pray that I will be gracious to you. You priests have gotten everyone in trouble. With this kind of conduct, do you think I'll pay attention to you?" GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies asks you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Why doesn't one of you just shut the Temple doors and lock them? Then none of you can get in and play at religion with this silly, empty-headed worship. I am not pleased. The GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies is not pleased. And I don't want any more of this so-called worship!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "I am honored all over the world. And there are people who know how to worship me all over the world, who honor me by bringing their best to me. They're saying it everywhere: 'God is greater, this GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "All except you. Instead of honoring me, you profane me. You profane me when you say, 'Worship is not important, and what we bring to worship is of no account,'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> and when you say, 'I'm bored--this doesn't do anything for me.' You act so superior, sticking your noses in the air--act superior to me, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies! And when you do offer something to me, it's a hand-me-down, or broken, or useless. Do you think I'm going to accept it? This is GOD speaking to you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "A curse on the person who makes a big show of doing something great for me--an expensive sacrifice, say--and then at the last minute brings in something puny and worthless! I'm a great king, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, honored far and wide, and I'll not put up with it!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "And now this indictment, you priests!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> If you refuse to obediently listen, and if you refuse to honor me, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, in worship, then I'll put you under a curse. I'll exchange all your blessings for curses. In fact, the curses are already at work because you're not serious about honoring me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Yes, and the curse will extend to your children. I'm going to plaster your faces with rotting garbage, garbage thrown out from your feasts. That's what you have to look forward to!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Maybe that will wake you up. Maybe then you'll realize that I'm indicting you in order to put new life into my covenant with the priests of Levi, the covenant of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> My covenant with Levi was to give life and peace. I kept my covenant with him, and he honored me. He stood in reverent awe before me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He taught the truth and did not lie. He walked with me in peace and uprightness. He kept many out of the ditch, kept them on the road.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "It's the job of priests to teach the truth. People are supposed to look to them for guidance. The priest is the messenger of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But you priests have abandoned the way of priests. Your teaching has messed up many lives. You have corrupted the covenant of priest Levi. GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies says so.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And so I am showing you up for who you are. Everyone will be disgusted with you and avoid you because you don't live the way I told you to live, and you don't teach my revelation truly and impartially."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Don't we all come from one Father? Aren't we all created by the same God? So why can't we get along? Why do we desecrate the covenant of our ancestors that binds us together?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Judah has cheated on GOD--a sickening violation of trust in Israel and Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the holiness of GOD by falling in love and running off with foreign women, women who worship alien gods.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> GOD's curse on those who do this! Drive them out of house and home! They're no longer fit to be part of the community no matter how many offerings they bring to GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And here's a second offense: You fill the place of worship with your whining and sniveling because you don't get what you want from GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Do you know why? Simple. Because GOD was there as a witness when you spoke your marriage vows to your young bride, and now you've broken those vows, broken the faith-bond with your vowed companion, your covenant wife.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> GOD, not you, made marriage. His Spirit inhabits even the smallest details of marriage. And what does he want from marriage? Children of God, that's what. So guard the spirit of marriage within you. Don't cheat on your spouse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "I hate divorce," says the GOD of Israel. GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies says, "I hate the violent dismembering of the 'one flesh' of marriage." So watch yourselves. Don't let your guard down. Don't cheat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> You make GOD tired with all your talk. "How do we tire him out?" you ask. By saying, "GOD loves sinners and sin alike. GOD loves all." And also by saying, "Judgment? GOD's too nice to judge."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Look! I'm sending my messenger on ahead to clear the way for me. Suddenly, out of the blue, the Leader you've been looking for will enter his Temple--yes, the Messenger of the Covenant, the one you've been waiting for. Look! He's on his way!" A Message from the mouth of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> But who will be able to stand up to that coming? Who can survive his appearance? He'll be like white-hot fire from the smelter's furnace. He'll be like the strongest lye soap at the laundry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He'll take his place as a refiner of silver, as a cleanser of dirty clothes. He'll scrub the Levite priests clean, refine them like gold and silver, until they're fit for GOD, fit to present offerings of righteousness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then, and only then, will Judah and Jerusalem be fit and pleasing to GOD, as they used to be in the years long ago.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Yes, I'm on my way to visit you with Judgment. I'll present compelling evidence against sorcerers, adulterers, liars, those who exploit workers, those who take advantage of widows and orphans, those who are inhospitable to the homeless--anyone and everyone who doesn't honor me." A Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "I am GOD--yes, I AM. I haven't changed. And because I haven't changed, you, the descendants of Jacob, haven't been destroyed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You have a long history of ignoring my commands. You haven't done a thing I've told you. Return to me so I can return to you," says GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies. "You ask, 'But how do we return?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Begin by being honest. Do honest people rob God? But you rob me day after day. "You ask, 'How have we robbed you?' "The tithe and the offering--that's how!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And now you're under a curse--the whole lot of you--because you're robbing me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Bring your full tithe to the Temple treasury so there will be ample provisions in my Temple. Test me in this and see if I don't open up heaven itself to you and pour out blessings beyond your wildest dreams.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> For my part, I will defend you against marauders, protect your wheat fields and vegetable gardens against plunderers." The Message of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "You'll be voted 'Happiest Nation.' You'll experience what it's like to be a country of grace." GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies says so.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> GOD says, "You have spoken hard, rude words to me. "You ask, 'When did we ever do that?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "When you said, 'It doesn't pay to serve God. What do we ever get out of it? When we did what he said and went around with long faces, serious about GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, what difference did it make?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Those who take life into their own hands are the lucky ones. They break all the rules and get ahead anyway. They push God to the limit and get by with it.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Then those whose lives honored GOD got together and talked it over. GOD saw what they were doing and listened in. A book was opened in God's presence and minutes were taken of the meeting, with the names of the GOD-fearers written down, all the names of those who honored GOD's name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies said, "They're mine, all mine. They'll get special treatment when I go into action. I treat them with the same consideration and kindness that parents give the child who honors them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Once more you'll see the difference it makes between being a person who does the right thing and one who doesn't, between serving God and not serving him.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Count on it: The day is coming, raging like a forest fire. All the arrogant people who do evil things will be burned up like stove wood, burned to a crisp, nothing left but scorched earth and ash--a black day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> But for you, sunrise! The sun of righteousness will dawn on those who honor my name, healing radiating from its wings. You will be bursting with energy, like colts frisky and frolicking.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And you'll tromp on the wicked. They'll be nothing but ashes under your feet on that Day." GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies says so.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Remember and keep the revelation I gave through my servant Moses, the revelation I commanded at Horeb for all Israel, all the rules and procedures for right living.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "But also look ahead: I'm sending Elijah the prophet to clear the way for the Big Day of GOD--the decisive Judgment Day!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He will convince parents to look after their children and children to look up to their parents. If they refuse, I'll come and put the land under a curse."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="40" bname="Matthew">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The family tree of Jesus Christ, David's son, Abraham's son:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Abraham had Isaac, Isaac had Jacob, Jacob had Judah and his brothers,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Judah had Perez and Zerah (the mother was Tamar), Perez had Hezron, Hezron had Aram,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Aram had Amminadab, Amminadab had Nahshon, Nahshon had Salmon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Salmon had Boaz (his mother was Rahab), Boaz had Obed (Ruth was the mother), Obed had Jesse,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Jesse had David, and David became king. David had Solomon (Uriah's wife was the mother),</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Solomon had Rehoboam, Rehoboam had Abijah, Abijah had Asa,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Asa had Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat had Joram, Joram had Uzziah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Uzziah had Jotham, Jotham had Ahaz, Ahaz had Hezekiah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Hezekiah had Manasseh, Manasseh had Amon, Amon had Josiah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Josiah had Jehoiachin and his brothers, and then the people were taken into the Babylonian exile.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When the Babylonian exile ended, Jehoiachin had Shealtiel, Shealtiel had Zerubbabel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Zerubbabel had Abiud, Abiud had Eliakim, Eliakim had Azor,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Azor had Zadok, Zadok had Achim, Achim had Eliud,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Eliud had Eleazar, Eleazar had Matthan, Matthan had Jacob,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Jacob had Joseph, Mary's husband, the Mary who gave birth to Jesus, the Jesus who was called Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> There were fourteen generations from Abraham to David, another fourteen from David to the Babylonian exile, and yet another fourteen from the Babylonian exile to Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The birth of Jesus took place like this. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. Before they came to the marriage bed, Joseph discovered she was pregnant. (It was by the Holy Spirit, but he didn't know that.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Joseph, chagrined but noble, determined to take care of things quietly so Mary would not be disgraced.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> While he was trying to figure a way out, he had a dream. God's angel spoke in the dream: "Joseph, son of David, don't hesitate to get married. Mary's pregnancy is Spirit-conceived. God's Holy Spirit has made her pregnant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> She will bring a son to birth, and when she does, you, Joseph, will name him Jesus--'God saves'--because he will save his people from their sins."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> This would bring the prophet's embryonic sermon to full term:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Watch for this--a virgin will get pregnant and bear a son; They will name him Emmanuel (Hebrew for "God is with us").</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Then Joseph woke up. He did exactly what God's angel commanded in the dream: He married Mary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> But he did not consummate the marriage until she had the baby. He named the baby Jesus.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> After Jesus was born in Bethlehem village, Judah territory--this was during Herod's kingship--a band of scholars arrived in Jerusalem from the East.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They asked around, "Where can we find and pay homage to the newborn King of the Jews? We observed a star in the eastern sky that signaled his birth. We're on pilgrimage to worship him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When word of their inquiry got to Herod, he was terrified--and not Herod alone, but most of Jerusalem as well.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Herod lost no time. He gathered all the high priests and religion scholars in the city together and asked, "Where is the Messiah supposed to be born?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They told him, "Bethlehem, Judah territory. The prophet Micah wrote it plainly:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> It's you, Bethlehem, in Judah's land, no longer bringing up the rear. From you will come the leader who will shepherd-rule my people, my Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Herod then arranged a secret meeting with the scholars from the East. Pretending to be as devout as they were, he got them to tell him exactly when the birth-announcement star appeared.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then he told them the prophecy about Bethlehem, and said, "Go find this child. Leave no stone unturned. As soon as you find him, send word and I'll join you at once in your worship."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Instructed by the king, they set off. Then the star appeared again, the same star they had seen in the eastern skies. It led them on until it hovered over the place of the child.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They could hardly contain themselves: They were in the right place! They had arrived at the right time!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They entered the house and saw the child in the arms of Mary, his mother. Overcome, they kneeled and worshiped him. Then they opened their luggage and presented gifts: gold, frankincense, myrrh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> In a dream, they were warned not to report back to Herod. So they worked out another route, left the territory without being seen, and returned to their own country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> After the scholars were gone, God's angel showed up again in Joseph's dream and commanded, "Get up. Take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt. Stay until further notice. Herod is on the hunt for this child, and wants to kill him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Joseph obeyed. He got up, took the child and his mother under cover of darkness. They were out of town and well on their way by daylight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They lived in Egypt until Herod's death. This Egyptian exile fulfilled what Hosea had preached: "I called my son out of Egypt."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Herod, when he realized that the scholars had tricked him, flew into a rage. He commanded the murder of every little boy two years old and under who lived in Bethlehem and its surrounding hills. (He determined that age from information he'd gotten from the scholars.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> That's when Jeremiah's sermon was fulfilled:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> A sound was heard in Ramah, weeping and much lament. Rachel weeping for her children, Rachel refusing all solace, Her children gone, dead and buried.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Later, when Herod died, God's angel appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "Up, take the child and his mother and return to Israel. All those out to murder the child are dead."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Joseph obeyed. He got up, took the child and his mother, and reentered Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> When he heard, though, that Archelaus had succeeded his father, Herod, as king in Judea, he was afraid to go there. But then Joseph was directed in a dream to go to the hills of Galilee.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> On arrival, he settled in the village of Nazareth. This move was a fulfillment of the prophetic words, "He shall be called a Nazarene."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> While Jesus was living in the Galilean hills, John, called "the Baptizer," was preaching in the desert country of Judea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> His message was simple and austere, like his desert surroundings: "Change your life. God's kingdom is here."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> John and his message were authorized by Isaiah's prophecy: Thunder in the desert! Prepare for God's arrival! Make the road smooth and straight!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> John dressed in a camel-hair habit tied at the waist by a leather strap. He lived on a diet of locusts and wild field honey.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> People poured out of Jerusalem, Judea, and the Jordanian countryside to hear and see him in action.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> There at the Jordan River those who came to confess their sins were baptized into a changed life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When John realized that a lot of Pharisees and Sadducees were showing up for a baptismal experience because it was becoming the popular thing to do, he exploded: "Brood of snakes! What do you think you're doing slithering down here to the river? Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to make any difference?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> It's your life that must change, not your skin!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And don't think you can pull rank by claiming Abraham as father. Being a descendant of Abraham is neither here nor there. Descendants of Abraham are a dime a dozen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> What counts is your life. Is it green and blossoming? Because if it's deadwood, it goes on the fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "I'm baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life. The real action comes next: The main character in this drama--compared to him I'm a mere stagehand--will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He's going to clean house--make a clean sweep of your lives. He'll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he'll put out with the trash to be burned."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Jesus then appeared, arriving at the Jordan River from Galilee. He wanted John to baptize him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> John objected, "I'm the one who needs to be baptized, not you!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But Jesus insisted. "Do it. God's work, putting things right all these centuries, is coming together right now in this baptism." So John did it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The moment Jesus came up out of the baptismal waters, the skies opened up and he saw God's Spirit--it looked like a dove--descending and landing on him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And along with the Spirit, a voice: "This is my Son, chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Next Jesus was taken into the wild by the Spirit for the Test. The Devil was ready to give it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Jesus prepared for the Test by fasting forty days and forty nights. That left him, of course, in a state of extreme hunger,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> which the Devil took advantage of in the first test: "Since you are God's Son, speak the word that will turn these stones into loaves of bread."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Jesus answered by quoting Deuteronomy: "It takes more than bread to stay alive. It takes a steady stream of words from God's mouth."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> For the second test the Devil took him to the Holy City. He sat him on top of the Temple and said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Since you are God's Son, jump." The Devil goaded him by quoting Psalm 91: "He has placed you in the care of angels. They will catch you so that you won't so much as stub your toe on a stone."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Jesus countered with another citation from Deuteronomy: "Don't you dare test the Lord your God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> For the third test, the Devil took him on the peak of a huge mountain. He gestured expansively, pointing out all the earth's kingdoms, how glorious they all were.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then he said, "They're yours--lock, stock, and barrel. Just go down on your knees and worship me, and they're yours."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Jesus' refusal was curt: "Beat it, Satan!" He backed his rebuke with a third quotation from Deuteronomy: "Worship the Lord your God, and only him. Serve him with absolute single-heartedness."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The Test was over. The Devil left. And in his place, angels! Angels came and took care of Jesus' needs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When Jesus got word that John had been arrested, he returned to Galilee.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He moved from his hometown, Nazareth, to the lakeside village Capernaum, nestled at the base of the Zebulun and Naphtali hills.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> This move completed Isaiah's sermon:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, road to the sea, over Jordan, Galilee, crossroads for the nations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> People sitting out their lives in the dark saw a huge light; Sitting in that dark, dark country of death, they watched the sun come up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> This Isaiah-prophesied sermon came to life in Galilee the moment Jesus started preaching. He picked up where John left off: "Change your life. God's kingdom is here."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Walking along the beach of Lake Galilee, Jesus saw two brothers: Simon (later called Peter) and Andrew. They were fishing, throwing their nets into the lake. It was their regular work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Jesus said to them, "Come with me. I'll make a new kind of fisherman out of you. I'll show you how to catch men and women instead of perch and bass."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> They didn't ask questions, but simply dropped their nets and followed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> A short distance down the beach they came upon another pair of brothers, James and John, Zebedee's sons. These two were sitting in a boat with their father, Zebedee, mending their fishnets. Jesus made the same offer to them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> and they were just as quick to follow, abandoning boat and father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> From there he went all over Galilee. He used synagogues for meeting places and taught people the truth of God. God's kingdom was his theme--that beginning right now they were under God's government, a good government! He also healed people of their diseases and of the bad effects of their bad lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Word got around the entire Roman province of Syria. People brought anybody with an ailment, whether mental, emotional, or physical. Jesus healed them, one and all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> More and more people came, the momentum gathering. Besides those from Galilee, crowds came from the "Ten Towns" across the lake, others up from Jerusalem and Judea, still others from across the Jordan.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge crowds, he climbed a hillside. Those who were apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him. Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> and taught his climbing companions. This is what he said:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "You're blessed when you're content with just who you are--no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God. He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "You're blessed when you care. At the moment of being 'carefull,' you find yourselves cared for.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "You're blessed when you get your inside world--your mind and heart--put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That's when you discover who you really are, and your place in God's family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "You're blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God's kingdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Not only that--count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> You can be glad when that happens--give a cheer, even!--for though they don't like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Let me tell you why you are here. You're here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You've lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Here's another way to put it: You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand--shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Don't suppose for a minute that I have come to demolish the Scriptures--either God's Law or the Prophets. I'm not here to demolish but to complete. I am going to put it all together, pull it all together in a vast panorama.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> God's Law is more real and lasting than the stars in the sky and the ground at your feet. Long after stars burn out and earth wears out, God's Law will be alive and working.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Trivialize even the smallest item in God's Law and you will only have trivialized yourself. But take it seriously, show the way for others, and you will find honor in the kingdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Unless you do far better than the Pharisees in the matters of right living, you won't know the first thing about entering the kingdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "You're familiar with the command to the ancients, 'Do not murder.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I'm telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder. Carelessly call a brother 'idiot!' and you just might find yourself hauled into court. Thoughtlessly yell 'stupid!' at a sister and you are on the brink of hellfire. The simple moral fact is that words kill.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "This is how I want you to conduct yourself in these matters. If you enter your place of worship and, about to make an offering, you suddenly remember a grudge a friend has against you,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> abandon your offering, leave immediately, go to this friend and make things right. Then and only then, come back and work things out with God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "Or say you're out on the street and an old enemy accosts you. Don't lose a minute. Make the first move; make things right with him. After all, if you leave the first move to him, knowing his track record, you're likely to end up in court, maybe even jail.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> If that happens, you won't get out without a stiff fine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "You know the next commandment pretty well, too: 'Don't go to bed with another's spouse.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> But don't think you've preserved your virtue simply by staying out of bed. Your heart can be corrupted by lust even quicker than your body. Those leering looks you think nobody notices--they also corrupt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "Let's not pretend this is easier than it really is. If you want to live a morally pure life, here's what you have to do: You have to blind your right eye the moment you catch it in a lustful leer. You have to choose to live one-eyed or else be dumped on a moral trash pile.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> And you have to chop off your right hand the moment you notice it raised threateningly. Better a bloody stump than your entire being discarded for good in the dump.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "Remember the Scripture that says, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him do it legally, giving her divorce papers and her legal rights'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Too many of you are using that as a cover for selfishness and whim, pretending to be righteous just because you are 'legal.' Please, no more pretending. If you divorce your wife, you're responsible for making her an adulteress (unless she has already made herself that by sexual promiscuity). And if you marry such a divorced adulteress, you're automatically an adulterer yourself. You can't use legal cover to mask a moral failure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "And don't say anything you don't mean. This counsel is embedded deep in our traditions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, 'I'll pray for you,' and never doing it, or saying, 'God be with you,' and not meaning it. You don't make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> (SEE 5:34)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> (SEE 5:34)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Just say 'yes' and 'no.' When you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> "Here's another old saying that deserves a second look: 'Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Is that going to get us anywhere? Here's what I propose: 'Don't hit back at all.' If someone strikes you, stand there and take it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> If someone drags you into court and sues for the shirt off your back, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> And if someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> "You're familiar with the old written law, 'Love your friend,' and its unwritten companion, 'Hate your enemy.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> I'm challenging that. I'm telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best--the sun to warm and the rain to nourish--to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> "In a word, what I'm saying is, Grow up. You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don't make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won't be applauding.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "When you do something for someone else, don't call attention to yourself. You've seen them in action, I'm sure--'playactors' I call them--treating prayer meeting and street corner alike as a stage, acting compassionate as long as someone is watching, playing to the crowds. They get applause, true, but that's all they get.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When you help someone out, don't think about how it looks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Just do it--quietly and unobtrusively. That is the way your God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "And when you come before God, don't turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Here's what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won't be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They're full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Don't fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply. Like this: Our Father in heaven, Reveal who you are.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Set the world right; Do what's best-- as above, so below.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Keep us alive with three square meals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil. You're in charge! You can do anything you want! You're ablaze in beauty! Yes. Yes. Yes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "In prayer there is a connection between what God does and what you do. You can't get forgiveness from God, for instance, without also forgiving others.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> If you refuse to do your part, you cut yourself off from God's part.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "When you practice some appetite-denying discipline to better concentrate on God, don't make a production out of it. It might turn you into a small-time celebrity but it won't make you a saint.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> If you 'go into training' inwardly, act normal outwardly. Shampoo and comb your hair, brush your teeth, wash your face.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> God doesn't require attention-getting devices. He won't overlook what you are doing; he'll reward you well.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Don't hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or--worse!--stolen by burglars.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it's safe from moth and rust and burglars.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> It's obvious, isn't it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. If you pull the blinds on your windows, what a dark life you will have!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "You can't worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you'll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can't worship God and Money both.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don't fuss about what's on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> All this time and money wasted on fashion--do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers--most of which are never even seen--don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults--unless, of course, you want the same treatment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Do you have the nerve to say, 'Let me wash your face for you,' when your own face is distorted by contempt?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> It's this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Don't be flip with the sacred. Banter and silliness give no honor to God. Don't reduce holy mysteries to slogans. In trying to be relevant, you're only being cute and inviting sacrilege.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Don't bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> This isn't a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we're in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> If your child asks for bread, do you trick him with sawdust?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> If he asks for fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> As bad as you are, you wouldn't think of such a thing. You're at least decent to your own children. So don't you think the God who conceived you in love will be even better?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Here is a simple, rule-of-thumb guide for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them. Add up God's Law and Prophets and this is what you get.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Don't look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don't fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The way to life--to God!--is vigorous and requires total attention.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Be wary of false preachers who smile a lot, dripping with practiced sincerity. Chances are they are out to rip you off some way or other. Don't be impressed with charisma; look for character.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Who preachers are is the main thing, not what they say. A genuine leader will never exploit your emotions or your pocketbook. These diseased trees with their bad apples are going to be chopped down and burned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> (SEE 7:16)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> (SEE 7:16)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> (SEE 7:16)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> (SEE 7:16)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Knowing the correct password--saying 'Master, Master,' for instance--isn't going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience--doing what my Father wills.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I can see it now--at the Final Judgment thousands strutting up to me and saying, 'Master, we preached the Message, we bashed the demons, our God-sponsored projects had everyone talking.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> And do you know what I am going to say? 'You missed the boat. All you did was use me to make yourselves important. You don't impress me one bit. You're out of here.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit--but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don't work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> When Jesus concluded his address, the crowd burst into applause. They had never heard teaching like this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> It was apparent that he was living everything he was saying--quite a contrast to their religion teachers! This was the best teaching they had ever heard.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Jesus came down the mountain with the cheers of the crowd still ringing in his ears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Then a leper appeared and went to his knees before Jesus, praying, "Master, if you want to, you can heal my body."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Jesus reached out and touched him, saying, "I want to. Be clean." Then and there, all signs of the leprosy were gone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Jesus said, "Don't talk about this all over town. Just quietly present your healed body to the priest, along with the appropriate expressions of thanks to God. Your cleansed and grateful life, not your words, will bear witness to what I have done."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> As Jesus entered the village of Capernaum, a Roman captain came up in a panic and said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Master, my servant is sick. He can't walk. He's in terrible pain."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Jesus said, "I'll come and heal him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Oh, no," said the captain. "I don't want to put you to all that trouble. Just give the order and my servant will be fine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'm a man who takes orders and gives orders. I tell one soldier, 'Go,' and he goes; to another, 'Come,' and he comes; to my slave, 'Do this,' and he does it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Taken aback, Jesus said, "I've yet to come across this kind of simple trust in Israel, the very people who are supposed to know all about God and how he works.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> This man is the vanguard of many outsiders who will soon be coming from all directions--streaming in from the east, pouring in from the west, sitting down at God's kingdom banquet alongside Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then those who grew up 'in the faith' but had no faith will find themselves out in the cold, outsiders to grace and wondering what happened."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then Jesus turned to the captain and said, "Go. What you believed could happen has happened." At that moment his servant became well.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> By this time they were in front of Peter's house. On entering, Jesus found Peter's mother-in-law sick in bed, burning up with fever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He touched her hand and the fever was gone. No sooner was she up on her feet than she was fixing dinner for him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> That evening a lot of demon-afflicted people were brought to him. He relieved the inwardly tormented. He cured the bodily ill.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He fulfilled Isaiah's well-known sermon: He took our illnesses, He carried our diseases.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When Jesus saw that a curious crowd was growing by the minute, he told his disciples to get him out of there to the other side of the lake.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> As they left, a religion scholar asked if he could go along. "I'll go with you, wherever," he said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Jesus was curt: "Are you ready to rough it? We're not staying in the best inns, you know."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Another follower said, "Master, excuse me for a couple of days, please. I have my father's funeral to take care of."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Jesus refused. "First things first. Your business is life, not death. Follow me. Pursue life."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Then he got in the boat, his disciples with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The next thing they knew, they were in a severe storm. Waves were crashing into the boat--and he was sound asleep!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> They roused him, pleading, "Master, save us! We're going down!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Jesus reprimanded them. "Why are you such cowards, such faint-hearts?" Then he stood up and told the wind to be silent, the sea to quiet down: "Silence!" The sea became smooth as glass.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The men rubbed their eyes, astonished. "What's going on here? Wind and sea come to heel at his command!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> They landed in the country of the Gadarenes and were met by two madmen, victims of demons, coming out of the cemetery. The men had terrorized the region for so long that no one considered it safe to walk down that stretch of road anymore.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Seeing Jesus, the madmen screamed out, "What business do you have giving us a hard time? You're the Son of God! You weren't supposed to show up here yet!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Off in the distance a herd of pigs was browsing and rooting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The evil spirits begged Jesus, "If you kick us out of these men, let us live in the pigs."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Jesus said, "Go ahead, but get out of here!" Crazed, the pigs stampeded over a cliff into the sea and drowned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Scared to death, the swineherds bolted. They told everyone back in town what had happened to the madmen and the pigs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Those who heard about it were angry about the drowned pigs. A mob formed and demanded that Jesus get out and not come back.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Back in the boat, Jesus and the disciples recrossed the sea to Jesus' hometown.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They were hardly out of the boat when some men carried a paraplegic on a stretcher and set him down in front of them. Jesus, impressed by their bold belief, said to the paraplegic, "Cheer up, son. I forgive your sins."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Some religion scholars whispered, "Why, that's blasphemy!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Jesus knew what they were thinking, and said, "Why this gossipy whispering?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Which do you think is simpler: to say, 'I forgive your sins,' or, 'Get up and walk'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Well, just so it's clear that I'm the Son of Man and authorized to do either, or both. . . ." At this he turned to the paraplegic and said, "Get up. Take your bed and go home."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And the man did it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The crowd was awestruck, amazed and pleased that God had authorized Jesus to work among them this way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Passing along, Jesus saw a man at his work collecting taxes. His name was Matthew. Jesus said, "Come along with me." Matthew stood up and followed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Later when Jesus was eating supper at Matthew's house with his close followers, a lot of disreputable characters came and joined them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> When the Pharisees saw him keeping this kind of company, they had a fit, and lit into Jesus' followers. "What kind of example is this from your Teacher, acting cozy with crooks and riff-raff?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Jesus, overhearing, shot back, "Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Go figure out what this Scripture means: 'I'm after mercy, not religion.' I'm here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> A little later John's followers approached, asking, "Why is it that we and the Pharisees rigorously discipline body and spirit by fasting, but your followers don't?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Jesus told them, "When you're celebrating a wedding, you don't skimp on the cake and wine. You feast. Later you may need to pull in your belt, but not now. No one throws cold water on a friendly bonfire. This is Kingdom Come!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He went on, "No one cuts up a fine silk scarf to patch old work clothes; you want fabrics that match.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And you don't put your wine in cracked bottles."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> As he finished saying this, a local official appeared, bowed politely, and said, "My daughter has just now died. If you come and touch her, she will live."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Jesus got up and went with him, his disciples following along.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Just then a woman who had hemorrhaged for twelve years slipped in from behind and lightly touched his robe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> She was thinking to herself, "If I can just put a finger on his robe, I'll get well." Jesus turned--caught her at it. Then he reassured her: "Courage, daughter. You took a risk of faith, and now you're well."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The woman was well from then on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> By now they had arrived at the house of the town official, and pushed their way through the gossips looking for a story and the neighbors bringing in casseroles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Jesus was abrupt: "Clear out! This girl isn't dead. She's sleeping." They told him he didn't know what he was talking about.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> But when Jesus had gotten rid of the crowd, he went in, took the girl's hand, and pulled her to her feet--alive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The news was soon out, and traveled throughout the region.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> As Jesus left the house, he was followed by two blind men crying out, "Mercy, Son of David! Mercy on us!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> When Jesus got home, the blind men went in with him. Jesus said to them, "Do you really believe I can do this?" They said, "Why, yes, Master!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> He touched their eyes and said, "Become what you believe."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> It happened. They saw. Then Jesus became very stern. "Don't let a soul know how this happened."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> But they were hardly out the door before they started blabbing it to everyone they met.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Right after that, as the blind men were leaving, a man who had been struck speechless by an evil spirit was brought to Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> As soon as Jesus threw the evil tormenting spirit out, the man talked away just as if he'd been talking all his life. The people were up on their feet applauding: "There's never been anything like this in Israel!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The Pharisees were left sputtering, "Hocus pocus. It's nothing but hocus pocus. He's probably made a pact with the Devil."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Then Jesus made a circuit of all the towns and villages. He taught in their meeting places, reported kingdom news, and healed their diseased bodies, healed their bruised and hurt lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> When he looked out over the crowds, his heart broke. So confused and aimless they were, like sheep with no shepherd.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> "What a huge harvest!" he said to his disciples. "How few workers!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> On your knees and pray for harvest hands!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The prayer was no sooner prayed than it was answered. Jesus called twelve of his followers and sent them into the ripe fields. He gave them power to kick out the evil spirits and to tenderly care for the bruised and hurt lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> This is the list of the twelve he sent: Simon (they called him Peter, or "Rock"), Andrew, his brother, James, Zebedee's son, John, his brother,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, the tax man, James, son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Simon, the Canaanite, Judas Iscariot (who later turned on him).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Jesus sent his twelve harvest hands out with this charge: "Don't begin by traveling to some far-off place to convert unbelievers. And don't try to be dramatic by tackling some public enemy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Go to the lost, confused people right here in the neighborhood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Tell them that the kingdom is here.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Bring health to the sick. Raise the dead. Touch the untouchables. Kick out the demons. You have been treated generously, so live generously.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Don't think you have to put on a fund-raising campaign before you start.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You don't need a lot of equipment. You are the equipment, and all you need to keep that going is three meals a day. Travel light.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "When you enter a town or village, don't insist on staying in a luxury inn. Get a modest place with some modest people, and be content there until you leave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "When you knock on a door, be courteous in your greeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> If they welcome you, be gentle in your conversation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> If they don't welcome you, quietly withdraw. Don't make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> You can be sure that on Judgment Day they'll be mighty sorry--but it's no concern of yours now.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Stay alert. This is hazardous work I'm assigning you. You're going to be like sheep running through a wolf pack, so don't call attention to yourselves. Be as cunning as a snake, inoffensive as a dove.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Don't be naive. Some people will impugn your motives, others will smear your reputation--just because you believe in me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Don't be upset when they haul you before the civil authorities. Without knowing it, they've done you--and me--a favor, given you a platform for preaching the kingdom news!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And don't worry about what you'll say or how you'll say it. The right words will be there;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> the Spirit of your Father will supply the words.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "When people realize it is the living God you are presenting and not some idol that makes them feel good, they are going to turn on you, even people in your own family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> There is a great irony here: proclaiming so much love, experiencing so much hate! But don't quit. Don't cave in. It is all well worth it in the end.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> It is not success you are after in such times but survival. Be survivors! Before you've run out of options, the Son of Man will have arrived.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "A student doesn't get a better desk than her teacher. A laborer doesn't make more money than his boss.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Be content--pleased, even--when you, my students, my harvest hands, get the same treatment I get. If they call me, the Master, 'Dungface,' what can the workers expect?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "Don't be intimidated. Eventually everything is going to be out in the open, and everyone will know how things really are.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> So don't hesitate to go public now.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "Don't be bluffed into silence by the threats of bullies. There's nothing they can do to your soul, your core being. Save your fear for God, who holds your entire life--body and soul--in his hands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "What's the price of a pet canary? Some loose change, right? And God cares what happens to it even more than you do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> He pays even greater attention to you, down to the last detail--even numbering the hairs on your head!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> So don't be intimidated by all this bully talk. You're worth more than a million canaries.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "Stand up for me against world opinion and I'll stand up for you before my Father in heaven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> If you turn tail and run, do you think I'll cover for you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "Don't think I've come to make life cozy. I've come to cut--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> make a sharp knife-cut between son and father, daughter and mother, bride and mother-in-law--cut through these cozy domestic arrangements and free you for God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Well-meaning family members can be your worst enemies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> If you prefer father or mother over me, you don't deserve me. If you prefer son or daughter over me, you don't deserve me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> "If you don't go all the way with me, through thick and thin, you don't deserve me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> If your first concern is to look after yourself, you'll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you'll find both yourself and me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> "We are intimately linked in this harvest work. Anyone who accepts what you do, accepts me, the One who sent you. Anyone who accepts what I do accepts my Father, who sent me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Accepting a messenger of God is as good as being God's messenger. Accepting someone's help is as good as giving someone help. This is a large work I've called you into, but don't be overwhelmed by it. It's best to start small.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice. You won't lose out on a thing."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When Jesus finished placing this charge before his twelve disciples, he went on to teach and preach in their villages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> John, meanwhile, had been locked up in prison. When he got wind of what Jesus was doing, he sent his own disciples</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> to ask, "Are you the One we've been expecting, or are we still waiting?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Jesus told them, "Go back and tell John what's going on:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The blind see, The lame walk, Lepers are cleansed, The deaf hear, The dead are raised, The wretched of the earth learn that God is on their side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Is this what you were expecting? Then count yourselves most blessed!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When John's disciples left to report, Jesus started talking to the crowd about John. "What did you expect when you went out to see him in the wild? A weekend camper?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Hardly. What then? A sheik in silk pajamas? Not in the wilderness, not by a long shot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> What then? A prophet? That's right, a prophet! Probably the best prophet you'll ever hear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He is the prophet that Malachi announced when he wrote, 'I'm sending my prophet ahead of you, to make the road smooth for you.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Let me tell you what's going on here: No one in history surpasses John the Baptizer; but in the kingdom he prepared you for, the lowliest person is ahead of him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> For a long time now people have tried to force themselves into God's kingdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But if you read the books of the Prophets and God's Law closely, you will see them culminate in John, teaming up with him in preparing the way for the Messiah of the kingdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Looked at in this way, John is the 'Elijah' you've all been expecting to arrive and introduce the Messiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Are you listening to me? Really listening?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "How can I account for this generation? The people have been like spoiled children whining to their parents,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> 'We wanted to skip rope, and you were always too tired; we wanted to talk, but you were always too busy.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> John came fasting and they called him crazy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I came feasting and they called me a lush, a friend of the riff-raff. Opinion polls don't count for much, do they? The proof of the pudding is in the eating."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Next Jesus let fly on the cities where he had worked the hardest but whose people had responded the least, shrugging their shoulders and going their own way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Doom to you, Chorazin! Doom, Bethsaida! If Tyre and Sidon had seen half of the powerful miracles you have seen, they would have been on their knees in a minute.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> At Judgment Day they'll get off easy compared to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> And Capernaum! With all your peacock strutting, you are going to end up in the abyss. If the people of Sodom had had your chances, the city would still be around.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> At Judgment Day they'll get off easy compared to you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Abruptly Jesus broke into prayer: "Thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. You've concealed your ways from sophisticates and know-it-alls, but spelled them out clearly to ordinary people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Yes, Father, that's the way you like to work."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Jesus resumed talking to the people, but now tenderly. "The Father has given me all these things to do and say. This is a unique Father-Son operation, coming out of Father and Son intimacies and knowledge. No one knows the Son the way the Father does, nor the Father the way the Son does. But I'm not keeping it to myself; I'm ready to go over it line by line with anyone willing to listen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Walk with me and work with me--watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> One Sabbath, Jesus was strolling with his disciples through a field of ripe grain. Hungry, the disciples were pulling off the heads of grain and munching on them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Some Pharisees reported them to Jesus: "Your disciples are breaking the Sabbath rules!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Jesus said, "Really? Didn't you ever read what David and his companions did when they were hungry,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> how they entered the sanctuary and ate fresh bread off the altar, bread that no one but priests were allowed to eat?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And didn't you ever read in God's Law that priests carrying out their Temple duties break Sabbath rules all the time and it's not held against them?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "There is far more at stake here than religion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> If you had any idea what this Scripture meant--'I prefer a flexible heart to an inflexible ritual'--you wouldn't be nitpicking like this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The Son of Man is no lackey to the Sabbath; he's in charge."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When Jesus left the field, he entered their meeting place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> There was a man there with a crippled hand. They said to Jesus, "Is it legal to heal on the Sabbath?" They were baiting him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He replied, "Is there a person here who, finding one of your lambs fallen into a ravine, wouldn't, even though it was a Sabbath, pull it out?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Surely kindness to people is as legal as kindness to animals!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then he said to the man, "Hold out your hand." He held it out and it was healed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The Pharisees walked out furious, sputtering about how they were going to ruin Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Jesus, knowing they were out to get him, moved on. A lot of people followed him, and he healed them all</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> . He also cautioned them to keep it quiet,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> following guidelines set down by Isaiah:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Look well at my handpicked servant; I love him so much, take such delight in him. I've placed my Spirit on him; he'll decree justice to the nations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But he won't yell, won't raise his voice; there'll be no commotion in the streets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He won't walk over anyone's feelings, won't push you into a corner. Before you know it, his justice will triumph;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> the mere sound of his name will signal hope, even among far-off unbelievers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Next a poor demon-afflicted wretch, both blind and deaf, was set down before him. Jesus healed him, gave him his sight and hearing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The people who saw it were impressed--"This has to be the Son of David!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> But the Pharisees, when they heard the report, were cynical. "Black magic," they said. "Some devil trick he's pulled from his sleeve."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Jesus confronted their slander. "A judge who gives opposite verdicts on the same person cancels himself out; a family that's in a constant squabble disintegrates;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> if Satan banishes Satan, is there any Satan left?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> If you're slinging devil mud at me, calling me a devil kicking out devils, doesn't the same mud stick to your own exorcists?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "But if it's by God's power that I am sending the evil spirits packing, then God's kingdom is here for sure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> How in the world do you think it's possible in broad daylight to enter the house of an awake, able-bodied man and walk off with his possessions unless you tie him up first? Tie him up, though, and you can clean him out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "This is war, and there is no neutral ground. If you're not on my side, you're the enemy; if you're not helping, you're making things worse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "There's nothing done or said that can't be forgiven. But if you deliberately persist in your slanders against God's Spirit, you are repudiating the very One who forgives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> If you reject the Son of Man out of some misunderstanding, the Holy Spirit can forgive you, but when you reject the Holy Spirit, you're sawing off the branch on which you're sitting, severing by your own perversity all connection with the One who forgives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "If you grow a healthy tree, you'll pick healthy fruit. If you grow a diseased tree, you'll pick worm-eaten fruit. The fruit tells you about the tree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "You have minds like a snake pit! How do you suppose what you say is worth anything when you are so foul-minded? It's your heart, not the dictionary, that gives meaning to your words.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> A good person produces good deeds and words season after season. An evil person is a blight on the orchard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Let me tell you something: Every one of these careless words is going to come back to haunt you. There will be a time of Reckoning. Words are powerful; take them seriously.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Words can be your salvation. Words can also be your damnation."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Later a few religion scholars and Pharisees got on him. "Teacher, we want to see your credentials. Give us some hard evidence that God is in this. How about a miracle?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Jesus said, "You're looking for proof, but you're looking for the wrong kind. All you want is something to titillate your curiosity, satisfy your lust for miracles. The only proof you're going to get is what looks like the absence of proof: Jonah-evidence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Like Jonah, three days and nights in the fish's belly, the Son of Man will be gone three days and nights in a deep grave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> "On Judgment Day, the Ninevites will stand up and give evidence that will condemn this generation, because when Jonah preached to them they changed their lives. A far greater preacher than Jonah is here, and you squabble about 'proofs.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> On Judgment Day, the Queen of Sheba will come forward and bring evidence that will condemn this generation, because she traveled from a far corner of the earth to listen to wise Solomon. Wisdom far greater than Solomon's is right in front of you, and you quibble over 'evidence.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> "When a defiling evil spirit is expelled from someone, it drifts along through the desert looking for an oasis, some unsuspecting soul it can bedevil. When it doesn't find anyone,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> it says, 'I'll go back to my old haunt.' On return it finds the person spotlessly clean, but vacant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> It then runs out and rounds up seven other spirits more evil than itself and they all move in, whooping it up. That person ends up far worse off than if he'd never gotten cleaned up in the first place. "That's what this generation is like: You may think you have cleaned out the junk from your lives and gotten ready for God, but you weren't hospitable to my kingdom message, and now all the devils are moving back in."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> While he was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers showed up. They were outside trying to get a message to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> Someone told Jesus, "Your mother and brothers are out here, wanting to speak with you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> Jesus didn't respond directly, but said, "Who do you think my mother and brothers are?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> He then stretched out his hand toward his disciples. "Look closely. These are my mother and brothers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Obedience is thicker than blood. The person who obeys my heavenly Father's will is my brother and sister and mother."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> At about that same time Jesus left the house and sat on the beach.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> In no time at all a crowd gathered along the shoreline, forcing him to get into a boat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Using the boat as a pulpit, he addressed his congregation, telling stories. "What do you make of this? A farmer planted seed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> As he scattered the seed, some of it fell on the road, and birds ate it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Some fell in the gravel; it sprouted quickly but didn't put down roots,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> so when the sun came up it withered just as quickly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Some fell in the weeds; as it came up, it was strangled by the weeds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Some fell on good earth, and produced a harvest beyond his wildest dreams.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Are you listening to this? Really listening?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The disciples came up and asked, "Why do you tell stories?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He replied, "You've been given insight into God's kingdom. You know how it works. Not everybody has this gift, this insight; it hasn't been given to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Whenever someone has a ready heart for this, the insights and understandings flow freely. But if there is no readiness, any trace of receptivity soon disappears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> That's why I tell stories: to create readiness, to nudge the people toward receptive insight. In their present state they can stare till doomsday and not see it, listen till they're blue in the face and not get it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I don't want Isaiah's forecast repeated all over again: Your ears are open but you don't hear a thing. Your eyes are awake but you don't see a thing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The people are blockheads! They stick their fingers in their ears so they won't have to listen; They screw their eyes shut so they won't have to look, so they won't have to deal with me face-to-face and let me heal them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "But you have God-blessed eyes--eyes that see! And God-blessed ears--ears that hear!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> A lot of people, prophets and humble believers among them, would have given anything to see what you are seeing, to hear what you are hearing, but never had the chance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Study this story of the farmer planting seed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> When anyone hears news of the kingdom and doesn't take it in, it just remains on the surface, and so the Evil One comes along and plucks it right out of that person's heart. This is the seed the farmer scatters on the road.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "The seed cast in the gravel--this is the person who hears and instantly responds with enthusiasm.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But there is no soil of character, and so when the emotions wear off and some difficulty arrives, there is nothing to show for it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "The seed cast in the weeds is the person who hears the kingdom news, but weeds of worry and illusions about getting more and wanting everything under the sun strangle what was heard, and nothing comes of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "The seed cast on good earth is the person who hears and takes in the News, and then produces a harvest beyond his wildest dreams."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He told another story. "God's kingdom is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> That night, while his hired men were asleep, his enemy sowed thistles all through the wheat and slipped away before dawn.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> When the first green shoots appeared and the grain began to form, the thistles showed up, too.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "The farmhands came to the farmer and said, 'Master, that was clean seed you planted, wasn't it? Where did these thistles come from?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "He answered, 'Some enemy did this.' "The farmhands asked, 'Should we weed out the thistles?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "He said, 'No, if you weed the thistles, you'll pull up the wheat, too.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Let them grow together until harvest time. Then I'll instruct the harvesters to pull up the thistles and tie them in bundles for the fire, then gather the wheat and put it in the barn.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Another story. "God's kingdom is like a pine nut that a farmer plants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> It is quite small as seeds go, but in the course of years it grows into a huge pine tree, and eagles build nests in it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Another story. "God's kingdom is like yeast that a woman works into the dough for dozens of loaves of barley bread--and waits while the dough rises."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> All Jesus did that day was tell stories--a long storytelling afternoon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> His storytelling fulfilled the prophecy: I will open my mouth and tell stories; I will bring out into the open things hidden since the world's first day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Jesus dismissed the congregation and went into the house. His disciples came in and said, "Explain to us that story of the thistles in the field."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> So he explained. "The farmer who sows the pure seed is the Son of Man.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> The field is the world, the pure seeds are subjects of the kingdom, the thistles are subjects of the Devil,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> and the enemy who sows them is the Devil. The harvest is the end of the age, the curtain of history. The harvest hands are angels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> "The picture of thistles pulled up and burned is a scene from the final act.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> The Son of Man will send his angels, weed out the thistles from his kingdom,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> pitch them in the trash, and be done with them. They are going to complain to high heaven, but nobody is going to listen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> At the same time, ripe, holy lives will mature and adorn the kingdom of their Father. "Are you listening to this? Really listening?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> "God's kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field for years and then accidently found by a trespasser. The finder is ecstatic--what a find!--and proceeds to sell everything he owns to raise money and buy that field.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> "Or, God's kingdom is like a jewel merchant on the hunt for excellent pearls.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Finding one that is flawless, he immediately sells everything and buys it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> "Or, God's kingdom is like a fishnet cast into the sea, catching all kinds of fish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> When it is full, it is hauled onto the beach. The good fish are picked out and put in a tub; those unfit to eat are thrown away.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> That's how it will be when the curtain comes down on history. The angels will come and cull the bad fish</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> and throw them in the garbage. There will be a lot of desperate complaining, but it won't do any good."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> Jesus asked, "Are you starting to get a handle on all this?" They answered, "Yes."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> He said, "Then you see how every student well-trained in God's kingdom is like the owner of a general store who can put his hands on anything you need, old or new, exactly when you need it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> When Jesus finished telling these stories, he left there,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> returned to his hometown, and gave a lecture in the meetinghouse. He made a real hit, impressing everyone. "We had no idea he was this good!" they said. "How did he get so wise, get such ability?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> But in the next breath they were cutting him down: "We've known him since he was a kid; he's the carpenter's son. We know his mother, Mary. We know his brothers James and Joseph, Simon and Judas.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> All his sisters live here. Who does he think he is?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> They got their noses all out of joint.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> But Jesus said, "A prophet is taken for granted in his hometown and his family." He didn't do many miracles there because of their hostile indifference.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> At about this time, Herod, the regional ruler, heard what was being said about Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He said to his servants, "This has to be John the Baptizer come back from the dead. That's why he's able to work miracles!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Herod had arrested John, put him in chains, and sent him to prison to placate Herodias, his brother Philip's wife.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> John had provoked Herod by naming his relationship with Herodias "adultery."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Herod wanted to kill him, but he was afraid because so many people revered John as a prophet of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But at his birthday celebration, he got his chance. Herodias's daughter provided the entertainment, dancing for the guests. She swept Herod away.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> In his drunken enthusiasm, he promised her on oath anything she wanted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Already coached by her mother, she was ready: "Give me, served up on a platter, the head of John the Baptizer."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> That sobered the king up fast. Unwilling to lose face with his guests, he did it--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> ordered John's head cut off</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> and presented to the girl on a platter. She in turn gave it to her mother.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Later, John's disciples got the body, gave it a reverent burial, and reported to Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> When Jesus got the news, he slipped away by boat to an out-of-the-way place by himself. But unsuccessfully--someone saw him and the word got around. Soon a lot of people from the nearby villages walked around the lake to where he was.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> When he saw them coming, he was overcome with pity and healed their sick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Toward evening the disciples approached him. "We're out in the country and it's getting late. Dismiss the people so they can go to the villages and get some supper."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But Jesus said, "There is no need to dismiss them. You give them supper."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "All we have are five loaves of bread and two fish," they said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Jesus said, "Bring them here."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Then he had the people sit on the grass. He took the five loaves and two fish, lifted his face to heaven in prayer, blessed, broke, and gave the bread to the disciples. The disciples then gave the food to the congregation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> They all ate their fill. They gathered twelve baskets of leftovers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> About five thousand were fed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> As soon as the meal was finished, he insisted that the disciples get in the boat and go on ahead to the other side while he dismissed the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> With the crowd dispersed, he climbed the mountain so he could be by himself and pray. He stayed there alone, late into the night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Meanwhile, the boat was far out to sea when the wind came up against them and they were battered by the waves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> At about four o'clock in the morning, Jesus came toward them walking on the water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> They were scared out of their wits. "A ghost!" they said, crying out in terror.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> But Jesus was quick to comfort them. "Courage, it's me. Don't be afraid."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Peter, suddenly bold, said, "Master, if it's really you, call me to come to you on the water."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> He said, "Come ahead." Jumping out of the boat, Peter walked on the water to Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> But when he looked down at the waves churning beneath his feet, he lost his nerve and started to sink. He cried, "Master, save me!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Jesus didn't hesitate. He reached down and grabbed his hand. Then he said, "Faint-heart, what got into you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The two of them climbed into the boat, and the wind died down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> The disciples in the boat, having watched the whole thing, worshiped Jesus, saying, "This is it! You are God's Son for sure!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> On return, they beached the boat at Gennesaret.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> When the people got wind that he was back, they sent out word through the neighborhood and rounded up all the sick,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> who asked for permission to touch the edge of his coat. And whoever touched him was healed.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> After that, Pharisees and religion scholars came to Jesus all the way from Jerusalem, criticizing,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Why do your disciples play fast and loose with the rules?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But Jesus put it right back on them. "Why do you use your rules to play fast and loose with God's commands?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> God clearly says, 'Respect your father and mother,' and, 'Anyone denouncing father or mother should be killed.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But you weasel around that by saying, 'Whoever wants to, can say to father and mother, What I owed to you I've given to God.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> That can hardly be called respecting a parent. You cancel God's command by your rules.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Frauds! Isaiah's prophecy of you hit the bull's-eye:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> These people make a big show of saying the right thing, but their heart isn't in it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They act like they're worshiping me, but they don't mean it. They just use me as a cover for teaching whatever suits their fancy."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He then called the crowd together and said, "Listen, and take this to heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> It's not what you swallow that pollutes your life, but what you vomit up."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Later his disciples came and told him, "Did you know how upset the Pharisees were when they heard what you said?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Jesus shrugged it off. "Every tree that wasn't planted by my Father in heaven will be pulled up by its roots.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Forget them. They are blind men leading blind men. When a blind man leads a blind man, they both end up in the ditch."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Peter said, "I don't get it. Put it in plain language."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Jesus replied, "You too? Are you being willfully stupid?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Don't you know that anything that is swallowed works its way through the intestines and is finally defecated?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But what comes out of the mouth gets its start in the heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> It's from the heart that we vomit up evil arguments, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, lies, and cussing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> That's what pollutes. Eating or not eating certain foods, washing or not washing your hands--that's neither here nor there."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> From there Jesus took a trip to Tyre and Sidon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> They had hardly arrived when a Canaanite woman came down from the hills and pleaded, "Mercy, Master, Son of David! My daughter is cruelly afflicted by an evil spirit."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Jesus ignored her. The disciples came and complained, "Now she's bothering us. Would you please take care of her? She's driving us crazy."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Jesus refused, telling them, "I've got my hands full dealing with the lost sheep of Israel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Then the woman came back to Jesus, went to her knees, and begged. "Master, help me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> He said, "It's not right to take bread out of children's mouths and throw it to dogs."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> She was quick: "You're right, Master, but beggar dogs do get scraps from the master's table."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Jesus gave in. "Oh, woman, your faith is something else. What you want is what you get!" Right then her daughter became well.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> After Jesus returned, he walked along Lake Galilee and then climbed a mountain and took his place, ready to receive visitors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> They came, tons of them, bringing along the paraplegic, the blind, the maimed, the mute--all sorts of people in need--and more or less threw them down at Jesus' feet to see what he would do with them. He healed them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> When the people saw the mutes speaking, the maimed healthy, the paraplegics walking around, the blind looking around, they were astonished and let everyone know that God was blazingly alive among them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> But Jesus wasn't finished with them. He called his disciples and said, "I hurt for these people. For three days now they've been with me, and now they have nothing to eat. I can't send them away without a meal--they'd probably collapse on the road."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> His disciples said, "But where in this deserted place are you going to dig up enough food for a meal?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Jesus asked, "How much bread do you have?" "Seven loaves," they said, "plus a few fish."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> At that, Jesus directed the people to sit down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> He took the seven loaves and the fish. After giving thanks, he divided it up and gave it to the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Everyone ate. They had all they wanted. It took seven large baskets to collect the leftovers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Over four thousand people ate their fill at that meal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> After Jesus sent them away, he climbed in the boat and crossed over to the Magadan hills.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Some Pharisees and Sadducees were on him again, pressing him to prove himself to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He told them, "You have a saying that goes, 'Red sky at night, sailor's delight;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> red sky at morning, sailors take warning.' You find it easy enough to forecast the weather--why can't you read the signs of the times?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> An evil and wanton generation is always wanting signs and wonders. The only sign you'll get is the Jonah sign." Then he turned on his heel and walked away.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> On their way to the other side of the lake, the disciples discovered they had forgotten to bring along bread.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> In the meantime, Jesus said to them, "Keep a sharp eye out for Pharisee-Sadducee yeast."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Thinking he was scolding them for forgetting bread, they discussed in whispers what to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Jesus knew what they were doing and said, "Why all these worried whispers about forgetting the bread? Runt believers!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Haven't you caught on yet? Don't you remember the five loaves of bread and the five thousand people, and how many baskets of fragments you picked up?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Or the seven loaves that fed four thousand, and how many baskets of leftovers you collected?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Haven't you realized yet that bread isn't the problem? The problem is yeast, Pharisee-Sadducee yeast."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then they got it: that he wasn't concerned about eating, but teaching--the Pharisee-Sadducee kind of teaching.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> When Jesus arrived in the villages of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "What are people saying about who the Son of Man is?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They replied, "Some think he is John the Baptizer, some say Elijah, some Jeremiah or one of the other prophets."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He pressed them, "And how about you? Who do you say I am?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Simon Peter said, "You're the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Jesus came back, "God bless you, Simon, son of Jonah! You didn't get that answer out of books or from teachers. My Father in heaven, God himself, let you in on this secret of who I really am.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And now I'm going to tell you who you are, really are. You are Peter, a rock. This is the rock on which I will put together my church, a church so expansive with energy that not even the gates of hell will be able to keep it out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "And that's not all. You will have complete and free access to God's kingdom, keys to open any and every door: no more barriers between heaven and earth, earth and heaven. A yes on earth is yes in heaven. A no on earth is no in heaven."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He swore the disciples to secrecy. He made them promise they would tell no one that he was the Messiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then Jesus made it clear to his disciples that it was now necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, submit to an ordeal of suffering at the hands of the religious leaders, be killed, and then on the third day be raised up alive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Peter took him in hand, protesting, "Impossible, Master! That can never be!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But Jesus didn't swerve. "Peter, get out of my way. Satan, get lost. You have no idea how God works."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Then Jesus went to work on his disciples. "Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat; I am. Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself? What could you ever trade your soul for?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "Don't be in such a hurry to go into business for yourself. Before you know it the Son of Man will arrive with all the splendor of his Father, accompanied by an army of angels. You'll get everything you have coming to you, a personal gift.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> This isn't pie in the sky by and by. Some of you standing here are going to see it take place, see the Son of Man in kingdom glory."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="17">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Six days later, three of them saw that glory. Jesus took Peter and the brothers, James and John, and led them up a high mountain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> His appearance changed from the inside out, right before their eyes. Sunlight poured from his face. His clothes were filled with light.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then they realized that Moses and Elijah were also there in deep conversation with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Peter broke in, "Master, this is a great moment! What would you think if I built three memorials here on the mountain--one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> While he was going on like this, babbling, a light-radiant cloud enveloped them, and sounding from deep in the cloud a voice: "This is my Son, marked by my love, focus of my delight. Listen to him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When the disciples heard it, they fell flat on their faces, scared to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But Jesus came over and touched them. "Don't be afraid."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> When they opened their eyes and looked around all they saw was Jesus, only Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Coming down the mountain, Jesus swore them to secrecy. "Don't breathe a word of what you've seen. After the Son of Man is raised from the dead, you are free to talk."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The disciples, meanwhile, were asking questions. "Why do the religion scholars say that Elijah has to come first?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Jesus answered, "Elijah does come and get everything ready.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I'm telling you, Elijah has already come but they didn't know him when they saw him. They treated him like dirt, the same way they are about to treat the Son of Man."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> That's when the disciples realized that all along he had been talking about John the Baptizer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> At the bottom of the mountain, they were met by a crowd of waiting people. As they approached, a man came out of the crowd and fell to his knees begging,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Master, have mercy on my son. He goes out of his mind and suffers terribly, falling into seizures. Frequently he is pitched into the fire, other times into the river.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I brought him to your disciples, but they could do nothing for him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Jesus said, "What a generation! No sense of God! No focus to your lives! How many times do I have to go over these things? How much longer do I have to put up with this? Bring the boy here."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> He ordered the afflicting demon out--and it was out, gone. From that moment on the boy was well.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> When the disciples had Jesus off to themselves, they asked, "Why couldn't we throw it out?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "Because you're not yet taking God seriously," said Jesus. "The simple truth is that if you had a mere kernel of faith, a poppy seed, say, you would tell this mountain, 'Move!' and it would move. There is nothing you wouldn't be able to tackle."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> (OMITTED TEXT)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> As they were regrouping in Galilee, Jesus told them, "The Son of Man is about to be betrayed to some people who want nothing to do with God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They will murder him--and three days later he will be raised alive." The disciples felt terrible.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> When they arrived at Capernaum, the tax men came to Peter and asked, "Does your teacher pay taxes?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Peter said, "Of course." But as soon as they were in the house, Jesus confronted him. "Simon, what do you think? When a king levies taxes, who pays--his children or his subjects?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> He answered, "His subjects." Jesus said, "Then the children get off free, right?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> But so we don't upset them needlessly, go down to the lake, cast a hook, and pull in the first fish that bites. Open its mouth and you'll find a coin. Take it and give it to the tax men. It will be enough for both of us."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="18">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> At about the same time, the disciples came to Jesus asking, "Who gets the highest rank in God's kingdom?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> and said, "I'm telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you're not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God's kingdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> What's more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it's the same as receiving me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "But if you give them a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you'll soon wish you hadn't. You'd be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Doom to the world for giving these God-believing children a hard time! Hard times are inevitable, but you don't have to make it worse--and it's doomsday to you if you do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "If your hand or your foot gets in the way of God, chop it off and throw it away. You're better off maimed or lame and alive than the proud owners of two hands and two feet, godless in a furnace of eternal fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And if your eye distracts you from God, pull it out and throw it away. You're better off one-eyed and alive than exercising your twenty-twenty vision from inside the fire of hell.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Watch that you don't treat a single one of these childlike believers arrogantly. You realize, don't you, that their personal angels are constantly in touch with my Father in heaven?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> (OMITTED TEXT)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Look at it this way. If someone has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders off, doesn't he leave the ninety-nine and go after the one?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And if he finds it, doesn't he make far more over it than over the ninety-nine who stay put?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Your Father in heaven feels the same way. He doesn't want to lose even one of these simple believers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "If a fellow believer hurts you, go and tell him--work it out between the two of you. If he listens, you've made a friend.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> If he won't listen, take one or two others along so that the presence of witnesses will keep things honest, and try again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> If he still won't listen, tell the church. If he won't listen to the church, you'll have to start over from scratch, confront him with the need for repentance, and offer again God's forgiving love.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Take this most seriously: A yes on earth is yes in heaven; a no on earth is no in heaven. What you say to one another is eternal. I mean this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> When two of you get together on anything at all on earth and make a prayer of it, my Father in heaven goes into action.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And when two or three of you are together because of me, you can be sure that I'll be there."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> At that point Peter got up the nerve to ask, "Master, how many times do I forgive a brother or sister who hurts me? Seven?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Jesus replied, "Seven! Hardly. Try seventy times seven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "The kingdom of God is like a king who decided to square accounts with his servants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> As he got under way, one servant was brought before him who had run up a debt of a hundred thousand dollars.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> He couldn't pay up, so the king ordered the man, along with his wife, children, and goods, to be auctioned off at the slave market.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "The poor wretch threw himself at the king's feet and begged, 'Give me a chance and I'll pay it all back.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Touched by his plea, the king let him off, erasing the debt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "The servant was no sooner out of the room when he came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him ten dollars. He seized him by the throat and demanded, 'Pay up. Now!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "The poor wretch threw himself down and begged, 'Give me a chance and I'll pay it all back.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> But he wouldn't do it. He had him arrested and put in jail until the debt was paid.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> When the other servants saw this going on, they were outraged and brought a detailed report to the king.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "The king summoned the man and said, 'You evil servant! I forgave your entire debt when you begged me for mercy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Shouldn't you be compelled to be merciful to your fellow servant who asked for mercy?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The king was furious and put the screws to the man until he paid back his entire debt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> And that's exactly what my Father in heaven is going to do to each one of you who doesn't forgive unconditionally anyone who asks for mercy."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="19">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When Jesus had completed these teachings, he left Galilee and crossed the region of Judea on the other side of the Jordan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Great crowds followed him there, and he healed them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> One day the Pharisees were badgering him: "Is it legal for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He answered, "Haven't you read in your Bible that the Creator originally made man and woman for each other, male and female?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And because of this, a man leaves father and mother and is firmly bonded to his wife, becoming one flesh--no longer two bodies but one.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Because God created this organic union of the two sexes, no one should desecrate his art by cutting them apart."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They shot back in rebuttal, "If that's so, why did Moses give instructions for divorce papers and divorce procedures?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Jesus said, "Moses provided for divorce as a concession to your hardheartedness, but it is not part of God's original plan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'm holding you to the original plan, and holding you liable for adultery if you divorce your faithful wife and then marry someone else. I make an exception in cases where the spouse has committed adultery."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Jesus' disciples objected, "If those are the terms of marriage, we're stuck. Why get married?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But Jesus said, "Not everyone is mature enough to live a married life. It requires a certain aptitude and grace. Marriage isn't for everyone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Some, from birth seemingly, never give marriage a thought. Others never get asked--or accepted. And some decide not to get married for kingdom reasons. But if you're capable of growing into the largeness of marriage, do it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> One day children were brought to Jesus in the hope that he would lay hands on them and pray over them. The disciples shooed them off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But Jesus intervened: "Let the children alone, don't prevent them from coming to me. God's kingdom is made up of people like these."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> After laying hands on them, he left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Another day, a man stopped Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Jesus said, "Why do you question me about what's good? God is the One who is good. If you want to enter the life of God, just do what he tells you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The man asked, "What in particular?" Jesus said, "Don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don't lie,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as you do yourself."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The young man said, "I've done all that. What's left?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "If you want to give it all you've got," Jesus replied, "go sell your possessions; give everything to the poor. All your wealth will then be in heaven. Then come follow me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> That was the last thing the young man expected to hear. And so, crestfallen, he walked away. He was holding on tight to a lot of things, and he couldn't bear to let go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> As he watched him go, Jesus told his disciples, "Do you have any idea how difficult it is for the rich to enter God's kingdom?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Let me tell you, it's easier to gallop a camel through a needle's eye than for the rich to enter God's kingdom."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The disciples were staggered. "Then who has any chance at all?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Jesus looked hard at them and said, "No chance at all if you think you can pull it off yourself. Every chance in the world if you trust God to do it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Then Peter chimed in, "We left everything and followed you. What do we get out of it?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Jesus replied, "Yes, you have followed me. In the re-creation of the world, when the Son of Man will rule gloriously, you who have followed me will also rule, starting with the twelve tribes of Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> And not only you, but anyone who sacrifices home, family, fields--whatever--because of me will get it all back a hundred times over, not to mention the considerable bonus of eternal life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> This is the Great Reversal: many of the first ending up last, and the last first.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="20">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "God's kingdom is like an estate manager who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They agreed on a wage of a dollar a day, and went to work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Later, about nine o'clock, the manager saw some other men hanging around the town square unemployed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He told them to go to work in his vineyard and he would pay them a fair wage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They went. "He did the same thing at noon, and again at three o'clock.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> At five o'clock he went back and found still others standing around. He said, 'Why are you standing around all day doing nothing?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> ' "They said, 'Because no one hired us.' "He told them to go to work in his vineyard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "When the day's work was over, the owner of the vineyard instructed his foreman, 'Call the workers in and pay them their wages. Start with the last hired and go on to the first.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Those hired at five o'clock came up and were each given a dollar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When those who were hired first saw that, they assumed they would get far more. But they got the same, each of them one dollar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Taking the dollar, they groused angrily to the manager,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> 'These last workers put in only one easy hour, and you just made them equal to us, who slaved all day under a scorching sun.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "He replied to the one speaking for the rest, 'Friend, I haven't been unfair. We agreed on the wage of a dollar, didn't we?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> So take it and go. I decided to give to the one who came last the same as you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Can't I do what I want with my own money? Are you going to get stingy because I am generous?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Here it is again, the Great Reversal: many of the first ending up last, and the last first."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Jesus, now well on the way up to Jerusalem, took the Twelve off to the side of the road and said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Listen to me carefully. We are on our way up to Jerusalem. When we get there, the Son of Man will be betrayed to the religious leaders and scholars. They will sentence him to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They will then hand him over to the Romans for mockery and torture and crucifixion. On the third day he will be raised up alive."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> It was about that time that the mother of the Zebedee brothers came with her two sons and knelt before Jesus with a request.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "What do you want?" Jesus asked. She said, "Give your word that these two sons of mine will be awarded the highest places of honor in your kingdom, one at your right hand, one at your left hand."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Jesus responded, "You have no idea what you're asking." And he said to James and John, "Are you capable of drinking the cup that I'm about to drink?" They said, "Sure, why not?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Jesus said, "Come to think of it, you are going to drink my cup. But as to awarding places of honor, that's not my business. My Father is taking care of that."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> When the ten others heard about this, they lost their tempers, thoroughly disgusted with the two brothers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> So Jesus got them together to settle things down. He said, "You've observed how godless rulers throw their weight around, how quickly a little power goes to their heads.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> It's not going to be that way with you. Whoever wants to be great must become a servant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> That is what the Son of Man has done: He came to serve, not be served--and then to give away his life in exchange for the many who are held hostage."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> As they were leaving Jericho, a huge crowd followed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Suddenly they came upon two blind men sitting alongside the road. When they heard it was Jesus passing, they cried out, "Master, have mercy on us! Mercy, Son of David!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The crowd tried to hush them up, but they got all the louder, crying, "Master, have mercy on us! Mercy, Son of David!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Jesus stopped and called over, "What do you want from me?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> They said, "Master, we want our eyes opened. We want to see!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Deeply moved, Jesus touched their eyes. They had their sight back that very instant, and joined the procession.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="21">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When they neared Jerusalem, having arrived at Bethphage on Mount Olives, Jesus sent two disciples</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> with these instructions: "Go over to the village across from you. You'll find a donkey tethered there, her colt with her. Untie her and bring them to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> If anyone asks what you're doing, say, 'The Master needs them!' He will send them with you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> This is the full story of what was sketched earlier by the prophet:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Tell Zion's daughter, "Look, your king's on his way, poised and ready, mounted On a donkey, on a colt, foal of a pack animal."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The disciples went and did exactly what Jesus told them to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They led the donkey and colt out, laid some of their clothes on them, and Jesus mounted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Nearly all the people in the crowd threw their garments down on the road, giving him a royal welcome. Others cut branches from the trees and threw them down as a welcome mat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Crowds went ahead and crowds followed, all of them calling out, "Hosanna to David's son!" "Blessed is he who comes in God's name!" "Hosanna in highest heaven!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> As he made his entrance into Jerusalem, the whole city was shaken. Unnerved, people were asking, "What's going on here? Who is this?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The parade crowd answered, "This is the prophet Jesus, the one from Nazareth in Galilee."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Jesus went straight to the Temple and threw out everyone who had set up shop, buying and selling. He kicked over the tables of loan sharks and the stalls of dove merchants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He quoted this text: My house was designated a house of prayer; You have made it a hangout for thieves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Now there was room for the blind and crippled to get in. They came to Jesus and he healed them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> When the religious leaders saw the outrageous things he was doing, and heard all the children running and shouting through the Temple, "Hosanna to David's Son!" they were up in arms and took him to task.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Do you hear what these children are saying?" Jesus said, "Yes, I hear them. And haven't you read in God's Word, 'From the mouths of children and babies I'll furnish a place of praise'?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Fed up, Jesus turned on his heel and left the city for Bethany, where he spent the night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Early the next morning Jesus was returning to the city. He was hungry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Seeing a lone fig tree alongside the road, he approached it anticipating a breakfast of figs. When he got to the tree, there was nothing but fig leaves. He said, "No more figs from this tree--ever!" The fig tree withered on the spot, a dry stick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The disciples saw it happen. They rubbed their eyes, saying, "Did we really see this? A leafy tree one minute, a dry stick the next?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But Jesus was matter-of-fact: "Yes--and if you embrace this kingdom life and don't doubt God, you'll not only do minor feats like I did to the fig tree, but also triumph over huge obstacles. This mountain, for instance, you'll tell, 'Go jump in the lake,' and it will jump.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Absolutely everything, ranging from small to large, as you make it a part of your believing prayer, gets included as you lay hold of God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Then he was back in the Temple, teaching. The high priests and leaders of the people came up and demanded, "Show us your credentials. Who authorized you to teach here?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Jesus responded, "First let me ask you a question. You answer my question and I'll answer yours.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> About the baptism of John--who authorized it: heaven or humans?" They were on the spot and knew it. They pulled back into a huddle and whispered, "If we say 'heaven,' he'll ask us why we didn't believe him;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> if we say 'humans,' we're up against it with the people because they all hold John up as a prophet."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> They decided to concede that round to Jesus. "We don't know," they answered. Jesus said, "Then neither will I answer your question.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "Tell me what you think of this story: A man had two sons. He went up to the first and said, 'Son, go out for the day and work in the vineyard.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "The son answered, 'I don't want to.' Later on he thought better of it and went.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "The father gave the same command to the second son. He answered, 'Sure, glad to.' But he never went.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "Which of the two sons did what the father asked?" They said, "The first." Jesus said, "Yes, and I tell you that crooks and whores are going to precede you into God's kingdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> John came to you showing you the right road. You turned up your noses at him, but the crooks and whores believed him. Even when you saw their changed lives, you didn't care enough to change and believe him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "Here's another story. Listen closely. There was once a man, a wealthy farmer, who planted a vineyard. He fenced it, dug a winepress, put up a watchtower, then turned it over to the farmhands and went off on a trip.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> When it was time to harvest the grapes, he sent his servants back to collect his profits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> "The farmhands grabbed the first servant and beat him up. The next one they murdered. They threw stones at the third but he got away.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> The owner tried again, sending more servants. They got the same treatment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> The owner was at the end of his rope. He decided to send his son. 'Surely,' he thought, 'they will respect my son.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> "But when the farmhands saw the son arrive, they rubbed their hands in greed. 'This is the heir! Let's kill him and have it all for ourselves.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> They grabbed him, threw him out, and killed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> "Now, when the owner of the vineyard arrives home from his trip, what do you think he will do to the farmhands?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> "He'll kill them--a rotten bunch, and good riddance," they answered. "Then he'll assign the vineyard to farmhands who will hand over the profits when it's time."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Jesus said, "Right--and you can read it for yourselves in your Bibles: The stone the masons threw out is now the cornerstone. This is God's work; we rub our eyes, we can hardly believe it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> "This is the way it is with you. God's kingdom will be taken back from you and handed over to a people who will live out a kingdom life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Whoever stumbles on this Stone gets shattered; whoever the Stone falls on gets smashed."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> When the religious leaders heard this story, they knew it was aimed at them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> They wanted to arrest Jesus and put him in jail, but, intimidated by public opinion, they held back. Most people held him to be a prophet of God.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="22">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Jesus responded by telling still more stories.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "God's kingdom," he said, "is like a king who threw a wedding banquet for his son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He sent out servants to call in all the invited guests. And they wouldn't come!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "He sent out another round of servants, instructing them to tell the guests, 'Look, everything is on the table, the prime rib is ready for carving. Come to the feast!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "They only shrugged their shoulders and went off, one to weed his garden, another to work in his shop.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The rest, with nothing better to do, beat up on the messengers and then killed them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The king was outraged and sent his soldiers to destroy those thugs and level their city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Then he told his servants, 'We have a wedding banquet all prepared but no guests. The ones I invited weren't up to it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Go out into the busiest intersections in town and invite anyone you find to the banquet.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The servants went out on the streets and rounded up everyone they laid eyes on, good and bad, regardless. And so the banquet was on--every place filled.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "When the king entered and looked over the scene, he spotted a man who wasn't properly dressed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He said to him, 'Friend, how dare you come in here looking like that!' The man was speechless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then the king told his servants, 'Get him out of here--fast. Tie him up and ship him to hell. And make sure he doesn't get back in.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "That's what I mean when I say, 'Many get invited; only a few make it.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> That's when the Pharisees plotted a way to trap him into saying something damaging.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They sent their disciples, with a few of Herod's followers mixed in, to ask, "Teacher, we know you have integrity, teach the way of God accurately, are indifferent to popular opinion, and don't pander to your students.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> So tell us honestly: Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Jesus knew they were up to no good. He said, "Why are you playing these games with me? Why are you trying to trap me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Do you have a coin? Let me see it." They handed him a silver piece.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "This engraving--who does it look like? And whose name is on it?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They said, "Caesar." "Then give Caesar what is his, and give God what is his."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The Pharisees were speechless. They went off shaking their heads.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> That same day, Sadducees approached him. This is the party that denies any possibility of resurrection.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> They asked, "Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies childless, his brother is obligated to marry his widow and get her with child.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Here's a case where there were seven brothers. The first brother married and died, leaving no child, and his wife passed to his brother.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The second brother also left her childless, then the third--and on and on, all seven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Eventually the wife died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Now here's our question: At the resurrection, whose wife is she? She was a wife to each of them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Jesus answered, "You're off base on two counts: You don't know your Bibles, and you don't know how God works.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> At the resurrection we're beyond marriage. As with the angels, all our ecstasies and intimacies then will be with God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> And regarding your speculation on whether the dead are raised or not, don't you read your Bibles? The grammar is clear: God says,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> 'I am--not was--the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.' The living God defines himself not as the God of dead men, but of the living."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Hearing this exchange the crowd was much impressed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> When the Pharisees heard how he had bested the Sadducees, they gathered their forces for an assault.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> One of their religion scholars spoke for them, posing a question they hoped would show him up:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> "Teacher, which command in God's Law is the most important?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Jesus said, "'Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> This is the most important, the first on any list.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> But there is a second to set alongside it: 'Love others as well as you love yourself.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> These two commands are pegs; everything in God's Law and the Prophets hangs from them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> As the Pharisees were regrouping, Jesus caught them off balance with his own test question:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> "What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?" They said, "David's son."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Jesus replied, "Well, if the Christ is David's son, how do you explain that David, under inspiration, named Christ his 'Master'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> God said to my Master, "Sit here at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> "Now if David calls him 'Master,' how can he at the same time be his son?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> That stumped them, literalists that they were. Unwilling to risk losing face again in one of these public verbal exchanges, they quit asking questions for good.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="23">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Now Jesus turned to address his disciples, along with the crowd that had gathered with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "The religion scholars and Pharisees are competent teachers in God's Law.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You won't go wrong in following their teachings on Moses. But be careful about following them. They talk a good line, but they don't live it. They don't take it into their hearts and live it out in their behavior. It's all spit-and-polish veneer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Instead of giving you God's Law as food and drink by which you can banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules, loading you down like pack animals. They seem to take pleasure in watching you stagger under these loads, and wouldn't think of lifting a finger to help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer shawls one day and flowery prayers the next.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They love to sit at the head table at church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> preening in the radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees, and getting called 'Doctor' and 'Reverend.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Don't let people do that to you, put you on a pedestal like that. You all have a single Teacher, and you are all classmates.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Don't set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do. Save that authority for God; let him tell you what to do. No one else should carry the title of 'Father'; you have only one Father, and he's in heaven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And don't let people maneuver you into taking charge of them. There is only one Life-Leader for you and them--Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Do you want to stand out? Then step down. Be a servant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> If you puff yourself up, you'll get the wind knocked out of you. But if you're content to simply be yourself, your life will count for plenty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "I've had it with you! You're hopeless, you religion scholars, you Pharisees! Frauds! Your lives are roadblocks to God's kingdom. You refuse to enter, and won't let anyone else in either.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> (OMITTED TEXT)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You go halfway around the world to make a convert, but once you get him you make him into a replica of yourselves, double-damned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "You're hopeless! What arrogant stupidity! You say, 'If someone makes a promise with his fingers crossed, that's nothing; but if he swears with his hand on the Bible, that's serious.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> What ignorance! Does the leather on the Bible carry more weight than the skin on your hands?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And what about this piece of trivia: 'If you shake hands on a promise, that's nothing; but if you raise your hand that God is your witness, that's serious'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> What ridiculous hairsplitting! What difference does it make whether you shake hands or raise hands?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> A promise is a promise. What difference does it make if you make your promise inside or outside a house of worship? A promise is a promise. God is present, watching and holding you to account regardless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> (SEE 23:20)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> (SEE 23:20)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but on the meat of God's Law, things like fairness and compassion and commitment--the absolute basics!--you carelessly take it or leave it. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Do you have any idea how silly you look, writing a life story that's wrong from start to finish, nitpicking over commas and semicolons?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You burnish the surface of your cups and bowls so they sparkle in the sun, while the insides are maggoty with your greed and gluttony.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Stupid Pharisee! Scour the insides, and then the gleaming surface will mean something.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You're like manicured grave plots, grass clipped and the flowers bright, but six feet down it's all rotting bones and worm-eaten flesh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> People look at you and think you're saints, but beneath the skin you're total frauds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You build granite tombs for your prophets and marble monuments for your saints.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> And you say that if you had lived in the days of your ancestors, no blood would have been on your hands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> You protest too much! You're cut from the same cloth as those murderers,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> and daily add to the death count.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "Snakes! Reptilian sneaks! Do you think you can worm your way out of this? Never have to pay the piper?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> It's on account of people like you that I send prophets and wise guides and scholars generation after generation--and generation after generation you treat them like dirt, greeting them with lynch mobs, hounding them with abuse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> "You can't squirm out of this: Every drop of righteous blood ever spilled on this earth, beginning with the blood of that good man Abel right down to the blood of Zechariah, Barachiah's son, whom you murdered at his prayers, is on your head.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> All this, I'm telling you, is coming down on you, on your generation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> "Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Murderer of prophets! Killer of the ones who brought you God's news! How often I've ached to embrace your children, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you wouldn't let me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> And now you're so desolate, nothing but a ghost town.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> What is there left to say? Only this: I'm out of here soon. The next time you see me you'll say, 'Oh, God has blessed him! He's come, bringing God's rule!'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="24">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Jesus then left the Temple. As he walked away, his disciples pointed out how very impressive the Temple architecture was.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Jesus said, "You're not impressed by all this sheer size, are you? The truth of the matter is that there's not a stone in that building that is not going to end up in a pile of rubble."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Later as he was sitting on Mount Olives, his disciples approached and asked him, "Tell us, when are these things going to happen? What will be the sign of your coming, that the time's up?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Jesus said, "Watch out for doomsday deceivers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Many leaders are going to show up with forged identities, claiming, 'I am Christ, the Messiah.' They will deceive a lot of people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When reports come in of wars and rumored wars, keep your head and don't panic. This is routine history; this is no sign of the end.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Nation will fight nation and ruler fight ruler, over and over. Famines and earthquakes will occur in various places.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> This is nothing compared to what is coming.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "They are going to throw you to the wolves and kill you, everyone hating you because you carry my name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And then, going from bad to worse, it will be dog-eat-dog, everyone at each other's throat, everyone hating each other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "In the confusion, lying preachers will come forward and deceive a lot of people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> For many others, the overwhelming spread of evil will do them in--nothing left of their love but a mound of ashes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Staying with it--that's what God requires. Stay with it to the end. You won't be sorry, and you'll be saved.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> All during this time, the good news--the Message of the kingdom--will be preached all over the world, a witness staked out in every country. And then the end will come.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "But be ready to run for it when you see the monster of desecration set up in the Temple sanctuary. The prophet Daniel described this. If you've read Daniel, you'll know what I'm talking about.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> If you're living in Judea at the time, run for the hills;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> if you're working in the yard, don't return to the house to get anything;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> if you're out in the field, don't go back and get your coat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Pregnant and nursing mothers will have it especially hard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Hope and pray this won't happen during the winter or on a Sabbath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "This is going to be trouble on a scale beyond what the world has ever seen, or will see again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> If these days of trouble were left to run their course, nobody would make it. But on account of God's chosen people, the trouble will be cut short.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "If anyone tries to flag you down, calling out, 'Here's the Messiah!' or points, 'There he is!' don't fall for it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Fake Messiahs and lying preachers are going to pop up everywhere. Their impressive credentials and dazzling performances will pull the wool over the eyes of even those who ought to know better.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> But I've given you fair warning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "So if they say, 'Run to the country and see him arrive!' or, 'Quick, get downtown, see him come!' don't give them the time of day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The Arrival of the Son of Man isn't something you go to see. He comes like swift lightning to you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Whenever you see crowds gathering, think of carrion vultures circling, moving in, hovering over a rotting carcass. You can be quite sure that it's not the living Son of Man pulling in those crowds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "Following those hard times, Sun will fade out, moon cloud over, Stars fall out of the sky, cosmic powers tremble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "Then, the Arrival of the Son of Man! It will fill the skies--no one will miss it. Unready people all over the world, outsiders to the splendor and power, will raise a huge lament as they watch the Son of Man blazing out of heaven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> At that same moment, he'll dispatch his angels with a trumpet-blast summons, pulling in God's chosen from the four winds, from pole to pole.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "Take a lesson from the fig tree. From the moment you notice its buds form, the merest hint of green, you know summer's just around the corner.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> So it is with you: When you see all these things, you'll know he's at the door.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Don't take this lightly. I'm not just saying this for some future generation, but for all of you. This age continues until all these things take place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Sky and earth will wear out; my words won't wear out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> "But the exact day and hour? No one knows that, not even heaven's angels, not even the Son. Only the Father knows.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> "The Arrival of the Son of Man will take place in times like Noah's.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Before the great flood everyone was carrying on as usual, having a good time right up to the day Noah boarded the ark.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> They knew nothing--until the flood hit and swept everything away. "The Son of Man's Arrival will be like that:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Two men will be working in the field--one will be taken, one left behind;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> two women will be grinding at the mill--one will be taken, one left behind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> So stay awake, alert. You have no idea what day your Master will show up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> But you do know this: You know that if the homeowner had known what time of night the burglar would arrive, he would have been there with his dogs to prevent the break-in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Be vigilant just like that. You have no idea when the Son of Man is going to show up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> "Who here qualifies for the job of overseeing the kitchen? A person the Master can depend on to feed the workers on time each day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Someone the Master can drop in on unannounced and always find him doing his job. A God-blessed man or woman, I tell you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> It won't be long before the Master will put this person in charge of the whole operation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> "But if that person only looks out for himself, and the minute the Master is away does what he pleases--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> abusing the help and throwing drunken parties for his friends--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> the Master is going to show up when he least expects it</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> and make hash of him. He'll end up in the dump with the hypocrites, out in the cold shivering, teeth chattering.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="25">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "God's kingdom is like ten young virgins who took oil lamps and went out to greet the bridegroom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Five were silly and five were smart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The silly virgins took lamps, but no extra oil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The smart virgins took jars of oil to feed their lamps.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The bridegroom didn't show up when they expected him, and they all fell asleep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "In the middle of the night someone yelled out, 'He's here! The bridegroom's here! Go out and greet him!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "The ten virgins got up and got their lamps ready.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The silly virgins said to the smart ones, 'Our lamps are going out; lend us some of your oil.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "They answered, 'There might not be enough to go around; go buy your own.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "They did, but while they were out buying oil, the bridegroom arrived. When everyone who was there to greet him had gone into the wedding feast, the door was locked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Much later, the other virgins, the silly ones, showed up and knocked on the door, saying, 'Master, we're here. Let us in.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "He answered, 'Do I know you? I don't think I know you.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "So stay alert. You have no idea when he might arrive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "It's also like a man going off on an extended trip. He called his servants together and delegated responsibilities.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> To one he gave five thousand dollars, to another two thousand, to a third one thousand, depending on their abilities. Then he left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Right off, the first servant went to work and doubled his master's investment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The second did the same.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But the man with the single thousand dug a hole and carefully buried his master's money.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "After a long absence, the master of those three servants came back and settled up with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The one given five thousand dollars showed him how he had doubled his investment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> His master commended him: 'Good work! You did your job well. From now on be my partner.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "The servant with the two thousand showed how he also had doubled his master's investment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> His master commended him: 'Good work! You did your job well. From now on be my partner.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "The servant given one thousand said, 'Master, I know you have high standards and hate careless ways, that you demand the best and make no allowances for error.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> I was afraid I might disappoint you, so I found a good hiding place and secured your money. Here it is, safe and sound down to the last cent.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "The master was furious. 'That's a terrible way to live! It's criminal to live cautiously like that! If you knew I was after the best, why did you do less than the least?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The least you could have done would have been to invest the sum with the bankers, where at least I would have gotten a little interest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "'Take the thousand and give it to the one who risked the most. And get rid of this "play-it-safe" who won't go out on a limb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> (SEE 25:28)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Throw him out into utter darkness.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "When he finally arrives, blazing in beauty and all his angels with him, the Son of Man will take his place on his glorious throne.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Then all the nations will be arranged before him and he will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep and goats,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> putting sheep to his right and goats to his left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what's coming to you in this kingdom. It's been ready for you since the world's foundation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> And here's why: I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was homeless and you gave me a room,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> I was shivering and you gave me clothes, I was sick and you stopped to visit, I was in prison and you came to me.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> "Then those 'sheep' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> (SEE 25:38)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me--you did it to me.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> "Then he will turn to the 'goats,' the ones on his left, and say, 'Get out, worthless goats! You're good for nothing but the fires of hell.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> And why? Because-- I was hungry and you gave me no meal, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> I was homeless and you gave me no bed, I was shivering and you gave me no clothes, Sick and in prison, and you never visited.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> "Then those 'goats' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or homeless or shivering or sick or in prison and didn't help?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> "He will answer them, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me--you failed to do it to me.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> "Then those 'goats' will be herded to their eternal doom, but the 'sheep' to their eternal reward."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="26">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When Jesus finished saying these things, he told his disciples,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "You know that Passover comes in two days. That's when the Son of Man will be betrayed and handed over for crucifixion."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> At that very moment, the party of high priests and religious leaders was meeting in the chambers of the Chief Priest named Caiaphas,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> conspiring to seize Jesus by stealth and kill him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They agreed that it should not be done during Passover Week. "We don't want a riot on our hands," they said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When Jesus was at Bethany, a guest of Simon the Leper,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> a woman came up to him as he was eating dinner and anointed him with a bottle of very expensive perfume.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> When the disciples saw what was happening, they were furious. "That's criminal!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> This could have been sold for a lot and the money handed out to the poor."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When Jesus realized what was going on, he intervened. "Why are you giving this woman a hard time? She has just done something wonderfully significant for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> You will have the poor with you every day for the rest of your lives, but not me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When she poured this perfume on my body, what she really did was anoint me for burial.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You can be sure that wherever in the whole world the Message is preached, what she has just done is going to be remembered and admired."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> That is when one of the Twelve, the one named Judas Iscariot, went to the cabal of high priests</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> and said, "What will you give me if I hand him over to you?" They settled on thirty silver pieces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He began looking for just the right moment to hand him over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> On the first of the Days of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and said, "Where do you want us to prepare your Passover meal?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> He said, "Enter the city. Go up to a certain man and say, 'The Teacher says, My time is near. I and my disciples plan to celebrate the Passover meal at your house.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The disciples followed Jesus' instructions to the letter, and prepared the Passover meal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> After sunset, he and the Twelve were sitting around the table.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> During the meal, he said, "I have something hard but important to say to you: One of you is going to hand me over to the conspirators."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> They were stunned, and then began to ask, one after another, "It isn't me, is it, Master?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Jesus answered, "The one who hands me over is someone I eat with daily, one who passes me food at the table.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> In one sense the Son of Man is entering into a way of treachery well-marked by the Scriptures--no surprises here. In another sense that man who turns him in, turns traitor to the Son of Man--better never to have been born than do this!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Then Judas, already turned traitor, said, "It isn't me, is it, Rabbi?" Jesus said, "Don't play games with me, Judas."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> During the meal, Jesus took and blessed the bread, broke it, and gave it to his disciples: Take, eat. This is my body.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Taking the cup and thanking God, he gave it to them: Drink this, all of you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> This is my blood, God's new covenant poured out for many people for the forgiveness of sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "I'll not be drinking wine from this cup again until that new day when I'll drink with you in the kingdom of my Father."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> They sang a hymn and went directly to Mount Olives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Then Jesus told them, "Before the night's over, you're going to fall to pieces because of what happens to me. There is a Scripture that says, I'll strike the shepherd; helter-skelter the sheep will be scattered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> But after I am raised up, I, your Shepherd, will go ahead of you, leading the way to Galilee."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Peter broke in, "Even if everyone else falls to pieces on account of you, I won't."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "Don't be so sure," Jesus said. "This very night, before the rooster crows up the dawn, you will deny me three times."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Peter protested, "Even if I had to die with you, I would never deny you." All the others said the same thing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Then Jesus went with them to a garden called Gethsemane and told his disciples, "Stay here while I go over there and pray."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Taking along Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he plunged into an agonizing sorrow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Then he said, "This sorrow is crushing my life out. Stay here and keep vigil with me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Going a little ahead, he fell on his face, praying, "My Father, if there is any way, get me out of this. But please, not what I want. You, what do you want?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> When he came back to his disciples, he found them sound asleep. He said to Peter, "Can't you stick it out with me a single hour?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Stay alert; be in prayer so you don't wander into temptation without even knowing you're in danger. There is a part of you that is eager, ready for anything in God. But there's another part that's as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> He then left them a second time. Again he prayed, "My Father, if there is no other way than this, drinking this cup to the dregs, I'm ready. Do it your way."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> When he came back, he again found them sound asleep. They simply couldn't keep their eyes open.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> This time he let them sleep on, and went back a third time to pray, going over the same ground one last time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> When he came back the next time, he said, "Are you going to sleep on and make a night of it? My time is up, the Son of Man is about to be handed over to the hands of sinners.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Get up! Let's get going! My betrayer is here."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> The words were barely out of his mouth when Judas (the one from the Twelve) showed up, and with him a gang from the high priests and religious leaders brandishing swords and clubs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> The betrayer had worked out a sign with them: "The one I kiss, that's the one--seize him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> He went straight to Jesus, greeted him, "How are you, Rabbi?" and kissed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Jesus said, "Friend, why this charade?" Then they came on him--grabbed him and roughed him up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> One of those with Jesus pulled his sword and, taking a swing at the Chief Priest's servant, cut off his ear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> Jesus said, "Put your sword back where it belongs. All who use swords are destroyed by swords.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> Don't you realize that I am able right now to call to my Father, and twelve companies--more, if I want them--of fighting angels would be here, battle-ready?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> But if I did that, how would the Scriptures come true that say this is the way it has to be?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> Then Jesus addressed the mob: "What is this--coming out after me with swords and clubs as if I were a dangerous criminal? Day after day I have been sitting in the Temple teaching, and you never so much as lifted a hand against me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> You've done it this way to confirm and fulfill the prophetic writings." Then all the disciples cut and ran.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> The gang that had seized Jesus led him before Caiaphas the Chief Priest, where the religion scholars and leaders had assembled.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> Peter followed at a safe distance until they got to the Chief Priest's courtyard. Then he slipped in and mingled with the servants, watching to see how things would turn out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="59"> The high priests, conspiring with the Jewish Council, tried to cook up charges against Jesus in order to sentence him to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="60"> But even though many stepped up, making up one false accusation after another, nothing was believable. Finally two men came forward</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="61"> with this: "He said, 'I can tear down this Temple of God and after three days rebuild it.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="62"> The Chief Priest stood up and said, "What do you have to say to the accusation?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="63"> Jesus kept silent. Then the Chief Priest said, "I command you by the authority of the living God to say if you are the Messiah, the Son of God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="64"> Jesus was curt: "You yourself said it. And that's not all. Soon you'll see it for yourself: The Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Mighty One, Arriving on the clouds of heaven."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="65"> At that, the Chief Priest lost his temper, ripping his robes, yelling, "He blasphemed! Why do we need witnesses to accuse him? You all heard him blaspheme!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="66"> Are you going to stand for such blasphemy?" They all said, "Death! That seals his death sentence."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="67"> Then they were spitting in his face and banging him around. They jeered as they slapped him:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="68"> "Prophesy, Messiah: Who hit you that time?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="69"> All this time, Peter was sitting out in the courtyard. One servant girl came up to him and said, "You were with Jesus the Galilean."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="70"> In front of everybody there, he denied it. "I don't know what you're talking about."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="71"> As he moved over toward the gate, someone else said to the people there, "This man was with Jesus the Nazarene."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="72"> Again he denied it, salting his denial with an oath: "I swear, I never laid eyes on the man."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="73"> Shortly after that, some bystanders approached Peter. "You've got to be one of them. Your accent gives you away."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="74"> Then he got really nervous and swore. "I don't know the man!" Just then a rooster crowed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="75"> Peter remembered what Jesus had said: "Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times." He went out and cried and cried and cried.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="27">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the first light of dawn, all the high priests and religious leaders met and put the finishing touches on their plot to kill Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Then they tied him up and paraded him to Pilate, the governor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Judas, the one who betrayed him, realized that Jesus was doomed. Overcome with remorse, he gave back the thirty silver coins to the high priests,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> saying, "I've sinned. I've betrayed an innocent man." They said, "What do we care? That's your problem!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Judas threw the silver coins into the Temple and left. Then he went out and hung himself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The high priests picked up the silver pieces, but then didn't know what to do with them. "It wouldn't be right to give this--a payment for murder!--as an offering in the Temple."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They decided to get rid of it by buying the "Potter's Field" and use it as a burial place for the homeless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> That's how the field got called "Murder Meadow," a name that has stuck to this day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then Jeremiah's words became history: They took the thirty silver pieces, The price of the one priced by some sons of Israel,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And they purchased the potter's field. And so they unwittingly followed the divine instructions to the letter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Jesus was placed before the governor, who questioned him: "Are you the 'King of the Jews'?" Jesus said, "If you say so."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But when the accusations rained down hot and heavy from the high priests and religious leaders, he said nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Pilate asked him, "Do you hear that long list of accusations? Aren't you going to say something?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Jesus kept silence--not a word from his mouth. The governor was impressed, really impressed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> It was an old custom during the Feast for the governor to pardon a single prisoner named by the crowd.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> At the time, they had the infamous Jesus Barabbas in prison.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> With the crowd before him, Pilate said, "Which prisoner do you want me to pardon: Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus the so-called Christ?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> He knew it was through sheer spite that they had turned Jesus over to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> While court was still in session, Pilate's wife sent him a message: "Don't get mixed up in judging this noble man. I've just been through a long and troubled night because of a dream about him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Meanwhile, the high priests and religious leaders had talked the crowd into asking for the pardon of Barabbas and the execution of Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The governor asked, "Which of the two do you want me to pardon?" They said, "Barabbas!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Then what do I do with Jesus, the so-called Christ?" They all shouted, "Nail him to a cross!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> He objected, "But for what crime?" But they yelled all the louder, "Nail him to a cross!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere and that a riot was imminent, he took a basin of water and washed his hands in full sight of the crowd, saying, "I'm washing my hands of responsibility for this man's death. From now on, it's in your hands. You're judge and jury."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The crowd answered, "We'll take the blame, we and our children after us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Then he pardoned Barabbas. But he had Jesus whipped, and then handed over for crucifixion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The soldiers assigned to the governor took Jesus into the governor's palace and got the entire brigade together for some fun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> They stripped him and dressed him in a red toga.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> They plaited a crown from branches of a thorn bush and set it on his head. They put a stick in his right hand for a scepter. Then they knelt before him in mocking reverence: "Bravo, King of the Jews!" they said. "Bravo!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Then they spit on him and hit him on the head with the stick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> When they had had their fun, they took off the toga and put his own clothes back on him. Then they proceeded out to the crucifixion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Along the way they came on a man from Cyrene named Simon and made him carry Jesus' cross.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Arriving at Golgotha, the place they call "Skull Hill,"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> they offered him a mild painkiller (a mixture of wine and myrrh), but when he tasted it he wouldn't drink it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> After they had finished nailing him to the cross and were waiting for him to die, they whiled away the time by throwing dice for his clothes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> (SEE 27:35)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Above his head they had posted the criminal charge against him: THIS IS JESUS, THE KING OF THE JEWS.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Along with him, they also crucified two criminals, one to his right, the other to his left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> People passing along the road jeered, shaking their heads in mock lament:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> "You bragged that you could tear down the Temple and then rebuild it in three days--so show us your stuff! Save yourself! If you're really God's Son, come down from that cross!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> The high priests, along with the religion scholars and leaders, were right there mixing it up with the rest of them, having a great time poking fun at him:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> "He saved others--he can't save himself! King of Israel, is he? Then let him get down from that cross. We'll all become believers then!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> He was so sure of God--well, let him rescue his 'Son' now--if he wants him! He did claim to be God's Son, didn't he?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Even the two criminals crucified next to him joined in the mockery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> From noon to three, the whole earth was dark.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Around mid-afternoon Jesus groaned out of the depths, crying loudly, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> Some bystanders who heard him said, "He's calling for Elijah."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> One of them ran and got a sponge soaked in sour wine and lifted it on a stick so he could drink.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> The others joked, "Don't be in such a hurry. Let's see if Elijah comes and saves him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> But Jesus, again crying out loudly, breathed his last.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> At that moment, the Temple curtain was ripped in two, top to bottom. There was an earthquake, and rocks were split in pieces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> What's more, tombs were opened up, and many bodies of believers asleep in their graves were raised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> (After Jesus' resurrection, they left the tombs, entered the holy city, and appeared to many.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> The captain of the guard and those with him, when they saw the earthquake and everything else that was happening, were scared to death. They said, "This has to be the Son of God!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> There were also quite a few women watching from a distance, women who had followed Jesus from Galilee in order to serve him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the Zebedee brothers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> Late in the afternoon a wealthy man from Arimathea, a disciple of Jesus, arrived. His name was Joseph.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> He went to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body. Pilate granted his request.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="59"> Joseph took the body and wrapped it in clean linens,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="60"> put it in his own tomb, a new tomb only recently cut into the rock, and rolled a large stone across the entrance. Then he went off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="61"> But Mary Magdalene and the other Mary stayed, sitting in plain view of the tomb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="62"> After sundown, the high priests and Pharisees arranged a meeting with Pilate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="63"> They said, "Sir, we just remembered that that liar announced while he was still alive, 'After three days I will be raised.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="64"> We've got to get that tomb sealed until the third day. There's a good chance his disciples will come and steal the corpse and then go around saying, 'He's risen from the dead.' Then we'll be worse off than before, the final deceit surpassing the first."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="65"> Pilate told them, "You will have a guard. Go ahead and secure it the best you can."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="66"> So they went out and secured the tomb, sealing the stone and posting guards.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="28">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> After the Sabbath, as the first light of the new week dawned, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to keep vigil at the tomb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Suddenly the earth reeled and rocked under their feet as God's angel came down from heaven, came right up to where they were standing. He rolled back the stone and then sat on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Shafts of lightning blazed from him. His garments shimmered snow-white.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The guards at the tomb were scared to death. They were so frightened, they couldn't move.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The angel spoke to the women: "There is nothing to fear here. I know you're looking for Jesus, the One they nailed to the cross.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He is not here. He was raised, just as he said. Come and look at the place where he was placed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Now, get on your way quickly and tell his disciples, 'He is risen from the dead. He is going on ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there.' That's the message."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The women, deep in wonder and full of joy, lost no time in leaving the tomb. They ran to tell the disciples.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then Jesus met them, stopping them in their tracks. "Good morning!" he said. They fell to their knees, embraced his feet, and worshiped him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Jesus said, "You're holding on to me for dear life! Don't be frightened like that. Go tell my brothers that they are to go to Galilee, and that I'll meet them there."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Meanwhile, the guards had scattered, but a few of them went into the city and told the high priests everything that had happened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They called a meeting of the religious leaders and came up with a plan: They took a large sum of money and gave it to the soldiers,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> bribing them to say, "His disciples came in the night and stole the body while we were sleeping."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They assured them, "If the governor hears about your sleeping on duty, we will make sure you don't get blamed."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The soldiers took the bribe and did as they were told. That story, cooked up in the Jewish High Council, is still going around.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Meanwhile, the eleven disciples were on their way to Galilee, headed for the mountain Jesus had set for their reunion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The moment they saw him they worshiped him. Some, though, held back, not sure about worship, about risking themselves totally.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Jesus, undeterred, went right ahead and gave his charge: "God authorized and commanded me to commission you:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I'll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="41" bname="Mark">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The good news of Jesus Christ--the Message!--begins here,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> following to the letter the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Watch closely: I'm sending my preacher ahead of you; He'll make the road smooth for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Thunder in the desert! Prepare for God's arrival! Make the road smooth and straight!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> John the Baptizer appeared in the wild, preaching a baptism of life-change that leads to forgiveness of sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> People thronged to him from Judea and Jerusalem and, as they confessed their sins, were baptized by him in the Jordan River into a changed life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> John wore a camel-hair habit, tied at the waist with a leather belt. He ate locusts and wild field honey.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> As he preached he said, "The real action comes next: The star in this drama, to whom I'm a mere stagehand, will change your life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I'm baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life. His baptism--a holy baptism by the Holy Spirit--will change you from the inside out."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> At this time, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The moment he came out of the water, he saw the sky split open and God's Spirit, looking like a dove, come down on him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Along with the Spirit, a voice: "You are my Son, chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> At once, this same Spirit pushed Jesus out into the wild.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> For forty wilderness days and nights he was tested by Satan. Wild animals were his companions, and angels took care of him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee preaching the Message of God:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Time's up! God's kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the Message."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Passing along the beach of Lake Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew net-fishing. Fishing was their regular work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Jesus said to them, "Come with me. I'll make a new kind of fisherman out of you. I'll show you how to catch men and women instead of perch and bass."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They didn't ask questions. They dropped their nets and followed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> A dozen yards or so down the beach, he saw the brothers James and John, Zebedee's sons. They were in the boat, mending their fishnets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Right off, he made the same offer. Immediately, they left their father Zebedee, the boat, and the hired hands, and followed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then they entered Capernaum. When the Sabbath arrived, Jesus lost no time in getting to the meeting place. He spent the day there teaching.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> They were surprised at his teaching--so forthright, so confident--not quibbling and quoting like the religion scholars.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Suddenly, while still in the meeting place, he was interrupted by a man who was deeply disturbed and yelling out,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "What business do you have here with us, Jesus? Nazarene! I know what you're up to! You're the Holy One of God, and you've come to destroy us!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Jesus shut him up: "Quiet! Get out of him!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The afflicting spirit threw the man into spasms, protesting loudly--and got out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Everyone there was incredulous, buzzing with curiosity. "What's going on here? A new teaching that does what it says? He shuts up defiling, demonic spirits and sends them packing!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> News of this traveled fast and was soon all over Galilee.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Directly on leaving the meeting place, they came to Simon and Andrew's house, accompanied by James and John.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Simon's mother-in-law was sick in bed, burning up with fever. They told Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> He went to her, took her hand, and raised her up. No sooner had the fever left than she was up fixing dinner for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> That evening, after the sun was down, they brought sick and evil-afflicted people to him,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> the whole city lined up at his door!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> He cured their sick bodies and tormented spirits. Because the demons knew his true identity, he didn't let them say a word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> While it was still night, way before dawn, he got up and went out to a secluded spot and prayed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Simon and those with him went looking for him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> They found him and said, "Everybody's looking for you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Jesus said, "Let's go to the rest of the villages so I can preach there also. This is why I've come."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> He went to their meeting places all through Galilee, preaching and throwing out the demons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> A leper came to him, begging on his knees, "If you want to, you can cleanse me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Deeply moved, Jesus put out his hand, touched him, and said, "I want to. Be clean."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Then and there the leprosy was gone, his skin smooth and healthy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Jesus dismissed him with strict orders:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> "Say nothing to anyone. Take the offering for cleansing that Moses prescribed and present yourself to the priest. This will validate your healing to the people."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> But as soon as the man was out of earshot, he told everyone he met what had happened, spreading the news all over town. So Jesus kept to out-of-the-way places, no longer able to move freely in and out of the city. But people found him, and came from all over.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> After a few days, Jesus returned to Capernaum, and word got around that he was back home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> A crowd gathered, jamming the entrance so no one could get in or out. He was teaching the Word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They brought a paraplegic to him, carried by four men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When they weren't able to get in because of the crowd, they removed part of the roof and lowered the paraplegic on his stretcher.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Impressed by their bold belief, Jesus said to the paraplegic, "Son, I forgive your sins."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Some religion scholars sitting there started whispering among themselves,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "He can't talk that way! That's blasphemy! God and only God can forgive sins."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Jesus knew right away what they were thinking, and said, "Why are you so skeptical?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Which is simpler: to say to the paraplegic, 'I forgive your sins,' or say, 'Get up, take your stretcher, and start walking'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Well, just so it's clear that I'm the Son of Man and authorized to do either, or both . . ." (he looked now at the paraplegic),</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Get up. Pick up your stretcher and go home."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And the man did it--got up, grabbed his stretcher, and walked out, with everyone there watching him. They rubbed their eyes, incredulous--and then praised God, saying, "We've never seen anything like this!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then Jesus went again to walk alongside the lake. Again a crowd came to him, and he taught them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Strolling along, he saw Levi, son of Alphaeus, at his work collecting taxes. Jesus said, "Come along with me." He came.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Later Jesus and his disciples were at home having supper with a collection of disreputable guests. Unlikely as it seems, more than a few of them had become followers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The religion scholars and Pharisees saw him keeping this kind of company and lit into his disciples: "What kind of example is this, acting cozy with the riff-raff?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Jesus, overhearing, shot back, "Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? I'm here inviting the sin-sick, not the spiritually-fit."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees made a practice of fasting. Some people confronted Jesus: "Why do the followers of John and the Pharisees take on the discipline of fasting, but your followers don't?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Jesus said, "When you're celebrating a wedding, you don't skimp on the cake and wine. You feast. Later you may need to pull in your belt, but not now. As long as the bride and groom are with you, you have a good time. No one throws cold water on a friendly bonfire. This is Kingdom Come!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> (SEE 2:19)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He went on, "No one cuts up a fine silk scarf to patch old work clothes; you want fabrics that match.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> And you don't put your wine in cracked bottles."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> One Sabbath day he was walking through a field of ripe grain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> As his disciples made a path, they pulled off heads of grain. The Pharisees told on them to Jesus: "Look, your disciples are breaking Sabbath rules!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Jesus said, "Really? Haven't you ever read what David did when he was hungry, along with those who were with him?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> How he entered the sanctuary and ate fresh bread off the altar, with the Chief Priest Abiathar right there watching--holy bread that no one but priests were allowed to eat--and handed it out to his companions?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Then Jesus said, "The Sabbath was made to serve us; we weren't made to serve the Sabbath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The Son of Man is no lackey to the Sabbath. He's in charge!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then he went back in the meeting place where he found a man with a crippled hand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The Pharisees had their eyes on Jesus to see if he would heal him, hoping to catch him in a Sabbath infraction.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He said to the man with the crippled hand, "Stand here where we can see you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then he spoke to the people: "What kind of action suits the Sabbath best? Doing good or doing evil? Helping people or leaving them helpless?" No one said a word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He looked them in the eye, one after another, angry now, furious at their hard-nosed religion. He said to the man, "Hold out your hand." He held it out--it was as good as new!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The Pharisees got out as fast as they could, sputtering about how they would join forces with Herod's followers and ruin him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Jesus went off with his disciples to the sea to get away. But a huge crowd from Galilee trailed after them--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> also from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, across the Jordan, and around Tyre and Sidon--swarms of people who had heard the reports and had come to see for themselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He told his disciples to get a boat ready so he wouldn't be trampled by the crowd.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He had healed many people, and now everyone who had something wrong was pushing and shoving to get near and touch him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Evil spirits, when they recognized him, fell down and cried out, "You are the Son of God!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But Jesus would have none of it. He shut them up, forbidding them to identify him in public.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He climbed a mountain and invited those he wanted with him. They climbed together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He settled on twelve, and designated them apostles. The plan was that they would be with him, and he would send them out to proclaim the Word</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> and give them authority to banish demons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> These are the Twelve: Simon (Jesus later named him Peter, meaning "Rock"),</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> James, son of Zebedee, John, brother of James (Jesus nicknamed the Zebedee brothers Boanerges, meaning "Sons of Thunder"),</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James, son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Canaanite,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Judas Iscariot (who betrayed him).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Jesus came home and, as usual, a crowd gathered--so many making demands on him that there wasn't even time to eat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> His friends heard what was going on and went to rescue him, by force if necessary. They suspected he was getting carried away with himself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The religion scholars from Jerusalem came down spreading rumors that he was working black magic, using devil tricks to impress them with spiritual power.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Jesus confronted their slander with a story: "Does it make sense to send a devil to catch a devil, to use Satan to get rid of Satan?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> A constantly squabbling family disintegrates. If Satan were fighting Satan, there soon wouldn't be any Satan left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> (SEE 3:24)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> (SEE 3:24)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Do you think it's possible in broad daylight to enter the house of an awake, able-bodied man, and walk off with his possessions unless you tie him up first? Tie him up, though, and you can clean him out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "Listen to this carefully. I'm warning you. There's nothing done or said that can't be forgiven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> But if you persist in your slanders against God's Holy Spirit, you are repudiating the very One who forgives, sawing off the branch on which you're sitting, severing by your own perversity all connection with the One who forgives."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> He gave this warning because they were accusing him of being in league with Evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Just then his mother and brothers showed up. Standing outside, they relayed a message that they wanted a word with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> He was surrounded by the crowd when he was given the message, "Your mother and brothers and sisters are outside looking for you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Jesus responded, "Who do you think are my mother and brothers?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Looking around, taking in everyone seated around him, he said, "Right here, right in front of you--my mother and my brothers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Obedience is thicker than blood. The person who obeys God's will is my brother and sister and mother."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> He went back to teaching by the sea. A crowd built up to such a great size that he had to get into an offshore boat, using the boat as a pulpit as the people pushed to the water's edge.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He taught by using stories, many stories.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Listen. What do you make of this? A farmer planted seed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> As he scattered the seed, some of it fell on the road and birds ate it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Some fell in the gravel; it sprouted quickly but didn't put down roots,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> so when the sun came up it withered just as quickly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Some fell in the weeds; as it came up, it was strangled among the weeds and nothing came of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Some fell on good earth and came up with a flourish, producing a harvest exceeding his wildest dreams.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Are you listening to this? Really listening?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When they were off by themselves, those who were close to him, along with the Twelve, asked about the stories.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He told them, "You've been given insight into God's kingdom--you know how it works. But to those who can't see it yet, everything comes in stories, creating readiness, nudging them toward receptive insight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> These are people-- Whose eyes are open but don't see a thing, Whose ears are open but don't understand a word, Who avoid making an about-face and getting forgiven."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He continued, "Do you see how this story works? All my stories work this way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "The farmer plants the Word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Some people are like the seed that falls on the hardened soil of the road. No sooner do they hear the Word than Satan snatches away what has been planted in them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "And some are like the seed that lands in the gravel. When they first hear the Word, they respond with great enthusiasm.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But there is such shallow soil of character that when the emotions wear off and some difficulty arrives, there is nothing to show for it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "The seed cast in the weeds represents the ones who hear the kingdom news</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> but are overwhelmed with worries about all the things they have to do and all the things they want to get. The stress strangles what they heard, and nothing comes of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "But the seed planted in the good earth represents those who hear the Word, embrace it, and produce a harvest beyond their wildest dreams."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Jesus went on: "Does anyone bring a lamp home and put it under a washtub or beneath the bed? Don't you put it up on a table or on the mantel?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> We're not keeping secrets, we're telling them; we're not hiding things, we're bringing them out into the open.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "Are you listening to this? Really listening?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "Listen carefully to what I am saying--and be wary of the shrewd advice that tells you how to get ahead in the world on your own. Giving, not getting, is the way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Generosity begets generosity. Stinginess impoverishes."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Then Jesus said, "God's kingdom is like seed thrown on a field by a man</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> who then goes to bed and forgets about it. The seed sprouts and grows--he has no idea how it happens.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The earth does it all without his help: first a green stem of grass, then a bud, then the ripened grain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> When the grain is fully formed, he reaps--harvest time!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "How can we picture God's kingdom? What kind of story can we use?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> It's like a pine nut. When it lands on the ground it is quite small as seeds go,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> yet once it is planted it grows into a huge pine tree with thick branches. Eagles nest in it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> With many stories like these, he presented his message to them, fitting the stories to their experience and maturity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> He was never without a story when he spoke. When he was alone with his disciples, he went over everything, sorting out the tangles, untying the knots.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Late that day he said to them, "Let's go across to the other side."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> They took him in the boat as he was. Other boats came along.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> A huge storm came up. Waves poured into the boat, threatening to sink it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> And Jesus was in the stern, head on a pillow, sleeping! They roused him, saying, "Teacher, is it nothing to you that we're going down?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Awake now, he told the wind to pipe down and said to the sea, "Quiet! Settle down!" The wind ran out of breath; the sea became smooth as glass.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Jesus reprimanded the disciples: "Why are you such cowards? Don't you have any faith at all?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> They were in absolute awe, staggered. "Who is this, anyway?" they asked. "Wind and sea at his beck and call!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> They arrived on the other side of the sea in the country of the Gerasenes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> As Jesus got out of the boat, a madman from the cemetery came up to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He lived there among the tombs and graves. No one could restrain him--he couldn't be chained, couldn't be tied down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He had been tied up many times with chains and ropes, but he broke the chains, snapped the ropes. No one was strong enough to tame him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Night and day he roamed through the graves and the hills, screaming out and slashing himself with sharp stones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When he saw Jesus a long way off, he ran and bowed in worship before him--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> then bellowed in protest, "What business do you have, Jesus, Son of the High God, messing with me? I swear to God, don't give me a hard time!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> (Jesus had just commanded the tormenting evil spirit, "Out! Get out of the man!")</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Jesus asked him, "Tell me your name." He replied, "My name is Mob. I'm a rioting mob."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then he desperately begged Jesus not to banish them from the country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> A large herd of pigs was browsing and rooting on a nearby hill.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The demons begged him, "Send us to the pigs so we can live in them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Jesus gave the order. But it was even worse for the pigs than for the man. Crazed, they stampeded over a cliff into the sea and drowned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Those tending the pigs, scared to death, bolted and told their story in town and country. Everyone wanted to see what had happened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They came up to Jesus and saw the madman sitting there wearing decent clothes and making sense, no longer a walking madhouse of a man.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Those who had seen it told the others what had happened to the demon-possessed man and the pigs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> At first they were in awe--and then they were upset, upset over the drowned pigs. They demanded that Jesus leave and not come back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> As Jesus was getting into the boat, the demon-delivered man begged to go along,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> but he wouldn't let him. Jesus said, "Go home to your own people. Tell them your story--what the Master did, how he had mercy on you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The man went back and began to preach in the Ten Towns area about what Jesus had done for him. He was the talk of the town.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> After Jesus crossed over by boat, a large crowd met him at the seaside.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> One of the meeting-place leaders named Jairus came. When he saw Jesus, he fell to his knees,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> beside himself as he begged, "My dear daughter is at death's door. Come and lay hands on her so she will get well and live."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Jesus went with him, the whole crowd tagging along, pushing and jostling him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> A woman who had suffered a condition of hemorrhaging for twelve years--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> a long succession of physicians had treated her, and treated her badly, taking all her money and leaving her worse off than before--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> had heard about Jesus. She slipped in from behind and touched his robe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> She was thinking to herself, "If I can put a finger on his robe, I can get well."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The moment she did it, the flow of blood dried up. She could feel the change and knew her plague was over and done with.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> At the same moment, Jesus felt energy discharging from him. He turned around to the crowd and asked, "Who touched my robe?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> His disciples said, "What are you talking about? With this crowd pushing and jostling you, you're asking, 'Who touched me?' Dozens have touched you!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> But he went on asking, looking around to see who had done it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> The woman, knowing what had happened, knowing she was the one, stepped up in fear and trembling, knelt before him, and gave him the whole story.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Jesus said to her, "Daughter, you took a risk of faith, and now you're healed and whole. Live well, live blessed! Be healed of your plague."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> While he was still talking, some people came from the leader's house and told him, "Your daughter is dead. Why bother the Teacher any more?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Jesus overheard what they were talking about and said to the leader, "Don't listen to them; just trust me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> He permitted no one to go in with him except Peter, James, and John.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> They entered the leader's house and pushed their way through the gossips looking for a story and neighbors bringing in casseroles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Jesus was abrupt: "Why all this busybody grief and gossip? This child isn't dead; she's sleeping."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Provoked to sarcasm, they told him he didn't know what he was talking about. But when he had sent them all out, he took the child's father and mother, along with his companions, and entered the child's room.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> He clasped the girl's hand and said, "Talitha koum," which means, "Little girl, get up."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> At that, she was up and walking around! This girl was twelve years of age. They, of course, were all beside themselves with joy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> He gave them strict orders that no one was to know what had taken place in that room. Then he said, "Give her something to eat."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> He left there and returned to his hometown. His disciples came along.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> On the Sabbath, he gave a lecture in the meeting place. He made a real hit, impressing everyone. "We had no idea he was this good!" they said. "How did he get so wise all of a sudden, get such ability?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But in the next breath they were cutting him down: "He's just a carpenter--Mary's boy. We've known him since he was a kid. We know his brothers, James, Justus, Jude, and Simon, and his sisters. Who does he think he is?" They tripped over what little they knew about him and fell, sprawling. And they never got any further.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Jesus told them, "A prophet has little honor in his hometown, among his relatives, on the streets he played in as a child."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Jesus wasn't able to do much of anything there--he laid hands on a few sick people and healed them, that's all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He couldn't get over their stubbornness. He left and made a circuit of the other villages, teaching.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Jesus called the Twelve to him, and sent them out in pairs. He gave them authority and power to deal with the evil opposition.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He sent them off with these instructions: "Don't think you need a lot of extra equipment for this. You are the equipment. No special appeals for funds. Keep it simple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> (SEE 6:8)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "And no luxury inns. Get a modest place and be content there until you leave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "If you're not welcomed, not listened to, quietly withdraw. Don't make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then they were on the road. They preached with joyful urgency that life can be radically different;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> right and left they sent the demons packing; they brought wellness to the sick, anointing their bodies, healing their spirits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> King Herod heard of all this, for by this time the name of Jesus was on everyone's lips. He said, "This has to be John the Baptizer come back from the dead--that's why he's able to work miracles!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Others said, "No, it's Elijah." Others said, "He's a prophet, just like one of the old-time prophets."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But Herod wouldn't budge: "It's John, sure enough. I cut off his head, and now he's back, alive."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Herod was the one who had ordered the arrest of John, put him in chains, and sent him to prison at the nagging of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> For John had provoked Herod by naming his relationship with Herodias "adultery."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Herodias, smoldering with hate, wanted to kill him, but didn't dare</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> because Herod was in awe of John. Convinced that he was a holy man, he gave him special treatment. Whenever he listened to him he was miserable with guilt--and yet he couldn't stay away. Something in John kept pulling him back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But a portentous day arrived when Herod threw a birthday party, inviting all the brass and bluebloods in Galilee.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Herodias's daughter entered the banquet hall and danced for the guests. She dazzled Herod and the guests. The king said to the girl, "Ask me anything. I'll give you anything you want."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Carried away, he kept on, "I swear, I'll split my kingdom with you if you say so!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> She went back to her mother and said, "What should I ask for?" "Ask for the head of John the Baptizer."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Excited, she ran back to the king and said, "I want the head of John the Baptizer served up on a platter. And I want it now!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> That sobered the king up fast. But unwilling to lose face with his guests, he caved in and let her have her wish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The king sent the executioner off to the prison with orders to bring back John's head. He went, cut off John's head,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> brought it back on a platter, and presented it to the girl, who gave it to her mother.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> When John's disciples heard about this, they came and got the body and gave it a decent burial.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The apostles then rendezvoused with Jesus and reported on all that they had done and taught.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Jesus said, "Come off by yourselves; let's take a break and get a little rest." For there was constant coming and going. They didn't even have time to eat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> So they got in the boat and went off to a remote place by themselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Someone saw them going and the word got around. From the surrounding towns people went out on foot, running, and got there ahead of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> When Jesus arrived, he saw this huge crowd. At the sight of them, his heart broke--like sheep with no shepherd they were. He went right to work teaching them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> When his disciples thought this had gone on long enough--it was now quite late in the day--they interrupted: "We are a long way out in the country, and it's very late.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Pronounce a benediction and send these folks off so they can get some supper."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Jesus said, "You do it. Fix supper for them." They replied, "Are you serious? You want us to go spend a fortune on food for their supper?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> But he was quite serious. "How many loaves of bread do you have? Take an inventory." That didn't take long. "Five," they said, "plus two fish."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Jesus got them all to sit down in groups of fifty or a hundred--they looked like a patchwork quilt of wildflowers spread out on the green grass!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> (SEE 6:39)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> He took the five loaves and two fish, lifted his face to heaven in prayer, blessed, broke, and gave the bread to the disciples, and the disciples in turn gave it to the people. He did the same with the fish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> They all ate their fill.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> The disciples gathered twelve baskets of leftovers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> More than five thousand were at the supper.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> As soon as the meal was finished, Jesus insisted that the disciples get in the boat and go on ahead across to Bethsaida while he dismissed the congregation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> After sending them off, he climbed a mountain to pray.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> Late at night, the boat was far out at sea; Jesus was still by himself on land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> He could see his men struggling with the oars, the wind having come up against them. At about four o'clock in the morning, Jesus came toward them, walking on the sea. He intended to go right by them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and screamed, scared out of their wits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Jesus was quick to comfort them: "Courage! It's me. Don't be afraid."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> As soon as he climbed into the boat, the wind died down. They were stunned, shaking their heads, wondering what was going on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> They didn't understand what he had done at the supper. None of this had yet penetrated their hearts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> They beached the boat at Gennesaret and tied up at the landing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> As soon as they got out of the boat, word got around fast.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> People ran this way and that, bringing their sick on stretchers to where they heard he was.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> Wherever he went, village or town or country crossroads, they brought their sick to the marketplace and begged him to let them touch the edge of his coat--that's all. And whoever touched him became well.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Pharisees, along with some religion scholars who had come from Jerusalem, gathered around him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They noticed that some of his disciples weren't being careful with ritual washings before meals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The Pharisees--Jews in general, in fact--would never eat a meal without going through the motions of a ritual hand-washing,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> with an especially vigorous scrubbing if they had just come from the market (to say nothing of the scourings they'd give jugs and pots and pans).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The Pharisees and religion scholars asked, "Why do your disciples flout the rules, showing up at meals without washing their hands?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Jesus answered, "Isaiah was right about frauds like you, hit the bull's-eye in fact: These people make a big show of saying the right thing, but their heart isn't in it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They act like they are worshiping me, but they don't mean it. They just use me as a cover for teaching whatever suits their fancy,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Ditching God's command and taking up the latest fads."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He went on, "Well, good for you. You get rid of God's command so you won't be inconvenienced in following the religious fashions!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Moses said, 'Respect your father and mother,' and, 'Anyone denouncing father or mother should be killed.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But you weasel out of that by saying that it's perfectly acceptable to say to father or mother, 'Gift! What I owed you I've given as a gift to God,'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> thus relieving yourselves of obligation to father or mother.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You scratch out God's Word and scrawl a whim in its place. You do a lot of things like this."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Jesus called the crowd together again and said, "Listen now, all of you--take this to heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> It's not what you swallow that pollutes your life; it's what you vomit--that's the real pollution."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> (OMITTED TEXT)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When he was back home after being with the crowd, his disciples said, "We don't get it. Put it in plain language."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Jesus said, "Are you being willfully stupid? Don't you see that what you swallow can't contaminate you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> It doesn't enter your heart but your stomach, works its way through the intestines, and is finally flushed." (That took care of dietary quibbling; Jesus was saying that all foods are fit to eat.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He went on: "It's what comes out of a person that pollutes:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> obscenities, lusts, thefts, murders, adulteries,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> greed, depravity, deceptive dealings, carousing, mean looks, slander, arrogance, foolishness--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> all these are vomit from the heart. There is the source of your pollution."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> From there Jesus set out for the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house there where he didn't think he would be found, but he couldn't escape notice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> He was barely inside when a woman who had a disturbed daughter heard where he was. She came and knelt at his feet,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> begging for help. The woman was Greek, Syro-Phoenician by birth. She asked him to cure her daughter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> He said, "Stand in line and take your turn. The children get fed first. If there's any left over, the dogs get it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> She said, "Of course, Master. But don't dogs under the table get scraps dropped by the children?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Jesus was impressed. "You're right! On your way! Your daughter is no longer disturbed. The demonic affliction is gone."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> She went home and found her daughter relaxed on the bed, the torment gone for good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Then he left the region of Tyre, went through Sidon back to Galilee Lake and over to the district of the Ten Towns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Some people brought a man who could neither hear nor speak and asked Jesus to lay a healing hand on him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> He took the man off by himself, put his fingers in the man's ears and some spit on the man's tongue.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Then Jesus looked up in prayer, groaned mightily, and commanded, "Ephphatha!--Open up!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> And it happened. The man's hearing was clear and his speech plain--just like that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Jesus urged them to keep it quiet, but they talked it up all the more,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> beside themselves with excitement. "He's done it all and done it well. He gives hearing to the deaf, speech to the speechless."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> At about this same time he again found himself with a hungry crowd on his hands. He called his disciples together and said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "This crowd is breaking my heart. They have stuck with me for three days, and now they have nothing to eat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> If I send them home hungry, they'll faint along the way--some of them have come a long distance."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> His disciples responded, "What do you expect us to do about it? Buy food out here in the desert?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He asked, "How much bread do you have?" "Seven loaves," they said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So Jesus told the crowd to sit down on the ground. After giving thanks, he took the seven bread loaves, broke them into pieces, and gave them to his disciples so they could hand them out to the crowd.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They also had a few fish. He pronounced a blessing over the fish and told his disciples to hand them out as well.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The crowd ate its fill. Seven sacks of leftovers were collected.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> There were well over four thousand at the meal. Then he sent them home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He himself went straight to the boat with his disciples and set out for Dalmanoutha.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> When they arrived, the Pharisees came out and started in on him, badgering him to prove himself, pushing him up against the wall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Provoked, he said, "Why does this generation clamor for miraculous guarantees? If I have anything to say about it, you'll not get so much as a hint of a guarantee."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He then left them, got back in the boat, and headed for the other side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But the disciples forgot to pack a lunch. Except for a single loaf of bread, there wasn't a crumb in the boat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Jesus warned, "Be very careful. Keep a sharp eye out for the contaminating yeast of Pharisees and the followers of Herod."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Meanwhile, the disciples were finding fault with each other because they had forgotten to bring bread.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Jesus overheard and said, "Why are you fussing because you forgot bread? Don't you see the point of all this? Don't you get it at all?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> (SEE 8:17)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Remember the five loaves I broke for the five thousand? How many baskets of leftovers did you pick up?" They said, "Twelve."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "And the seven loaves for the four thousand--how many bags full of leftovers did you get?" "Seven."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He said, "Do you still not get it?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> They arrived at Bethsaida. Some people brought a sightless man and begged Jesus to give him a healing touch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Taking him by the hand, he led him out of the village. He put spit in the man's eyes, laid hands on him, and asked, "Do you see anything?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He looked up. "I see men. They look like walking trees."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> So Jesus laid hands on his eyes again. The man looked hard and realized that he had recovered perfect sight, saw everything in bright, twenty-twenty focus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Jesus sent him straight home, telling him, "Don't enter the village."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Jesus and his disciples headed out for the villages around Caesarea Philippi. As they walked, he asked, "Who do the people say I am?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "Some say 'John the Baptizer,'" they said. "Others say 'Elijah.' Still others say 'one of the prophets.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> He then asked, "And you--what are you saying about me? Who am I?" Peter gave the answer: "You are the Christ, the Messiah."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Jesus warned them to keep it quiet, not to breathe a word of it to anyone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> He then began explaining things to them: "It is necessary that the Son of Man proceed to an ordeal of suffering, be tried and found guilty by the elders, high priests, and religion scholars, be killed, and after three days rise up alive."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> He said this simply and clearly so they couldn't miss it. But Peter grabbed him in protest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Turning and seeing his disciples wavering, wondering what to believe, Jesus confronted Peter. "Peter, get out of my way! Satan, get lost! You have no idea how God works."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, "Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat; I am. Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> What could you ever trade your soul for?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> "If any of you are embarrassed over me and the way I'm leading you when you get around your fickle and unfocused friends, know that you'll be an even greater embarrassment to the Son of Man when he arrives in all the splendor of God, his Father, with an army of the holy angels."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then he drove it home by saying, "This isn't pie in the sky by and by. Some of you who are standing here are going to see it happen, see the kingdom of God arrive in full force."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Six days later, three of them did see it. Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain. His appearance changed from the inside out, right before their eyes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> His clothes shimmered, glistening white, whiter than any bleach could make them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Elijah, along with Moses, came into view, in deep conversation with Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Peter interrupted, "Rabbi, this is a great moment! Let's build three memorials--one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He blurted this out without thinking, stunned as they all were by what they were seeing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Just then a light-radiant cloud enveloped them, and from deep in the cloud, a voice: "This is my Son, marked by my love. Listen to him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The next minute the disciples were looking around, rubbing their eyes, seeing nothing but Jesus, only Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Coming down the mountain, Jesus swore them to secrecy. "Don't tell a soul what you saw. After the Son of Man rises from the dead, you're free to talk."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They puzzled over that, wondering what on earth "rising from the dead" meant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Meanwhile they were asking, "Why do the religion scholars say that Elijah has to come first?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Jesus replied, "Elijah does come first and get everything ready for the coming of the Son of Man. They treated this Elijah like dirt, much like they will treat the Son of Man, who will, according to Scripture, suffer terribly and be kicked around contemptibly."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> (SEE 9:12)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> When they came back down the mountain to the other disciples, they saw a huge crowd around them, and the religion scholars cross-examining them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> As soon as the people in the crowd saw Jesus, admiring excitement stirred them. They ran and greeted him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He asked, "What's going on? What's all the commotion?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> A man out of the crowd answered, "Teacher, I brought my mute son, made speechless by a demon, to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and goes stiff as a board. I told your disciples, hoping they could deliver him, but they couldn't."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Jesus said, "What a generation! No sense of God! How many times do I have to go over these things? How much longer do I have to put up with this? Bring the boy here."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> They brought him. When the demon saw Jesus, it threw the boy into a seizure, causing him to writhe on the ground and foam at the mouth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He asked the boy's father, "How long has this been going on?" "Ever since he was a little boy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Many times it pitches him into fire or the river to do away with him. If you can do anything, do it. Have a heart and help us!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Jesus said, "If? There are no 'ifs' among believers. Anything can happen."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the father cried, "Then I believe. Help me with my doubts!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Seeing that the crowd was forming fast, Jesus gave the vile spirit its marching orders: "Dumb and deaf spirit, I command you--Out of him, and stay out!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Screaming, and with much thrashing about, it left. The boy was pale as a corpse, so people started saying, "He's dead."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> But Jesus, taking his hand, raised him. The boy stood up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> After arriving back home, his disciples cornered Jesus and asked, "Why couldn't we throw the demon out?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> He answered, "There is no way to get rid of this kind of demon except by prayer."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Leaving there, they went through Galilee. He didn't want anyone to know their whereabouts,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> for he wanted to teach his disciples. He told them, "The Son of Man is about to be betrayed to some people who want nothing to do with God. They will murder him. Three days after his murder, he will rise, alive."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> They didn't know what he was talking about, but were afraid to ask him about it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> They came to Capernaum. When he was safe at home, he asked them, "What were you discussing on the road?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The silence was deafening--they had been arguing with one another over who among them was greatest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> He sat down and summoned the Twelve. "So you want first place? Then take the last place. Be the servant of all."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> He put a child in the middle of the room. Then, cradling the little one in his arms, he said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> "Whoever embraces one of these children as I do embraces me, and far more than me--God who sent me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> John spoke up, "Teacher, we saw a man using your name to expel demons and we stopped him because he wasn't in our group."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Jesus wasn't pleased. "Don't stop him. No one can use my name to do something good and powerful, and in the next breath cut me down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> If he's not an enemy, he's an ally.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Why, anyone by just giving you a cup of water in my name is on our side. Count on it that God will notice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> "On the other hand, if you give one of these simple, childlike believers a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you'll soon wish you hadn't. You'd be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> "If your hand or your foot gets in God's way, chop it off and throw it away. You're better off maimed or lame and alive than the proud owner of two hands and two feet, godless in a furnace of eternal fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> (SEE 9:43)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> (SEE 9:43)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> (SEE 9:43)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> And if your eye distracts you from God, pull it out and throw it away.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> You're better off one-eyed and alive than exercising your twenty-twenty vision from inside the fire of hell.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> "Everyone's going through a refining fire sooner or later,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> but you'll be well-preserved, protected from the eternal flames. Be preservatives yourselves. Preserve the peace."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> From there he went to the area of Judea across the Jordan. A crowd of people, as was so often the case, went along, and he, as he so often did, taught them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Pharisees came up, intending to give him a hard time. They asked, "Is it legal for a man to divorce his wife?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Jesus said, "What did Moses command?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They answered, "Moses gave permission to fill out a certificate of dismissal and divorce her."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Jesus said, "Moses wrote this command only as a concession to your hardhearted ways.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> In the original creation, God made male and female to be together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Because of this, a man leaves father and mother, and in marriage</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> he becomes one flesh with a woman--no longer two individuals, but forming a new unity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Because God created this organic union of the two sexes, no one should desecrate his art by cutting them apart."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When they were back home, the disciples brought it up again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Jesus gave it to them straight: "A man who divorces his wife so he can marry someone else commits adultery against her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And a woman who divorces her husband so she can marry someone else commits adultery."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The people brought children to Jesus, hoping he might touch them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The disciples shooed them off. But Jesus was irate and let them know it: "Don't push these children away. Don't ever get between them and me. These children are at the very center of life in the kingdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Mark this: Unless you accept God's kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you'll never get in."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Then, gathering the children up in his arms, he laid his hands of blessing on them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> As he went out into the street, a man came running up, greeted him with great reverence, and asked, "Good Teacher, what must I do to get eternal life?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Jesus said, "Why are you calling me good? No one is good, only God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> You know the commandments: Don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don't lie, don't cheat, honor your father and mother."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He said, "Teacher, I have--from my youth--kept them all!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Jesus looked him hard in the eye--and loved him! He said, "There's one thing left: Go sell whatever you own and give it to the poor. All your wealth will then be heavenly wealth. And come follow me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The man's face clouded over. This was the last thing he expected to hear, and he walked off with a heavy heart. He was holding on tight to a lot of things, and not about to let go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Looking at his disciples, Jesus said, "Do you have any idea how difficult it is for people who 'have it all' to enter God's kingdom?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The disciples couldn't believe what they were hearing, but Jesus kept on: "You can't imagine how difficult.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> I'd say it's easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for the rich to get into God's kingdom."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> That set the disciples back on their heels. "Then who has any chance at all?" they asked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Jesus was blunt: "No chance at all if you think you can pull it off by yourself. Every chance in the world if you let God do it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Peter tried another angle: "We left everything and followed you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Jesus said, "Mark my words, no one who sacrifices house, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children, land--whatever--because of me and the Message</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> will lose out. They'll get it all back, but multiplied many times in homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and land--but also in troubles. And then the bonus of eternal life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> This is once again the Great Reversal: Many who are first will end up last, and the last first."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Back on the road, they set out for Jerusalem. Jesus had a head start on them, and they were following, puzzled and not just a little afraid. He took the Twelve and began again to go over what to expect next.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "Listen to me carefully. We're on our way up to Jerusalem. When we get there, the Son of Man will be betrayed to the religious leaders and scholars. They will sentence him to death. Then they will hand him over to the Romans,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> who will mock and spit on him, give him the third degree, and kill him. After three days he will rise alive."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> James and John, Zebedee's sons, came up to him. "Teacher, we have something we want you to do for us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> "What is it? I'll see what I can do."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> "Arrange it," they said, "so that we will be awarded the highest places of honor in your glory--one of us at your right, the other at your left."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Jesus said, "You have no idea what you're asking. Are you capable of drinking the cup I drink, of being baptized in the baptism I'm about to be plunged into?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> "Sure," they said. "Why not?" Jesus said, "Come to think of it, you will drink the cup I drink, and be baptized in my baptism.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> But as to awarding places of honor, that's not my business. There are other arrangements for that."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> When the other ten heard of this conversation, they lost their tempers with James and John.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Jesus got them together to settle things down. "You've observed how godless rulers throw their weight around," he said, "and when people get a little power how quickly it goes to their heads.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> It's not going to be that way with you. Whoever wants to be great must become a servant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> That is what the Son of Man has done: He came to serve, not to be served--and then to give away his life in exchange for many who are held hostage."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> They spent some time in Jericho. As Jesus was leaving town, trailed by his disciples and a parade of people, a blind beggar by the name of Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, was sitting alongside the road.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> When he heard that Jesus the Nazarene was passing by, he began to cry out, "Son of David, Jesus! Mercy, have mercy on me!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> Many tried to hush him up, but he yelled all the louder, "Son of David! Mercy, have mercy on me!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> Jesus stopped in his tracks. "Call him over." They called him. "It's your lucky day! Get up! He's calling you to come!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Throwing off his coat, he was on his feet at once and came to Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> Jesus said, "What can I do for you?" The blind man said, "Rabbi, I want to see."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> "On your way," said Jesus. "Your faith has saved and healed you." In that very instant he recovered his sight and followed Jesus down the road.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When they were nearing Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany on Mount Olives, he sent off two of the disciples with instructions:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Go to the village across from you. As soon as you enter, you'll find a colt tethered, one that has never yet been ridden. Untie it and bring it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> If anyone asks, 'What are you doing?' say, 'The Master needs him, and will return him right away.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They went and found a colt tied to a door at the street corner and untied it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Some of those standing there said, "What are you doing untying that colt?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The disciples replied exactly as Jesus had instructed them, and the people let them alone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They brought the colt to Jesus, spread their coats on it, and he mounted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The people gave him a wonderful welcome, some throwing their coats on the street, others spreading out rushes they had cut in the fields.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Running ahead and following after, they were calling out, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in God's name!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Blessed the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in highest heaven!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He entered Jerusalem, then entered the Temple. He looked around, taking it all in. But by now it was late, so he went back to Bethany with the Twelve.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> As they left Bethany the next day, he was hungry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Off in the distance he saw a fig tree in full leaf. He came up to it expecting to find something for breakfast, but found nothing but fig leaves. (It wasn't yet the season for figs.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He addressed the tree: "No one is going to eat fruit from you again--ever!" And his disciples overheard him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They arrived at Jerusalem. Immediately on entering the Temple Jesus started throwing out everyone who had set up shop there, buying and selling. He kicked over the tables of the bankers and the stalls of the pigeon merchants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He didn't let anyone even carry a basket through the Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And then he taught them, quoting this text: My house was designated a house of prayer for the nations; You've turned it into a hangout for thieves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The high priests and religion scholars heard what was going on and plotted how they might get rid of him. They panicked, for the entire crowd was carried away by his teaching.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> At evening, Jesus and his disciples left the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> In the morning, walking along the road, they saw the fig tree, shriveled to a dry stick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Peter, remembering what had happened the previous day, said to him, "Rabbi, look--the fig tree you cursed is shriveled up!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Jesus was matter-of-fact: "Embrace this God-life. Really embrace it,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> and nothing will be too much for you. This mountain, for instance: Just say, 'Go jump in the lake'--no shuffling or shilly-shallying--and it's as good as done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> That's why I urge you to pray for absolutely everything, ranging from small to large. Include everything as you embrace this God-life, and you'll get God's everything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> And when you assume the posture of prayer, remember that it's not all asking. If you have anything against someone, forgive--only then will your heavenly Father be inclined to also wipe your slate clean of sins."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> (OMITTED TEXT)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Then when they were back in Jerusalem once again, as they were walking through the Temple, the high priests, religion scholars, and leaders came up</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> and demanded, "Show us your credentials. Who authorized you to speak and act like this?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Jesus responded, "First let me ask you a question. Answer my question and then I'll present my credentials.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> About the baptism of John--who authorized it: heaven or humans? Tell me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> They were on the spot, and knew it. They pulled back into a huddle and whispered, "If we say 'heaven,' he'll ask us why we didn't believe John;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> if we say 'humans,' we'll be up against it with the people because they all hold John up as a prophet."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> They decided to concede that round to Jesus. "We don't know," they said. Jesus replied, "Then I won't answer your question either."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then Jesus started telling them stories. "A man planted a vineyard. He fenced it, dug a winepress, erected a watchtower, turned it over to the farmhands, and went off on a trip.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> At the time for harvest, he sent a servant back to the farmhands to collect his profits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "They grabbed him, beat him up, and sent him off empty-handed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> So he sent another servant. That one they tarred and feathered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He sent another and that one they killed. And on and on, many others. Some they beat up, some they killed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Finally there was only one left: a beloved son. In a last-ditch effort, he sent him, thinking, 'Surely they will respect my son.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "But those farmhands saw their chance. They rubbed their hands together in greed and said, 'This is the heir! Let's kill him and have it all for ourselves.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They grabbed him, killed him, and threw him over the fence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "What do you think the owner of the vineyard will do? Right. He'll come and clean house. Then he'll assign the care of the vineyard to others.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Read it for yourselves in Scripture: That stone the masons threw out is now the cornerstone!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> This is God's work; we rub our eyes--we can hardly believe it!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They wanted to lynch him then and there but, intimidated by public opinion, held back. They knew the story was about them. They got away from there as fast as they could.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They sent some Pharisees and followers of Herod to bait him, hoping to catch him saying something incriminating.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They came up and said, "Teacher, we know you have integrity, that you are indifferent to public opinion, don't pander to your students, and teach the way of God accurately. Tell us: Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He knew it was a trick question, and said, "Why are you playing these games with me? Bring me a coin and let me look at it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They handed him one. "This engraving--who does it look like? And whose name is on it?" "Caesar," they said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Jesus said, "Give Caesar what is his, and give God what is his." Their mouths hung open, speechless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Some Sadducees, the party that denies any possibility of resurrection, came up and asked,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Teacher, Moses wrote that if a man dies and leaves a wife but no child, his brother is obligated to marry the widow and have children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Well, there once were seven brothers. The first took a wife. He died childless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The second married her. He died, and still no child. The same with the third.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> All seven took their turn, but no child. Finally the wife died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> When they are raised at the resurrection, whose wife is she? All seven were her husband."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Jesus said, "You're way off base, and here's why: One, you don't know your Bibles; two, you don't know how God works.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> After the dead are raised up, we're past the marriage business. As it is with angels now, all our ecstasies and intimacies then will be with God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> And regarding the dead, whether or not they are raised, don't you ever read the Bible? How God at the bush said to Moses, 'I am--not was--the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The living God is God of the living, not the dead. You're way, way off base."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> One of the religion scholars came up. Hearing the lively exchanges of question and answer and seeing how sharp Jesus was in his answers, he put in his question: "Which is most important of all the commandments?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Jesus said, "The first in importance is, 'Listen, Israel: The Lord your God is one;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> And here is the second: 'Love others as well as you love yourself.' There is no other commandment that ranks with these."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The religion scholar said, "A wonderful answer, Teacher! So lucid and accurate--that God is one and there is no other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> And loving him with all passion and intelligence and energy, and loving others as well as you love yourself. Why, that's better than all offerings and sacrifices put together!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> When Jesus realized how insightful he was, he said, "You're almost there, right on the border of God's kingdom." After that, no one else dared ask a question.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> While he was teaching in the Temple, Jesus asked, "How is it that the religion scholars say that the Messiah is David's 'son,'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> when we all know that David, inspired by the Holy Spirit, said, God said to my Master, "Sit here at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> "David here designates the Messiah 'my Master'--so how can the Messiah also be his 'son'?" The large crowd was delighted with what they heard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> He continued teaching. "Watch out for the religion scholars. They love to walk around in academic gowns, preening in the radiance of public flattery,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> basking in prominent positions, sitting at the head table at every church function.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> And all the time they are exploiting the weak and helpless. The longer their prayers, the worse they get. But they'll pay for it in the end."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Sitting across from the offering box, he was observing how the crowd tossed money in for the collection. Many of the rich were making large contributions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> One poor widow came up and put in two small coins--a measly two cents.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Jesus called his disciples over and said, "The truth is that this poor widow gave more to the collection than all the others put together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> All the others gave what they'll never miss; she gave extravagantly what she couldn't afford--she gave her all."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> As he walked away from the Temple, one of his disciples said, "Teacher, look at that stonework! Those buildings!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Jesus said, "You're impressed by this grandiose architecture? There's not a stone in the whole works that is not going to end up in a heap of rubble."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Later, as he was sitting on Mount Olives in full view of the Temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew got him off by himself and asked,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Tell us, when is this going to happen? What sign will we get that things are coming to a head?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Jesus began, "Watch out for doomsday deceivers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Many leaders are going to show up with forged identities claiming, 'I'm the One.' They will deceive a lot of people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When you hear of wars and rumored wars, keep your head and don't panic. This is routine history, and no sign of the end.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Nation will fight nation and ruler fight ruler, over and over. Earthquakes will occur in various places. There will be famines. But these things are nothing compared to what's coming.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "And watch out! They're going to drag you into court. And then it will go from bad to worse, dog-eat-dog, everyone at your throat because you carry my name. You're placed there as sentinels to truth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The Message has to be preached all across the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "When they bring you, betrayed, into court, don't worry about what you'll say. When the time comes, say what's on your heart--the Holy Spirit will make his witness in and through you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "It's going to be brother killing brother, father killing child, children killing parents.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> There's no telling who will hate you because of me. "Stay with it--that's what is required. Stay with it to the end. You won't be sorry; you'll be saved.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "But be ready to run for it when you see the monster of desecration set up where it should never be. You who can read, make sure you understand what I'm talking about. If you're living in Judea at the time, run for the hills;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> if you're working in the yard, don't go back to the house to get anything;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> if you're out in the field, don't go back to get your coat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Pregnant and nursing mothers will have it especially hard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Hope and pray this won't happen in the middle of winter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "These are going to be hard days--nothing like it from the time God made the world right up to the present. And there'll be nothing like it again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> If he let the days of trouble run their course, nobody would make it. But because of God's chosen people, those he personally chose, he has already intervened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "If anyone tries to flag you down, calling out, 'Here's the Messiah!' or points, 'There he is!' don't fall for it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Fake Messiahs and lying preachers are going to pop up everywhere. Their impressive credentials and dazzling performances will pull the wool over the eyes of even those who ought to know better.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> So watch out. I've given you fair warning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "Following those hard times, Sun will fade out, moon cloud over,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Stars fall out of the sky, cosmic powers tremble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "And then they'll see the Son of Man enter in grand style, his Arrival filling the sky--no one will miss it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> He'll dispatch the angels; they will pull in the chosen from the four winds, from pole to pole.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "Take a lesson from the fig tree. From the moment you notice its buds form, the merest hint of green, you know summer's just around the corner.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> And so it is with you. When you see all these things, you know he is at the door.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Don't take this lightly. I'm not just saying this for some future generation, but for this one, too--these things will happen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Sky and earth will wear out; my words won't wear out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "But the exact day and hour? No one knows that, not even heaven's angels, not even the Son. Only the Father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> So keep a sharp lookout, for you don't know the timetable.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> It's like a man who takes a trip, leaving home and putting his servants in charge, each assigned a task, and commanding the gatekeeper to stand watch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> So, stay at your post, watching. You have no idea when the homeowner is returning, whether evening, midnight, cockcrow, or morning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> You don't want him showing up unannounced, with you asleep on the job.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> I say it to you, and I'm saying it to all: Stay at your post. Keep watch."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In only two days the eight-day Festival of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread would begin. The high priests and religion scholars were looking for a way they could seize Jesus by stealth and kill him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They agreed that it should not be done during Passover Week. "We don't want the crowds up in arms," they said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Jesus was at Bethany, a guest of Simon the Leper. While he was eating dinner, a woman came up carrying a bottle of very expensive perfume. Opening the bottle, she poured it on his head.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Some of the guests became furious among themselves. "That's criminal! A sheer waste!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> This perfume could have been sold for well over a year's wages and handed out to the poor." They swelled up in anger, nearly bursting with indignation over her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But Jesus said, "Let her alone. Why are you giving her a hard time? She has just done something wonderfully significant for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You will have the poor with you every day for the rest of your lives. Whenever you feel like it, you can do something for them. Not so with me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> She did what she could when she could--she pre-anointed my body for burial.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And you can be sure that wherever in the whole world the Message is preached, what she just did is going to be talked about admiringly."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the cabal of high priests, determined to betray him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They couldn't believe their ears, and promised to pay him well. He started looking for just the right moment to hand him over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> On the first of the Days of Unleavened Bread, the day they prepare the Passover sacrifice, his disciples asked him, "Where do you want us to go and make preparations so you can eat the Passover meal?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He directed two of his disciples, "Go into the city. A man carrying a water jug will meet you. Follow him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Ask the owner of whichever house he enters, 'The Teacher wants to know, Where is my guest room where I can eat the Passover meal with my disciples?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He will show you a spacious second-story room, swept and ready. Prepare for us there."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The disciples left, came to the city, found everything just as he had told them, and prepared the Passover meal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> After sunset he came with the Twelve.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> As they were at the supper table eating, Jesus said, "I have something hard but important to say to you: One of you is going to hand me over to the conspirators, one who at this moment is eating with me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Stunned, they started asking, one after another, "It isn't me, is it?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He said, "It's one of the Twelve, one who eats with me out of the same bowl.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> In one sense, it turns out that the Son of Man is entering into a way of treachery well-marked by the Scriptures--no surprises here. In another sense, the man who turns him in, turns traitor to the Son of Man--better never to have been born than do this!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> In the course of their meal, having taken and blessed the bread, he broke it and gave it to them. Then he said, Take, this is my body.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Taking the chalice, he gave it to them, thanking God, and they all drank from it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He said, This is my blood, God's new covenant, Poured out for many people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "I'll not be drinking wine again until the new day when I drink it in the kingdom of God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> They sang a hymn and then went directly to Mount Olives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Jesus told them, "You're all going to feel that your world is falling apart and that it's my fault. There's a Scripture that says, I will strike the shepherd; The sheep will go helter-skelter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "But after I am raised up, I will go ahead of you, leading the way to Galilee."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Peter blurted out, "Even if everyone else is ashamed of you when things fall to pieces, I won't be."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Jesus said, "Don't be so sure. Today, this very night in fact, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> He blustered in protest, "Even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you." All the others said the same thing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> They came to an area called Gethsemane. Jesus told his disciples, "Sit here while I pray."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> He took Peter, James, and John with him. He plunged into a sinkhole of dreadful agony.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> He told them, "I feel bad enough right now to die. Stay here and keep vigil with me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Going a little ahead, he fell to the ground and prayed for a way out:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> "Papa, Father, you can--can't you?--get me out of this. Take this cup away from me. But please, not what I want--what do you want?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> He came back and found them sound asleep. He said to Peter, "Simon, you went to sleep on me? Can't you stick it out with me a single hour?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Stay alert, be in prayer, so you don't enter the danger zone without even knowing it. Don't be naive. Part of you is eager, ready for anything in God; but another part is as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> He then went back and prayed the same prayer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Returning, he again found them sound asleep. They simply couldn't keep their eyes open, and they didn't have a plausible excuse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> He came back a third time and said, "Are you going to sleep all night? No--you've slept long enough. Time's up. The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of sinners.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Get up. Let's get going. My betrayer has arrived."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> No sooner were the words out of his mouth when Judas, the one out of the Twelve, showed up, and with him a gang of ruffians, sent by the high priests, religion scholars, and leaders, brandishing swords and clubs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> The betrayer had worked out a signal with them: "The one I kiss, that's the one--seize him. Make sure he doesn't get away."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> He went straight to Jesus and said, "Rabbi!" and kissed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> The others then grabbed him and roughed him up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> One of the men standing there unsheathed his sword, swung, and came down on the Chief Priest's servant, lopping off the man's ear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> Jesus said to them, "What is this, coming after me with swords and clubs as if I were a dangerous criminal?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> Day after day I've been sitting in the Temple teaching, and you never so much as lifted a hand against me. What you in fact have done is confirm the prophetic writings."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> All the disciples cut and ran.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> A young man was following along. All he had on was a bedsheet. Some of the men grabbed him</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> but he got away, running off naked, leaving them holding the sheet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> They led Jesus to the Chief Priest, where the high priests, religious leaders, and scholars had gathered together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> Peter followed at a safe distance until they got to the Chief Priest's courtyard, where he mingled with the servants and warmed himself at the fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> The high priests conspiring with the Jewish Council looked high and low for evidence against Jesus by which they could sentence him to death. They found nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> Plenty of people were willing to bring in false charges, but nothing added up, and they ended up canceling each other out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> Then a few of them stood up and lied:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> "We heard him say, 'I am going to tear down this Temple, built by hard labor, and in three days build another without lifting a hand.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="59"> But even they couldn't agree exactly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="60"> In the middle of this, the Chief Priest stood up and asked Jesus, "What do you have to say to the accusation?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="61"> Jesus was silent. He said nothing. The Chief Priest tried again, this time asking, "Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="62"> Jesus said, "Yes, I am, and you'll see it yourself: The Son of Man seated At the right hand of the Mighty One, Arriving on the clouds of heaven."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="63"> The Chief Priest lost his temper. Ripping his clothes, he yelled, "Did you hear that? After that do we need witnesses?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="64"> You heard the blasphemy. Are you going to stand for it?" They condemned him, one and all. The sentence: death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="65"> Some of them started spitting at him. They blindfolded his eyes, then hit him, saying, "Who hit you? Prophesy!" The guards, punching and slapping, took him away.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="66"> While all this was going on, Peter was down in the courtyard. One of the Chief Priest's servant girls came in</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="67"> and, seeing Peter warming himself there, looked hard at him and said, "You were with the Nazarene, Jesus."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="68"> He denied it: "I don't know what you're talking about." He went out on the porch. A rooster crowed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="69"> The girl spotted him and began telling the people standing around, "He's one of them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="70"> He denied it again. After a little while, the bystanders brought it up again. "You've got to be one of them. You've got 'Galilean' written all over you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="71"> Now Peter got really nervous and swore, "I never laid eyes on this man you're talking about."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="72"> Just then the rooster crowed a second time. Peter remembered how Jesus had said, "Before a rooster crows twice, you'll deny me three times." He collapsed in tears.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> At dawn's first light, the high priests, with the religious leaders and scholars, arranged a conference with the entire Jewish Council. After tying Jesus securely, they took him out and presented him to Pilate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Pilate asked him, "Are you the 'King of the Jews'?" He answered, "If you say so."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The high priests let loose a barrage of accusations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Pilate asked again, "Aren't you going to answer anything? That's quite a list of accusations."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Still, he said nothing. Pilate was impressed, really impressed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> It was a custom at the Feast to release a prisoner, anyone the people asked for.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> There was one prisoner called Barabbas, locked up with the insurrectionists who had committed murder during the uprising against Rome.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> As the crowd came up and began to present its petition for him to release a prisoner,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Pilate anticipated them: "Do you want me to release the King of the Jews to you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Pilate knew by this time that it was through sheer spite that the high priests had turned Jesus over to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But the high priests by then had worked up the crowd to ask for the release of Barabbas.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Pilate came back, "So what do I do with this man you call King of the Jews?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They yelled, "Nail him to a cross!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Pilate objected, "But for what crime?" But they yelled all the louder, "Nail him to a cross!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Pilate gave the crowd what it wanted, set Barabbas free and turned Jesus over for whipping and crucifixion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The soldiers took Jesus into the palace (called Praetorium) and called together the entire brigade.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> They dressed him up in purple and put a crown plaited from a thorn bush on his head.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Then they began their mockery: "Bravo, King of the Jews!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They banged on his head with a club, spit on him, and knelt down in mock worship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> After they had had their fun, they took off the purple cape and put his own clothes back on him. Then they marched out to nail him to the cross.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> There was a man walking by, coming from work, Simon from Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus. They made him carry Jesus' cross.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The soldiers brought Jesus to Golgotha, meaning "Skull Hill."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They offered him a mild painkiller (wine mixed with myrrh), but he wouldn't take it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> And they nailed him to the cross. They divided up his clothes and threw dice to see who would get them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> They nailed him up at nine o'clock in the morning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The charge against him--THE KING OF THE JEWS--was printed on a poster.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Along with him, they crucified two criminals, one to his right, the other to his left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> (OMITTED TEXT)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> People passing along the road jeered, shaking their heads in mock lament: "You bragged that you could tear down the Temple and then rebuild it in three days--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> so show us your stuff! Save yourself! If you're really God's Son, come down from that cross!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The high priests, along with the religion scholars, were right there mixing it up with the rest of them, having a great time poking fun at him: "He saved others--but he can't save himself!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Messiah, is he? King of Israel? Then let him climb down from that cross. We'll all become believers then!" Even the men crucified alongside him joined in the mockery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> At noon the sky became extremely dark.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The darkness lasted three hours. At three o'clock, Jesus groaned out of the depths, crying loudly, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Some of the bystanders who heard him said, "Listen, he's calling for Elijah."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Someone ran off, soaked a sponge in sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, "Let's see if Elijah comes to take him down."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> But Jesus, with a loud cry, gave his last breath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> At that moment the Temple curtain ripped right down the middle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> When the Roman captain standing guard in front of him saw that he had quit breathing, he said, "This has to be the Son of God!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> There were women watching from a distance, among them Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of the younger James and Joses, and Salome.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> When Jesus was in Galilee, these women followed and served him, and had come up with him to Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Late in the afternoon, since it was the Day of Preparation (that is, Sabbath eve),</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Joseph of Arimathea, a highly respected member of the Jewish Council, came. He was one who lived expectantly, on the lookout for the kingdom of God. Working up his courage, he went to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Pilate questioned whether he could be dead that soon and called for the captain to verify that he was really dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> Assured by the captain, he gave Joseph the corpse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Having already purchased a linen shroud, Joseph took him down, wrapped him in the shroud, placed him in a tomb that had been cut into the rock, and rolled a large stone across the opening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> Mary Magdalene and Mary, mother of Joses, watched the burial.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so they could embalm him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Very early on Sunday morning, as the sun rose, they went to the tomb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They worried out loud to each other, "Who will roll back the stone from the tomb for us?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Then they looked up, saw that it had been rolled back--it was a huge stone--and walked right in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed all in white. They were completely taken aback, astonished.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He said, "Don't be afraid. I know you're looking for Jesus the Nazarene, the One they nailed on the cross. He's been raised up; he's here no longer. You can see for yourselves that the place is empty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Now--on your way. Tell his disciples and Peter that he is going on ahead of you to Galilee. You'll see him there, exactly as he said."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They got out as fast as they could, beside themselves, their heads swimming. Stunned, they said nothing to anyone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> [After rising from the dead, Jesus appeared early on Sunday morning to Mary Magdalene, whom he had delivered from seven demons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> She went to his former companions, now weeping and carrying on, and told them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> When they heard her report that she had seen him alive and well, they didn't believe her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Later he appeared, but in a different form, to two of them out walking in the countryside.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They went back and told the rest, but they weren't believed either.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Still later, as the Eleven were eating supper, he appeared and took them to task most severely for their stubborn unbelief, refusing to believe those who had seen him raised up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Then he said, "Go into the world. Go everywhere and announce the Message of God's good news to one and all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Whoever believes and is baptized is saved; whoever refuses to believe is damned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "These are some of the signs that will accompany believers: They will throw out demons in my name, they will speak in new tongues,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> they will take snakes in their hands, they will drink poison and not be hurt, they will lay hands on the sick and make them well."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Then the Master Jesus, after briefing them, was taken up to heaven, and he sat down beside God in the place of honor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And the disciples went everywhere preaching, the Master working right with them, validating the Message with indisputable evidence.]</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="42" bname="Luke">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> So many others have tried their hand at putting together a story of the wonderful harvest of Scripture and history that took place among us,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> using reports handed down by the original eyewitnesses who served this Word with their very lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Since I have investigated all the reports in close detail, starting from the story's beginning, I decided to write it all out for you, most honorable Theophilus,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> so you can know beyond the shadow of a doubt the reliability of what you were taught.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> During the rule of Herod, King of Judea, there was a priest assigned service in the regiment of Abijah. His name was Zachariah. His wife was descended from the daughters of Aaron. Her name was Elizabeth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Together they lived honorably before God, careful in keeping to the ways of the commandments and enjoying a clear conscience before God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But they were childless because Elizabeth could never conceive, and now they were quite old.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> It so happened that as Zachariah was carrying out his priestly duties before God, working the shift assigned to his regiment,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> it came his one turn in life to enter the sanctuary of God and burn incense.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The congregation was gathered and praying outside the Temple at the hour of the incense offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Unannounced, an angel of God appeared just to the right of the altar of incense.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Zachariah was paralyzed in fear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But the angel reassured him, "Don't fear, Zachariah. Your prayer has been heard. Elizabeth, your wife, will bear a son by you. You are to name him John.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> You're going to leap like a gazelle for joy, and not only you--many will delight in his birth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He'll achieve great stature with God. "He'll drink neither wine nor beer. He'll be filled with the Holy Spirit from the moment he leaves his mother's womb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He will turn many sons and daughters of Israel back to their God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He will herald God's arrival in the style and strength of Elijah, soften the hearts of parents to children, and kindle devout understanding among hardened skeptics--he'll get the people ready for God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Zachariah said to the angel, "Do you expect me to believe this? I'm an old man and my wife is an old woman."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But the angel said, "I am Gabriel, the sentinel of God, sent especially to bring you this glad news.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But because you won't believe me, you'll be unable to say a word until the day of your son's birth. Every word I've spoken to you will come true on time--God's time."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Meanwhile, the congregation waiting for Zachariah was getting restless, wondering what was keeping him so long in the sanctuary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> When he came out and couldn't speak, they knew he had seen a vision. He continued speechless and had to use sign language with the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> When the course of his priestly assignment was completed, he went back home.[</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> It wasn't long before his wife, Elizabeth, conceived. She went off by herself for five months, relishing her pregnancy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "So, this is how God acts to remedy my unfortunate condition!" she said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to the Galilean village of Nazareth</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> to a virgin engaged to be married to a man descended from David. His name was Joseph, and the virgin's name, Mary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Upon entering, Gabriel greeted her: Good morning! You're beautiful with God's beauty, Beautiful inside and out! God be with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> She was thoroughly shaken, wondering what was behind a greeting like that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> But the angel assured her, "Mary, you have nothing to fear. God has a surprise for you:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> You will become pregnant and give birth to a son and call his name Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> He will be great, be called 'Son of the Highest.' The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> He will rule Jacob's house forever-- no end, ever, to his kingdom."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Mary said to the angel, "But how? I've never slept with a man."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> The angel answered, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, the power of the Highest hover over you; Therefore, the child you bring to birth will be called Holy, Son of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> "And did you know that your cousin Elizabeth conceived a son, old as she is? Everyone called her barren, and here she is six months' pregnant!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Nothing, you see, is impossible with God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> And Mary said, Yes, I see it all now: I'm the Lord's maid, ready to serve. Let it be with me just as you say. Then the angel left her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Mary didn't waste a minute. She got up and traveled to a town in Judah in the hill country,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> straight to Zachariah's house, and greeted Elizabeth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby in her womb leaped. She was filled with the Holy Spirit,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> and sang out exuberantly, You're so blessed among women, and the babe in your womb, also blessed!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> And why am I so blessed that the mother of my Lord visits me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> The moment the sound of your greeting entered my ears, The babe in my womb skipped like a lamb for sheer joy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> Blessed woman, who believed what God said, believed every word would come true!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> And Mary said, I'm bursting with God-news;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> I'm dancing the song of my Savior God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> God took one good look at me, and look what happened-- I'm the most fortunate woman on earth! What God has done for me will never be forgotten,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> His mercy flows in wave after wave on those who are in awe before him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> He bared his arm and showed his strength, scattered the bluffing braggarts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> He knocked tyrants off their high horses, pulled victims out of the mud.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> The starving poor sat down to a banquet; the callous rich were left out in the cold.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> He embraced his chosen child, Israel; he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> It's exactly what he promised, beginning with Abraham and right up to now.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> Mary stayed with Elizabeth for three months and then went back to her own home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> When Elizabeth was full-term in her pregnancy, she bore a son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> Her neighbors and relatives, seeing that God had overwhelmed her with mercy, celebrated with her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="59"> On the eighth day, they came to circumcise the child and were calling him Zachariah after his father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="60"> But his mother intervened: "No. He is to be called John."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="61"> "But," they said, "no one in your family is named that."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="62"> They used sign language to ask Zachariah what he wanted him named.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="63"> Asking for a tablet, Zachariah wrote, "His name is to be John." That took everyone by surprise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="64"> Surprise followed surprise--Zachariah's mouth was now open, his tongue loose, and he was talking, praising God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="65"> A deep, reverential fear settled over the neighborhood, and in all that Judean hill country people talked about nothing else.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="66"> Everyone who heard about it took it to heart, wondering, "What will become of this child? Clearly, God has his hand in this."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="67"> Then Zachariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="68"> Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; he came and set his people free.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="69"> He set the power of salvation in the center of our lives, and in the very house of David his servant,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="70"> Just as he promised long ago through the preaching of his holy prophets:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="71"> Deliverance from our enemies and every hateful hand;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="72"> Mercy to our fathers, as he remembers to do what he said he'd do,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="73"> What he swore to our father Abraham--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="74"> a clean rescue from the enemy camp, So we can worship him without a care in the world,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="75"> made holy before him as long as we live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="76"> And you, my child, "Prophet of the Highest," will go ahead of the Master to prepare his ways,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="77"> Present the offer of salvation to his people, the forgiveness of their sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="78"> Through the heartfelt mercies of our God, God's Sunrise will break in upon us,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="79"> Shining on those in the darkness, those sitting in the shadow of death, Then showing us the way, one foot at a time, down the path of peace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="80"> The child grew up, healthy and spirited. He lived out in the desert until the day he made his prophetic debut in Israel.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> About that time Caesar Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Empire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> This was the first census when Quirinius was governor of Syria.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Everyone had to travel to his own ancestral hometown to be accounted for.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> So Joseph went from the Galilean town of Nazareth up to Bethlehem in Judah, David's town, for the census. As a descendant of David, he had to go there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He went with Mary, his fianc�e, who was pregnant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> While they were there, the time came for her to give birth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> She gave birth to a son, her firstborn. She wrapped him in a blanket and laid him in a manger, because there was no room in the hostel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> There were sheepherders camping in the neighborhood. They had set night watches over their sheep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Suddenly, God's angel stood among them and God's glory blazed around them. They were terrified.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The angel said, "Don't be afraid. I'm here to announce a great and joyful event that is meant for everybody, worldwide:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> A Savior has just been born in David's town, a Savior who is Messiah and Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> This is what you're to look for: a baby wrapped in a blanket and lying in a manger."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> At once the angel was joined by a huge angelic choir singing God's praises:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Glory to God in the heavenly heights, Peace to all men and women on earth who please him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> As the angel choir withdrew into heaven, the sheepherders talked it over. "Let's get over to Bethlehem as fast as we can and see for ourselves what God has revealed to us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They left, running, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Seeing was believing. They told everyone they met what the angels had said about this child.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> All who heard the sheepherders were impressed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The sheepherders returned and let loose, glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen. It turned out exactly the way they'd been told!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> When the eighth day arrived, the day of circumcision, the child was named Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Then when the days stipulated by Moses for purification were complete, they took him up to Jerusalem to offer him to God</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> as commanded in God's Law: "Every male who opens the womb shall be a holy offering to God,"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> and also to sacrifice the "pair of doves or two young pigeons" prescribed in God's Law.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> In Jerusalem at the time, there was a man, Simeon by name, a good man, a man who lived in the prayerful expectancy of help for Israel. And the Holy Spirit was on him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The Holy Spirit had shown him that he would see the Messiah of God before he died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Led by the Spirit, he entered the Temple. As the parents of the child Jesus brought him in to carry out the rituals of the Law,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Simeon took him into his arms and blessed God:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> God, you can now release your servant; release me in peace as you promised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> With my own eyes I've seen your salvation;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> it's now out in the open for everyone to see:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> A God-revealing light to the non-Jewish nations, and of glory for your people Israel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Jesus' father and mother were speechless with surprise at these words.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Simeon went on to bless them, and said to Mary his mother, This child marks both the failure and the recovery of many in Israel, A figure misunderstood and contradicted--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> the pain of a sword-thrust through you-- But the rejection will force honesty, as God reveals who they really are.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Anna the prophetess was also there, a daughter of Phanuel from the tribe of Asher. She was by now a very old woman. She had been married seven years</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> and a widow for eighty-four. She never left the Temple area, worshiping night and day with her fastings and prayers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> At the very time Simeon was praying, she showed up, broke into an anthem of praise to God, and talked about the child to all who were waiting expectantly for the freeing of Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> When they finished everything required by God in the Law, they returned to Galilee and their own town, Nazareth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> There the child grew strong in body and wise in spirit. And the grace of God was on him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Every year Jesus' parents traveled to Jerusalem for the Feast of Passover.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> When he was twelve years old, they went up as they always did for the Feast.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> When it was over and they left for home, the child Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents didn't know it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Thinking he was somewhere in the company of pilgrims, they journeyed for a whole day and then began looking for him among relatives and neighbors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> When they didn't find him, they went back to Jerusalem looking for him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> The next day they found him in the Temple seated among the teachers, listening to them and asking questions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> The teachers were all quite taken with him, impressed with the sharpness of his answers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> But his parents were not impressed; they were upset and hurt. His mother said, "Young man, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been half out of our minds looking for you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> He said, "Why were you looking for me? Didn't you know that I had to be here, dealing with the things of my Father?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> But they had no idea what he was talking about.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> So he went back to Nazareth with them, and lived obediently with them. His mother held these things dearly, deep within herself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> And Jesus matured, growing up in both body and spirit, blessed by both God and people.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In the fifteenth year of the rule of Caesar Tiberius--it was while Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea; Herod, ruler of Galilee; his brother Philip, ruler of Iturea and Trachonitis; Lysanias, ruler of Abilene;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> during the Chief-Priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas--John, Zachariah's son, out in the desert at the time, received a message from God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He went all through the country around the Jordan River preaching a baptism of life-change leading to forgiveness of sins,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> as described in the words of Isaiah the prophet: Thunder in the desert! "Prepare God's arrival! Make the road smooth and straight!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Every ditch will be filled in, Every bump smoothed out, The detours straightened out, All the ruts paved over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Everyone will be there to see The parade of God's salvation."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When crowds of people came out for baptism because it was the popular thing to do, John exploded: "Brood of snakes! What do you think you're doing slithering down here to the river? Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to deflect God's judgment?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> It's your life that must change, not your skin. And don't think you can pull rank by claiming Abraham as 'father.' Being a child of Abraham is neither here nor there--children of Abraham are a dime a dozen. God can make children from stones if he wants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> What counts is your life. Is it green and blossoming? Because if it's deadwood, it goes on the fire."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The crowd asked him, "Then what are we supposed to do?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "If you have two coats, give one away," he said. "Do the same with your food."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Tax men also came to be baptized and said, "Teacher, what should we do?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He told them, "No more extortion--collect only what is required by law."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Soldiers asked him, "And what should we do?" He told them, "No shakedowns, no blackmail--and be content with your rations."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The interest of the people by now was building. They were all beginning to wonder, "Could this John be the Messiah?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But John intervened: "I'm baptizing you here in the river. The main character in this drama, to whom I'm a mere stagehand, will ignite the kingdom life, a fire, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He's going to clean house--make a clean sweep of your lives. He'll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he'll put out with the trash to be burned."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> There was a lot more of this--words that gave strength to the people, words that put heart in them. The Message!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But Herod, the ruler, stung by John's rebuke in the matter of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> capped his long string of evil deeds with this outrage: He put John in jail.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> After all the people were baptized, Jesus was baptized. As he was praying, the sky opened up</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> and the Holy Spirit, like a dove descending, came down on him. And along with the Spirit, a voice: "You are my Son, chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> When Jesus entered public life he was about thirty years old, the son (in public perception) of Joseph, who was-- son of Heli,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> son of Matthat, son of Levi, son of Melchi, son of Jannai,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> son of Joseph, son of Mattathias, son of Amos, son of Nahum, son of Esli, son of Naggai,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> son of Maath, son of Mattathias, son of Semein, son of Josech, son of Joda,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> son of Joanan, son of Rhesa, son of Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, son of Neri,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> son of Melchi, son of Addi, son of Cosam, son of Elmadam, son of Er,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> son of Joshua, son of Eliezer, son of Jorim, son of Matthat, son of Levi,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> son of Simeon, son of Judah, son of Joseph, son of Jonam, son of Eliakim,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> son of Melea, son of Menna, son of Mattatha, son of Nathan, son of David,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> son of Jesse, son of Obed, son of Boaz, son of Sala, son of Nahshon,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> son of Amminadab, son of Admin, son of Arni, son of Hezron, son of Perez, son of Judah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> son of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham, son of Terah, son of Nahor,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> son of Serug, son of Reu, son of Peleg, son of Eber, son of Shelah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> son of Cainan, son of Arphaxad, son of Shem, son of Noah, son of Lamech,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> son of Methuselah, son of Enoch, son of Jared, son of Mahalaleel, son of Cainan,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> son of Enos, son of Seth, son of Adam, son of God.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Now Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wild.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> For forty wilderness days and nights he was tested by the Devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when the time was up he was hungry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The Devil, playing on his hunger, gave the first test: "Since you're God's Son, command this stone to turn into a loaf of bread."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Jesus answered by quoting Deuteronomy: "It takes more than bread to really live."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> For the second test he led him up and spread out all the kingdoms of the earth on display at once.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then the Devil said, "They're yours in all their splendor to serve your pleasure. I'm in charge of them all and can turn them over to whomever I wish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Worship me and they're yours, the whole works."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Jesus refused, again backing his refusal with Deuteronomy: "Worship the Lord your God and only the Lord your God. Serve him with absolute single-heartedness."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> For the third test the Devil took him to Jerusalem and put him on top of the Temple. He said, "If you are God's Son, jump.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> It's written, isn't it, that 'he has placed you in the care of angels to protect you;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> they will catch you; you won't so much as stub your toe on a stone'?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Yes," said Jesus, "and it's also written, 'Don't you dare tempt the Lord your God.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> That completed the testing. The Devil retreated temporarily, lying in wait for another opportunity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Jesus returned to Galilee powerful in the Spirit. News that he was back spread through the countryside.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He taught in their meeting places to everyone's acclaim and pleasure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He came to Nazareth where he had been reared. As he always did on the Sabbath, he went to the meeting place. When he stood up to read,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> he was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> God's Spirit is on me; he's chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor, Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, To set the burdened and battered free,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> to announce, "This is God's year to act!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the assistant, and sat down. Every eye in the place was on him, intent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then he started in, "You've just heard Scripture make history. It came true just now in this place."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> All who were there, watching and listening, were surprised at how well he spoke. But they also said, "Isn't this Joseph's son, the one we've known since he was a youngster?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> He answered, "I suppose you're going to quote the proverb, 'Doctor, go heal yourself. Do here in your hometown what we heard you did in Capernaum.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Well, let me tell you something: No prophet is ever welcomed in his hometown.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Isn't it a fact that there were many widows in Israel at the time of Elijah during that three and a half years of drought when famine devastated the land,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> but the only widow to whom Elijah was sent was in Sarepta in Sidon?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> And there were many lepers in Israel at the time of the prophet Elisha but the only one cleansed was Naaman the Syrian."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> That set everyone in the meeting place seething with anger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> They threw him out, banishing him from the village, then took him to a mountain cliff at the edge of the village to throw him to his doom,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> but he gave them the slip and was on his way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> He went down to Capernaum, a village in Galilee. He was teaching the people on the Sabbath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> They were surprised and impressed--his teaching was so forthright, so confident, so authoritative, not the quibbling and quoting they were used to.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> In the meeting place that day there was a man demonically disturbed. He screamed,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "Ho! What business do you have here with us, Jesus? Nazarene! I know what you're up to. You're the Holy One of God and you've come to destroy us!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Jesus shut him up: "Quiet! Get out of him!" The demonic spirit threw the man down in front of them all and left. The demon didn't hurt him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> That set everyone back on their heels, whispering and wondering, "What's going on here? Someone whose words make things happen? Someone who orders demonic spirits to get out and they go?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Jesus was the talk of the town.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> He left the meeting place and went to Simon's house. Simon's mother-in-law was running a high fever and they asked him to do something for her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> He stood over her, told the fever to leave--and it left. Before they knew it, she was up getting dinner for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> When the sun went down, everyone who had anyone sick with some ailment or other brought them to him. One by one he placed his hands on them and healed them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Demons left in droves, screaming, "Son of God! You're the Son of God!" But he shut them up, refusing to let them speak because they knew too much, knew him to be the Messiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> He left the next day for open country. But the crowds went looking and, when they found him, clung to him so he couldn't go on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> He told them, "Don't you realize that there are yet other villages where I have to tell the Message of God's kingdom, that this is the work God sent me to do?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Meanwhile he continued preaching in the meeting places of Galilee.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Once when he was standing on the shore of Lake Gennesaret, the crowd was pushing in on him to better hear the Word of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He noticed two boats tied up. The fishermen had just left them and were out scrubbing their nets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He climbed into the boat that was Simon's and asked him to put out a little from the shore. Sitting there, using the boat for a pulpit, he taught the crowd.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When he finished teaching, he said to Simon, "Push out into deep water and let your nets out for a catch."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Simon said, "Master, we've been fishing hard all night and haven't caught even a minnow. But if you say so, I'll let out the nets."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> It was no sooner said than done--a huge haul of fish, straining the nets past capacity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They waved to their partners in the other boat to come help them. They filled both boats, nearly swamping them with the catch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Simon Peter, when he saw it, fell to his knees before Jesus. "Master, leave. I'm a sinner and can't handle this holiness. Leave me to myself."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When they pulled in that catch of fish, awe overwhelmed Simon and everyone with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> It was the same with James and John, Zebedee's sons, coworkers with Simon. Jesus said to Simon, "There is nothing to fear. From now on you'll be fishing for men and women."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They pulled their boats up on the beach, left them, nets and all, and followed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> One day in one of the villages there was a man covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus he fell down before him in prayer and said, "If you want to, you can cleanse me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Jesus put out his hand, touched him, and said, "I want to. Be clean." Then and there his skin was smooth, the leprosy gone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Jesus instructed him, "Don't talk about this all over town. Just quietly present your healed self to the priest, along with the offering ordered by Moses. Your cleansed and obedient life, not your words, will bear witness to what I have done."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But the man couldn't keep it to himself, and the word got out. Soon a large crowd of people had gathered to listen and be healed of their ailments.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> As often as possible Jesus withdrew to out-of-the-way places for prayer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> One day as he was teaching, Pharisees and religion teachers were sitting around. They had come from nearly every village in Galilee and Judea, even as far away as Jerusalem, to be there. The healing power of God was on him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Some men arrived carrying a paraplegic on a stretcher. They were looking for a way to get into the house and set him before Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> When they couldn't find a way in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof, removed some tiles, and let him down in the middle of everyone, right in front of Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Impressed by their bold belief, he said, "Friend, I forgive your sins."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> That set the religion scholars and Pharisees buzzing. "Who does he think he is? That's blasphemous talk! God and only God can forgive sins."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Jesus knew exactly what they were thinking and said, "Why all this gossipy whispering?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Which is simpler: to say 'I forgive your sins,' or to say 'Get up and start walking'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Well, just so it's clear that I'm the Son of Man and authorized to do either, or both. . . ." He now spoke directly to the paraplegic: "Get up. Take your bedroll and go home."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Without a moment's hesitation, he did it--got up, took his blanket, and left for home, giving glory to God all the way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The people rubbed their eyes, incredulous--and then also gave glory to God. Awestruck, they said, "We've never seen anything like that!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> After this he went out and saw a man named Levi at his work collecting taxes. Jesus said, "Come along with me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> And he did--walked away from everything and went with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Levi gave a large dinner at his home for Jesus. Everybody was there, tax men and other disreputable characters as guests at the dinner.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The Pharisees and their religion scholars came to his disciples greatly offended. "What is he doing eating and drinking with crooks and 'sinners'?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Jesus heard about it and spoke up, "Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> I'm here inviting outsiders, not insiders--an invitation to a changed life, changed inside and out."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> They asked him, "John's disciples are well-known for keeping fasts and saying prayers. Also the Pharisees. But you seem to spend most of your time at parties. Why?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Jesus said, "When you're celebrating a wedding, you don't skimp on the cake and wine. You feast. Later you may need to pull in your belt, but this isn't the time. As long as the bride and groom are with you, you have a good time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> When the groom is gone, the fasting can begin. No one throws cold water on a friendly bonfire. This is Kingdom Come!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> "No one cuts up a fine silk scarf to patch old work clothes; you want fabrics that match.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> And you don't put wine in old, cracked bottles;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> you get strong, clean bottles for your fresh vintage wine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> And no one who has ever tasted fine aged wine prefers unaged wine."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> On a certain Sabbath Jesus was walking through a field of ripe grain. His disciples were pulling off heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands to get rid of the chaff, and eating them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Some Pharisees said, "Why are you doing that, breaking a Sabbath rule?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But Jesus stood up for them. "Have you never read what David and those with him did when they were hungry?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> How he entered the sanctuary and ate fresh bread off the altar, bread that no one but priests were allowed to eat? He also handed it out to his companions."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then he said, "The Son of Man is no slave to the Sabbath; he's in charge."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> On another Sabbath he went to the meeting place and taught. There was a man there with a crippled right hand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The religion scholars and Pharisees had their eye on Jesus to see if he would heal the man, hoping to catch him in a Sabbath infraction.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He knew what they were up to and spoke to the man with the crippled hand: "Get up and stand here before us." He did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then Jesus addressed them, "Let me ask you something: What kind of action suits the Sabbath best? Doing good or doing evil? Helping people or leaving them helpless?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He looked around, looked each one in the eye. He said to the man, "Hold out your hand." He held it out--it was as good as new!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They were beside themselves with anger, and started plotting how they might get even with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> At about that same time he climbed a mountain to pray. He was there all night in prayer before God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The next day he summoned his disciples; from them he selected twelve he designated as apostles:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Simon, whom he named Peter, Andrew, his brother, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Matthew, Thomas, James, son of Alphaeus, Simon, called the Zealot,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Judas, son of James, Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Coming down off the mountain with them, he stood on a plain surrounded by disciples, and was soon joined by a huge congregation from all over Judea and Jerusalem, even from the seaside towns of Tyre and Sidon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They had come both to hear him and to be cured of their ailments. Those disturbed by evil spirits were healed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Everyone was trying to touch him--so much energy surging from him, so many people healed!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Then he spoke: You're blessed when you've lost it all. God's kingdom is there for the finding.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> You're blessed when you're ravenously hungry. Then you're ready for the Messianic meal. You're blessed when the tears flow freely. Joy comes with the morning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Count yourself blessed every time someone cuts you down or throws you out, every time someone smears or blackens your name to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and that that person is uncomfortable.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> You can be glad when that happens--skip like a lamb, if you like!--for even though they don't like it, I do . . . and all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company; my preachers and witnesses have always been treated like this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> But it's trouble ahead if you think you have it made. What you have is all you'll ever get.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> And it's trouble ahead if you're satisfied with yourself. Your self will not satisfy you for long. And it's trouble ahead if you think life's all fun and games. There's suffering to be met, and you're going to meet it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "There's trouble ahead when you live only for the approval of others, saying what flatters them, doing what indulges them. Popularity contests are not truth contests--look how many scoundrel preachers were approved by your ancestors! Your task is to be true, not popular.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "To you who are ready for the truth, I say this: Love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer for that person.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> If someone slaps you in the face, stand there and take it. If someone grabs your shirt, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> If someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "Here is a simple rule of thumb for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you; then grab the initiative and do it for them!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> If you only love the lovable, do you expect a pat on the back? Run-of-the-mill sinners do that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> If you only help those who help you, do you expect a medal? Garden-variety sinners do that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> If you only give for what you hope to get out of it, do you think that's charity? The stingiest of pawnbrokers does that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> "I tell you, love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return. You'll never--I promise--regret it. Live out this God-created identity the way our Father lives toward us, generously and graciously, even when we're at our worst.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Our Father is kind; you be kind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> "Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults--unless, of course, you want the same treatment. Don't condemn those who are down; that hardness can boomerang. Be easy on people; you'll find life a lot easier.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Give away your life; you'll find life given back, but not merely given back--given back with bonus and blessing. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> He quoted a proverb: "'Can a blind man guide a blind man?' Wouldn't they both end up in the ditch?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> An apprentice doesn't lecture the master. The point is to be careful who you follow as your teacher.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> "It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Do you have the nerve to say, 'Let me wash your face for you,' when your own face is distorted by contempt? It's this I-know-better-than-you mentality again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your own part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> "You don't get wormy apples off a healthy tree, nor good apples off a diseased tree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> The health of the apple tells the health of the tree. You must begin with your own life-giving lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> It's who you are, not what you say and do, that counts. Your true being brims over into true words and deeds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> "Why are you so polite with me, always saying 'Yes, sir,' and 'That's right, sir,' but never doing a thing I tell you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> These words I speak to you are not mere additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundation words, words to build a life on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> "If you work the words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who dug deep and laid the foundation of his house on bedrock. When the river burst its banks and crashed against the house, nothing could shake it; it was built to last.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don't work them into your life, you are like a dumb carpenter who built a house but skipped the foundation. When the swollen river came crashing in, it collapsed like a house of cards. It was a total loss."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When he finished speaking to the people, he entered Capernaum.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> A Roman captain there had a servant who was on his deathbed. He prized him highly and didn't want to lose him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When he heard Jesus was back, he sent leaders from the Jewish community asking him to come and heal his servant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They came to Jesus and urged him to do it, saying, "He deserves this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He loves our people. He even built our meeting place."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Jesus went with them. When he was still quite far from the house, the captain sent friends to tell him, "Master, you don't have to go to all this trouble. I'm not that good a person, you know. I'd be embarrassed for you to come to my house,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> even embarrassed to come to you in person. Just give the order and my servant will get well.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I'm a man under orders; I also give orders. I tell one soldier, 'Go,' and he goes; another, 'Come,' and he comes; my slave, 'Do this,' and he does it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Taken aback, Jesus addressed the accompanying crowd: "I've yet to come across this kind of simple trust anywhere in Israel, the very people who are supposed to know about God and how he works."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When the messengers got back home, they found the servant up and well.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Not long after that, Jesus went to the village Nain. His disciples were with him, along with quite a large crowd.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> As they approached the village gate, they met a funeral procession--a woman's only son was being carried out for burial. And the mother was a widow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> When Jesus saw her, his heart broke. He said to her, "Don't cry."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Then he went over and touched the coffin. The pallbearers stopped. He said, "Young man, I tell you: Get up."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The dead son sat up and began talking. Jesus presented him to his mother.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They all realized they were in a place of holy mystery, that God was at work among them. They were quietly worshipful--and then noisily grateful, calling out among themselves, "God is back, looking to the needs of his people!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The news of Jesus spread all through the country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> John's disciples reported back to him the news of all these events taking place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He sent two of them to the Master to ask the question, "Are you the One we've been expecting, or are we still waiting?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The men showed up before Jesus and said, "John the Baptizer sent us to ask you, 'Are you the One we've been expecting, or are we still waiting?'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> In the next two or three hours Jesus healed many from diseases, distress, and evil spirits. To many of the blind he gave the gift of sight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Then he gave his answer: "Go back and tell John what you have just seen and heard: The blind see, The lame walk, Lepers are cleansed, The deaf hear, The dead are raised, The wretched of the earth have God's salvation hospitality extended to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "Is this what you were expecting? Then count yourselves fortunate!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> After John's messengers left to make their report, Jesus said more about John to the crowd of people. "What did you expect when you went out to see him in the wild? A weekend camper?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Hardly. What then? A sheik in silk pajamas? Not in the wilderness, not by a long shot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> What then? A messenger from God? That's right, a messenger! Probably the greatest messenger you'll ever hear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> He is the messenger Malachi announced when he wrote, I'm sending my messenger on ahead To make the road smooth for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "Let me lay it out for you as plainly as I can: No one in history surpasses John the Baptizer, but in the kingdom he prepared you for, the lowliest person is ahead of him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The ordinary and disreputable people who heard John, by being baptized by him into the kingdom, are the clearest evidence;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> the Pharisees and religious officials would have nothing to do with such a baptism, wouldn't think of giving up their place in line to their inferiors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "How can I account for the people of this generation?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> They're like spoiled children complaining to their parents, 'We wanted to skip rope and you were always too tired; we wanted to talk but you were always too busy.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> John the Baptizer came fasting and you called him crazy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The Son of Man came feasting and you called him a lush.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Opinion polls don't count for much, do they? The proof of the pudding is in the eating."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> One of the Pharisees asked him over for a meal. He went to the Pharisee's house and sat down at the dinner table.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Just then a woman of the village, the town harlot, having learned that Jesus was a guest in the home of the Pharisee, came with a bottle of very expensive perfume</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> and stood at his feet, weeping, raining tears on his feet. Letting down her hair, she dried his feet, kissed them, and anointed them with the perfume.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, "If this man was the prophet I thought he was, he would have known what kind of woman this is who is falling all over him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Jesus said to him, "Simon, I have something to tell you." "Oh? Tell me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> "Two men were in debt to a banker. One owed five hundred silver pieces, the other fifty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Neither of them could pay up, and so the banker canceled both debts. Which of the two would be more grateful?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Simon answered, "I suppose the one who was forgiven the most." "That's right," said Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Then turning to the woman, but speaking to Simon, he said, "Do you see this woman? I came to your home; you provided no water for my feet, but she rained tears on my feet and dried them with her hair.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> You gave me no greeting, but from the time I arrived she hasn't quit kissing my feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> You provided nothing for freshening up, but she has soothed my feet with perfume.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> Impressive, isn't it? She was forgiven many, many sins, and so she is very, very grateful. If the forgiveness is minimal, the gratitude is minimal."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> Then he spoke to her: "I forgive your sins."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> That set the dinner guests talking behind his back: "Who does he think he is, forgiving sins!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> He ignored them and said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you. Go in peace."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> He continued according to plan, traveled to town after town, village after village, preaching God's kingdom, spreading the Message. The Twelve were with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> There were also some women in their company who had been healed of various evil afflictions and illnesses: Mary, the one called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Joanna, wife of Chuza, Herod's manager; and Susanna--along with many others who used their considerable means to provide for the company.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> As they went from town to town, a lot of people joined in and traveled along. He addressed them, using this story:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "A farmer went out to sow his seed. Some of it fell on the road; it was tramped down and the birds ate it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Other seed fell in the gravel; it sprouted, but withered because it didn't have good roots.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Other seed fell in the weeds; the weeds grew with it and strangled it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Other seed fell in rich earth and produced a bumper crop. "Are you listening to this? Really listening?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> His disciples asked, "Why did you tell this story?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He said, "You've been given insight into God's kingdom--you know how it works. There are others who need stories. But even with stories some of them aren't going to get it: Their eyes are open but don't see a thing, Their ears are open but don't hear a thing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "This story is about some of those people. The seed is the Word of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The seeds on the road are those who hear the Word, but no sooner do they hear it than the Devil snatches it from them so they won't believe and be saved.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "The seeds in the gravel are those who hear with enthusiasm, but the enthusiasm doesn't go very deep. It's only another fad, and the moment there's trouble it's gone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "And the seed that fell in the weeds--well, these are the ones who hear, but then the seed is crowded out and nothing comes of it as they go about their lives worrying about tomorrow, making money, and having fun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "But the seed in the good earth--these are the good-hearts who seize the Word and hold on no matter what, sticking with it until there's a harvest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "No one lights a lamp and then covers it with a washtub or shoves it under the bed. No, you set it up on a lamp stand so those who enter the room can see their way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> We're not keeping secrets; we're telling them. We're not hiding things; we're bringing everything out into the open.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> So be careful that you don't become misers of what you hear. Generosity begets generosity. Stinginess impoverishes."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> His mother and brothers showed up but couldn't get through to him because of the crowd.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He was given the message, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside wanting to see you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He replied, "My mother and brothers are the ones who hear and do God's Word. Obedience is thicker than blood."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> One day he and his disciples got in a boat. "Let's cross the lake," he said. And off they went.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> It was smooth sailing, and he fell asleep. A terrific storm came up suddenly on the lake. Water poured in, and they were about to capsize.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> They woke Jesus: "Master, Master, we're going to drown!" Getting to his feet, he told the wind, "Silence!" and the waves, "Quiet down!" They did it. The lake became smooth as glass.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Then he said to his disciples, "Why can't you trust me?" They were in absolute awe, staggered and stammering, "Who is this, anyway? He calls out to the winds and sea, and they do what he tells them!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> They sailed on to the country of the Gerasenes, directly opposite Galilee.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> As he stepped out onto land, a madman from town met him; he was a victim of demons. He hadn't worn clothes for a long time, nor lived at home; he lived in the cemetery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> When he saw Jesus he screamed, fell before him, and bellowed, "What business do you have messing with me? You're Jesus, Son of the High God, but don't give me a hard time!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> (The man said this because Jesus had started to order the unclean spirit out of him.) Time after time the demon threw the man into convulsions. He had been placed under constant guard and tied with chains and shackles, but crazed and driven wild by the demon, he would shatter the bonds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" "Mob. My name is Mob," he said, because many demons afflicted him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> And they begged Jesus desperately not to order them to the bottomless pit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> A large herd of pigs was browsing and rooting on a nearby hill. The demons begged Jesus to order them into the pigs. He gave the order.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> It was even worse for the pigs than for the man. Crazed, they stampeded over a cliff into the lake and drowned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Those tending the pigs, scared to death, bolted and told their story in town and country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> People went out to see what had happened. They came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had been sent, sitting there at Jesus' feet, wearing decent clothes and making sense. It was a holy moment, and for a short time they were more reverent than curious.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Then those who had seen it happen told how the demoniac had been saved.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Later, a great many people from the Gerasene countryside got together and asked Jesus to leave--too much change, too fast, and they were scared. So Jesus got back in the boat and set off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> The man whom he had delivered from the demons asked to go with him, but he sent him back, saying,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> "Go home and tell everything God did in you." So he went back and preached all over town everything Jesus had done in him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> On his return, Jesus was welcomed by a crowd. They were all there expecting him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> A man came up, Jairus by name. He was president of the meeting place. He fell at Jesus' feet and begged him to come to his home</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> because his twelve-year-old daughter, his only child, was dying. Jesus went with him, making his way through the pushing, jostling crowd.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> In the crowd that day there was a woman who for twelve years had been afflicted with hemorrhages. She had spent every penny she had on doctors but not one had been able to help her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> She slipped in from behind and touched the edge of Jesus' robe. At that very moment her hemorrhaging stopped.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> Jesus said, "Who touched me?" When no one stepped forward, Peter said, "But Master, we've got crowds of people on our hands. Dozens have touched you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Jesus insisted, "Someone touched me. I felt power discharging from me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> When the woman realized that she couldn't remain hidden, she knelt trembling before him. In front of all the people, she blurted out her story--why she touched him and how at that same moment she was healed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> Jesus said, "Daughter, you took a risk trusting me, and now you're healed and whole. Live well, live blessed!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> While he was still talking, someone from the leader's house came up and told him, "Your daughter died. No need now to bother the Teacher."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Jesus overheard and said, "Don't be upset. Just trust me and everything will be all right."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> Going into the house, he wouldn't let anyone enter with him except Peter, John, James, and the child's parents.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> Everyone was crying and carrying on over her. Jesus said, "Don't cry. She didn't die; she's sleeping."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> They laughed at him. They knew she was dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> Then Jesus, gripping her hand, called, "My dear child, get up."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> She was up in an instant, up and breathing again! He told them to give her something to eat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> Her parents were ecstatic, but Jesus warned them to keep quiet. "Don't tell a soul what happened in this room."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Jesus now called the Twelve and gave them authority and power to deal with all the demons and cure diseases.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He commissioned them to preach the news of God's kingdom and heal the sick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He said, "Don't load yourselves up with equipment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Keep it simple; you are the equipment. And no luxury inns--get a modest place and be content there until you leave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> If you're not welcomed, leave town. Don't make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and move on."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Commissioned, they left. They traveled from town to town telling the latest news of God, the Message, and curing people everywhere they went.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Herod, the ruler, heard of these goings on and didn't know what to think. There were people saying John had come back from the dead,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> others that Elijah had appeared, still others that some prophet of long ago had shown up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Herod said, "But I killed John--took off his head. So who is this that I keep hearing about?" Curious, he looked for a chance to see him in action.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The apostles returned and reported on what they had done. Jesus took them away, off by themselves, near the town called Bethsaida.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But the crowds got wind of it and followed. Jesus graciously welcomed them and talked to them about the kingdom of God. Those who needed healing, he healed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> As the day declined, the Twelve said, "Dismiss the crowd so they can go to the farms or villages around here and get a room for the night and a bite to eat. We're out in the middle of nowhere."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "You feed them," Jesus said. They said, "We couldn't scrape up more than five loaves of bread and a couple of fish--unless, of course, you want us to go to town ourselves and buy food for everybody."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> (There were more than five thousand people in the crowd.) But he went ahead and directed his disciples, "Sit them down in groups of about fifty."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They did what he said, and soon had everyone seated.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He took the five loaves and two fish, lifted his face to heaven in prayer, blessed, broke, and gave the bread and fish to the disciples to hand out to the crowd.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> After the people had all eaten their fill, twelve baskets of leftovers were gathered up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> One time when Jesus was off praying by himself, his disciples nearby, he asked them, "What are the crowds saying about me, about who I am?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They said, "John the Baptizer. Others say Elijah. Still others say that one of the prophets from long ago has come back."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He then asked, "And you--what are you saying about me? Who am I?" Peter answered, "The Messiah of God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Jesus then warned them to keep it quiet. They were to tell no one what Peter had said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> He went on, "It is necessary that the Son of Man proceed to an ordeal of suffering, be tried and found guilty by the religious leaders, high priests, and religion scholars, be killed, and on the third day be raised up alive."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Then he told them what they could expect for themselves: "Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat--I am. Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> If any of you is embarrassed with me and the way I'm leading you, know that the Son of Man will be far more embarrassed with you when he arrives in all his splendor in company with the Father and the holy angels. This isn't, you realize, pie in the sky by and by.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Some who have taken their stand right here are going to see it happen, see with their own eyes the kingdom of God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> About eight days after saying this, he climbed the mountain to pray, taking Peter, John, and James along.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> While he was in prayer, the appearance of his face changed and his clothes became blinding white.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> At once two men were there talking with him. They turned out to be Moses and Elijah--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> and what a glorious appearance they made! They talked over his exodus, the one Jesus was about to complete in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Meanwhile, Peter and those with him were slumped over in sleep. When they came to, rubbing their eyes, they saw Jesus in his glory and the two men standing with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> When Moses and Elijah had left, Peter said to Jesus, "Master, this is a great moment! Let's build three memorials: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." He blurted this out without thinking.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> While he was babbling on like this, a light-radiant cloud enveloped them. As they found themselves buried in the cloud, they became deeply aware of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Then there was a voice out of the cloud: "This is my Son, the Chosen! Listen to him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> When the sound of the voice died away, they saw Jesus there alone. They were speechless. And they continued speechless, said not one thing to anyone during those days of what they had seen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> When they came down off the mountain the next day, a big crowd was there to meet them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> A man called from out of the crowd, "Please, please, Teacher, take a look at my son. He's my only child.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Often a spirit seizes him. Suddenly he's screaming, thrown into convulsions, his mouth foaming. And then it beats him black and blue before it leaves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> I asked your disciples to deliver him but they couldn't."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Jesus said, "What a generation! No sense of God! No focus to your lives! How many times do I have to go over these things? How much longer do I have to put up with this? Bring your son here."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> While he was coming, the demon slammed him to the ground and threw him into convulsions. Jesus stepped in, ordered the vile spirit gone, healed the boy, and handed him back to his father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> They all shook their heads in wonder, astonished at God's greatness, God's majestic greatness. While they continued to stand around exclaiming over all the things he was doing, Jesus said to his disciples,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> "Treasure and ponder each of these next words: The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into human hands."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> They didn't get what he was saying. It was like he was speaking a foreign language and they couldn't make heads or tails of it. But they were embarrassed to ask him what he meant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> They started arguing over which of them would be most famous.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> When Jesus realized how much this mattered to them, he brought a child to his side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> "Whoever accepts this child as if the child were me, accepts me," he said. "And whoever accepts me, accepts the One who sent me. You become great by accepting, not asserting. Your spirit, not your size, makes the difference."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> John spoke up, "Master, we saw a man using your name to expel demons and we stopped him because he wasn't of our group."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Jesus said, "Don't stop him. If he's not an enemy, he's an ally."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> When it came close to the time for his Ascension, he gathered up his courage and steeled himself for the journey to Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> He sent messengers on ahead. They came to a Samaritan village to make arrangements for his hospitality.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> But when the Samaritans learned that his destination was Jerusalem, they refused hospitality.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> When the disciples James and John learned of it, they said, "Master, do you want us to call a bolt of lightning down out of the sky and incinerate them?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> Jesus turned on them: "Of course not!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> And they traveled on to another village.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> On the road someone asked if he could go along. "I'll go with you, wherever," he said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> Jesus was curt: "Are you ready to rough it? We're not staying in the best inns, you know."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="59"> Jesus said to another, "Follow me." He said, "Certainly, but first excuse me for a couple of days, please. I have to make arrangements for my father's funeral."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="60"> Jesus refused. "First things first. Your business is life, not death. And life is urgent: Announce God's kingdom!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="61"> Then another said, "I'm ready to follow you, Master, but first excuse me while I get things straightened out at home."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="62"> Jesus said, "No procrastination. No backward looks. You can't put God's kingdom off till tomorrow. Seize the day."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Later the Master selected seventy and sent them ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he intended to go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He gave them this charge: "What a huge harvest! And how few the harvest hands. So on your knees; ask the God of the Harvest to send harvest hands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "On your way! But be careful--this is hazardous work. You're like lambs in a wolf pack.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Travel light. Comb and toothbrush and no extra luggage. "Don't loiter and make small talk with everyone you meet along the way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "When you enter a home, greet the family, 'Peace.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> If your greeting is received, then it's a good place to stay. But if it's not received, take it back and get out. Don't impose yourself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Stay at one home, taking your meals there, for a worker deserves three square meals. Don't move from house to house, looking for the best cook in town.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "When you enter a town and are received, eat what they set before you,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> heal anyone who is sick, and tell them, 'God's kingdom is right on your doorstep!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "When you enter a town and are not received, go out in the street and say,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> 'The only thing we got from you is the dirt on our feet, and we're giving it back. Did you have any idea that God's kingdom was right on your doorstep?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Sodom will have it better on Judgment Day than the town that rejects you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Doom, Chorazin! Doom, Bethsaida! If Tyre and Sidon had been given half the chances given you, they'd have been on their knees long ago, repenting and crying for mercy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Tyre and Sidon will have it easy on Judgment Day compared to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "And you, Capernaum! Do you think you're about to be promoted to heaven? Think again. You're on a mud slide to hell.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "The one who listens to you, listens to me. The one who rejects you, rejects me. And rejecting me is the same as rejecting God, who sent me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The seventy came back triumphant. "Master, even the demons danced to your tune!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Jesus said, "I know. I saw Satan fall, a bolt of lightning out of the sky.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> See what I've given you? Safe passage as you walk on snakes and scorpions, and protection from every assault of the Enemy. No one can put a hand on you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> All the same, the great triumph is not in your authority over evil, but in God's authority over you and presence with you. Not what you do for God but what God does for you--that's the agenda for rejoicing."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> At that, Jesus rejoiced, exuberant in the Holy Spirit. "I thank you, Father, Master of heaven and earth, that you hid these things from the know-it-alls and showed them to these innocent newcomers. Yes, Father, it pleased you to do it this way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "I've been given it all by my Father! Only the Father knows who the Son is and only the Son knows who the Father is. The Son can introduce the Father to anyone he wants to."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> He then turned in a private aside to his disciples. "Fortunate the eyes that see what you're seeing!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> There are plenty of prophets and kings who would have given their right arm to see what you are seeing but never got so much as a glimpse, to hear what you are hearing but never got so much as a whisper."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. "Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> He answered, "What's written in God's Law? How do you interpret it?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> He said, "That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence--and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "Good answer!" said Jesus. "Do it and you'll live."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Looking for a loophole, he asked, "And just how would you define 'neighbor'?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Jesus answered by telling a story. "There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man's condition, his heart went out to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, 'Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill--I'll pay you on my way back.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> "What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> "The one who treated him kindly," the religion scholar responded. Jesus said, "Go and do the same."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> As they continued their travel, Jesus entered a village. A woman by the name of Martha welcomed him and made him feel quite at home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> She had a sister, Mary, who sat before the Master, hanging on every word he said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> But Martha was pulled away by all she had to do in the kitchen. Later, she stepped in, interrupting them. "Master, don't you care that my sister has abandoned the kitchen to me? Tell her to lend me a hand."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> The Master said, "Martha, dear Martha, you're fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> One thing only is essential, and Mary has chosen it--it's the main course, and won't be taken from her."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> One day he was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said, "Master, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> So he said, "When you pray, say, Father, Reveal who you are. Set the world right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Keep us alive with three square meals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others. Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then he said, "Imagine what would happen if you went to a friend in the middle of the night and said, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> An old friend traveling through just showed up, and I don't have a thing on hand.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "The friend answers from his bed, 'Don't bother me. The door's locked; my children are all down for the night; I can't get up to give you anything.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "But let me tell you, even if he won't get up because he's a friend, if you stand your ground, knocking and waking all the neighbors, he'll finally get up and get you whatever you need.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Here's what I'm saying: Ask and you'll get; Seek and you'll find; Knock and the door will open.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Don't bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need. This is not a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we're in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> If your little boy asks for a serving of fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> If your little girl asks for an egg, do you trick her with a spider?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> As bad as you are, you wouldn't think of such a thing--you're at least decent to your own children. And don't you think the Father who conceived you in love will give the Holy Spirit when you ask him?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Jesus delivered a man from a demon that had kept him speechless. The demon gone, the man started talking a blue streak, taking the crowd by complete surprise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But some from the crowd were cynical. "Black magic," they said. "Some devil trick he's pulled from his sleeve."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Others were skeptical, waiting around for him to prove himself with a spectacular miracle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Jesus knew what they were thinking and said, "Any country in civil war for very long is wasted. A constantly squabbling family falls to pieces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> If Satan cancels Satan, is there any Satan left? You accuse me of ganging up with the Devil, the prince of demons, to cast out demons,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> but if you're slinging devil mud at me, calling me a devil who kicks out devils, doesn't the same mud stick to your own exorcists?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But if it's God's finger I'm pointing that sends the demons on their way, then God's kingdom is here for sure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "When a strong man, armed to the teeth, stands guard in his front yard, his property is safe and sound.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But what if a stronger man comes along with superior weapons? Then he's beaten at his own game, the arsenal that gave him such confidence hauled off, and his precious possessions plundered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "This is war, and there is no neutral ground. If you're not on my side, you're the enemy; if you're not helping, you're making things worse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "When a corrupting spirit is expelled from someone, it drifts along through the desert looking for an oasis, some unsuspecting soul it can bedevil. When it doesn't find anyone, it says, 'I'll go back to my old haunt.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> On return, it finds the person swept and dusted, but vacant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> It then runs out and rounds up seven other spirits dirtier than itself and they all move in, whooping it up. That person ends up far worse than if he'd never gotten cleaned up in the first place."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> While he was saying these things, some woman lifted her voice above the murmur of the crowd: "Blessed the womb that carried you, and the breasts at which you nursed!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Jesus commented, "Even more blessed are those who hear God's Word and guard it with their lives!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> As the crowd swelled, he took a fresh tack: "The mood of this age is all wrong. Everybody's looking for proof, but you're looking for the wrong kind. All you're looking for is something to titillate your curiosity, satisfy your lust for miracles. But the only proof you're going to get is the Jonah-proof given to the Ninevites, which looks like no proof at all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> What Jonah was to Nineveh, the Son of Man is to this age.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "On Judgment Day the Ninevites will stand up and give evidence that will condemn this generation, because when Jonah preached to them they changed their lives. A far greater preacher than Jonah is here, and you squabble about 'proofs.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> On Judgment Day the Queen of Sheba will come forward and bring evidence that condemns this generation, because she traveled from a far corner of the earth to listen to wise Solomon. Wisdom far greater than Solomon's is right in front of you, and you quibble over 'evidence.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "No one lights a lamp, then hides it in a drawer. It's put on a lamp stand so those entering the room have light to see where they're going.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Your eye is a lamp, lighting up your whole body. If you live wide-eyed in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Keep your eyes open, your lamp burning, so you don't get musty and murky.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Keep your life as well-lighted as your best-lighted room."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> When he finished that talk, a Pharisee asked him to dinner. He entered his house and sat right down at the table.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> The Pharisee was shocked and somewhat offended when he saw that Jesus didn't wash up before the meal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> But the Master said to him, "I know you Pharisees burnish the surface of your cups and plates so they sparkle in the sun, but I also know your insides are maggoty with greed and secret evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Stupid Pharisees! Didn't the One who made the outside also make the inside?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Turn both your pockets and your hearts inside out and give generously to the poor; then your lives will be clean, not just your dishes and your hands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> "I've had it with you! You're hopeless, you Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but manage to find loopholes for getting around basic matters of justice and God's love. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> "You're hopeless, you Pharisees! Frauds! You love sitting at the head table at church dinners, love preening yourselves in the radiance of public flattery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Frauds! You're just like unmarked graves: People walk over that nice, grassy surface, never suspecting the rot and corruption that is six feet under."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> One of the religion scholars spoke up: "Teacher, do you realize that in saying these things you're insulting us?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> He said, "Yes, and I can be even more explicit. You're hopeless, you religion scholars! You load people down with rules and regulations, nearly breaking their backs, but never lift even a finger to help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> "You're hopeless! You build tombs for the prophets your ancestors killed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> The tombs you build are monuments to your murdering ancestors more than to the murdered prophets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> That accounts for God's Wisdom saying, 'I will send them prophets and apostles, but they'll kill them and run them off.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> What it means is that every drop of righteous blood ever spilled from the time earth began until now,.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was struck down between altar and sanctuary, is on your heads. Yes, it's on the bill of this generation and this generation will pay.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> "You're hopeless, you religion scholars! You took the key of knowledge, but instead of unlocking doors, you locked them. You won't go in yourself, and won't let anyone else in either."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> As soon as Jesus left the table, the religion scholars and Pharisees went into a rage. They went over and over everything he said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> plotting how they could trap him in something from his own mouth.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> By this time the crowd, unwieldy and stepping on each other's toes, numbered into the thousands. But Jesus' primary concern was his disciples. He said to them, "Watch yourselves carefully so you don't get contaminated with Pharisee yeast, Pharisee phoniness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> You can't keep your true self hidden forever; before long you'll be exposed. You can't hide behind a religious mask forever; sooner or later the mask will slip and your true face will be known.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You can't whisper one thing in private and preach the opposite in public; the day's coming when those whispers will be repeated all over town.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "I'm speaking to you as dear friends. Don't be bluffed into silence or insincerity by the threats of religious bullies. True, they can kill you, but then what can they do? There's nothing they can do to your soul, your core being.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Save your fear for God, who holds your entire life--body and soul--in his hands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "What's the price of two or three pet canaries? Some loose change, right? But God never overlooks a single one.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And he pays even greater attention to you, down to the last detail--even numbering the hairs on your head! So don't be intimidated by all this bully talk. You're worth more than a million canaries.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Stand up for me among the people you meet and the Son of Man will stand up for you before all God's angels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But if you pretend you don't know me, do you think I'll defend you before God's angels?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "If you bad-mouth the Son of Man out of misunderstanding or ignorance, that can be overlooked. But if you're knowingly attacking God himself, taking aim at the Holy Spirit, that won't be overlooked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "When they drag you into their meeting places, or into police courts and before judges, don't worry about defending yourselves--what you'll say or how you'll say it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The right words will be there. The Holy Spirit will give you the right words when the time comes."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Someone out of the crowd said, "Teacher, order my brother to give me a fair share of the family inheritance."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He replied, "Mister, what makes you think it's any of my business to be a judge or mediator for you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Speaking to the people, he went on, "Take care! Protect yourself against the least bit of greed. Life is not defined by what you have, even when you have a lot."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Then he told them this story: "The farm of a certain rich man produced a terrific crop.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He talked to himself: 'What can I do? My barn isn't big enough for this harvest.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Then he said, 'Here's what I'll do: I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. Then I'll gather in all my grain and goods,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> and I'll say to myself, Self, you've done well! You've got it made and can now retire. Take it easy and have the time of your life!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "Just then God showed up and said, 'Fool! Tonight you die. And your barnful of goods--who gets it?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "That's what happens when you fill your barn with Self and not with God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> He continued this subject with his disciples. "Don't fuss about what's on the table at mealtimes or if the clothes in your closet are in fashion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> There is far more to your inner life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Look at the ravens, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, carefree in the care of God. And you count far more.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "Has anyone by fussing before the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> If fussing can't even do that, why fuss at all?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Walk into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They don't fuss with their appearance--but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> If God gives such attention to the wildflowers, most of them never even seen, don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "What I'm trying to do here is get you to relax, not be so preoccupied with getting so you can respond to God's giving.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Steep yourself in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Don't be afraid of missing out. You're my dearest friends! The Father wants to give you the very kingdom itself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "Be generous. Give to the poor. Get yourselves a bank that can't go bankrupt, a bank in heaven far from bankrobbers, safe from embezzlers, a bank you can bank on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> It's obvious, isn't it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> "Keep your shirts on; keep the lights on!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Be like house servants waiting for their master to come back from his honeymoon, awake and ready to open the door when he arrives and knocks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Lucky the servants whom the master finds on watch! He'll put on an apron, sit them at the table, and serve them a meal, sharing his wedding feast with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> It doesn't matter what time of the night he arrives; they're awake--and so blessed!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> "You know that if the house owner had known what night the burglar was coming, he wouldn't have stayed out late and left the place unlocked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> So don't you be slovenly and careless. Just when you don't expect him, the Son of Man will show up."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Peter said, "Master, are you telling this story just for us? Or is it for everybody?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> The Master said, "Let me ask you: Who is the dependable manager, full of common sense, that the master puts in charge of his staff to feed them well and on time?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> He is a blessed man if when the master shows up he's doing his job.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> (SEE 12:43)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> But if he says to himself, 'The master is certainly taking his time,' begins maltreating the servants and maids, throws parties for his friends, and gets drunk,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> the master will walk in when he least expects it, give him the thrashing of his life, and put him back in the kitchen peeling potatoes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> "The servant who knows what his master wants and ignores it, or insolently does whatever he pleases, will be thoroughly thrashed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> But if he does a poor job through ignorance, he'll get off with a slap on the hand. Great gifts mean great responsibilities; greater gifts, greater responsibilities!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> "I've come to start a fire on this earth--how I wish it were blazing right now!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> I've come to change everything, turn everything rightside up--how I long for it to be finished!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> Do you think I came to smooth things over and make everything nice? Not so. I've come to disrupt and confront!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> From now on, when you find five in a house, it will be-- Three against two, and two against three;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> Father against son, and son against father; Mother against daughter, and daughter against mother; Mother-in-law against bride, and bride against mother-in-law."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> Then he turned to the crowd: "When you see clouds coming in from the west, you say, 'Storm's coming'--and you're right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> And when the wind comes out of the south, you say, 'This'll be a hot one'--and you're right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> Frauds! You know how to tell a change in the weather, so don't tell me you can't tell a change in the season, the God-season we're in right now.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> "You don't have to be a genius to understand these things. Just use your common sense,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> the kind you'd use if, while being taken to court, you decided to settle up with your accuser on the way, knowing that if the case went to the judge you'd probably go to jail</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="59"> and pay every last penny of the fine. That's the kind of decision I'm asking you to make."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> About that time some people came up and told him about the Galileans Pilate had killed while they were at worship, mixing their blood with the blood of the sacrifices on the altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Jesus responded, "Do you think those murdered Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Not at all. Unless you turn to God, you too will die.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> And those eighteen in Jerusalem the other day, the ones crushed and killed when the Tower of Siloam collapsed and fell on them, do you think they were worse citizens than all other Jerusalemites?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Not at all. Unless you turn to God, you too will die."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then he told them a story: "A man had an apple tree planted in his front yard. He came to it expecting to find apples, but there weren't any.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He said to his gardener, 'What's going on here? For three years now I've come to this tree expecting apples and not one apple have I found. Chop it down! Why waste good ground with it any longer?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "The gardener said, 'Let's give it another year. I'll dig around it and fertilize,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> and maybe it will produce next year; if it doesn't, then chop it down.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He was teaching in one of the meeting places on the Sabbath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> There was a woman present, so twisted and bent over with arthritis that she couldn't even look up. She had been afflicted with this for eighteen years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When Jesus saw her, he called her over. "Woman, you're free!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He laid hands on her and suddenly she was standing straight and tall, giving glory to God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The meeting-place president, furious because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the congregation, "Six days have been defined as work days. Come on one of the six if you want to be healed, but not on the seventh, the Sabbath."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But Jesus shot back, "You frauds! Each Sabbath every one of you regularly unties your cow or donkey from its stall, leads it out for water, and thinks nothing of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So why isn't it all right for me to untie this daughter of Abraham and lead her from the stall where Satan has had her tied these eighteen years?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When he put it that way, his critics were left looking quite silly and red-faced. The congregation was delighted and cheered him on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Then he said, "How can I picture God's kingdom for you? What kind of story can I use?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> It's like a pine nut that a man plants in his front yard. It grows into a huge pine tree with thick branches, and eagles build nests in it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He tried again. "How can I picture God's kingdom?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> It's like yeast that a woman works into enough dough for three loaves of bread--and waits while the dough rises."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> He went on teaching from town to village, village to town, but keeping on a steady course toward Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> A bystander said, "Master, will only a few be saved?" He said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "Whether few or many is none of your business. Put your mind on your life with God. The way to life--to God!--is vigorous and requires your total attention. A lot of you are going to assume that you'll sit down to God's salvation banquet just because you've been hanging around the neighborhood all your lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Well, one day you're going to be banging on the door, wanting to get in, but you'll find the door locked and the Master saying, 'Sorry, you're not on my guest list.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "You'll protest, 'But we've known you all our lives!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> only to be interrupted with his abrupt, 'Your kind of knowing can hardly be called knowing. You don't know the first thing about me.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "That's when you'll find yourselves out in the cold, strangers to grace. You'll watch Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets march into God's kingdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> You'll watch outsiders stream in from east, west, north, and south and sit down at the table of God's kingdom. And all the time you'll be outside looking in--and wondering what happened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> This is the Great Reversal: the last in line put at the head of the line, and the so-called first ending up last.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Just then some Pharisees came up and said, "Run for your life! Herod's on the hunt. He's out to kill you!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Jesus said, "Tell that fox that I've no time for him right now. Today and tomorrow I'm busy clearing out the demons and healing the sick; the third day I'm wrapping things up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Besides, it's not proper for a prophet to come to a bad end outside Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killer of prophets, abuser of the messengers of God! How often I've longed to gather your children, gather your children like a hen, Her brood safe under her wings-- but you refused and turned away!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> And now it's too late: You won't see me again until the day you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of God.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> One time when Jesus went for a Sabbath meal with one of the top leaders of the Pharisees, all the guests had their eyes on him, watching his every move.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Right before him there was a man hugely swollen in his joints.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> So Jesus asked the religion scholars and Pharisees present, "Is it permitted to heal on the Sabbath? Yes or no?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They were silent. So he took the man, healed him, and sent him on his way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then he said, "Is there anyone here who, if a child or animal fell down a well, wouldn't rush to pull him out immediately, not asking whether or not it was the Sabbath?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They were stumped. There was nothing they could say to that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He went on to tell a story to the guests around the table. Noticing how each had tried to elbow into the place of honor, he said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "When someone invites you to dinner, don't take the place of honor. Somebody more important than you might have been invited by the host.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then he'll come and call out in front of everybody, 'You're in the wrong place. The place of honor belongs to this man.' Red-faced, you'll have to make your way to the very last table, the only place left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "When you're invited to dinner, go and sit at the last place. Then when the host comes he may very well say, 'Friend, come up to the front.' That will give the dinner guests something to talk about!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> What I'm saying is, If you walk around with your nose in the air, you're going to end up flat on your face. But if you're content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then he turned to the host. "The next time you put on a dinner, don't just invite your friends and family and rich neighbors, the kind of people who will return the favor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Invite some people who never get invited out, the misfits from the wrong side of the tracks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> You'll be--and experience--a blessing. They won't be able to return the favor, but the favor will be returned--oh, how it will be returned!--at the resurrection of God's people."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> That triggered a response from one of the guests: "How fortunate the one who gets to eat dinner in God's kingdom!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Jesus followed up. "Yes. For there was once a man who threw a great dinner party and invited many.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When it was time for dinner, he sent out his servant to the invited guests, saying, 'Come on in; the food's on the table.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Then they all began to beg off, one after another making excuses. The first said, 'I bought a piece of property and need to look it over. Send my regrets.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Another said, 'I just bought five teams of oxen, and I really need to check them out. Send my regrets.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "And yet another said, 'I just got married and need to get home to my wife.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "The servant went back and told the master what had happened. He was outraged and told the servant, 'Quickly, get out into the city streets and alleys. Collect all who look like they need a square meal, all the misfits and homeless and wretched you can lay your hands on, and bring them here.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "The servant reported back, 'Master, I did what you commanded--and there's still room.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "The master said, 'Then go to the country roads. Whoever you find, drag them in. I want my house full!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Let me tell you, not one of those originally invited is going to get so much as a bite at my dinner party.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> One day when large groups of people were walking along with him, Jesus turned and told them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "Anyone who comes to me but refuses to let go of father, mother, spouse, children, brothers, sisters--yes, even one's own self!--can't be my disciple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Anyone who won't shoulder his own cross and follow behind me can't be my disciple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "Is there anyone here who, planning to build a new house, doesn't first sit down and figure the cost so you'll know if you can complete it?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> If you only get the foundation laid and then run out of money, you're going to look pretty foolish. Everyone passing by will poke fun at you:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> 'He started something he couldn't finish.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "Or can you imagine a king going into battle against another king without first deciding whether it is possible with his ten thousand troops to face the twenty thousand troops of the other?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> And if he decides he can't, won't he send an emissary and work out a truce?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "Simply put, if you're not willing to take what is dearest to you, whether plans or people, and kiss it good-bye, you can't be my disciple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "Salt is excellent. But if the salt goes flat, it's useless, good for nothing. "Are you listening to this? Really listening?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> (SEE 14:34)</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> By this time a lot of men and women of doubtful reputation were hanging around Jesus, listening intently.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The Pharisees and religion scholars were not pleased, not at all pleased. They growled, "He takes in sinners and eats meals with them, treating them like old friends."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Their grumbling triggered this story.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Suppose one of you had a hundred sheep and lost one. Wouldn't you leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until you found it?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When found, you can be sure you would put it across your shoulders, rejoicing,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> and when you got home call in your friends and neighbors, saying, 'Celebrate with me! I've found my lost sheep!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Count on it--there's more joy in heaven over one sinner's rescued life than over ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Or imagine a woman who has ten coins and loses one. Won't she light a lamp and scour the house, looking in every nook and cranny until she finds it?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And when she finds it you can be sure she'll call her friends and neighbors: 'Celebrate with me! I found my lost coin!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Count on it--that's the kind of party God's angels throw every time one lost soul turns to God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then he said, "There was once a man who had two sons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The younger said to his father, 'Father, I want right now what's coming to me.' "So the father divided the property between them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> It wasn't long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country. There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> After he had gone through all his money, there was a bad famine all through that country and he began to hurt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He signed on with a citizen there who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He was so hungry he would have eaten the corncobs in the pig slop, but no one would give him any.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "That brought him to his senses. He said, 'All those farmhands working for my father sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I'm going back to my father. I'll say to him, Father, I've sinned against God, I've sinned before you;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I don't deserve to be called your son. Take me on as a hired hand.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He got right up and went home to his father. "When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The son started his speech: 'Father, I've sinned against God, I've sinned before you; I don't deserve to be called your son ever again.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "But the father wasn't listening. He was calling to the servants, 'Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We're going to feast! We're going to have a wonderful time!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> My son is here--given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!' And they began to have a wonderful time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "All this time his older son was out in the field. When the day's work was done he came in. As he approached the house, he heard the music and dancing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Calling over one of the houseboys, he asked what was going on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> He told him, 'Your brother came home. Your father has ordered a feast--barbecued beef!--because he has him home safe and sound.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "The older brother stalked off in an angry sulk and refused to join in. His father came out and tried to talk to him, but he wouldn't listen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The son said, 'Look how many years I've stayed here serving you, never giving you one moment of grief, but have you ever thrown a party for me and my friends?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Then this son of yours who has thrown away your money on whores shows up and you go all out with a feast!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "His father said, 'Son, you don't understand. You're with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> but this is a wonderful time, and we had to celebrate. This brother of yours was dead, and he's alive! He was lost, and he's found!'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Jesus said to his disciples, "There was once a rich man who had a manager. He got reports that the manager had been taking advantage of his position by running up huge personal expenses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> So he called him in and said, 'What's this I hear about you? You're fired. And I want a complete audit of your books.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "The manager said to himself, 'What am I going to do? I've lost my job as manager. I'm not strong enough for a laboring job, and I'm too proud to beg. . . .</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Ah, I've got a plan. Here's what I'll do . . . then when I'm turned out into the street, people will take me into their houses.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Then he went at it. One after another, he called in the people who were in debt to his master. He said to the first, 'How much do you owe my master?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "He replied, 'A hundred jugs of olive oil.' "The manager said, 'Here, take your bill, sit down here--quick now--write fifty.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "To the next he said, 'And you, what do you owe?' "He answered, 'A hundred sacks of wheat.' "He said, 'Take your bill, write in eighty.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Now here's a surprise: The master praised the crooked manager! And why? Because he knew how to look after himself. Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I want you to be smart in the same way--but for what is right--using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you'll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behavior."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Jesus went on to make these comments: If you're honest in small things, you'll be honest in big things;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> If you're a crook in small things, you'll be a crook in big things.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> If you're not honest in small jobs, who will put you in charge of the store?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> No worker can serve two bosses: He'll either hate the first and love the second Or adore the first and despise the second. You can't serve both God and the Bank.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> When the Pharisees, a money-obsessed bunch, heard him say these things, they rolled their eyes, dismissing him as hopelessly out of touch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So Jesus spoke to them: "You are masters at making yourselves look good in front of others, but God knows what's behind the appearance. What society sees and calls monumental, God sees through and calls monstrous.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> God's Law and the Prophets climaxed in John; Now it's all kingdom of God--the glad news and compelling invitation to every man and woman.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The sky will disintegrate and the earth dissolve before a single letter of God's Law wears out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Using the legalities of divorce as a cover for lust is adultery; Using the legalities of marriage as a cover for lust is adultery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "There once was a rich man, expensively dressed in the latest fashions, wasting his days in conspicuous consumption.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> A poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, had been dumped on his doorstep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> All he lived for was to get a meal from scraps off the rich man's table. His best friends were the dogs who came and licked his sores.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Then he died, this poor man, and was taken up by the angels to the lap of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> In hell and in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham in the distance and Lazarus in his lap.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He called out, 'Father Abraham, mercy! Have mercy! Send Lazarus to dip his finger in water to cool my tongue. I'm in agony in this fire.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that in your lifetime you got the good things and Lazarus the bad things. It's not like that here. Here he's consoled and you're tormented.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Besides, in all these matters there is a huge chasm set between us so that no one can go from us to you even if he wanted to, nor can anyone cross over from you to us.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "The rich man said, 'Then let me ask you, Father: Send him to the house of my father</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> where I have five brothers, so he can tell them the score and warn them so they won't end up here in this place of torment.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "Abraham answered, 'They have Moses and the Prophets to tell them the score. Let them listen to them.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "'I know, Father Abraham,' he said, 'but they're not listening. If someone came back to them from the dead, they would change their ways.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "Abraham replied, 'If they won't listen to Moses and the Prophets, they're not going to be convinced by someone who rises from the dead.'"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="17">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> He said to his disciples, "Hard trials and temptations are bound to come, but too bad for whoever brings them on!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Better to wear a millstone necklace and take a swim in the deep blue sea than give even one of these dear little ones a hard time!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Be alert. If you see your friend going wrong, correct him. If he responds, forgive him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Even if it's personal against you and repeated seven times through the day, and seven times he says, 'I'm sorry, I won't do it again,' forgive him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The apostles came up and said to the Master, "Give us more faith."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But the Master said, "You don't need more faith. There is no 'more' or 'less' in faith. If you have a bare kernel of faith, say the size of a poppy seed, you could say to this sycamore tree, 'Go jump in the lake,' and it would do it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Suppose one of you has a servant who comes in from plowing the field or tending the sheep. Would you take his coat, set the table, and say, 'Sit down and eat'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Wouldn't you be more likely to say, 'Prepare dinner; change your clothes and wait table for me until I've finished my coffee; then go to the kitchen and have your supper'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Does the servant get special thanks for doing what's expected of him?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> It's the same with you. When you've done everything expected of you, be matter-of-fact and say, 'The work is done. What we were told to do, we did.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> It happened that as he made his way toward Jerusalem, he crossed over the border between Samaria and Galilee.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> As he entered a village, ten men, all lepers, met him. They kept their distance</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> but raised their voices, calling out, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Taking a good look at them, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." They went, and while still on their way, became clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> One of them, when he realized that he was healed, turned around and came back, shouting his gratitude, glorifying God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He kneeled at Jesus' feet, so grateful. He couldn't thank him enough--and he was a Samaritan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Jesus said, "Were not ten healed? Where are the nine?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Can none be found to come back and give glory to God except this outsider?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Then he said to him, "Get up. On your way. Your faith has healed and saved you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Jesus, grilled by the Pharisees on when the kingdom of God would come, answered, "The kingdom of God doesn't come by counting the days on the calendar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Nor when someone says, 'Look here!' or, 'There it is!' And why? Because God's kingdom is already among you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> He went on to say to his disciples, "The days are coming when you are going to be desperately homesick for just a glimpse of one of the days of the Son of Man, and you won't see a thing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> And they'll say to you, 'Look over there!' or, 'Look here!' Don't fall for any of that nonsense.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The arrival of the Son of Man is not something you go out to see. He simply comes. "You know how the whole sky lights up from a single flash of lightning? That's how it will be on the Day of the Son of Man.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> But first it's necessary that he suffer many things and be turned down by the people of today.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "The time of the Son of Man will be just like the time of Noah--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> everyone carrying on as usual, having a good time right up to the day Noah boarded the ship. They suspected nothing until the flood hit and swept everything away.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "It was the same in the time of Lot--the people carrying on, having a good time, business as usual</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> right up to the day Lot walked out of Sodom and a firestorm swept down and burned everything to a crisp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> That's how it will be--sudden, total--when the Son of Man is revealed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "When the Day arrives and you're out working in the yard, don't run into the house to get anything. And if you're out in the field, don't go back and get your coat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Remember what happened to Lot's wife!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> If you grasp and cling to life on your terms, you'll lose it, but if you let that life go, you'll get life on God's terms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "On that Day, two men will be in the same boat fishing--one taken, the other left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Two women will be working in the same kitchen--one taken, the other left."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> (OMITTED TEXT)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Trying to take all this in, the disciples said, "Master, where?" He told them, "Watch for the circling of the vultures. They'll spot the corpse first. The action will begin around my dead body."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="18">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Jesus told them a story showing that it was necessary for them to pray consistently and never quit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He said, "There was once a judge in some city who never gave God a thought and cared nothing for people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> A widow in that city kept after him: 'My rights are being violated. Protect me!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "He never gave her the time of day. But after this went on and on he said to himself, 'I care nothing what God thinks, even less what people think.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But because this widow won't quit badgering me, I'd better do something and see that she gets justice--otherwise I'm going to end up beaten black and blue by her pounding.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then the Master said, "Do you hear what that judge, corrupt as he is, is saying?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So what makes you think God won't step in and work justice for his chosen people, who continue to cry out for help? Won't he stick up for them?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I assure you, he will. He will not drag his feet. But how much of that kind of persistent faith will the Son of Man find on the earth when he returns?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He told his next story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax man.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The Pharisee posed and prayed like this: 'Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people--robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, 'God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Jesus commented, "This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you're going to end up flat on your face, but if you're content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> People brought babies to Jesus, hoping he might touch them. When the disciples saw it, they shooed them off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Jesus called them back. "Let these children alone. Don't get between them and me. These children are the kingdom's pride and joy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Mark this: Unless you accept God's kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you'll never get in."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> One day one of the local officials asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to deserve eternal life?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Jesus said, "Why are you calling me good? No one is good--only God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> You know the commandments, don't you? No illicit sex, no killing, no stealing, no lying, honor your father and mother."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He said, "I've kept them all for as long as I can remember."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> When Jesus heard that, he said, "Then there's only one thing left to do: Sell everything you own and give it away to the poor. You will have riches in heaven. Then come, follow me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> This was the last thing the official expected to hear. He was very rich and became terribly sad. He was holding on tight to a lot of things and not about to let them go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Seeing his reaction, Jesus said, "Do you have any idea how difficult it is for people who have it all to enter God's kingdom?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> I'd say it's easier to thread a camel through a needle's eye than get a rich person into God's kingdom."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "Then who has any chance at all?" the others asked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "No chance at all," Jesus said, "if you think you can pull it off by yourself. Every chance in the world if you trust God to do it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Peter tried to regain some initiative: "We left everything we owned and followed you, didn't we?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "Yes," said Jesus, "and you won't regret it. No one who has sacrificed home, spouse, brothers and sisters, parents, children--whatever--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> will lose out. It will all come back multiplied many times over in your lifetime. And then the bonus of eternal life!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Then Jesus took the Twelve off to the side and said, "Listen carefully. We're on our way up to Jerusalem. Everything written in the Prophets about the Son of Man will take place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> He will be handed over to the Romans, jeered at, made sport of, and spit on. Then, after giving him the third degree, they will kill him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> In three days he will rise, alive."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> But they didn't get it, could make neither heads nor tails of what he was talking about.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> He came to the outskirts of Jericho. A blind man was sitting beside the road asking for handouts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> When he heard the rustle of the crowd, he asked what was going on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> They told him, "Jesus the Nazarene is going by."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> He yelled, "Jesus! Son of David! Mercy, have mercy on me!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Those ahead of Jesus told the man to shut up, but he only yelled all the louder, "Son of David! Mercy, have mercy on me!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Jesus stopped and ordered him to be brought over. When he had come near, Jesus asked,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> "What do you want from me?" He said, "Master, I want to see again."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Jesus said, "Go ahead--see again! Your faith has saved and healed you!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> The healing was instant: He looked up, seeing--and then followed Jesus, glorifying God. Everyone in the street joined in, shouting praise to God.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="19">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then Jesus entered and walked through Jericho.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> There was a man there, his name Zacchaeus, the head tax man and quite rich.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He wanted desperately to see Jesus, but the crowd was in his way--he was a short man and couldn't see over the crowd.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> So he ran on ahead and climbed up in a sycamore tree so he could see Jesus when he came by.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When Jesus got to the tree, he looked up and said, "Zacchaeus, hurry down. Today is my day to be a guest in your home."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Zacchaeus scrambled out of the tree, hardly believing his good luck, delighted to take Jesus home with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Everyone who saw the incident was indignant and grumped, "What business does he have getting cozy with this crook?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Zacchaeus just stood there, a little stunned. He stammered apologetically, "Master, I give away half my income to the poor--and if I'm caught cheating, I pay four times the damages."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Jesus said, "Today is salvation day in this home! Here he is: Zacchaeus, son of Abraham!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> For the Son of Man came to find and restore the lost."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> While he had their attention, and because they were getting close to Jerusalem by this time and expectation was building that God's kingdom would appear any minute, he told this story:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "There was once a man descended from a royal house who needed to make a long trip back to headquarters to get authorization for his rule and then return.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But first he called ten servants together, gave them each a sum of money, and instructed them, 'Operate with this until I return.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "But the citizens there hated him. So they sent a commission with a signed petition to oppose his rule: 'We don't want this man to rule us.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "When he came back bringing the authorization of his rule, he called those ten servants to whom he had given the money to find out how they had done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "The first said, 'Master, I doubled your money.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "He said, 'Good servant! Great work! Because you've been trustworthy in this small job, I'm making you governor of ten towns.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "The second said, 'Master, I made a fifty percent profit on your money.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "He said, 'I'm putting you in charge of five towns.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "The next servant said, 'Master, here's your money safe and sound. I kept it hidden in the cellar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> To tell you the truth, I was a little afraid. I know you have high standards and hate sloppiness, and don't suffer fools gladly.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "He said, 'You're right that I don't suffer fools gladly--and you've acted the fool!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Why didn't you at least invest the money in securities so I would have gotten a little interest on it?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "Then he said to those standing there, 'Take the money from him and give it to the servant who doubled my stake.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "They said, 'But Master, he already has double . . .'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "He said, 'That's what I mean: Risk your life and get more than you ever dreamed of. Play it safe and end up holding the bag.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "'As for these enemies of mine who petitioned against my rule, clear them out of here. I don't want to see their faces around here again.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> After saying these things, Jesus headed straight up to Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> When he got near Bethphage and Bethany at the mountain called Olives, he sent off two of the disciples with instructions:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "Go to the village across from you. As soon as you enter, you'll find a colt tethered, one that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> If anyone says anything, asks, 'What are you doing?' say, 'His Master needs him.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The two left and found it just as he said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> As they were untying the colt, its owners said, "What are you doing untying the colt?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> They said, "His Master needs him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> They brought the colt to Jesus. Then, throwing their coats on its back, they helped Jesus get on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> As he rode, the people gave him a grand welcome, throwing their coats on the street.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Right at the crest, where Mount Olives begins its descent, the whole crowd of disciples burst into enthusiastic praise over all the mighty works they had witnessed:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Blessed is he who comes, the king in God's name! All's well in heaven! Glory in the high places!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Some Pharisees from the crowd told him, "Teacher, get your disciples under control!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> But he said, "If they kept quiet, the stones would do it for them, shouting praise."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> When the city came into view, he wept over it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> "If you had only recognized this day, and everything that was good for you! But now it's too late.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> In the days ahead your enemies are going to bring up their heavy artillery and surround you, pressing in from every side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> They'll smash you and your babies on the pavement. Not one stone will be left intact. All this because you didn't recognize and welcome God's personal visit."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> Going into the Temple he began to throw out everyone who had set up shop, selling everything and anything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> He said, "It's written in Scripture, My house is a house of prayer; You have turned it into a religious bazaar."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> From then on he taught each day in the Temple. The high priests, religion scholars, and the leaders of the people were trying their best to find a way to get rid of him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> But with the people hanging on every word he spoke, they couldn't come up with anything.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="20">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> One day he was teaching the people in the Temple, proclaiming the Message. The high priests, religion scholars, and leaders confronted</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> him and demanded, "Show us your credentials. Who authorized you to speak and act like this?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Jesus answered, "First, let me ask you a question:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> About the baptism of John--who authorized it, heaven or humans?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They were on the spot, and knew it. They pulled back into a huddle and whispered, "If we say 'heaven,' he'll ask us why we didn't believe him;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> if we say 'humans,' the people will tear us limb from limb, convinced as they are that John was God's prophet."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They agreed to concede that round to Jesus and said they didn't know.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Jesus said, "Then neither will I answer your question."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Jesus told another story to the people: "A man planted a vineyard. He handed it over to farmhands and went off on a trip. He was gone a long time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> In time he sent a servant back to the farmhands to collect the profits, but they beat him up and sent him off empty-handed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He decided to try again and sent another servant. That one they beat black and blue, and sent him off empty-handed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He tried a third time. They worked that servant over from head to foot and dumped him in the street.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Then the owner of the vineyard said, 'I know what I'll do: I'll send my beloved son. They're bound to respect my son.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "But when the farmhands saw him coming, they quickly put their heads together. 'This is our chance--this is the heir! Let's kill him and have it all to ourselves.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They killed him and threw him over the fence. "What do you think the owner of the vineyard will do?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Right. He'll come and clean house. Then he'll assign the care of the vineyard to others." Those who were listening said, "Oh, no! He'd never do that!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But Jesus didn't back down. "Why, then, do you think this was written: That stone the masons threw out-- It's now the cornerstone!?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Anyone falling over that stone will break every bone in his body; if the stone falls on anyone, it will be a total smashup."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The religion scholars and high priests wanted to lynch him on the spot, but they were intimidated by public opinion. They knew the story was about them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Watching for a chance to get him, they sent spies who posed as honest inquirers, hoping to trick him into saying something that would get him in trouble with the law.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> So they asked him, "Teacher, we know that you're honest and straightforward when you teach, that you don't pander to anyone but teach the way of God accurately.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Tell us: Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> He knew they were laying for him and said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "Show me a coin. Now, this engraving, who does it look like and what does it say?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "Caesar," they said. Jesus said, "Then give Caesar what is his and give God what is his."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Try as they might, they couldn't trap him into saying anything incriminating. His answer caught them off guard and left them speechless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Some Sadducees came up. This is the Jewish party that denies any possibility of resurrection. They asked,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "Teacher, Moses wrote us that if a man dies and leaves a wife but no child, his brother is obligated to take the widow to wife and get her with child.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Well, there once were seven brothers. The first took a wife. He died childless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The second married her and died,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> then the third, and eventually all seven had their turn, but no child.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> After all that, the wife died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> That wife, now--in the resurrection whose wife is she? All seven married her."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Jesus said, "Marriage is a major preoccupation here,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> but not there. Those who are included in the resurrection of the dead will no longer be concerned with marriage</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> nor, of course, with death. They will have better things to think about, if you can believe it. All ecstasies and intimacies then will be with God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Even Moses exclaimed about resurrection at the burning bush, saying, 'God: God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> God isn't the God of dead men, but of the living. To him all are alive."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Some of the religion scholars said, "Teacher, that's a great answer!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> For a while, anyway, no one dared put questions to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Then he put a question to them: "How is it that they say that the Messiah is David's son?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> In the Book of Psalms, David clearly says, God said to my Master, "Sit here at my right hand</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> until I put your enemies under your feet."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> "David here designates the Messiah as 'my Master'--so how can the Messiah also be his 'son'?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> With everybody listening, Jesus spoke to his disciples.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> "Watch out for the religion scholars. They love to walk around in academic gowns, preen in the radiance of public flattery, bask in prominent positions, sit at the head table at every church function.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> And all the time they are exploiting the weak and helpless. The longer their prayers, the worse they get. But they'll pay for it in the end."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="21">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Just then he looked up and saw the rich people dropping offerings in the collection plate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Then he saw a poor widow put in two pennies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He said, "The plain truth is that this widow has given by far the largest offering today.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> All these others made offerings that they'll never miss; she gave extravagantly what she couldn't afford--she gave her all!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> One day people were standing around talking about the Temple, remarking how beautiful it was, the splendor of its stonework and memorial gifts. Jesus said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "All this you're admiring so much--the time is coming when every stone in that building will end up in a heap of rubble."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They asked him, "Teacher, when is this going to happen? What clue will we get that it's about to take place?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He said, "Watch out for the doomsday deceivers. Many leaders are going to show up with forged identities claiming, 'I'm the One,' or, 'The end is near.' Don't fall for any of that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When you hear of wars and uprisings, keep your head and don't panic. This is routine history and no sign of the end."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He went on, "Nation will fight nation and ruler fight ruler, over and over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Huge earthquakes will occur in various places. There will be famines. You'll think at times that the very sky is falling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "But before any of this happens, they'll arrest you, hunt you down, and drag you to court and jail. It will go from bad to worse, dog-eat-dog, everyone at your throat because you carry my name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You'll end up on the witness stand, called to testify.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Make up your mind right now not to worry about it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I'll give you the words and wisdom that will reduce all your accusers to stammers and stutters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "You'll even be turned in by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends. Some of you will be killed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> There's no telling who will hate you because of me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Even so, every detail of your body and soul--even the hairs of your head!--is in my care; nothing of you will be lost.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Staying with it--that's what is required. Stay with it to the end. You won't be sorry; you'll be saved.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "When you see soldiers camped all around Jerusalem, then you'll know that she is about to be devastated.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> If you're living in Judea at the time, run for the hills. If you're in the city, get out quickly. If you're out in the fields, don't go home to get your coat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> This is Vengeance Day--everything written about it will come to a head.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Pregnant and nursing mothers will have it especially hard. Incredible misery! Torrential rage!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> People dropping like flies; people dragged off to prisons; Jerusalem under the boot of barbarians until the nations finish what was given them to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "It will seem like all hell has broken loose--sun, moon, stars, earth, sea,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> in an uproar and everyone all over the world in a panic, the wind knocked out of them by the threat of doom, the powers-that-be quaking.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "And then--then!--they'll see the Son of Man welcomed in grand style--a glorious welcome!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> When all this starts to happen, up on your feet. Stand tall with your heads high. Help is on the way!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> He told them a story. "Look at a fig tree. Any tree for that matter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> When the leaves begin to show, one look tells you that summer is right around the corner.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The same here--when you see these things happen, you know God's kingdom is about here.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Don't brush this off: I'm not just saying this for some future generation, but for this one, too--these things will happen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Sky and earth will wear out; my words won't wear out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "But be on your guard. Don't let the sharp edge of your expectation get dulled by parties and drinking and shopping. Otherwise, that Day is going to take you by complete surprise, spring on you suddenly like a trap,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> for it's going to come on everyone, everywhere, at once.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> So, whatever you do, don't go to sleep at the switch. Pray constantly that you will have the strength and wits to make it through everything that's coming and end up on your feet before the Son of Man."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> He spent his days in the Temple teaching, but his nights out on the mountain called Olives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> All the people were up at the crack of dawn to come to the Temple and listen to him.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="22">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Feast of Unleavened Bread, also called Passover, drew near.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The high priests and religion scholars were looking for a way to do away with Jesus but, fearful of the people, they were also looking for a way to cover their tracks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> That's when Satan entered Judas, the one called Iscariot. He was one of the Twelve.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Leaving the others, he conferred with the high priests and the Temple guards about how he might betray Jesus to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They couldn't believe their good luck and agreed to pay him well.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He gave them his word and started looking for a way to betray Jesus, but out of sight of the crowd.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The Day of Unleavened Bread came, the day the Passover lamb was butchered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Jesus sent Peter and John off, saying, "Go prepare the Passover for us so we can eat it together."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They said, "Where do you want us to do this?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He said, "Keep your eyes open as you enter the city. A man carrying a water jug will meet you. Follow him home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then speak with the owner of the house: The Teacher wants to know, 'Where is the guest room where I can eat the Passover meal with my disciples?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He will show you a spacious second-story room, swept and ready. Prepare the meal there."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They left, found everything just as he told them, and prepared the Passover meal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> When it was time, he sat down, all the apostles with him,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> and said, "You've no idea how much I have looked forward to eating this Passover meal with you before I enter my time of suffering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> It's the last one I'll eat until we all eat it together in the kingdom of God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Taking the cup, he blessed it, then said, "Take this and pass it among you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> As for me, I'll not drink wine again until the kingdom of God arrives."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Taking bread, he blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body, given for you. Eat it in my memory."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He did the same with the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant written in my blood, blood poured out for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Do you realize that the hand of the one who is betraying me is at this moment on this table?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> It's true that the Son of Man is going down a path already marked out--no surprises there. But for the one who turns him in, turns traitor to the Son of Man, this is doomsday."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They immediately became suspicious of each other and began quizzing one another, wondering who might be about to do this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Within minutes they were bickering over who of them would end up the greatest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> But Jesus intervened: "Kings like to throw their weight around and people in authority like to give themselves fancy titles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> It's not going to be that way with you. Let the senior among you become like the junior; let the leader act the part of the servant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "Who would you rather be: the one who eats the dinner or the one who serves the dinner? You'd rather eat and be served, right? But I've taken my place among you as the one who serves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> And you've stuck with me through thick and thin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Now I confer on you the royal authority my Father conferred on me</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> so you can eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and be strengthened as you take up responsibilities among the congregations of God's people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "Simon, stay on your toes. Satan has tried his best to separate all of you from me, like chaff from wheat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Simon, I've prayed for you in particular that you not give in or give out. When you have come through the time of testing, turn to your companions and give them a fresh start."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Peter said, "Master, I'm ready for anything with you. I'd go to jail for you. I'd die for you!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Jesus said, "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Peter, but before the rooster crows you will have three times denied that you know me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Then Jesus said, "When I sent you out and told you to travel light, to take only the bare necessities, did you get along all right?" "Certainly," they said, "we got along just fine."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> He said, "This is different. Get ready for trouble. Look to what you'll need; there are difficult times ahead. Pawn your coat and get a sword.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> What was written in Scripture, 'He was lumped in with the criminals,' gets its final meaning in me. Everything written about me is now coming to a conclusion."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> They said, "Look, Master, two swords!" But he said, "Enough of that; no more sword talk!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Leaving there, he went, as he so often did, to Mount Olives. The disciples followed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> When they arrived at the place, he said, "Pray that you don't give in to temptation."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> He pulled away from them about a stone's throw, knelt down, and prayed,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> "Father, remove this cup from me. But please, not what I want. What do you want?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> At once an angel from heaven was at his side, strengthening him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> He prayed on all the harder. Sweat, wrung from him like drops of blood, poured off his face.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> He got up from prayer, went back to the disciples and found them asleep, drugged by grief.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> He said, "What business do you have sleeping? Get up. Pray so you won't give in to temptation."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> No sooner were the words out of his mouth than a crowd showed up, Judas, the one from the Twelve, in the lead. He came right up to Jesus to kiss him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> Jesus said, "Judas, you would betray the Son of Man with a kiss?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> When those with him saw what was happening, they said, "Master, shall we fight?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> One of them took a swing at the Chief Priest's servant and cut off his right ear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> Jesus said, "Let them be. Even in this." Then, touching the servant's ear, he healed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> Jesus spoke to those who had come--high priests, Temple police, religion leaders: "What is this, jumping me with swords and clubs as if I were a dangerous criminal?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> Day after day I've been with you in the Temple and you've not so much as lifted a hand against me. But do it your way--it's a dark night, a dark hour."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> Arresting Jesus, they marched him off and took him into the house of the Chief Priest. Peter followed, but at a safe distance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> In the middle of the courtyard some people had started a fire and were sitting around it, trying to keep warm.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> One of the serving maids sitting at the fire noticed him, then took a second look and said, "This man was with him!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> He denied it, "Woman, I don't even know him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> A short time later, someone else noticed him and said, "You're one of them." But Peter denied it: "Man, I am not."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="59"> About an hour later, someone else spoke up, really adamant: "He's got to have been with him! He's got 'Galilean' written all over him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="60"> Peter said, "Man, I don't know what you're talking about." At that very moment, the last word hardly off his lips, a rooster crowed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="61"> Just then, the Master turned and looked at Peter. Peter remembered what the Master had said to him: "Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="62"> He went out and cried and cried and cried.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="63"> The men in charge of Jesus began poking fun at him, slapping him around.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="64"> They put a blindfold on him and taunted, "Who hit you that time?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="65"> They were having a grand time with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="66"> When it was morning, the religious leaders of the people and the high priests and scholars all got together and brought him before their High Council.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="67"> They said, "Are you the Messiah?" He answered, "If I said yes, you wouldn't believe me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="68"> If I asked what you meant by your question, you wouldn't answer me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="69"> So here's what I have to say: From here on the Son of Man takes his place at God's right hand, the place of power."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="70"> They all said, "So you admit your claim to be the Son of God?" "You're the ones who keep saying it," he said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="71"> But they had made up their minds, "Why do we need any more evidence? We've all heard him as good as say it himself."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="23">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then they all took Jesus to Pilate</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> and began to bring up charges against him. They said, "We found this man undermining our law and order, forbidding taxes to be paid to Caesar, setting himself up as Messiah-King."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Pilate asked him, "Is this true that you're 'King of the Jews'?" "Those are your words, not mine," Jesus replied.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Pilate told the high priests and the accompanying crowd, "I find nothing wrong here. He seems harmless enough to me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But they were vehement. "He's stirring up unrest among the people with his teaching, disturbing the peace everywhere, starting in Galilee and now all through Judea. He's a dangerous man, endangering the peace."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When Pilate heard that, he asked, "So, he's a Galilean?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Realizing that he properly came under Herod's jurisdiction, he passed the buck to Herod, who just happened to be in Jerusalem for a few days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Herod was delighted when Jesus showed up. He had wanted for a long time to see him, he'd heard so much about him. He hoped to see him do something spectacular.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He peppered him with questions. Jesus didn't answer--not one word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But the high priests and religion scholars were right there, saying their piece, strident and shrill in their accusations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Mightily offended, Herod turned on Jesus. His soldiers joined in, taunting and jeering. Then they dressed him up in an elaborate king costume and sent him back to Pilate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> That day Herod and Pilate became thick as thieves. Always before they had kept their distance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then Pilate called in the high priests, rulers, and the others</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> and said, "You brought this man to me as a disturber of the peace. I examined him in front of all of you and found there was nothing to your charge.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And neither did Herod, for he has sent him back here with a clean bill of health. It's clear that he's done nothing wrong, let alone anything deserving death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I'm going to warn him to watch his step and let him go."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> (OMITTED TEXT)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> At that, the crowd went wild: "Kill him! Give us Barabbas!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> (Barabbas had been thrown in prison for starting a riot in the city and for murder.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Pilate still wanted to let Jesus go, and so spoke out again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But they kept shouting back, "Crucify! Crucify him!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> He tried a third time. "But for what crime? I've found nothing in him deserving death. I'm going to warn him to watch his step and let him go."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But they kept at it, a shouting mob, demanding that he be crucified. And finally they shouted him down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Pilate caved in and gave them what they wanted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> He released the man thrown in prison for rioting and murder, and gave them Jesus to do whatever they wanted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> As they led him off, they made Simon, a man from Cyrene who happened to be coming in from the countryside, carry the cross behind Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> A huge crowd of people followed, along with women weeping and carrying on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> At one point Jesus turned to the women and said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, don't cry for me. Cry for yourselves and for your children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The time is coming when they'll say, 'Lucky the women who never conceived! Lucky the wombs that never gave birth! Lucky the breasts that never gave milk!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Then they'll start calling to the mountains, 'Fall down on us!' calling to the hills, 'Cover us up!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> If people do these things to a live, green tree, can you imagine what they'll do with deadwood?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Two others, both criminals, were taken along with him for execution.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> When they got to the place called Skull Hill, they crucified him, along with the criminals, one on his right, the other on his left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Jesus prayed, "Father, forgive them; they don't know what they're doing." Dividing up his clothes, they threw dice for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> The people stood there staring at Jesus, and the ringleaders made faces, taunting, "He saved others. Let's see him save himself! The Messiah of God--ha! The Chosen--ha!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> The soldiers also came up and poked fun at him, making a game of it. They toasted him with sour wine:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> "So you're King of the Jews! Save yourself!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Printed over him was a sign: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> One of the criminals hanging alongside cursed him: "Some Messiah you are! Save yourself! Save us!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> But the other one made him shut up: "Have you no fear of God? You're getting the same as him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> We deserve this, but not him--he did nothing to deserve this."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you enter your kingdom."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> He said, "Don't worry, I will. Today you will join me in paradise."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> By now it was noon. The whole earth became dark, the darkness lasting three hours--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> a total blackout. The Temple curtain split right down the middle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Jesus called loudly, "Father, I place my life in your hands!" Then he breathed his last.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> When the captain there saw what happened, he honored God: "This man was innocent! A good man, and innocent!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> All who had come around as spectators to watch the show, when they saw what actually happened, were overcome with grief and headed home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> Those who knew Jesus well, along with the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a respectful distance and kept vigil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> There was a man by the name of Joseph, a member of the Jewish High Council, a man of good heart and good character.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> He had not gone along with the plans and actions of the council. His hometown was the Jewish village of Arimathea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> He lived in alert expectation of the kingdom of God. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> Taking him down, he wrapped him in a linen shroud and placed him in a tomb chiseled into the rock, a tomb never yet used.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> It was the day before Sabbath, the Sabbath just about to begin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> The women who had been companions of Jesus from Galilee followed along. They saw the tomb where Jesus' body was placed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> Then they went back to prepare burial spices and perfumes. They rested quietly on the Sabbath, as commanded.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="24">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> At the crack of dawn on Sunday, the women came to the tomb carrying the burial spices they had prepared.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They found the entrance stone rolled back from the tomb,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> so they walked in. But once inside, they couldn't find the body of the Master Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They were puzzled, wondering what to make of this. Then, out of nowhere it seemed, two men, light cascading over them, stood there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The women were awestruck and bowed down in worship. The men said, "Why are you looking for the Living One in a cemetery?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He is not here, but raised up. Remember how he told you when you were still back in Galilee</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> that he had to be handed over to sinners, be killed on a cross, and in three days rise up?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then they remembered Jesus' words.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They left the tomb and broke the news of all this to the Eleven and the rest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them kept telling these things to the apostles,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> but the apostles didn't believe a word of it, thought they were making it all up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But Peter jumped to his feet and ran to the tomb. He stooped to look in and saw a few grave clothes, that's all. He walked away puzzled, shaking his head.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> That same day two of them were walking to the village Emmaus, about seven miles out of Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They were deep in conversation, going over all these things that had happened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> In the middle of their talk and questions, Jesus came up and walked along with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But they were not able to recognize who he was.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He asked, "What's this you're discussing so intently as you walk along?" They just stood there, long-faced, like they had lost their best friend.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Then one of them, his name was Cleopas, said, "Are you the only one in Jerusalem who hasn't heard what's happened during the last few days?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He said, "What has happened?" They said, "The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene. He was a man of God, a prophet, dynamic in work and word, blessed by both God and all the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Then our high priests and leaders betrayed him, got him sentenced to death, and crucified him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And we had our hopes up that he was the One, the One about to deliver Israel. And it is now the third day since it happened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But now some of our women have completely confused us. Early this morning they were at the tomb</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> and couldn't find his body. They came back with the story that they had seen a vision of angels who said he was alive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Some of our friends went off to the tomb to check and found it empty just as the women said, but they didn't see Jesus."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Then he said to them, "So thick-headed! So slow-hearted! Why can't you simply believe all that the prophets said?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Don't you see that these things had to happen, that the Messiah had to suffer and only then enter into his glory?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Then he started at the beginning, with the Books of Moses, and went on through all the Prophets, pointing out everything in the Scriptures that referred to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> They came to the edge of the village where they were headed. He acted as if he were going on</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> but they pressed him: "Stay and have supper with us. It's nearly evening; the day is done." So he went in with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> And here is what happened: He sat down at the table with them. Taking the bread, he blessed and broke and gave it to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> At that moment, open-eyed, wide-eyed, they recognized him. And then he disappeared.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Back and forth they talked. "Didn't we feel on fire as he conversed with us on the road, as he opened up the Scriptures for us?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> They didn't waste a minute. They were up and on their way back to Jerusalem. They found the Eleven and their friends gathered together,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> talking away: "It's really happened! The Master has been raised up--Simon saw him!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Then the two went over everything that happened on the road and how they recognized him when he broke the bread.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> While they were saying all this, Jesus appeared to them and said, "Peace be with you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> They thought they were seeing a ghost and were scared half to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> He continued with them, "Don't be upset, and don't let all these doubting questions take over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Look at my hands; look at my feet--it's really me. Touch me. Look me over from head to toe. A ghost doesn't have muscle and bone like this."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> As he said this, he showed them his hands and feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> They still couldn't believe what they were seeing. It was too much; it seemed too good to be true. He asked, "Do you have any food here?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> They gave him a piece of leftover fish they had cooked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> He took it and ate it right before their eyes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Then he said, "Everything I told you while I was with you comes to this: All the things written about me in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets, and in the Psalms have to be fulfilled."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> He went on to open their understanding of the Word of God, showing them how to read their Bibles this way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> He said, "You can see now how it is written that the Messiah suffers, rises from the dead on the third day,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> and then a total life-change through the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed in his name to all nations--starting from here, from Jerusalem!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> You're the first to hear and see it. You're the witnesses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> What comes next is very important: I am sending what my Father promised to you, so stay here in the city until he arrives, until you're equipped with power from on high."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> He then led them out of the city over to Bethany. Raising his hands he blessed them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> and while blessing them, took his leave, being carried up to heaven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> And they were on their knees, worshiping him. They returned to Jerusalem bursting with joy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> They spent all their time in the Temple praising God. Yes.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="43" bname="John">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Word was first, the Word present to God, God present to the Word. The Word was God,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> in readiness for God from day one.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Everything was created through him; nothing--not one thing!-- came into being without him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn't put it out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> There once was a man, his name John, sent by God</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> to point out the way to the Life-Light. He came to show everyone where to look, who to believe in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> John was not himself the Light; he was there to show the way to the Light.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The Life-Light was the real thing: Every person entering Life he brings into Light.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He was in the world, the world was there through him, and yet the world didn't even notice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He came to his own people, but they didn't want him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But whoever did want him, who believed he was who he claimed and would do what he said, He made to be their true selves, their child-of-God selves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> These are the God-begotten, not blood-begotten, not flesh-begotten, not sex-begotten.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> John pointed him out and called, "This is the One! The One I told you was coming after me but in fact was ahead of me. He has always been ahead of me, has always had the first word."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> We all live off his generous bounty, gift after gift after gift.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> We got the basics from Moses, and then this exuberant giving and receiving, This endless knowing and understanding-- all this came through Jesus, the Messiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> No one has ever seen God, not so much as a glimpse. This one-of-a-kind God-Expression, who exists at the very heart of the Father, has made him plain as day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> When Jews from Jerusalem sent a group of priests and officials to ask John who he was, he was completely honest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He didn't evade the question. He told the plain truth: "I am not the Messiah."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They pressed him, "Who, then? Elijah?" "I am not." "The Prophet?" "No."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Exasperated, they said, "Who, then? We need an answer for those who sent us. Tell us something--anything!--about yourself."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "I'm thunder in the desert: 'Make the road straight for God!' I'm doing what the prophet Isaiah preached."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Those sent to question him were from the Pharisee party.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Now they had a question of their own: "If you're neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet, why do you baptize?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> John answered, "I only baptize using water. A person you don't recognize has taken his stand in your midst.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> He comes after me, but he is not in second place to me. I'm not even worthy to hold his coat for him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> These conversations took place in Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing at the time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The very next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and yelled out,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "Here he is, God's Passover Lamb! He forgives the sins of the world! This is the man I've been talking about, 'the One who comes after me but is really ahead of me.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> I knew nothing about who he was--only this: that my task has been to get Israel ready to recognize him as the God-Revealer. That is why I came here baptizing with water, giving you a good bath and scrubbing sins from your life so you can get a fresh start with God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> John clinched his witness with this: "I watched the Spirit, like a dove flying down out of the sky, making himself at home in him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> I repeat, I know nothing about him except this: The One who authorized me to baptize with water told me, 'The One on whom you see the Spirit come down and stay, this One will baptize with the Holy Spirit.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> That's exactly what I saw happen, and I'm telling you, there's no question about it: This is the Son of God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> The next day John was back at his post with two disciples, who were watching.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> He looked up, saw Jesus walking nearby, and said, "Here he is, God's Passover Lamb."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> The two disciples heard him and went after Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Jesus looked over his shoulder and said to them, "What are you after?" They said, "Rabbi" (which means "Teacher"), "where are you staying?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> He replied, "Come along and see for yourself." They came, saw where he was living, and ended up staying with him for the day. It was late afternoon when this happened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard John's witness and followed Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> The first thing he did after finding where Jesus lived was find his own brother, Simon, telling him, "We've found the Messiah" (that is, "Christ").</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> He immediately led him to Jesus. Jesus took one look up and said, "You're John's son, Simon? From now on your name is Cephas" (or Peter, which means "Rock").</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. When he got there, he ran across Philip and said, "Come, follow me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> (Philip's hometown was Bethsaida, the same as Andrew and Peter.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> Philip went and found Nathanael and told him, "We've found the One Moses wrote of in the Law, the One preached by the prophets. It's Jesus, Joseph's son, the one from Nazareth!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Nathanael said, "Nazareth? You've got to be kidding." But Philip said, "Come, see for yourself."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> When Jesus saw him coming he said, "There's a real Israelite, not a false bone in his body."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> Nathanael said, "Where did you get that idea? You don't know me." Jesus answered, "One day, long before Philip called you here, I saw you under the fig tree."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> Nathanael exclaimed, "Rabbi! You are the Son of God, the King of Israel!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Jesus said, "You've become a believer simply because I say I saw you one day sitting under the fig tree? You haven't seen anything yet!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> Before this is over you're going to see heaven open and God's angels descending to the Son of Man and ascending again."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Three days later there was a wedding in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Jesus and his disciples were guests also.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When they started running low on wine at the wedding banquet, Jesus' mother told him, "They're just about out of wine."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Jesus said, "Is that any of our business, Mother--yours or mine? This isn't my time. Don't push me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> She went ahead anyway, telling the servants, "Whatever he tells you, do it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Six stoneware water pots were there, used by the Jews for ritual washings. Each held twenty to thirty gallons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Jesus ordered the servants, "Fill the pots with water." And they filled them to the brim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Now fill your pitchers and take them to the host," Jesus said, and they did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When the host tasted the water that had become wine (he didn't know what had just happened but the servants, of course, knew), he called out to the bridegroom,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Everybody I know begins with their finest wines and after the guests have had their fill brings in the cheap stuff. But you've saved the best till now!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> This act in Cana of Galilee was the first sign Jesus gave, the first glimpse of his glory. And his disciples believed in him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> After this he went down to Capernaum along with his mother, brothers, and disciples, and stayed several days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> When the Passover Feast, celebrated each spring by the Jews, was about to take place, Jesus traveled up to Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He found the Temple teeming with people selling cattle and sheep and doves. The loan sharks were also there in full strength.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Jesus put together a whip out of strips of leather and chased them out of the Temple, stampeding the sheep and cattle, upending the tables of the loan sharks, spilling coins left and right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He told the dove merchants, "Get your things out of here! Stop turning my Father's house into a shopping mall!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> That's when his disciples remembered the Scripture, "Zeal for your house consumes me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But the Jews were upset. They asked, "What credentials can you present to justify this?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Jesus answered, "Tear down this Temple and in three days I'll put it back together."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> They were indignant: "It took forty-six years to build this Temple, and you're going to rebuild it in three days?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But Jesus was talking about his body as the Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Later, after he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered he had said this. They then put two and two together and believed both what was written in Scripture and what Jesus had said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> During the time he was in Jerusalem, those days of the Passover Feast, many people noticed the signs he was displaying and, seeing they pointed straight to God, entrusted their lives to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> But Jesus didn't entrust his life to them. He knew them inside and out, knew how untrustworthy they were.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> He didn't need any help in seeing right through them.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> There was a man of the Pharisee sect, Nicodemus, a prominent leader among the Jews.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Late one night he visited Jesus and said, "Rabbi, we all know you're a teacher straight from God. No one could do all the God-pointing, God-revealing acts you do if God weren't in on it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Jesus said, "You're absolutely right. Take it from me: Unless a person is born from above, it's not possible to see what I'm pointing to--to God's kingdom."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "How can anyone," said Nicodemus, "be born who has already been born and grown up? You can't re-enter your mother's womb and be born again. What are you saying with this 'born-from-above' talk?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Jesus said, "You're not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation--the 'wind hovering over the water' creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life--it's not possible to enter God's kingdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When you look at a baby, it's just that: a body you can look at and touch. But the person who takes shape within is formed by something you can't see and touch--the Spirit--and becomes a living spirit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "So don't be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be 'born from above'--out of this world, so to speak.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it's headed next. That's the way it is with everyone 'born from above' by the wind of God, the Spirit of God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Nicodemus asked, "What do you mean by this? How does this happen?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Jesus said, "You're a respected teacher of Israel and you don't know these basics?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Listen carefully. I'm speaking sober truth to you. I speak only of what I know by experience; I give witness only to what I have seen with my own eyes. There is nothing secondhand here, no hearsay. Yet instead of facing the evidence and accepting it, you procrastinate with questions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> If I tell you things that are plain as the hand before your face and you don't believe me, what use is there in telling you of things you can't see, the things of God?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "No one has ever gone up into the presence of God except the One who came down from that Presence, the Son of Man.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> In the same way that Moses lifted the serpent in the desert so people could have something to see and then believe, it is necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> and everyone who looks up to him, trusting and expectant, will gain a real life, eternal life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person's failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "This is the crisis we're in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness. They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil, addicted to denial and illusion, hates God-light and won't come near it, fearing a painful exposure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But anyone working and living in truth and reality welcomes God-light so the work can be seen for the God-work it is."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> After this conversation, Jesus went on with his disciples into the Judean countryside and relaxed with them there. He was also baptizing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> At the same time, John was baptizing over at Aenon near Salim, where water was abundant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> This was before John was thrown into jail.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> John's disciples got into an argument with the establishment Jews over the nature of baptism.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> They came to John and said, "Rabbi, you know the one who was with you on the other side of the Jordan? The one you authorized with your witness? Well, he's now competing with us. He's baptizing, too, and everyone's going to him instead of us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> John answered, "It's not possible for a person to succeed--I'm talking about eternal success--without heaven's help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> You yourselves were there when I made it public that I was not the Messiah but simply the one sent ahead of him to get things ready.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The one who gets the bride is, by definition, the bridegroom. And the bridegroom's friend, his 'best man'--that's me--in place at his side where he can hear every word, is genuinely happy. How could he be jealous when he knows that the wedding is finished and the marriage is off to a good start? "That's why my cup is running over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> This is the assigned moment for him to move into the center, while I slip off to the sidelines.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> "The One who comes from above is head and shoulders over other messengers from God. The earthborn is earthbound and speaks earth language; the heavenborn is in a league of his own.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> He sets out the evidence of what he saw and heard in heaven. No one wants to deal with these facts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> But anyone who examines this evidence will come to stake his life on this: that God himself is the truth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "The One that God sent speaks God's words. And don't think he rations out the Spirit in bits and pieces.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> The Father loves the Son extravagantly. He turned everything over to him so he could give it away--a lavish distribution of gifts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> That is why whoever accepts and trusts the Son gets in on everything, life complete and forever! And that is also why the person who avoids and distrusts the Son is in the dark and doesn't see life. All he experiences of God is darkness, and an angry darkness at that."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Jesus realized that the Pharisees were keeping count of the baptisms that he and John performed</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> (although his disciples, not Jesus, did the actual baptizing). They had posted the score that Jesus was ahead, turning him and John into rivals in the eyes of the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> So Jesus left the Judean countryside and went back to Galilee.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> To get there, he had to pass through Samaria.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He came into Sychar, a Samaritan village that bordered the field Jacob had given his son Joseph.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Jacob's well was still there. Jesus, worn out by the trip, sat down at the well. It was noon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> A woman, a Samaritan, came to draw water. Jesus said, "Would you give me a drink of water?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> (His disciples had gone to the village to buy food for lunch.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The Samaritan woman, taken aback, asked, "How come you, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?" (Jews in those days wouldn't be caught dead talking to Samaritans.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Jesus answered, "If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking me for a drink, and I would give you fresh, living water."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The woman said, "Sir, you don't even have a bucket to draw with, and this well is deep. So how are you going to get this 'living water'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Are you a better man than our ancestor Jacob, who dug this well and drank from it, he and his sons and livestock, and passed it down to us?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Jesus said, "Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst--not ever. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The woman said, "Sir, give me this water so I won't ever get thirsty, won't ever have to come back to this well again!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He said, "Go call your husband and then come back."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "I have no husband," she said. "That's nicely put: 'I have no husband.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> You've had five husbands, and the man you're living with now isn't even your husband. You spoke the truth there, sure enough."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Oh, so you're a prophet!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Well, tell me this: Our ancestors worshiped God at this mountain, but you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place for worship, right?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Believe me, woman, the time is coming when you Samaritans will worship the Father neither here at this mountain nor there in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> You worship guessing in the dark; we Jews worship in the clear light of day. God's way of salvation is made available through the Jews.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But the time is coming--it has, in fact, come--when what you're called will not matter and where you go to worship will not matter. "It's who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That's the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> God is sheer being itself--Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The woman said, "I don't know about that. I do know that the Messiah is coming. When he arrives, we'll get the whole story."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "I am he," said Jesus. "You don't have to wait any longer or look any further."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Just then his disciples came back. They were shocked. They couldn't believe he was talking with that kind of a woman. No one said what they were all thinking, but their faces showed it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The woman took the hint and left. In her confusion she left her water pot. Back in the village she told the people,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "Come see a man who knew all about the things I did, who knows me inside and out. Do you think this could be the Messiah?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> And they went out to see for themselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> In the meantime, the disciples pressed him, "Rabbi, eat. Aren't you going to eat?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> He told them, "I have food to eat you know nothing about."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> The disciples were puzzled. "Who could have brought him food?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Jesus said, "The food that keeps me going is that I do the will of the One who sent me, finishing the work he started.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> As you look around right now, wouldn't you say that in about four months it will be time to harvest? Well, I'm telling you to open your eyes and take a good look at what's right in front of you. These Samaritan fields are ripe. It's harvest time!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> "The Harvester isn't waiting. He's taking his pay, gathering in this grain that's ripe for eternal life. Now the Sower is arm in arm with the Harvester, triumphant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> That's the truth of the saying, 'This one sows, that one harvests.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> I sent you to harvest a field you never worked. Without lifting a finger, you have walked in on a field worked long and hard by others."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Many of the Samaritans from that village committed themselves to him because of the woman's witness: "He knew all about the things I did. He knows me inside and out!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> They asked him to stay on, so Jesus stayed two days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> A lot more people entrusted their lives to him when they heard what he had to say.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> They said to the woman, "We're no longer taking this on your say-so. We've heard it for ourselves and know it for sure. He's the Savior of the world!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> After the two days he left for Galilee.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Now, Jesus knew well from experience that a prophet is not respected in the place where he grew up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> So when he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, but only because they were impressed with what he had done in Jerusalem during the Passover Feast, not that they really had a clue about who he was or what he was up to.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Now he was back in Cana of Galilee, the place where he made the water into wine. Meanwhile in Capernaum, there was a certain official from the king's court whose son was sick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and asked that he come down and heal his son, who was on the brink of death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> Jesus put him off: "Unless you people are dazzled by a miracle, you refuse to believe."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> But the court official wouldn't be put off. "Come down! It's life or death for my son."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Jesus simply replied, "Go home. Your son lives." The man believed the bare word Jesus spoke and headed home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> On his way back, his servants intercepted him and announced, "Your son lives!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> He asked them what time he began to get better. They said, "The fever broke yesterday afternoon at one o'clock."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> The father knew that that was the very moment Jesus had said, "Your son lives." That clinched it. Not only he but his entire household believed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> This was now the second sign Jesus gave after having come from Judea into Galilee.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Soon another Feast came around and Jesus was back in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there was a pool, in Hebrew called Bethesda, with five alcoves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Hundreds of sick people--blind, crippled, paralyzed--were in these alcoves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> (OMITTED TEXT)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> One man had been an invalid there for thirty-eight years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When Jesus saw him stretched out by the pool and knew how long he had been there, he said, "Do you want to get well?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The sick man said, "Sir, when the water is stirred, I don't have anybody to put me in the pool. By the time I get there, somebody else is already in."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Jesus said, "Get up, take your bedroll, start walking."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The man was healed on the spot. He picked up his bedroll and walked off. That day happened to be the Sabbath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The Jews stopped the healed man and said, "It's the Sabbath. You can't carry your bedroll around. It's against the rules."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But he told them, "The man who made me well told me to. He said, 'Take your bedroll and start walking.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They asked, "Who gave you the order to take it up and start walking?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But the healed man didn't know, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> A little later Jesus found him in the Temple and said, "You look wonderful! You're well! Don't return to a sinning life or something worse might happen."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The man went back and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> That is why the Jews were out to get Jesus--because he did this kind of thing on the Sabbath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But Jesus defended himself. "My Father is working straight through, even on the Sabbath. So am I."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> That really set them off. The Jews were now not only out to expose him; they were out to kill him. Not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was calling God his own Father, putting himself on a level with God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> So Jesus explained himself at length. "I'm telling you this straight. The Son can't independently do a thing, only what he sees the Father doing. What the Father does, the Son does.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The Father loves the Son and includes him in everything he is doing. "But you haven't seen the half of it yet,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> for in the same way that the Father raises the dead and creates life, so does the Son. The Son gives life to anyone he chooses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Neither he nor the Father shuts anyone out. The Father handed all authority to judge over to the Son</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> so that the Son will be honored equally with the Father. Anyone who dishonors the Son, dishonors the Father, for it was the Father's decision to put the Son in the place of honor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "It's urgent that you listen carefully to this: Anyone here who believes what I am saying right now and aligns himself with the Father, who has in fact put me in charge, has at this very moment the real, lasting life and is no longer condemned to be an outsider. This person has taken a giant step from the world of the dead to the world of the living.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "It's urgent that you get this right: The time has arrived--I mean right now!--when dead men and women will hear the voice of the Son of God and, hearing, will come alive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Just as the Father has life in himself, he has conferred on the Son life in himself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> And he has given him the authority, simply because he is the Son of Man, to decide and carry out matters of Judgment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "Don't act so surprised at all this. The time is coming when everyone dead and buried will hear his voice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Those who have lived the right way will walk out into a resurrection Life; those who have lived the wrong way, into a resurrection Judgment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "I can't do a solitary thing on my own: I listen, then I decide. You can trust my decision because I'm not out to get my own way but only to carry out orders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> If I were simply speaking on my own account, it would be an empty, self-serving witness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> But an independent witness confirms me, the most reliable Witness of all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Furthermore, you all saw and heard John, and he gave expert and reliable testimony about me, didn't he?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "But my purpose is not to get your vote, and not to appeal to mere human testimony. I'm speaking to you this way so that you will be saved.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> John was a torch, blazing and bright, and you were glad enough to dance for an hour or so in his bright light.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> But the witness that really confirms me far exceeds John's witness. It's the work the Father gave me to complete. These very tasks, as I go about completing them, confirm that the Father, in fact, sent me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> The Father who sent me, confirmed me. And you missed it. You never heard his voice, you never saw his appearance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> There is nothing left in your memory of his Message because you do not take his Messenger seriously.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> "You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you'll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> And here I am, standing right before you, and you aren't willing to receive from me the life you say you want.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> "I'm not interested in crowd approval.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> And do you know why? Because I know you and your crowds. I know that love, especially God's love, is not on your working agenda.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> I came with the authority of my Father, and you either dismiss me or avoid me. If another came, acting self-important, you would welcome him with open arms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> How do you expect to get anywhere with God when you spend all your time jockeying for position with each other, ranking your rivals and ignoring God?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> "But don't think I'm going to accuse you before my Father. Moses, in whom you put so much stock, is your accuser.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> If you believed, really believed, what Moses said, you would believe me. He wrote of me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> If you won't take seriously what he wrote, how can I expect you to take seriously what I speak?"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> After this, Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee (some call it Tiberias).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> A huge crowd followed him, attracted by the miracles they had seen him do among the sick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When he got to the other side, he climbed a hill and sat down, surrounded by his disciples.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> It was nearly time for the Feast of Passover, kept annually by the Jews.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When Jesus looked out and saw that a large crowd had arrived, he said to Philip, "Where can we buy bread to feed these people?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He said this to stretch Philip's faith. He already knew what he was going to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Philip answered, "Two hundred silver pieces wouldn't be enough to buy bread for each person to get a piece."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> One of the disciples--it was Andrew, brother to Simon Peter--said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "There's a little boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But that's a drop in the bucket for a crowd like this."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Jesus said, "Make the people sit down." There was a nice carpet of green grass in this place. They sat down, about five thousand of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then Jesus took the bread and, having given thanks, gave it to those who were seated. He did the same with the fish. All ate as much as they wanted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When the people had eaten their fill, he said to his disciples, "Gather the leftovers so nothing is wasted."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They went to work and filled twelve large baskets with leftovers from the five barley loaves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The people realized that God was at work among them in what Jesus had just done. They said, "This is the Prophet for sure, God's Prophet right here in Galilee!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Jesus saw that in their enthusiasm, they were about to grab him and make him king, so he slipped off and went back up the mountain to be by himself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> In the evening his disciples went down to the sea,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> got in the boat, and headed back across the water to Capernaum. It had grown quite dark and Jesus had not yet returned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> A huge wind blew up, churning the sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They were maybe three or four miles out when they saw Jesus walking on the sea, quite near the boat. They were scared senseless,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> but he reassured them, "It's me. It's all right. Don't be afraid."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> So they took him on board. In no time they reached land--the exact spot they were headed to.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The next day the crowd that was left behind realized that there had been only one boat, and that Jesus had not gotten into it with his disciples. They had seen them go off without him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> By now boats from Tiberias had pulled up near where they had eaten the bread blessed by the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> So when the crowd realized he was gone and wasn't coming back, they piled into the Tiberias boats and headed for Capernaum, looking for Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> When they found him back across the sea, they said, "Rabbi, when did you get here?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Jesus answered, "You've come looking for me not because you saw God in my actions but because I fed you, filled your stomachs--and for free.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "Don't waste your energy striving for perishable food like that. Work for the food that sticks with you, food that nourishes your lasting life, food the Son of Man provides. He and what he does are guaranteed by God the Father to last."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> To that they said, "Well, what do we do then to get in on God's works?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Jesus said, "Throw your lot in with the One that God has sent. That kind of a commitment gets you in on God's works."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> They waffled: "Why don't you give us a clue about who you are, just a hint of what's going on? When we see what's up, we'll commit ourselves. Show us what you can do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Moses fed our ancestors with bread in the desert. It says so in the Scriptures: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Jesus responded, "The real significance of that Scripture is not that Moses gave you bread from heaven but that my Father is right now offering you bread from heaven, the real bread.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> The Bread of God came down out of heaven and is giving life to the world."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> They jumped at that: "Master, give us this bread, now and forever!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Jesus said, "I am the Bread of Life. The person who aligns with me hungers no more and thirsts no more, ever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> I have told you this explicitly because even though you have seen me in action, you don't really believe me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Every person the Father gives me eventually comes running to me. And once that person is with me, I hold on and don't let go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> I came down from heaven not to follow my own whim but to accomplish the will of the One who sent me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> "This, in a nutshell, is that will: that everything handed over to me by the Father be completed--not a single detail missed--and at the wrap-up of time I have everything and everyone put together, upright and whole.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> This is what my Father wants: that anyone who sees the Son and trusts who he is and what he does and then aligns with him will enter real life, eternal life. My part is to put them on their feet alive and whole at the completion of time."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> At this, because he said, "I am the Bread that came down from heaven," the Jews started arguing over him:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> "Isn't this the son of Joseph? Don't we know his father? Don't we know his mother? How can he now say, 'I came down out of heaven' and expect anyone to believe him?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Jesus said, "Don't bicker among yourselves over me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> You're not in charge here. The Father who sent me is in charge. He draws people to me--that's the only way you'll ever come. Only then do I do my work, putting people together, setting them on their feet, ready for the End.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> This is what the prophets meant when they wrote, 'And then they will all be personally taught by God.' Anyone who has spent any time at all listening to the Father, really listening and therefore learning, comes to me to be taught personally--to see it with his own eyes, hear it with his own ears, from me, since I have it firsthand from the Father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> No one has seen the Father except the One who has his Being alongside the Father--and you can see me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> "I'm telling you the most solemn and sober truth now: Whoever believes in me has real life, eternal life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> I am the Bread of Life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> Your ancestors ate the manna bread in the desert and died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> But now here is Bread that truly comes down out of heaven. Anyone eating this Bread will not die, ever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> I am the Bread--living Bread!--who came down out of heaven. Anyone who eats this Bread will live--and forever! The Bread that I present to the world so that it can eat and live is myself, this flesh-and-blood self."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> At this, the Jews started fighting among themselves: "How can this man serve up his flesh for a meal?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> But Jesus didn't give an inch. "Only insofar as you eat and drink flesh and blood, the flesh and blood of the Son of Man, do you have life within you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> The one who brings a hearty appetite to this eating and drinking has eternal life and will be fit and ready for the Final Day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> By eating my flesh and drinking my blood you enter into me and I into you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> In the same way that the fully alive Father sent me here and I live because of him, so the one who makes a meal of me lives because of me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> This is the Bread from heaven. Your ancestors ate bread and later died. Whoever eats this Bread will live always."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="59"> He said these things while teaching in the meeting place in Capernaum.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="60"> Many among his disciples heard this and said, "This is tough teaching, too tough to swallow."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="61"> Jesus sensed that his disciples were having a hard time with this and said, "Does this throw you completely?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="62"> What would happen if you saw the Son of Man ascending to where he came from?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="63"> The Spirit can make life. Sheer muscle and willpower don't make anything happen. Every word I've spoken to you is a Spirit-word, and so it is life-making.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="64"> But some of you are resisting, refusing to have any part in this." (Jesus knew from the start that some weren't going to risk themselves with him. He knew also who would betray him.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="65"> He went on to say, "This is why I told you earlier that no one is capable of coming to me on his own. You get to me only as a gift from the Father."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="66"> After this a lot of his disciples left. They no longer wanted to be associated with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="67"> Then Jesus gave the Twelve their chance: "Do you also want to leave?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="68"> Peter replied, "Master, to whom would we go? You have the words of real life, eternal life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="69"> We've already committed ourselves, confident that you are the Holy One of God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="70"> Jesus responded, "Haven't I handpicked you, the Twelve? Still, one of you is a devil!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="71"> He was referring to Judas, son of Simon Iscariot. This man--one from the Twelve!--was even then getting ready to betray him.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Later Jesus was going about his business in Galilee. He didn't want to travel in Judea because the Jews there were looking for a chance to kill him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> It was near the time of Tabernacles, a feast observed annually by the Jews.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> His brothers said, "Why don't you leave here and go up to the Feast so your disciples can get a good look at the works you do?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> No one who intends to be publicly known does everything behind the scenes. If you're serious about what you are doing, come out in the open and show the world."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> His brothers were pushing him like this because they didn't believe in him either.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Jesus came back at them, "Don't crowd me. This isn't my time. It's your time--it's always your time; you have nothing to lose.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The world has nothing against you, but it's up in arms against me. It's against me because I expose the evil behind its pretensions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You go ahead, go up to the Feast. Don't wait for me. I'm not ready. It's not the right time for me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He said this and stayed on in Galilee.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But later, after his family had gone up to the Feast, he also went. But he kept out of the way, careful not to draw attention to himself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The Jews were already out looking for him, asking around, "Where is that man?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> There was a lot of contentious talk about him circulating through the crowds. Some were saying, "He's a good man." But others said, "Not so. He's selling snake oil."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> This kind of talk went on in guarded whispers because of the intimidating Jewish leaders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> With the Feast already half over, Jesus showed up in the Temple, teaching.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The Jews were impressed, but puzzled: "How does he know so much without being schooled?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Jesus said, "I didn't make this up. What I teach comes from the One who sent me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Anyone who wants to do his will can test this teaching and know whether it's from God or whether I'm making it up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> A person making things up tries to make himself look good. But someone trying to honor the one who sent him sticks to the facts and doesn't tamper with reality.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> It was Moses, wasn't it, who gave you God's Law? But none of you are living it. So why are you trying to kill me?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The crowd said, "You're crazy! Who's trying to kill you? You're demon-possessed."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Jesus said, "I did one miraculous thing a few months ago, and you're still standing around getting all upset, wondering what I'm up to.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Moses prescribed circumcision--originally it came not from Moses but from his ancestors--and so you circumcise a man, dealing with one part of his body, even if it's the Sabbath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> You do this in order to preserve one item in the Law of Moses. So why are you upset with me because I made a man's whole body well on the Sabbath?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Don't be nitpickers; use your head--and heart!--to discern what is right, to test what is authentically right."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> That's when some of the people of Jerusalem said, "Isn't this the one they were out to kill?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> And here he is out in the open, saying whatever he pleases, and no one is stopping him. Could it be that the rulers know that he is, in fact, the Messiah?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> And yet we know where this man came from. The Messiah is going to come out of nowhere. Nobody is going to know where he comes from."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> That provoked Jesus, who was teaching in the Temple, to cry out, "Yes, you think you know me and where I'm from, but that's not where I'm from. I didn't set myself up in business. My true origin is in the One who sent me, and you don't know him at all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> I come from him--that's how I know him. He sent me here."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> They were looking for a way to arrest him, but not a hand was laid on him because it wasn't yet God's time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Many from the crowd committed themselves in faith to him, saying, "Will the Messiah, when he comes, provide better or more convincing evidence than this?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The Pharisees, alarmed at this seditious undertow going through the crowd, teamed up with the high priests and sent their police to arrest him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Jesus rebuffed them: "I am with you only a short time. Then I go on to the One who sent me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> You will look for me, but you won't find me. Where I am, you can't come."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> The Jews put their heads together. "Where do you think he is going that we won't be able to find him? Do you think he is about to travel to the Greek world to teach the Jews?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> What is he talking about, anyway: 'You will look for me, but you won't find me,' and 'Where I am, you can't come'?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> On the final and climactic day of the Feast, Jesus took his stand. He cried out, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Rivers of living water will brim and spill out of the depths of anyone who believes in me this way, just as the Scripture says."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> (He said this in regard to the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were about to receive. The Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Those in the crowd who heard these words were saying, "This has to be the Prophet."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Others said, "He is the Messiah!" But others were saying, "The Messiah doesn't come from Galilee, does he?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Don't the Scriptures tell us that the Messiah comes from David's line and from Bethlehem, David's village?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> So there was a split in the crowd over him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Some went so far as wanting to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> That's when the Temple police reported back to the high priests and Pharisees, who demanded, "Why didn't you bring him with you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> The police answered, "Have you heard the way he talks? We've never heard anyone speak like this man."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> The Pharisees said, "Are you carried away like the rest of the rabble?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> You don't see any of the leaders believing in him, do you? Or any from the Pharisees?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> It's only this crowd, ignorant of God's Law, that is taken in by him--and damned."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Nicodemus, the man who had come to Jesus earlier and was both a ruler and a Pharisee, spoke up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> "Does our Law decide about a man's guilt without first listening to him and finding out what he is doing?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> But they cut him off. "Are you also campaigning for the Galilean?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> Examine the evidence. See if any prophet ever comes from Galilee." Then they all went home.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Jesus went across to Mount Olives,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> but he was soon back in the Temple again. Swarms of people came to him. He sat down and taught them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The religion scholars and Pharisees led in a woman who had been caught in an act of adultery. They stood her in plain sight of everyone</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> and said, "Teacher, this woman was caught red-handed in the act of adultery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Moses, in the Law, gives orders to stone such persons. What do you say?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They were trying to trap him into saying something incriminating so they could bring charges against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger in the dirt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They kept at him, badgering him. He straightened up and said, "The sinless one among you, go first: Throw the stone."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Bending down again, he wrote some more in the dirt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Hearing that, they walked away, one after another, beginning with the oldest. The woman was left alone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Jesus stood up and spoke to her. "Woman, where are they? Does no one condemn you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "No one, Master." "Neither do I," said Jesus. "Go on your way. From now on, don't sin."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Jesus once again addressed them: "I am the world's Light. No one who follows me stumbles around in the darkness. I provide plenty of light to live in."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The Pharisees objected, "All we have is your word on this. We need more than this to go on."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Jesus replied, "You're right that you only have my word. But you can depend on it being true. I know where I've come from and where I go next. You don't know where I'm from or where I'm headed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> You decide according to what you can see and touch. I don't make judgments like that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But even if I did, my judgment would be true because I wouldn't make it out of the narrowness of my experience but in the largeness of the One who sent me, the Father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> That fulfills the conditions set down in God's Law: that you can count on the testimony of two witnesses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And that is what you have: You have my word and you have the word of the Father who sent me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They said, "Where is this so-called Father of yours?" Jesus said, "You're looking right at me and you don't see me. How do you expect to see the Father? If you knew me, you would at the same time know the Father."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He gave this speech in the Treasury while teaching in the Temple. No one arrested him because his time wasn't yet up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then he went over the same ground again. "I'm leaving and you are going to look for me, but you're missing God in this and are headed for a dead end. There is no way you can come with me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The Jews said, "So, is he going to kill himself? Is that what he means by 'You can't come with me'?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Jesus said, "You're tied down to the mundane; I'm in touch with what is beyond your horizons. You live in terms of what you see and touch. I'm living on other terms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> I told you that you were missing God in all this. You're at a dead end. If you won't believe I am who I say I am, you're at the dead end of sins. You're missing God in your lives."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> They said to him, "Just who are you anyway?" Jesus said, "What I've said from the start.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> I have so many things to say that concern you, judgments to make that affect you, but if you don't accept the trustworthiness of the One who commanded my words and acts, none of it matters. That is who you are questioning--not me but the One who sent me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> They still didn't get it, didn't realize that he was referring to the Father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> So Jesus tried again. "When you raise up the Son of Man, then you will know who I am--that I'm not making this up, but speaking only what the Father taught me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The One who sent me stays with me. He doesn't abandon me. He sees how much joy I take in pleasing him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> When he put it in these terms, many people decided to believe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Then Jesus turned to the Jews who had claimed to believe in him. "If you stick with this, living out what I tell you, you are my disciples for sure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Then you will experience for yourselves the truth, and the truth will free you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Surprised, they said, "But we're descendants of Abraham. We've never been slaves to anyone. How can you say, 'The truth will free you'?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Jesus said, "I tell you most solemnly that anyone who chooses a life of sin is trapped in a dead-end life and is, in fact, a slave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> A slave is a transient, who can't come and go at will. The Son, though, has an established position, the run of the house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> So if the Son sets you free, you are free through and through.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> I know you are Abraham's descendants. But I also know that you are trying to kill me because my message hasn't yet penetrated your thick skulls.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> I'm talking about things I have seen while keeping company with the Father, and you just go on doing what you have heard from your father."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> They were indignant. "Our father is Abraham!" Jesus said, "If you were Abraham's children, you would have been doing the things Abraham did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> And yet here you are trying to kill me, a man who has spoken to you the truth he got straight from God! Abraham never did that sort of thing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> You persist in repeating the works of your father." They said, "We're not bastards. We have a legitimate father: the one and only God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> "If God was your father," said Jesus, "you would love me, for I came from God and arrived here. I didn't come on my own. He sent me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Why can't you understand one word I say? Here's why: You can't handle it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> You're from your father, the Devil, and all you want to do is please him. He was a killer from the very start. He couldn't stand the truth because there wasn't a shred of truth in him. When the Liar speaks, he makes it up out of his lying nature and fills the world with lies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> I arrive on the scene, tell you the plain truth, and you refuse to have a thing to do with me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Can any one of you convict me of a single misleading word, a single sinful act? But if I'm telling the truth, why don't you believe me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> Anyone on God's side listens to God's words. This is why you're not listening--because you're not on God's side."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> The Jews then said, "That clinches it. We were right all along when we called you a Samaritan and said you were crazy--demon-possessed!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> Jesus said, "I'm not crazy. I simply honor my Father, while you dishonor me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> I am not trying to get anything for myself. God intends something gloriously grand here and is making the decisions that will bring it about.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> I say this with absolute confidence. If you practice what I'm telling you, you'll never have to look death in the face."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> At this point the Jews said, "Now we know you're crazy. Abraham died. The prophets died. And you show up saying, 'If you practice what I'm telling you, you'll never have to face death, not even a taste.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> Are you greater than Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you think you are!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> Jesus said, "If I turned the spotlight on myself, it wouldn't amount to anything. But my Father, the same One you say is your Father, put me here at this time and place of splendor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> You haven't recognized him in this. But I have. If I, in false modesty, said I didn't know what was going on, I would be as much of a liar as you are. But I do know, and I am doing what he says.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> Abraham--your 'father'--with jubilant faith looked down the corridors of history and saw my day coming. He saw it and cheered."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> The Jews said, "You're not even fifty years old--and Abraham saw you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> "Believe me," said Jesus, "I am who I am long before Abraham was anything."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="59"> That did it--pushed them over the edge. They picked up rocks to throw at him. But Jesus slipped away, getting out of the Temple.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Walking down the street, Jesus saw a man blind from birth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> His disciples asked, "Rabbi, who sinned: this man or his parents, causing him to be born blind?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Jesus said, "You're asking the wrong question. You're looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> We need to be energetically at work for the One who sent me here, working while the sun shines. When night falls, the workday is over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> For as long as I am in the world, there is plenty of light. I am the world's Light."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He said this and then spit in the dust, made a clay paste with the saliva, rubbed the paste on the blind man's eyes,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> and said, "Go, wash at the Pool of Siloam" (Siloam means "Sent"). The man went and washed--and saw.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Soon the town was buzzing. His relatives and those who year after year had seen him as a blind man begging were saying, "Why, isn't this the man we knew, who sat here and begged?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Others said, "It's him all right!" But others objected, "It's not the same man at all. It just looks like him." He said, "It's me, the very one."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They said, "How did your eyes get opened?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "A man named Jesus made a paste and rubbed it on my eyes and told me, 'Go to Siloam and wash.' I did what he said. When I washed, I saw."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "So where is he?" "I don't know."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They marched the man to the Pharisees.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> This day when Jesus made the paste and healed his blindness was the Sabbath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The Pharisees grilled him again on how he had come to see. He said, "He put a clay paste on my eyes, and I washed, and now I see."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Some of the Pharisees said, "Obviously, this man can't be from God. He doesn't keep the Sabbath." Others countered, "How can a bad man do miraculous, God-revealing things like this?" There was a split in their ranks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> They came back at the blind man, "You're the expert. He opened your eyes. What do you say about him?" He said, "He is a prophet."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The Jews didn't believe it, didn't believe the man was blind to begin with. So they called the parents of the man now bright-eyed with sight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They asked them, "Is this your son, the one you say was born blind? So how is it that he now sees?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> His parents said, "We know he is our son, and we know he was born blind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But we don't know how he came to see--haven't a clue about who opened his eyes. Why don't you ask him? He's a grown man and can speak for himself."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> (His parents were talking like this because they were intimidated by the Jewish leaders, who had already decided that anyone who took a stand that this was the Messiah would be kicked out of the meeting place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> That's why his parents said, "Ask him. He's a grown man.")</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> They called the man back a second time--the man who had been blind--and told him, "Give credit to God. We know this man is an impostor."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> He replied, "I know nothing about that one way or the other. But I know one thing for sure: I was blind . . . I now see."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> They said, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "I've told you over and over and you haven't listened. Why do you want to hear it again? Are you so eager to become his disciples?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> With that they jumped all over him. "You might be a disciple of that man, but we're disciples of Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> We know for sure that God spoke to Moses, but we have no idea where this man even comes from."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The man replied, "This is amazing! You claim to know nothing about him, but the fact is, he opened my eyes!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> It's well known that God isn't at the beck and call of sinners, but listens carefully to anyone who lives in reverence and does his will.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> That someone opened the eyes of a man born blind has never been heard of--ever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> If this man didn't come from God, he wouldn't be able to do anything."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> They said, "You're nothing but dirt! How dare you take that tone with us!" Then they threw him out in the street.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and went and found him. He asked him, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> The man said, "Point him out to me, sir, so that I can believe in him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Jesus said, "You're looking right at him. Don't you recognize my voice?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> "Master, I believe," the man said, and worshiped him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Jesus then said, "I came into the world to bring everything into the clear light of day, making all the distinctions clear, so that those who have never seen will see, and those who have made a great pretense of seeing will be exposed as blind."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Some Pharisees overheard him and said, "Does that mean you're calling us blind?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Jesus said, "If you were really blind, you would be blameless, but since you claim to see everything so well, you're accountable for every fault and failure.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Let me set this before you as plainly as I can. If a person climbs over or through the fence of a sheep pen instead of going through the gate, you know he's up to no good--a sheep rustler!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The shepherd walks right up to the gate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The gatekeeper opens the gate to him and the sheep recognize his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When he gets them all out, he leads them and they follow because they are familiar with his voice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They won't follow a stranger's voice but will scatter because they aren't used to the sound of it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Jesus told this simple story, but they had no idea what he was talking about.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So he tried again. "I'll be explicit, then. I am the Gate for the sheep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> All those others are up to no good--sheep stealers, every one of them. But the sheep didn't listen to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I am the Gate. Anyone who goes through me will be cared for--will freely go in and out, and find pasture.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd puts the sheep before himself, sacrifices himself if necessary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> A hired man is not a real shepherd. The sheep mean nothing to him. He sees a wolf come and runs for it, leaving the sheep to be ravaged and scattered by the wolf.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He's only in it for the money. The sheep don't matter to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own sheep and my own sheep know me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> In the same way, the Father knows me and I know the Father. I put the sheep before myself, sacrificing myself if necessary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> You need to know that I have other sheep in addition to those in this pen. I need to gather and bring them, too. They'll also recognize my voice. Then it will be one flock, one Shepherd.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> This is why the Father loves me: because I freely lay down my life. And so I am free to take it up again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> No one takes it from me. I lay it down of my own free will. I have the right to lay it down; I also have the right to take it up again. I received this authority personally from my Father."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> This kind of talk caused another split in the Jewish ranks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> A lot of them were saying, "He's crazy, a maniac--out of his head completely. Why bother listening to him?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But others weren't so sure: "These aren't the words of a crazy man. Can a 'maniac' open blind eyes?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> They were celebrating Hanukkah just then in Jerusalem. It was winter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Jesus was strolling in the Temple across Solomon's Porch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The Jews, circling him, said, "How long are you going to keep us guessing? If you're the Messiah, tell us straight out."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Jesus answered, "I told you, but you don't believe. Everything I have done has been authorized by my Father, actions that speak louder than words.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> You don't believe because you're not my sheep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> My sheep recognize my voice. I know them, and they follow me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> I give them real and eternal life. They are protected from the Destroyer for good. No one can steal them from out of my hand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The Father who put them under my care is so much greater than the Destroyer and Thief. No one could ever get them away from him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> I and the Father are one heart and mind."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Again the Jews picked up rocks to throw at him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Jesus said, "I have made a present to you from the Father of a great many good actions. For which of these acts do you stone me?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> The Jews said, "We're not stoning you for anything good you did, but for what you said--this blasphemy of calling yourself God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Jesus said, "I'm only quoting your inspired Scriptures, where God said, 'I tell you--you are gods.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> If God called your ancestors 'gods'--and Scripture doesn't lie--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> why do you yell, 'Blasphemer! Blasphemer!' at the unique One the Father consecrated and sent into the world, just because I said, 'I am the Son of God'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> If I don't do the things my Father does, well and good; don't believe me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> But if I am doing them, put aside for a moment what you hear me say about myself and just take the evidence of the actions that are right before your eyes. Then perhaps things will come together for you, and you'll see that not only are we doing the same thing, we are the same--Father and Son. He is in me; I am in him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> They tried yet again to arrest him, but he slipped through their fingers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> He went back across the Jordan to the place where John first baptized, and stayed there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> A lot of people followed him over. They were saying, "John did no miracles, but everything he said about this man has come true."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Many believed in him then and there.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> This was the same Mary who massaged the Lord's feet with aromatic oils and then wiped them with her hair. It was her brother Lazarus who was sick.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Master, the one you love so very much is sick."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When Jesus got the message, he said, "This sickness is not fatal. It will become an occasion to show God's glory by glorifying God's Son."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> but oddly, when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed on where he was for two more days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> After the two days, he said to his disciples, "Let's go back to Judea."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> They said, "Rabbi, you can't do that. The Jews are out to kill you, and you're going back?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Jesus replied, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in daylight doesn't stumble because there's plenty of light from the sun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Walking at night, he might very well stumble because he can't see where he's going."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He said these things, and then announced, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep. I'm going to wake him up."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The disciples said, "Master, if he's gone to sleep, he'll get a good rest and wake up feeling fine."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Jesus was talking about death, while his disciples thought he was talking about taking a nap.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Then Jesus became explicit: "Lazarus died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And I am glad for your sakes that I wasn't there. You're about to be given new grounds for believing. Now let's go to him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> That's when Thomas, the one called the Twin, said to his companions, "Come along. We might as well die with him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When Jesus finally got there, he found Lazarus already four days dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Bethany was near Jerusalem, only a couple of miles away,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> and many of the Jews were visiting Martha and Mary, sympathizing with them over their brother.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Martha heard Jesus was coming and went out to meet him. Mary remained in the house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Martha said, "Master, if you'd been here, my brother wouldn't have died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Even now, I know that whatever you ask God he will give you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Jesus said, "Your brother will be raised up."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Martha replied, "I know that he will be raised up in the resurrection at the end of time."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "You don't have to wait for the End. I am, right now, Resurrection and Life. The one who believes in me, even though he or she dies, will live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> And everyone who lives believing in me does not ultimately die at all. Do you believe this?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "Yes, Master. All along I have believed that you are the Messiah, the Son of God who comes into the world."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> After saying this, she went to her sister Mary and whispered in her ear, "The Teacher is here and is asking for you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The moment she heard that, she jumped up and ran out to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Jesus had not yet entered the town but was still at the place where Martha had met him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> When her sympathizing Jewish friends saw Mary run off, they followed her, thinking she was on her way to the tomb to weep there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Mary came to where Jesus was waiting and fell at his feet, saying, "Master, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> When Jesus saw her sobbing and the Jews with her sobbing, a deep anger welled up within him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> He said, "Where did you put him?" "Master, come and see," they said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Now Jesus wept.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> The Jews said, "Look how deeply he loved him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Others among them said, "Well, if he loved him so much, why didn't he do something to keep him from dying? After all, he opened the eyes of a blind man."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Then Jesus, the anger again welling up within him, arrived at the tomb. It was a simple cave in the hillside with a slab of stone laid against it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Jesus said, "Remove the stone." The sister of the dead man, Martha, said, "Master, by this time there's a stench. He's been dead four days!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Jesus looked her in the eye. "Didn't I tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Then, to the others, "Go ahead, take away the stone." They removed the stone. Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and prayed, "Father, I'm grateful that you have listened to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> I know you always do listen, but on account of this crowd standing here I've spoken so that they might believe that you sent me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Then he shouted, "Lazarus, come out!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> And he came out, a cadaver, wrapped from head to toe, and with a kerchief over his face. Jesus told them, "Unwrap him and let him loose."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> That was a turnaround for many of the Jews who were with Mary. They saw what Jesus did, and believed in him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> But some went back to the Pharisees and told on Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> The high priests and Pharisees called a meeting of the Jewish ruling body. "What do we do now?" they asked. "This man keeps on doing things, creating God-signs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> If we let him go on, pretty soon everyone will be believing in him and the Romans will come and remove what little power and privilege we still have."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> Then one of them--it was Caiaphas, the designated Chief Priest that year--spoke up, "Don't you know anything?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Can't you see that it's to our advantage that one man dies for the people rather than the whole nation be destroyed?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> He didn't say this of his own accord, but as Chief Priest that year he unwittingly prophesied that Jesus was about to die sacrificially for the nation,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> and not only for the nation but so that all God's exile-scattered children might be gathered together into one people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> From that day on, they plotted to kill him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> So Jesus no longer went out in public among the Jews. He withdrew into the country bordering the desert to a town called Ephraim and secluded himself there with his disciples.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> The Jewish Passover was coming up. Crowds of people were making their way from the country up to Jerusalem to get themselves ready for the Feast.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> They were curious about Jesus. There was a lot of talk of him among those standing around in the Temple: "What do you think? Do you think he'll show up at the Feast or not?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> Meanwhile, the high priests and Pharisees gave out the word that anyone getting wind of him should inform them. They were all set to arrest him.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Six days before Passover, Jesus entered Bethany where Lazarus, so recently raised from the dead, was living.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Lazarus and his sisters invited Jesus to dinner at their home. Martha served. Lazarus was one of those sitting at the table with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Mary came in with a jar of very expensive aromatic oils, anointed and massaged Jesus' feet, and then wiped them with her hair. The fragrance of the oils filled the house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, even then getting ready to betray him, said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Why wasn't this oil sold and the money given to the poor? It would have easily brought three hundred silver pieces."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He said this not because he cared two cents about the poor but because he was a thief. He was in charge of their common funds, but also embezzled them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Jesus said, "Let her alone. She's anticipating and honoring the day of my burial.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You always have the poor with you. You don't always have me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Word got out among the Jews that he was back in town. The people came to take a look, not only at Jesus but also at Lazarus, who had been raised from the dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So the high priests plotted to kill Lazarus</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> because so many of the Jews were going over and believing in Jesus on account of him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The next day the huge crowd that had arrived for the Feast heard that Jesus was entering Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They broke off palm branches and went out to meet him. And they cheered: Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in God's name! Yes! The King of Israel!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Jesus got a young donkey and rode it, just as the Scripture has it:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> No fear, Daughter Zion: See how your king comes, riding a donkey's colt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The disciples didn't notice the fulfillment of many Scriptures at the time, but after Jesus was glorified, they remembered that what was written about him matched what was done to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb, raising him from the dead, was there giving eyewitness accounts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> It was because they had spread the word of this latest God-sign that the crowd swelled to a welcoming parade.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The Pharisees took one look and threw up their hands: "It's out of control. The world's in a stampede after him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> There were some Greeks in town who had come up to worship at the Feast.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They approached Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee: "Sir, we want to see Jesus. Can you help us?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Philip went and told Andrew. Andrew and Philip together told Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Jesus answered, "Time's up. The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you'll have it forever, real and eternal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "If any of you wants to serve me, then follow me. Then you'll be where I am, ready to serve at a moment's notice. The Father will honor and reward anyone who serves me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "Right now I am storm-tossed. And what am I going to say? 'Father, get me out of this'? No, this is why I came in the first place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> I'll say, 'Father, put your glory on display.'" A voice came out of the sky: "I have glorified it, and I'll glorify it again."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The listening crowd said, "Thunder!" Others said, "An angel spoke to him!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Jesus said, "The voice didn't come for me but for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> At this moment the world is in crisis. Now Satan, the ruler of this world, will be thrown out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> And I, as I am lifted up from the earth, will attract everyone to me and gather them around me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> He put it this way to show how he was going to be put to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Voices from the crowd answered, "We heard from God's Law that the Messiah lasts forever. How can it be necessary, as you put it, that the Son of Man 'be lifted up'? Who is this 'Son of Man'?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Jesus said, "For a brief time still, the light is among you. Walk by the light you have so darkness doesn't destroy you. If you walk in darkness, you don't know where you're going.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> As you have the light, believe in the light. Then the light will be within you, and shining through your lives. You'll be children of light." Jesus said all this, and then went into hiding.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> All these God-signs he had given them and they still didn't get it, still wouldn't trust him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> This proved that the prophet Isaiah was right: God, who believed what we preached? Who recognized God's arm, outstretched and ready to act?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> First they wouldn't believe, then they couldn't--again, just as Isaiah said:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Their eyes are blinded, their hearts are hardened, So that they wouldn't see with their eyes and perceive with their hearts, And turn to me, God, so I could heal them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Isaiah said these things after he got a glimpse of God's cascading brightness that would pour through the Messiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> On the other hand, a considerable number from the ranks of the leaders did believe. But because of the Pharisees, they didn't come out in the open with it. They were afraid of getting kicked out of the meeting place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> When push came to shove they cared more for human approval than for God's glory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> Jesus summed it all up when he cried out, "Whoever believes in me, believes not just in me but in the One who sent me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> Whoever looks at me is looking, in fact, at the One who sent me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> I am Light that has come into the world so that all who believe in me won't have to stay any longer in the dark.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> "If anyone hears what I am saying and doesn't take it seriously, I don't reject him. I didn't come to reject the world;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> I came to save the world. But you need to know that whoever puts me off, refusing to take in what I'm saying, is willfully choosing rejection. The Word, the Word-made-flesh that I have spoken and that I am, that Word and no other is the last word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> I'm not making any of this up on my own. The Father who sent me gave me orders, told me what to say and how to say it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> And I know exactly what his command produces: real and eternal life. That's all I have to say. What the Father told me, I tell you."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Just before the Passover Feast, Jesus knew that the time had come to leave this world to go to the Father. Having loved his dear companions, he continued to love them right to the end.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> It was suppertime. The Devil by now had Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot, firmly in his grip, all set for the betrayal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Jesus knew that the Father had put him in complete charge of everything, that he came from God and was on his way back to God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> So he got up from the supper table, set aside his robe, and put on an apron.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the feet of the disciples, drying them with his apron.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When he got to Simon Peter, Peter said, "Master, you wash my feet?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Jesus answered, "You don't understand now what I'm doing, but it will be clear enough to you later."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Peter persisted, "You're not going to wash my feet--ever!" Jesus said, "If I don't wash you, you can't be part of what I'm doing."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "Master!" said Peter. "Not only my feet, then. Wash my hands! Wash my head!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Jesus said, "If you've had a bath in the morning, you only need your feet washed now and you're clean from head to toe. My concern, you understand, is holiness, not hygiene. So now you're clean. But not every one of you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> (He knew who was betraying him. That's why he said, "Not every one of you.")</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> After he had finished washing their feet, he took his robe, put it back on, and went back to his place at the table. Then he said, "Do you understand what I have done to you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You address me as 'Teacher' and 'Master,' and rightly so. That is what I am.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> So if I, the Master and Teacher, washed your feet, you must now wash each other's feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I've laid down a pattern for you. What I've done, you do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I'm only pointing out the obvious. A servant is not ranked above his master; an employee doesn't give orders to the employer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> If you understand what I'm telling you, act like it--and live a blessed life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "I'm not including all of you in this. I know precisely whom I've selected, so as not to interfere with the fulfillment of this Scripture: The one who ate bread at my table Turned on his heel against me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "I'm telling you all this ahead of time so that when it happens you will believe that I am who I say I am.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Make sure you get this right: Receiving someone I send is the same as receiving me, just as receiving me is the same as receiving the One who sent me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> After he said these things, Jesus became visibly upset, and then he told them why. "One of you is going to betray me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The disciples looked around at one another, wondering who on earth he was talking about.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> One of the disciples, the one Jesus loved dearly, was reclining against him, his head on his shoulder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Peter motioned to him to ask who Jesus might be talking about.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> So, being the closest, he said, "Master, who?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Jesus said, "The one to whom I give this crust of bread after I've dipped it." Then he dipped the crust and gave it to Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> As soon as the bread was in his hand, Satan entered him. "What you must do," said Jesus, "do. Do it and get it over with."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> No one around the supper table knew why he said this to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Some thought that since Judas was their treasurer, Jesus was telling him to buy what they needed for the Feast, or that he should give something to the poor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Judas, with the piece of bread, left. It was night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> When he had left, Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man is seen for who he is, and God seen for who he is in him. The moment God is seen in him,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> God's glory will be on display. In glorifying him, he himself is glorified--glory all around!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "Children, I am with you for only a short time longer. You are going to look high and low for me. But just as I told the Jews, I'm telling you: 'Where I go, you are not able to come.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples--when they see the love you have for each other."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Simon Peter asked, "Master, just where are you going?" Jesus answered, "You can't now follow me where I'm going. You will follow later."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> "Master," said Peter, "why can't I follow now? I'll lay down my life for you!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> "Really? You'll lay down your life for me? The truth is that before the rooster crows, you'll deny me three times."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "Don't let this throw you. You trust God, don't you? Trust me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> There is plenty of room for you in my Father's home. If that weren't so, would I have told you that I'm on my way to get a room ready for you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And if I'm on my way to get your room ready, I'll come back and get you so you can live where I live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> And you already know the road I'm taking."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Thomas said, "Master, we have no idea where you're going. How do you expect us to know the road?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Jesus said, "I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him. You've even seen him!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Philip said, "Master, show us the Father; then we'll be content."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "You've been with me all this time, Philip, and you still don't understand? To see me is to see the Father. So how can you ask, 'Where is the Father?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Don't you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you aren't mere words. I don't just make them up on my own. The Father who resides in me crafts each word into a divine act.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Believe me: I am in my Father and my Father is in me. If you can't believe that, believe what you see--these works.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The person who trusts me will not only do what I'm doing but even greater things, because I, on my way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I've been doing. You can count on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> From now on, whatever you request along the lines of who I am and what I am doing, I'll do it. That's how the Father will be seen for who he is in the Son. I mean it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Whatever you request in this way, I'll do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "If you love me, show it by doing what I've told you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I will talk to the Father, and he'll provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> This Friend is the Spirit of Truth. The godless world can't take him in because it doesn't have eyes to see him, doesn't know what to look for. But you know him already because he has been staying with you, and will even be in you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "I will not leave you orphaned. I'm coming back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> In just a little while the world will no longer see me, but you're going to see me because I am alive and you're about to come alive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> At that moment you will know absolutely that I'm in my Father, and you're in me, and I'm in you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "The person who knows my commandments and keeps them, that's who loves me. And the person who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and make myself plain to him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Judas (not Iscariot) said, "Master, why is it that you are about to make yourself plain to us but not to the world?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "Because a loveless world," said Jesus, "is a sightless world. If anyone loves me, he will carefully keep my word and my Father will love him--we'll move right into the neighborhood!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Not loving me means not keeping my words. The message you are hearing isn't mine. It's the message of the Father who sent me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "I'm telling you these things while I'm still living with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The Friend, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send at my request, will make everything plain to you. He will remind you of all the things I have told you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> I'm leaving you well and whole. That's my parting gift to you. Peace. I don't leave you the way you're used to being left--feeling abandoned, bereft. So don't be upset. Don't be distraught.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "You've heard me tell you, 'I'm going away, and I'm coming back.' If you loved me, you would be glad that I'm on my way to the Father because the Father is the goal and purpose of my life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "I've told you this ahead of time, before it happens, so that when it does happen, the confirmation will deepen your belief in me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> I'll not be talking with you much more like this because the chief of this godless world is about to attack. But don't worry--he has nothing on me, no claim on me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> But so the world might know how thoroughly I love the Father, I am carrying out my Father's instructions right down to the last detail. "Get up. Let's go. It's time to leave here.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He cuts off every branch of me that doesn't bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You are already pruned back by the message I have spoken.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can't bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can't bear fruit unless you are joined with me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you're joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can't produce a thing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> This is how my Father shows who he is--when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "I've loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> If you keep my commands, you'll remain intimately at home in my love. That's what I've done--kept my Father's commands and made myself at home in his love.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "I've told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> You are my friends when you do the things I command you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I'm no longer calling you servants because servants don't understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I've named you friends because I've let you in on everything I've heard from the Father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "You didn't choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won't spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask the Father in relation to me, he gives you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "But remember the root command: Love one another.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "If you find the godless world is hating you, remember it got its start hating me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> If you lived on the world's terms, the world would love you as one of its own. But since I picked you to live on God's terms and no longer on the world's terms, the world is going to hate you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "When that happens, remember this: Servants don't get better treatment than their masters. If they beat on me, they will certainly beat on you. If they did what I told them, they will do what you tell them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "They are going to do all these things to you because of the way they treated me, because they don't know the One who sent me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> If I hadn't come and told them all this in plain language, it wouldn't be so bad. As it is, they have no excuse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Hate me, hate my Father--it's all the same.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> If I hadn't done what I have done among them, works no one has ever done, they wouldn't be to blame. But they saw the God-signs and hated anyway, both me and my Father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Interesting--they have verified the truth of their own Scriptures where it is written, 'They hated me for no good reason.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "When the Friend I plan to send you from the Father comes--the Spirit of Truth issuing from the Father--he will confirm everything about me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> You, too, from your side must give your confirming evidence, since you are in this with me from the start.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "I've told you these things to prepare you for rough times ahead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They are going to throw you out of the meeting places. There will even come a time when anyone who kills you will think he's doing God a favor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They will do these things because they never really understood the Father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I've told you these things so that when the time comes and they start in on you, you'll be well-warned and ready for them. "I didn't tell you this earlier because I was with you every day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But now I am on my way to the One who sent me. Not one of you has asked, 'Where are you going?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Instead, the longer I've talked, the sadder you've become.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So let me say it again, this truth: It's better for you that I leave. If I don't leave, the Friend won't come. But if I go, I'll send him to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "When he comes, he'll expose the error of the godless world's view of sin, righteousness, and judgment:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He'll show them that their refusal to believe in me is their basic sin;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> that righteousness comes from above, where I am with the Father, out of their sight and control;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> that judgment takes place as the ruler of this godless world is brought to trial and convicted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "I still have many things to tell you, but you can't handle them now.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But when the Friend comes, the Spirit of the Truth, he will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is. He won't draw attention to himself, but will make sense out of what is about to happen and, indeed, out of all that I have done and said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He will honor me; he will take from me and deliver it to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Everything the Father has is also mine. That is why I've said, 'He takes from me and delivers to you.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "In a day or so you're not going to see me, but then in another day or so you will see me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> That stirred up a hornet's nest of questions among the disciples: "What's he talking about: 'In a day or so you're not going to see me, but then in another day or so you will see me'? And, 'Because I'm on my way to the Father'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> What is this 'day or so'? We don't know what he's talking about."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Jesus knew they were dying to ask him what he meant, so he said, "Are you trying to figure out among yourselves what I meant when I said, 'In a day or so you're not going to see me, but then in another day or so you will see me'?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Then fix this firmly in your minds: You're going to be in deep mourning while the godless world throws a party. You'll be sad, very sad, but your sadness will develop into gladness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "When a woman gives birth, she has a hard time, there's no getting around it. But when the baby is born, there is joy in the birth. This new life in the world wipes out memory of the pain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The sadness you have right now is similar to that pain, but the coming joy is also similar. When I see you again, you'll be full of joy, and it will be a joy no one can rob from you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> You'll no longer be so full of questions. "This is what I want you to do: Ask the Father for whatever is in keeping with the things I've revealed to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Ask in my name, according to my will, and he'll most certainly give it to you. Your joy will be a river overflowing its banks!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "I've used figures of speech in telling you these things. Soon I'll drop the figures and tell you about the Father in plain language.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Then you can make your requests directly to him in relation to this life I've revealed to you. I won't continue making requests of the Father on your behalf.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> I won't need to. Because you've gone out on a limb, committed yourselves to love and trust in me, believing I came directly from the Father, the Father loves you directly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> First, I left the Father and arrived in the world; now I leave the world and travel to the Father."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> His disciples said, "Finally! You're giving it to us straight, in plain talk--no more figures of speech.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Now we know that you know everything--it all comes together in you. You won't have to put up with our questions anymore. We're convinced you came from God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Jesus answered them, "Do you finally believe?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> In fact, you're about to make a run for it--saving your own skins and abandoning me. But I'm not abandoned. The Father is with me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> I've told you all this so that trusting me, you will be unshakable and assured, deeply at peace. In this godless world you will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I've conquered the world."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="17">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Jesus said these things. Then, raising his eyes in prayer, he said: Father, it's time. Display the bright splendor of your Son So the Son in turn may show your bright splendor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> You put him in charge of everything human So he might give real and eternal life to all in his charge.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And this is the real and eternal life: That they know you, The one and only true God, And Jesus Christ, whom you sent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I glorified you on earth By completing down to the last detail What you assigned me to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And now, Father, glorify me with your very own splendor, The very splendor I had in your presence Before there was a world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I spelled out your character in detail To the men and women you gave me. They were yours in the first place; Then you gave them to me, And they have now done what you said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They know now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, That everything you gave me is firsthand from you,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> For the message you gave me, I gave them; And they took it, and were convinced That I came from you. They believed that you sent me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I pray for them. I'm not praying for the God-rejecting world But for those you gave me, For they are yours by right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Everything mine is yours, and yours mine, And my life is on display in them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> For I'm no longer going to be visible in the world; They'll continue in the world While I return to you. Holy Father, guard them as they pursue this life That you conferred as a gift through me, So they can be one heart and mind</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> As we are one heart and mind. As long as I was with them, I guarded them In the pursuit of the life you gave through me; I even posted a night watch. And not one of them got away, Except for the rebel bent on destruction (the exception that proved the rule of Scripture).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Now I'm returning to you. I'm saying these things in the world's hearing So my people can experience My joy completed in them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I gave them your word; The godless world hated them because of it, Because they didn't join the world's ways,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Just as I didn't join the world's ways. I'm not asking that you take them out of the world But that you guard them from the Evil One.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They are no more defined by the world Than I am defined by the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Make them holy--consecrated--with the truth; Your word is consecrating truth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> In the same way that you gave me a mission in the world, I give them a mission in the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I'm consecrating myself for their sakes So they'll be truth-consecrated in their mission.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> I'm praying not only for them But also for those who will believe in me Because of them and their witness about me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind-- Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, So they might be one heart and mind with us. Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The same glory you gave me, I gave them, So they'll be as unified and together as we are--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> I in them and you in me. Then they'll be mature in this oneness, And give the godless world evidence That you've sent me and loved them In the same way you've loved me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Father, I want those you gave me To be with me, right where I am, So they can see my glory, the splendor you gave me, Having loved me Long before there ever was a world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Righteous Father, the world has never known you, But I have known you, and these disciples know That you sent me on this mission.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> I have made your very being known to them-- Who you are and what you do-- And continue to make it known, So that your love for me Might be in them Exactly as I am in them.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="18">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Jesus, having prayed this prayer, left with his disciples and crossed over the brook Kidron at a place where there was a garden. He and his disciples entered it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Judas, his betrayer, knew the place because Jesus and his disciples went there often.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> So Judas led the way to the garden, and the Roman soldiers and police sent by the high priests and Pharisees followed. They arrived there with lanterns and torches and swords.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Jesus, knowing by now everything that was coming down on him, went out and met them. He said, "Who are you after?" They answered, "Jesus the Nazarene."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He said, "That's me." The soldiers recoiled, totally taken aback. Judas, his betrayer, stood out like a sore thumb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> (SEE 18:5)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Jesus asked again, "Who are you after?" They answered, "Jesus the Nazarene."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "I told you," said Jesus, "that's me. I'm the one. So if it's me you're after, let these others go."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> (This validated the words in his prayer, "I didn't lose one of those you gave.")</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Just then Simon Peter, who was carrying a sword, pulled it from its sheath and struck the Chief Priest's servant, cutting off his right ear. Malchus was the servant's name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Jesus ordered Peter, "Put back your sword. Do you think for a minute I'm not going to drink this cup the Father gave me?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Then the Roman soldiers under their commander, joined by the Jewish police, seized Jesus and tied him up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They took him first to Annas, father-in-law of Caiaphas. Caiaphas was the Chief Priest that year.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> It was Caiaphas who had advised the Jews that it was to their advantage that one man die for the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus. That other disciple was known to the Chief Priest, and so he went in with Jesus to the Chief Priest's courtyard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Peter had to stay outside. Then the other disciple went out, spoke to the doorkeeper, and got Peter in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The young woman who was the doorkeeper said to Peter, "Aren't you one of this man's disciples?" He said, "No, I'm not."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The servants and police had made a fire because of the cold and were huddled there warming themselves. Peter stood with them, trying to get warm.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Annas interrogated Jesus regarding his disciples and his teaching.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Jesus answered, "I've spoken openly in public. I've taught regularly in meeting places and the Temple, where the Jews all come together. Everything has been out in the open. I've said nothing in secret.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> So why are you treating me like a conspirator? Question those who have been listening to me. They know well what I have said. My teachings have all been aboveboard."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> When he said this, one of the policemen standing there slapped Jesus across the face, saying, "How dare you speak to the Chief Priest like that!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Jesus replied, "If I've said something wrong, prove it. But if I've spoken the plain truth, why this slapping around?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Then Annas sent him, still tied up, to the Chief Priest Caiaphas.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Meanwhile, Simon Peter was back at the fire, still trying to get warm. The others there said to him, "Aren't you one of his disciples?" He denied it, "Not me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> One of the Chief Priest's servants, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, said, "Didn't I see you in the garden with him?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Again, Peter denied it. Just then a rooster crowed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> They led Jesus then from Caiaphas to the Roman governor's palace. It was early morning. They themselves didn't enter the palace because they didn't want to be disqualified from eating the Passover.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> So Pilate came out to them and spoke. "What charge do you bring against this man?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> They said, "If he hadn't been doing something evil, do you think we'd be here bothering you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Pilate said, "You take him. Judge him by your law." The Jews said, "We're not allowed to kill anyone."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> (This would confirm Jesus' word indicating the way he would die.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Pilate went back into the palace and called for Jesus. He said, "Are you the 'King of the Jews'?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Jesus answered, "Are you saying this on your own, or did others tell you this about me?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Pilate said, "Do I look like a Jew? Your people and your high priests turned you over to me. What did you do?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> "My kingdom," said Jesus, "doesn't consist of what you see around you. If it did, my followers would fight so that I wouldn't be handed over to the Jews. But I'm not that kind of king, not the world's kind of king."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Then Pilate said, "So, are you a king or not?" Jesus answered, "You tell me. Because I am King, I was born and entered the world so that I could witness to the truth. Everyone who cares for truth, who has any feeling for the truth, recognizes my voice."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Pilate said, "What is truth?" Then he went back out to the Jews and told them, "I find nothing wrong in this man.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> It's your custom that I pardon one prisoner at Passover. Do you want me to pardon the 'King of the Jews'?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> They shouted back, "Not this one, but Barabbas!" Barabbas was a Jewish freedom fighter.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="19">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> So Pilate took Jesus and had him whipped.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The soldiers, having braided a crown from thorns, set it on his head, threw a purple robe over him,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> and approached him with, "Hail, King of the Jews!" Then they greeted him with slaps in the face.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Pilate went back out again and said to them, "I present him to you, but I want you to know that I do not find him guilty of any crime."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Just then Jesus came out wearing the thorn crown and purple robe. Pilate announced, "Here he is: the Man."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When the high priests and police saw him, they shouted in a frenzy, "Crucify! Crucify!" Pilate told them, "You take him. You crucify him. I find nothing wrong with him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The Jews answered, "We have a law, and by that law he must die because he claimed to be the Son of God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> When Pilate heard this, he became even more scared.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He went back into the palace and said to Jesus, "Where did you come from?" Jesus gave no answer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Pilate said, "You won't talk? Don't you know that I have the authority to pardon you, and the authority to--crucify you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Jesus said, "You haven't a shred of authority over me except what has been given you from heaven. That's why the one who betrayed me to you has committed a far greater fault."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> At this, Pilate tried his best to pardon him, but the Jews shouted him down: "If you pardon this man, you're no friend of Caesar's. Anyone setting himself up as 'king' defies Caesar."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> When Pilate heard those words, he led Jesus outside. He sat down at the judgment seat in the area designated Stone Court (in Hebrew, Gabbatha).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> It was the preparation day for Passover. The hour was noon. Pilate said to the Jews, "Here is your king."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They shouted back, "Kill him! Kill him! Crucify him!" Pilate said, "I am to crucify your king?" The high priests answered, "We have no king except Caesar."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Pilate caved in to their demand. He turned him over to be crucified. They took Jesus away.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Carrying his cross, Jesus went out to the place called Skull Hill (the name in Hebrew is Golgotha),</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> where they crucified him, and with him two others, one on each side, Jesus in the middle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Pilate wrote a sign and had it placed on the cross. It read: JESUS THE NAZARENE THE KING OF THE JEWS.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Many of the Jews read the sign because the place where Jesus was crucified was right next to the city. It was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The Jewish high priests objected. "Don't write," they said to Pilate, "'The King of the Jews.' Make it, 'This man said, "I am the King of the Jews."'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Pilate said, "What I've written, I've written."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> When they crucified him, the Roman soldiers took his clothes and divided them up four ways, to each soldier a fourth. But his robe was seamless, a single piece of weaving,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> so they said to each other, "Let's not tear it up. Let's throw dice to see who gets it." This confirmed the Scripture that said, "They divided up my clothes among them and threw dice for my coat." (The soldiers validated the Scriptures!) While the soldiers were looking after themselves,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Jesus' mother, his aunt, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene stood at the foot of the cross.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Jesus saw his mother and the disciple he loved standing near her. He said to his mother, "Woman, here is your son."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Then to the disciple, "Here is your mother." From that moment the disciple accepted her as his own mother.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Jesus, seeing that everything had been completed so that the Scripture record might also be complete, then said, "I'm thirsty."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> A jug of sour wine was standing by. Someone put a sponge soaked with the wine on a javelin and lifted it to his mouth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> After he took the wine, Jesus said, "It's done . . . complete." Bowing his head, he offered up his spirit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Then the Jews, since it was the day of Sabbath preparation, and so the bodies wouldn't stay on the crosses over the Sabbath (it was a high holy day that year), petitioned Pilate that their legs be broken to speed death, and the bodies taken down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man crucified with Jesus, and then the other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> When they got to Jesus, they saw that he was already dead, so they didn't break his legs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> One of the soldiers stabbed him in the side with his spear. Blood and water gushed out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> The eyewitness to these things has presented an accurate report. He saw it himself and is telling the truth so that you, also, will believe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> These things that happened confirmed the Scripture, "Not a bone in his body was broken,"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> and the other Scripture that reads, "They will stare at the one they pierced."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> After all this, Joseph of Arimathea (he was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, because he was intimidated by the Jews) petitioned Pilate to take the body of Jesus. Pilate gave permission. So Joseph came and took the body.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Nicodemus, who had first come to Jesus at night, came now in broad daylight carrying a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> They took Jesus' body and, following the Jewish burial custom, wrapped it in linen with the spices.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> There was a garden near the place he was crucified, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been placed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> So, because it was Sabbath preparation for the Jews and the tomb was convenient, they placed Jesus in it.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="20">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone was moved away from the entrance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> She ran at once to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, breathlessly panting, "They took the Master from the tomb. We don't know where they've put him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Peter and the other disciple left immediately for the tomb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They ran, neck and neck. The other disciple got to the tomb first, outrunning Peter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Stooping to look in, he saw the pieces of linen cloth lying there, but he didn't go in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Simon Peter arrived after him, entered the tomb, observed the linen cloths lying there,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> and the kerchief used to cover his head not lying with the linen cloths but separate, neatly folded by itself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then the other disciple, the one who had gotten there first, went into the tomb, took one look at the evidence, and believed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> No one yet knew from the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The disciples then went back home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she knelt to look into the tomb</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> and saw two angels sitting there, dressed in white, one at the head, the other at the foot of where Jesus' body had been laid.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They said to her, "Woman, why do you weep?" "They took my Master," she said, "and I don't know where they put him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> After she said this, she turned away and saw Jesus standing there. But she didn't recognize him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Jesus spoke to her, "Woman, why do you weep? Who are you looking for?" She, thinking that he was the gardener, said, "Mister, if you took him, tell me where you put him so I can care for him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Jesus said, "Mary." Turning to face him, she said in Hebrew, "Rabboni!" meaning "Teacher!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Jesus said, "Don't cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go to my brothers and tell them, 'I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Mary Magdalene went, telling the news to the disciples: "I saw the Master!" And she told them everything he said to her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Later on that day, the disciples had gathered together, but, fearful of the Jews, had locked all the doors in the house. Jesus entered, stood among them, and said, "Peace to you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Then he showed them his hands and side. The disciples, seeing the Master with their own eyes, were exuberant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Jesus repeated his greeting: "Peace to you. Just as the Father sent me, I send you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Then he took a deep breath and breathed into them. "Receive the Holy Spirit," he said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "If you forgive someone's sins, they're gone for good. If you don't forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> But Thomas, sometimes called the Twin, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The other disciples told him, "We saw the Master." But he said, "Unless I see the nail holes in his hands, put my finger in the nail holes, and stick my hand in his side, I won't believe it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Eight days later, his disciples were again in the room. This time Thomas was with them. Jesus came through the locked doors, stood among them, and said, "Peace to you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Then he focused his attention on Thomas. "Take your finger and examine my hands. Take your hand and stick it in my side. Don't be unbelieving. Believe."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Thomas said, "My Master! My God!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Jesus said, "So, you believe because you've seen with your own eyes. Even better blessings are in store for those who believe without seeing."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Jesus provided far more God-revealing signs than are written down in this book.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> These are written down so you will believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and in the act of believing, have real and eternal life in the way he personally revealed it.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="21">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> After this, Jesus appeared again to the disciples, this time at the Tiberias Sea (the Sea of Galilee). This is how he did it:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Simon Peter, Thomas (nicknamed "Twin"), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the brothers Zebedee, and two other disciples were together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Simon Peter announced, "I'm going fishing." The rest of them replied, "We're going with you." They went out and got in the boat. They caught nothing that night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When the sun came up, Jesus was standing on the beach, but they didn't recognize him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Jesus spoke to them: "Good morning! Did you catch anything for breakfast?" They answered, "No."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He said, "Throw the net off the right side of the boat and see what happens." They did what he said. All of a sudden there were so many fish in it, they weren't strong enough to pull it in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Then the disciple Jesus loved said to Peter, "It's the Master!" When Simon Peter realized that it was the Master, he threw on some clothes, for he was stripped for work, and dove into the sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The other disciples came in by boat for they weren't far from land, a hundred yards or so, pulling along the net full of fish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When they got out of the boat, they saw a fire laid, with fish and bread cooking on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Jesus said, "Bring some of the fish you've just caught."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Simon Peter joined them and pulled the net to shore--153 big fish! And even with all those fish, the net didn't rip.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Jesus said, "Breakfast is ready." Not one of the disciples dared ask, "Who are you?" They knew it was the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Jesus then took the bread and gave it to them. He did the same with the fish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> This was now the third time Jesus had shown himself alive to the disciples since being raised from the dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> After breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" "Yes, Master, you know I love you." Jesus said, "Feed my lambs."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He then asked a second time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" "Yes, Master, you know I love you." Jesus said, "Shepherd my sheep."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then he said it a third time: "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" Peter was upset that he asked for the third time, "Do you love me?" so he answered, "Master, you know everything there is to know. You've got to know that I love you." Jesus said, "Feed my sheep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I'm telling you the very truth now: When you were young you dressed yourself and went wherever you wished, but when you get old you'll have to stretch out your hands while someone else dresses you and takes you where you don't want to go."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He said this to hint at the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. And then he commanded, "Follow me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Turning his head, Peter noticed the disciple Jesus loved following right behind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> When Peter noticed him, he asked Jesus, "Master, what's going to happen to him?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Jesus said, "If I want him to live until I come again, what's that to you? You--follow me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> That is how the rumor got out among the brothers that this disciple wouldn't die. But that is not what Jesus said. He simply said, "If I want him to live until I come again, what's that to you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> This is the same disciple who was eyewitness to all these things and wrote them down. And we all know that his eyewitness account is reliable and accurate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> There are so many other things Jesus did. If they were all written down, each of them, one by one, I can't imagine a world big enough to hold such a library of books.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="44" bname="Acts">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Dear Theophilus, in the first volume of this book I wrote on everything that Jesus began to do and teach</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> until the day he said good-bye to the apostles, the ones he had chosen through the Holy Spirit, and was taken up to heaven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> After his death, he presented himself alive to them in many different settings over a period of forty days. In face-to-face meetings, he talked to them about things concerning the kingdom of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> As they met and ate meals together, he told them that they were on no account to leave Jerusalem but "must wait for what the Father promised: the promise you heard from me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> John baptized in water; you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit. And soon."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When they were together for the last time they asked, "Master, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now? Is this the time?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He told them, "You don't get to know the time. Timing is the Father's business.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> What you'll get is the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> These were his last words. As they watched, he was taken up and disappeared in a cloud.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They stood there, staring into the empty sky. Suddenly two men appeared--in white robes!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They said, "You Galileans!--why do you just stand here looking up at an empty sky? This very Jesus who was taken up from among you to heaven will come as certainly--and mysteriously--as he left."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> So they left the mountain called Olives and returned to Jerusalem. It was a little over half a mile.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They went to the upper room they had been using as a meeting place: Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James, son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, Judas, son of James.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They agreed they were in this for good, completely together in prayer, the women included. Also Jesus' mother, Mary, and his brothers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> During this time, Peter stood up in the company--there were about one hundred twenty of them in the room at the time--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> and said, "Friends, long ago the Holy Spirit spoke through David regarding Judas, who became the guide to those who arrested Jesus. That Scripture had to be fulfilled, and now has been.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Judas was one of us and had his assigned place in this ministry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "As you know, he took the evil bribe money and bought a small farm. There he came to a bad end, rupturing his belly and spilling his guts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Everybody in Jerusalem knows this by now; they call the place Murder Meadow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> It's exactly what we find written in the Psalms: Let his farm become haunted So no one can ever live there. "And also what was written later: Let someone else take over his post.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Judas must now be replaced. The replacement must come from the company of men who stayed together with us</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> from the time Jesus was baptized by John up to the day of his ascension, designated along with us as a witness to his resurrection."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They nominated two: Joseph Barsabbas, nicknamed Justus, and Matthias.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Then they prayed, "You, O God, know every one of us inside and out. Make plain which of these two men you choose</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> to take the place in this ministry and leadership that Judas threw away in order to go his own way."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> They then drew straws. Matthias won and was counted in with the eleven apostles.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When the Feast of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Without warning there was a sound like a strong wind, gale force--no one could tell where it came from. It filled the whole building.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then, like a wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> and they started speaking in a number of different languages as the Spirit prompted them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> There were many Jews staying in Jerusalem just then, devout pilgrims from all over the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When they heard the sound, they came on the run. Then when they heard, one after another, their own mother tongues being spoken, they were thunderstruck.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They couldn't for the life of them figure out what was going on, and kept saying, "Aren't these all Galileans?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> How come we're hearing them talk in our various mother tongues?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Parthians, Medes, and Elamites; Visitors from Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene; Immigrants from Rome,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> both Jews and proselytes; Even Cretans and Arabs! "They're speaking our languages, describing God's mighty works!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Their heads were spinning; they couldn't make head or tail of any of it. They talked back and forth, confused: "What's going on here?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Others joked, "They're drunk on cheap wine."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> That's when Peter stood up and, backed by the other eleven, spoke out with bold urgency: "Fellow Jews, all of you who are visiting Jerusalem, listen carefully and get this story straight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> These people aren't drunk as some of you suspect. They haven't had time to get drunk--it's only nine o'clock in the morning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> This is what the prophet Joel announced would happen:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "In the Last Days," God says, "I will pour out my Spirit on every kind of people: Your sons will prophesy, also your daughters; Your young men will see visions, your old men dream dreams.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When the time comes, I'll pour out my Spirit On those who serve me, men and women both, and they'll prophesy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I'll set wonders in the sky above and signs on the earth below, Blood and fire and billowing smoke,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> the sun turning black and the moon blood-red, Before the Day of the Lord arrives, the Day tremendous and marvelous;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And whoever calls out for help to me, God, will be saved."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Fellow Israelites, listen carefully to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man thoroughly accredited by God to you--the miracles and wonders and signs that God did through him are common knowledge--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> this Jesus, following the deliberate and well-thought-out plan of God, was betrayed by men who took the law into their own hands, and was handed over to you. And you pinned him to a cross and killed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> But God untied the death ropes and raised him up. Death was no match for him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> David said it all: I saw God before me for all time. Nothing can shake me; he's right by my side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> I'm glad from the inside out, ecstatic; I've pitched my tent in the land of hope.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> I know you'll never dump me in Hades; I'll never even smell the stench of death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> You've got my feet on the life-path, with your face shining sun-joy all around.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "Dear friends, let me be completely frank with you. Our ancestor David is dead and buried--his tomb is in plain sight today.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> But being also a prophet and knowing that God had solemnly sworn that a descendant of his would rule his kingdom,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> seeing far ahead, he talked of the resurrection of the Messiah--'no trip to Hades, no stench of death.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> This Jesus, God raised up. And every one of us here is a witness to it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Then, raised to the heights at the right hand of God and receiving the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father, he poured out the Spirit he had just received. That is what you see and hear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> For David himself did not ascend to heaven, but he did say, God said to my Master, "Sit at my right hand</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Until I make your enemies a stool for resting your feet."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> "All Israel, then, know this: There's no longer room for doubt--God made him Master and Messiah, this Jesus whom you killed on a cross."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Cut to the quick, those who were there listening asked Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers! Brothers! So now what do we do?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Peter said, "Change your life. Turn to God and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, so your sins are forgiven. Receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> The promise is targeted to you and your children, but also to all who are far away--whomever, in fact, our Master God invites."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> He went on in this vein for a long time, urging them over and over, "Get out while you can; get out of this sick and stupid culture!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> That day about three thousand took him at his word, were baptized and were signed up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> They committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Everyone around was in awe--all those wonders and signs done through the apostles!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person's need was met.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> One day at three o'clock in the afternoon, Peter and John were on their way into the Temple for prayer meeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> At the same time there was a man crippled from birth being carried up. Every day he was set down at the Temple gate, the one named Beautiful, to beg from those going into the Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When he saw Peter and John about to enter the Temple, he asked for a handout.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Peter, with John at his side, looked him straight in the eye and said, "Look here."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He looked up, expecting to get something from them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Peter said, "I don't have a nickel to my name, but what I do have, I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He grabbed him by the right hand and pulled him up. In an instant his feet and ankles became firm.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He jumped to his feet and walked. The man went into the Temple with them, walking back and forth, dancing and praising God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Everybody there saw him walking around and praising God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They recognized him as the one who sat begging at the Temple's Gate Beautiful and rubbed their eyes, astonished, scarcely believing what they were seeing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The man threw his arms around Peter and John, ecstatic. All the people ran up to where they were at Solomon's Porch to see it for themselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When Peter saw he had a congregation, he addressed the people: "Oh, Israelites, why does this take you by such complete surprise, and why stare at us as if our power or piety made him walk?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God of our ancestors, has glorified his Son Jesus. The very One that Pilate called innocent, you repudiated.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> You repudiated the Holy One, the Just One, and asked for a murderer in his place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> You no sooner killed the Author of Life than God raised him from the dead--and we're the witnesses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Faith in Jesus' name put this man, whose condition you know so well, on his feet--yes, faith and nothing but faith put this man healed and whole right before your eyes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "And now, friends, I know you had no idea what you were doing when you killed Jesus, and neither did your leaders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But God, who through the preaching of all the prophets had said all along that his Messiah would be killed, knew exactly what you were doing and used it to fulfill his plans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "Now it's time to change your ways! Turn to face God so he can wipe away your sins, pour out showers of blessing to refresh you,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> and send you the Messiah he prepared for you, namely, Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> For the time being he must remain out of sight in heaven until everything is restored to order again just the way God, through the preaching of his holy prophets of old, said it would be.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Moses, for instance, said, 'Your God will raise up for you a prophet just like me from your family. Listen to every word he speaks to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Every last living soul who refuses to listen to that prophet will be wiped out from the people.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "All the prophets from Samuel on down said the same thing, said most emphatically that these days would come.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> These prophets, along with the covenant God made with your ancestors, are your family tree. God's covenant-word to Abraham provides the text: 'By your offspring all the families of the earth will be blessed.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> But you are first in line: God, having raised up his Son, sent him to bless you as you turn, one by one, from your evil ways."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> While Peter and John were addressing the people, the priests, the chief of the Temple police, and some Sadducees came up,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> indignant that these upstart apostles were instructing the people and proclaiming that the resurrection from the dead had taken place in Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They arrested them and threw them in jail until morning, for by now it was late in the evening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But many of those who listened had already believed the Message--in round numbers about five thousand!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The next day a meeting was called in Jerusalem. The rulers, religious leaders, religion scholars,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Annas the Chief Priest, Caiaphas, John, Alexander--everybody who was anybody was there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They stood Peter and John in the middle of the room and grilled them: "Who put you in charge here? What business do you have doing this?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> With that, Peter, full of the Holy Spirit, let loose: "Rulers and leaders of the people,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> if we have been brought to trial today for helping a sick man, put under investigation regarding this healing,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I'll be completely frank with you--we have nothing to hide. By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the One you killed on a cross, the One God raised from the dead, by means of his name this man stands before you healthy and whole.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Jesus is 'the stone you masons threw out, which is now the cornerstone.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Salvation comes no other way; no other name has been or will be given to us by which we can be saved, only this one."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They couldn't take their eyes off them--Peter and John standing there so confident, so sure of themselves! Their fascination deepened when they realized these two were laymen with no training in Scripture or formal education. They recognized them as companions of Jesus,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> but with the man right before them, seeing him standing there so upright--so healed!--what could they say against that?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They sent them out of the room so they could work out a plan. They talked it over:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "What can we do with these men? By now it's known all over town that a miracle has occurred, and that they are behind it. There is no way we can refute that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But so that it doesn't go any further, let's silence them with threats so they won't dare to use Jesus' name ever again with anyone."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They called them back and warned them that they were on no account ever again to speak or teach in the name of Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But Peter and John spoke right back, "Whether it's right in God's eyes to listen to you rather than to God, you decide.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> As for us, there's no question--we can't keep quiet about what we've seen and heard."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The religious leaders renewed their threats, but then released them. They couldn't come up with a charge that would stick, that would keep them in jail. The people wouldn't have stood for it--they were all praising God over what had happened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The man who had been miraculously healed was over forty years old.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> As soon as Peter and John were let go, they went to their friends and told them what the high priests and religious leaders had said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Hearing the report, they lifted their voices in a wonderful harmony in prayer: "Strong God, you made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> By the Holy Spirit you spoke through the mouth of your servant and our father, David: Why the big noise, nations? Why the mean plots, peoples?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Earth's leaders push for position, Potentates meet for summit talks, The God-deniers, the Messiah-defiers!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "For in fact they did meet--Herod and Pontius Pilate with nations and peoples, even Israel itself!--met in this very city to plot against your holy Son Jesus, the One you made Messiah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> to carry out the plans you long ago set in motion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "And now they're at it again! Take care of their threats and give your servants fearless confidence in preaching your Message,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> as you stretch out your hand to us in healings and miracles and wonders done in the name of your holy servant Jesus."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> While they were praying, the place where they were meeting trembled and shook. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak God's Word with fearless confidence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The whole congregation of believers was united as one--one heart, one mind! They didn't even claim ownership of their own possessions. No one said, "That's mine; you can't have it." They shared everything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> The apostles gave powerful witness to the resurrection of the Master Jesus, and grace was on all of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> And so it turned out that not a person among them was needy. Those who owned fields or houses sold them and brought the price of the sale</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> to the apostles and made an offering of it. The apostles then distributed it according to each person's need.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Joseph, called by the apostles "Barnabas" (which means "Son of Comfort"), a Levite born in Cyprus,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> sold a field that he owned, brought the money, and made an offering of it to the apostles.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> But a man named Ananias--his wife, Sapphira, conniving in this with him--sold a piece of land,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> secretly kept part of the price for himself, and then brought the rest to the apostles and made an offering of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Peter said, "Ananias, how did Satan get you to lie to the Holy Spirit and secretly keep back part of the price of the field?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Before you sold it, it was all yours, and after you sold it, the money was yours to do with as you wished. So what got into you to pull a trick like this? You didn't lie to men but to God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Ananias, when he heard those words, fell down dead. That put the fear of God into everyone who heard of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The younger men went right to work and wrapped him up, then carried him out and buried him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Not more than three hours later, his wife, knowing nothing of what had happened, came in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Peter said, "Tell me, were you given this price for your field?" "Yes," she said, "that price."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Peter responded, "What's going on here that you connived to conspire against the Spirit of the Master? The men who buried your husband are at the door, and you're next."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> No sooner were the words out of his mouth than she also fell down, dead. When the young men returned they found her body. They carried her out and buried her beside her husband.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> By this time the whole church and, in fact, everyone who heard of these things had a healthy respect for God. They knew God was not to be trifled with.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Through the work of the apostles, many God-signs were set up among the people, many wonderful things done. They all met regularly and in remarkable harmony on the Temple porch named after Solomon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But even though people admired them a lot, outsiders were wary about joining them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> On the other hand, those who put their trust in the Master were added right and left, men and women both.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They even carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on stretchers and bedrolls, hoping they would be touched by Peter's shadow when he walked by.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They came from the villages surrounding Jerusalem, throngs of them, bringing the sick and bedeviled. And they all were healed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Provoked mightily by all this, the Chief Priest and those on his side, mainly the sect of Sadducees, went into action,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> arrested the apostles, and put them in the town jail.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But during the night an angel of God opened the jailhouse door and led them out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He said, "Go to the Temple and take your stand. Tell the people everything there is to say about this Life."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Promptly obedient, they entered the Temple at daybreak and went on with their teaching. Meanwhile, the Chief Priest and his cronies convened the High Council, Israel's senate, and sent to the jail to have the prisoners brought in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> When the police got there, they couldn't find them anywhere in the jail. They went back and reported,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "We found the jail locked tight as a drum and the guards posted at the doors, but when we went inside we didn't find a soul."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The chief of the Temple police and the high priests were puzzled. "What's going on here anyway?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Just then someone showed up and said, "Did you know that the men you put in jail are back in the Temple teaching the people?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The chief and his police went and got them, but they handled them gently, fearful that the people would riot and turn on them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Bringing them back, they stood them before the High Council. The Chief Priest said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "Didn't we give you strict orders not to teach in Jesus' name? And here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are trying your best to blame us for the death of this man."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Peter and the apostles answered, "It's necessary to obey God rather than men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, the One you killed by hanging him on a cross.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> God set him on high at his side, Prince and Savior, to give Israel the gift of a changed life and sins forgiven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> And we are witnesses to these things. The Holy Spirit, whom God gives to those who obey him, corroborates every detail."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> When they heard that, they were furious and wanted to kill them on the spot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> But one of the council members stood up, a Pharisee by the name of Gamaliel, a teacher of God's Law who was honored by everyone. He ordered the men taken out of the room for a short time,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> then said, "Fellow Israelites, be careful what you do to these men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Not long ago Theudas made something of a splash, claiming to be somebody, and got about four hundred men to join him. He was killed, his followers dispersed, and nothing came of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> A little later, at the time of the census, Judas the Galilean appeared and acquired a following. He also fizzled out and the people following him were scattered to the four winds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> "So I am telling you: Hands off these men! Let them alone. If this program or this work is merely human, it will fall apart,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> but if it is of God, there is nothing you can do about it--and you better not be found fighting against God!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> That convinced them. They called the apostles back in. After giving them a thorough whipping, they warned them not to speak in Jesus' name and sent them off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> The apostles went out of the High Council overjoyed because they had been given the honor of being dishonored on account of the Name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> Every day they were in the Temple and homes, teaching and preaching Christ Jesus, not letting up for a minute.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> During this time, as the disciples were increasing in numbers by leaps and bounds, hard feelings developed among the Greek-speaking believers--"Hellenists"--toward the Hebrew-speaking believers because their widows were being discriminated against in the daily food lines.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> So the Twelve called a meeting of the disciples. They said, "It wouldn't be right for us to abandon our responsibilities for preaching and teaching the Word of God to help with the care of the poor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> So, friends, choose seven men from among you whom everyone trusts, men full of the Holy Spirit and good sense, and we'll assign them this task.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Meanwhile, we'll stick to our assigned tasks of prayer and speaking God's Word."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The congregation thought this was a great idea. They went ahead and chose-- Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, Nicolas, a convert from Antioch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then they presented them to the apostles. Praying, the apostles laid on hands and commissioned them for their task.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The Word of God prospered. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased dramatically. Not least, a great many priests submitted themselves to the faith.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Stephen, brimming with God's grace and energy, was doing wonderful things among the people, unmistakable signs that God was among them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But then some men from the meeting place whose membership was made up of freed slaves, Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and some others from Cilicia and Asia, went up against him trying to argue him down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But they were no match for his wisdom and spirit when he spoke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> So in secret they bribed men to lie: "We heard him cursing Moses and God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> That stirred up the people, the religious leaders, and religion scholars. They grabbed Stephen and took him before the High Council</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They put forward their bribed witnesses to testify: "This man talks nonstop against this Holy Place and God's Law.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> We even heard him say that Jesus of Nazareth would tear this place down and throw out all the customs Moses gave us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> As all those who sat on the High Council looked at Stephen, they found they couldn't take their eyes off him--his face was like the face of an angel!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then the Chief Priest said, "What do you have to say for yourself?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Stephen replied, "Friends, fathers, and brothers, the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was still in Mesopotamia, before the move to Haran,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> and told him, 'Leave your country and family and go to the land I'll show you.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "So he left the country of the Chaldees and moved to Haran. After the death of his father, he immigrated to this country where you now live,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> but God gave him nothing, not so much as a foothold. He did promise to give the country to him and his son later on, even though Abraham had no son at the time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> God let him know that his offspring would move to an alien country where they would be enslaved and brutalized for four hundred years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> 'But,' God said, 'I will step in and take care of those slaveholders and bring my people out so they can worship me in this place.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "Then he made a covenant with him and signed it in Abraham's flesh by circumcision. When Abraham had his son Isaac, within eight days he reproduced the sign of circumcision in him. Isaac became father of Jacob, and Jacob father of twelve 'fathers,' each faithfully passing on the covenant sign.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "But then those 'fathers,' burning up with jealousy, sent Joseph off to Egypt as a slave. God was right there with him, though--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> he not only rescued him from all his troubles but brought him to the attention of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. He was so impressed with Joseph that he put him in charge of the whole country, including his own personal affairs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Later a famine descended on that entire region, stretching from Egypt to Canaan, bringing terrific hardship. Our hungry fathers looked high and low for food, but the cupboard was bare.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Jacob heard there was food in Egypt and sent our fathers to scout it out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Having confirmed the report, they went back to Egypt a second time to get food. On that visit, Joseph revealed his true identity to his brothers and introduced the Jacob family to Pharaoh.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Then Joseph sent for his father, Jacob, and everyone else in the family, seventy-five in all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> That's how the Jacob family got to Egypt. "Jacob died, and our fathers after him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They were taken to Shechem and buried in the tomb for which Abraham paid a good price to the sons of Hamor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "When the four hundred years were nearly up, the time God promised Abraham for deliverance, the population of our people in Egypt had become very large.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And there was now a king over Egypt who had never heard of Joseph.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He exploited our race mercilessly. He went so far as forcing us to abandon our newborn infants, exposing them to the elements to die a cruel death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "In just such a time Moses was born, a most beautiful baby. He was hidden at home for three months.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> When he could be hidden no longer, he was put outside--and immediately rescued by Pharaoh's daughter, who mothered him as her own son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Moses was educated in the best schools in Egypt. He was equally impressive as a thinker and an athlete.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "When he was forty years old, he wondered how everything was going with his Hebrew kin and went out to look things over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He saw an Egyptian abusing one of them and stepped in, avenging his underdog brother by knocking the Egyptian flat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> He thought his brothers would be glad that he was on their side, and even see him as an instrument of God to deliver them. But they didn't see it that way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The next day two of them were fighting and he tried to break it up, told them to shake hands and get along with each other: 'Friends, you are brothers, why are you beating up on each other?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "The one who had started the fight said, 'Who put you in charge of us?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Are you going to kill me like you killed that Egyptian yesterday?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> When Moses heard that, realizing that the word was out, he ran for his life and lived in exile over in Midian. During the years of exile, two sons were born to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "Forty years later, in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, an angel appeared to him in the guise of flames of a burning bush.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Moses, not believing his eyes, went up to take a closer look. He heard God's voice:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> 'I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.' Frightened nearly out of his skin, Moses shut his eyes and turned away.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "God said, 'Kneel and pray. You are in a holy place, on holy ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> I've seen the agony of my people in Egypt. I've heard their groans. I've come to help them. So get yourself ready; I'm sending you back to Egypt.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> "This is the same Moses whom they earlier rejected, saying, 'Who put you in charge of us?' This is the Moses that God, using the angel flaming in the burning bush, sent back as ruler and redeemer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> He led them out of their slavery. He did wonderful things, setting up God-signs all through Egypt, down at the Red Sea, and out in the wilderness for forty years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> This is the Moses who said to his congregation, 'God will raise up a prophet just like me from your descendants.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> This is the Moses who stood between the angel speaking at Sinai and your fathers assembled in the wilderness and took the life-giving words given to him and handed them over to us,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> words our fathers would have nothing to do with. "They craved the old Egyptian ways,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> whining to Aaron, 'Make us gods we can see and follow. This Moses who got us out here miles from nowhere--who knows what's happened to him!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> That was the time when they made a calf-idol, brought sacrifices to it, and congratulated each other on the wonderful religious program they had put together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> "God wasn't at all pleased; but he let them do it their way, worship every new god that came down the pike--and live with the consequences, consequences described by the prophet Amos: Did you bring me offerings of animals and grains those forty wilderness years, O Israel?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Hardly. You were too busy building shrines to war gods, to sex goddesses, Worshiping them with all your might. That's why I put you in exile in Babylon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> "And all this time our ancestors had a tent shrine for true worship, made to the exact specifications God provided Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> They had it with them as they followed Joshua, when God cleared the land of pagans, and still had it right down to the time of David.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> David asked God for a permanent place for worship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> But Solomon built it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> "Yet that doesn't mean that Most High God lives in a building made by carpenters and masons. The prophet Isaiah put it well when he wrote,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> "Heaven is my throne room; I rest my feet on earth. So what kind of house will you build me?" says God. "Where I can get away and relax?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> It's already built, and I built it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> "And you continue, so bullheaded! Calluses on your hearts, flaps on your ears! Deliberately ignoring the Holy Spirit, you're just like your ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> Was there ever a prophet who didn't get the same treatment? Your ancestors killed anyone who dared talk about the coming of the Just One. And you've kept up the family tradition--traitors and murderers, all of you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> You had God's Law handed to you by angels--gift-wrapped!--and you squandered it!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> At that point they went wild, a rioting mob of catcalls and whistles and invective.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, hardly noticed--he only had eyes for God, whom he saw in all his glory with Jesus standing at his side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> He said, "Oh! I see heaven wide open and the Son of Man standing at God's side!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> Yelling and hissing, the mob drowned him out. Now in full stampede,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> they dragged him out of town and pelted him with rocks. The ringleaders took off their coats and asked a young man named Saul to watch them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="59"> As the rocks rained down, Stephen prayed, "Master Jesus, take my life."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="60"> Then he knelt down, praying loud enough for everyone to hear, "Master, don't blame them for this sin"--his last words. Then he died. Saul was right there, congratulating the killers.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> That set off a terrific persecution of the church in Jerusalem. The believers were all scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. All, that is, but the apostles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Good and brave men buried Stephen, giving him a solemn funeral--not many dry eyes that day!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And Saul just went wild, devastating the church, entering house after house after house, dragging men and women off to jail.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Forced to leave home base, the Christians all became missionaries. Wherever they were scattered, they preached the Message about Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Going down to a Samaritan city, Philip proclaimed the Message of the Messiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When the people heard what he had to say and saw the miracles, the clear signs of God's action, they hung on his every word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Many who could neither stand nor walk were healed that day. The evil spirits protested loudly as they were sent on their way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And what joy in the city!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Previous to Philip's arrival, a certain Simon had practiced magic in the city, posing as a famous man and dazzling all the Samaritans with his wizardry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He had them all, from little children to old men, eating out of his hand. They all thought he had supernatural powers, and called him "the Great Wizard."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He had been around a long time and everyone was more or less in awe of him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But when Philip came to town announcing the news of God's kingdom and proclaiming the name of Jesus Christ, they forgot Simon and were baptized, becoming believers right and left!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Even Simon himself believed and was baptized. From that moment he was like Philip's shadow, so fascinated with all the God-signs and miracles that he wouldn't leave Philip's side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> When the apostles in Jerusalem received the report that Samaria had accepted God's Message, they sent Peter and John down</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> to pray for them to receive the Holy Spirit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Up to this point they had only been baptized in the name of the Master Jesus; the Holy Spirit hadn't yet fallen on them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then the apostles laid their hands on them and they did receive the Holy Spirit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When Simon saw that the apostles by merely laying on hands conferred the Spirit, he pulled out his money, excited,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> and said, "Sell me your secret! Show me how you did that! How much do you want? Name your price!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Peter said, "To hell with your money! And you along with it. Why, that's unthinkable--trying to buy God's gift!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> You'll never be part of what God is doing by striking bargains and offering bribes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Change your ways--and now! Ask the Master to forgive you for trying to use God to make money.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> I can see this is an old habit with you; you reek with money-lust."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "Oh!" said Simon, "pray for me! Pray to the Master that nothing like that will ever happen to me!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> And with that, the apostles were on their way, continuing to witness and spread the Message of God's salvation, preaching in every Samaritan town they passed through on their return to Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Later God's angel spoke to Philip: "At noon today I want you to walk over to that desolate road that goes from Jerusalem down to Gaza."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> He got up and went. He met an Ethiopian eunuch coming down the road. The eunuch had been on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and was returning to Ethiopia, where he was minister in charge of all the finances of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> He was riding in a chariot and reading the prophet Isaiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The Spirit told Philip, "Climb into the chariot."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Running up alongside, Philip heard the eunuch reading Isaiah and asked, "Do you understand what you're reading?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> He answered, "How can I without some help?" and invited Philip into the chariot with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> The passage he was reading was this: As a sheep led to slaughter, and quiet as a lamb being sheared, He was silent, saying nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> He was mocked and put down, never got a fair trial. But who now can count his kin since he's been taken from the earth?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> The eunuch said, "Tell me, who is the prophet talking about: himself or some other?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Philip grabbed his chance. Using this passage as his text, he preached Jesus to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> As they continued down the road, they came to a stream of water. The eunuch said, "Here's water. Why can't I be baptized?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> (OMITTED TEXT)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> He ordered the chariot to stop. They both went down to the water, and Philip baptized him on the spot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of God suddenly took Philip off, and that was the last the eunuch saw of him. But he didn't mind. He had what he'd come for and went on down the road as happy as he could be.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Philip showed up in Azotus and continued north, preaching the Message in all the villages along that route until he arrived at Caesarea.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> All this time Saul was breathing down the necks of the Master's disciples, out for the kill. He went to the Chief Priest</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> and got arrest warrants to take to the meeting places in Damascus so that if he found anyone there belonging to the Way, whether men or women, he could arrest them and bring them to Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He set off. When he got to the outskirts of Damascus, he was suddenly dazed by a blinding flash of light.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> As he fell to the ground, he heard a voice: "Saul, Saul, why are you out to get me?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> He said, "Who are you, Master?" "I am Jesus, the One you're hunting down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I want you to get up and enter the city. In the city you'll be told what to do next."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> His companions stood there dumbstruck--they could hear the sound, but couldn't see anyone--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> while Saul, picking himself up off the ground, found himself stone blind. They had to take him by the hand and lead him into Damascus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He continued blind for three days. He ate nothing, drank nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> There was a disciple in Damascus by the name of Ananias. The Master spoke to him in a vision: "Ananias." "Yes, Master?" he answered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Get up and go over to Straight Avenue. Ask at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus. His name is Saul. He's there praying.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He has just had a dream in which he saw a man named Ananias enter the house and lay hands on him so he could see again."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Ananias protested, "Master, you can't be serious. Everybody's talking about this man and the terrible things he's been doing, his reign of terror against your people in Jerusalem!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And now he's shown up here with papers from the Chief Priest that give him license to do the same to us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But the Master said, "Don't argue. Go! I have picked him as my personal representative to Gentiles and kings and Jews.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> And now I'm about to show him what he's in for--the hard suffering that goes with this job."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> So Ananias went and found the house, placed his hands on blind Saul, and said, "Brother Saul, the Master sent me, the same Jesus you saw on your way here. He sent me so you could see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> No sooner were the words out of his mouth than something like scales fell from Saul's eyes--he could see again! He got to his feet, was baptized,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> and sat down with them to a hearty meal. Saul spent a few days getting acquainted with the Damascus disciples,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> but then went right to work, wasting no time, preaching in the meeting places that this Jesus was the Son of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They were caught off guard by this and, not at all sure they could trust him, they kept saying, "Isn't this the man who wreaked havoc in Jerusalem among the believers? And didn't he come here to do the same thing--arrest us and drag us off to jail in Jerusalem for sentencing by the high priests?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But their suspicions didn't slow Saul down for even a minute. His momentum was up now and he plowed straight into the opposition, disarming the Damascus Jews and trying to show them that this Jesus was the Messiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> After this had gone on quite a long time, some Jews conspired to kill him,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> but Saul got wind of it. They were watching the city gates around the clock so they could kill him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Then one night the disciples engineered his escape by lowering him over the wall in a basket.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Back in Jerusalem he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him. They didn't trust him one bit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Then Barnabas took him under his wing. He introduced him to the apostles and stood up for him, told them how Saul had seen and spoken to the Master on the Damascus Road and how in Damascus itself he had laid his life on the line with his bold preaching in Jesus' name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> After that he was accepted as one of them, going in and out of Jerusalem with no questions asked, uninhibited as he preached in the Master's name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> But then he ran afoul of a group called Hellenists--he had been engaged in a running argument with them--who plotted his murder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> When his friends learned of the plot, they got him out of town, took him to Caesarea, and then shipped him off to Tarsus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Things calmed down after that and the church had smooth sailing for a while. All over the country--Judea, Samaria, Galilee--the church grew. They were permeated with a deep sense of reverence for God. The Holy Spirit was with them, strengthening them. They prospered wonderfully.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Peter went off on a mission to visit all the churches. In the course of his travels he arrived in Lydda and met with the believers there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> He came across a man--his name was Aeneas--who had been in bed eight years paralyzed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Peter said, "Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and make your bed!" And he did it--jumped right out of bed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Everybody who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him walking around and woke up to the fact that God was alive and active among them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Down the road a way in Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha, "Gazelle" in our language. She was well-known for doing good and helping out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> During the time Peter was in the area she became sick and died. Her friends prepared her body for burial and put her in a cool room.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Some of the disciples had heard that Peter was visiting in nearby Lydda and sent two men to ask if he would be so kind as to come over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Peter got right up and went with them. They took him into the room where Tabitha's body was laid out. Her old friends, most of them widows, were in the room mourning. They showed Peter pieces of clothing the Gazelle had made while she was with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Peter put the widows all out of the room. He knelt and prayed. Then he spoke directly to the body: "Tabitha, get up." She opened her eyes. When she saw Peter, she sat up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> He took her hand and helped her up. Then he called in the believers and widows, and presented her to them alive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> When this became known all over Joppa, many put their trust in the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> Peter stayed on a long time in Joppa as a guest of Simon the Tanner.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> There was a man named Cornelius who lived in Caesarea, captain of the Italian Guard stationed there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He was a thoroughly good man. He had led everyone in his house to live worshipfully before God, was always helping people in need, and had the habit of prayer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> One day about three o'clock in the afternoon he had a vision. An angel of God, as real as his next-door neighbor, came in and said, "Cornelius."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Cornelius stared hard, wondering if he was seeing things. Then he said, "What do you want, sir?" The angel said, "Your prayers and neighborly acts have brought you to God's attention.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Here's what you are to do. Send men to Joppa to get Simon, the one everyone calls Peter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He is staying with Simon the Tanner, whose house is down by the sea."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> As soon as the angel was gone, Cornelius called two servants and one particularly devout soldier from the guard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He went over with them in great detail everything that had just happened, and then sent them off to Joppa.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The next day as the three travelers were approaching the town, Peter went out on the balcony to pray. It was about noon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Peter got hungry and started thinking about lunch. While lunch was being prepared, he fell into a trance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He saw the skies open up. Something that looked like a huge blanket lowered by ropes at its four corners settled on the ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Every kind of animal and reptile and bird you could think of was on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then a voice came: "Go to it, Peter--kill and eat."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Peter said, "Oh, no, Lord. I've never so much as tasted food that was not kosher."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The voice came a second time: "If God says it's okay, it's okay."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> This happened three times, and then the blanket was pulled back up into the skies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> As Peter, puzzled, sat there trying to figure out what it all meant, the men sent by Cornelius showed up at Simon's front door.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They called in, asking if there was a Simon, also called Peter, staying there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Peter, lost in thought, didn't hear them, so the Spirit whispered to him, "Three men are knocking at the door looking for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Get down there and go with them. Don't ask any questions. I sent them to get you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Peter went down and said to the men, "I think I'm the man you're looking for. What's up?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> They said, "Captain Cornelius, a God-fearing man well-known for his fair play--ask any Jew in this part of the country--was commanded by a holy angel to get you and bring you to his house so he could hear what you had to say."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Peter invited them in and made them feel at home. The next morning he got up and went with them. Some of his friends from Joppa went along.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> A day later they entered Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had his relatives and close friends waiting with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The minute Peter came through the door, Cornelius was up on his feet greeting him--and then down on his face worshiping him!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Peter pulled him up and said, "None of that--I'm a man and only a man, no different from you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Talking things over, they went on into the house, where Cornelius introduced Peter to everyone who had come.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Peter addressed them, "You know, I'm sure that this is highly irregular. Jews just don't do this--visit and relax with people of another race. But God has just shown me that no race is better than any other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> So the minute I was sent for, I came, no questions asked. But now I'd like to know why you sent for me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Cornelius said, "Four days ago at about this time, midafternoon, I was home praying. Suddenly there was a man right in front of me, flooding the room with light.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> He said, 'Cornelius, your daily prayers and neighborly acts have brought you to God's attention.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> I want you to send to Joppa to get Simon, the one they call Peter. He's staying with Simon the Tanner down by the sea.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "So I did it--I sent for you. And you've been good enough to come. And now we're all here in God's presence, ready to listen to whatever the Master put in your heart to tell us."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Peter fairly exploded with his good news: "It's God's own truth, nothing could be plainer: God plays no favorites!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> It makes no difference who you are or where you're from--if you want God and are ready to do as he says, the door is open.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> The Message he sent to the children of Israel--that through Jesus Christ everything is being put together again--well, he's doing it everywhere, among everyone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> "You know the story of what happened in Judea. It began in Galilee after John preached a total life-change.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Then Jesus arrived from Nazareth, anointed by God with the Holy Spirit, ready for action. He went through the country helping people and healing everyone who was beaten down by the Devil. He was able to do all this because God was with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> "And we saw it, saw it all, everything he did in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem where they killed him, hung him from a cross.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> But in three days God had him up, alive, and out where he could be seen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Not everyone saw him--he wasn't put on public display. Witnesses had been carefully handpicked by God beforehand--us! We were the ones, there to eat and drink with him after he came back from the dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> He commissioned us to announce this in public, to bear solemn witness that he is in fact the One whom God destined as Judge of the living and dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> But we're not alone in this. Our witness that he is the means to forgiveness of sins is backed up by the witness of all the prophets."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> No sooner were these words out of Peter's mouth than the Holy Spirit came on the listeners.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> The believing Jews who had come with Peter couldn't believe it, couldn't believe that the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out on "outsider" Gentiles,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> but there it was--they heard them speaking in tongues, heard them praising God. Then Peter said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> "Do I hear any objections to baptizing these friends with water? They've received the Holy Spirit exactly as we did."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> Hearing no objections, he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked Peter to stay on for a few days.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The news traveled fast and in no time the leaders and friends back in Jerusalem heard about it--heard that the non-Jewish "outsiders" were now "in."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> When Peter got back to Jerusalem, some of his old associates, concerned about circumcision, called him on the carpet:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "What do you think you're doing rubbing shoulders with that crowd, eating what is prohibited and ruining our good name?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> So Peter, starting from the beginning, laid it out for them step-by-step:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Recently I was in the town of Joppa praying. I fell into a trance and saw a vision: Something like a huge blanket, lowered by ropes at its four corners, came down out of heaven and settled on the ground in front of me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Milling around on the blanket were farm animals, wild animals, reptiles, birds--you name it, it was there. Fascinated, I took it all in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Then I heard a voice: 'Go to it, Peter--kill and eat.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I said, 'Oh, no, Master. I've never so much as tasted food that wasn't kosher.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The voice spoke again: 'If God says it's okay, it's okay.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> This happened three times, and then the blanket was pulled back up into the sky.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Just then three men showed up at the house where I was staying, sent from Caesarea to get me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The Spirit told me to go with them, no questions asked. So I went with them, I and six friends, to the man who had sent for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He told us how he had seen an angel right in his own house, real as his next-door neighbor, saying, 'Send to Joppa and get Simon, the one they call Peter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He'll tell you something that will save your life--in fact, you and everyone you care for.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "So I started in, talking. Before I'd spoken half a dozen sentences, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as he did on us the first time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I remembered Jesus' words: 'John baptized with water; you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> So I ask you: If God gave the same exact gift to them as to us when we believed in the Master Jesus Christ, how could I object to God?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Hearing it all laid out like that, they quieted down. And then, as it sank in, they started praising God. "It's really happened! God has broken through to the other nations, opened them up to Life!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Those who had been scattered by the persecution triggered by Stephen's death traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, but they were still only speaking and dealing with their fellow Jews.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Then some of the men from Cyprus and Cyrene who had come to Antioch started talking to Greeks, giving them the Message of the Master Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> God was pleased with what they were doing and put his stamp of approval on it--quite a number of the Greeks believed and turned to the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> When the church in Jerusalem got wind of this, they sent Barnabas to Antioch to check on things.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> As soon as he arrived, he saw that God was behind and in it all. He threw himself in with them, got behind them, urging them to stay with it the rest of their lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He was a good man that way, enthusiastic and confident in the Holy Spirit's ways. The community grew large and strong in the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Then Barnabas went on to Tarsus to look for Saul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> He found him and brought him back to Antioch. They were there a whole year, meeting with the church and teaching a lot of people. It was in Antioch that the disciples were for the first time called Christians.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> It was about this same time that some prophets came to Antioch from Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> One of them named Agabus stood up one day and, prompted by the Spirit, warned that a severe famine was about to devastate the country. (The famine eventually came during the rule of Claudius.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> So the disciples decided that each of them would send whatever they could to their fellow Christians in Judea to help out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> They sent Barnabas and Saul to deliver the collection to the leaders in Jerusalem.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> That's when King Herod got it into his head to go after some of the church members.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He murdered James, John's brother.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When he saw how much it raised his popularity ratings with the Jews, he arrested Peter--all this during Passover Week, mind you--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> and had him thrown in jail, putting four squads of four soldiers each to guard him. He was planning a public lynching after Passover.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> All the time that Peter was under heavy guard in the jailhouse, the church prayed for him most strenuously.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then the time came for Herod to bring him out for the kill. That night, even though shackled to two soldiers, one on either side, Peter slept like a baby. And there were guards at the door keeping their eyes on the place. Herod was taking no chances!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Suddenly there was an angel at his side and light flooding the room. The angel shook Peter and got him up: "Hurry!" The handcuffs fell off his wrists.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The angel said, "Get dressed. Put on your shoes." Peter did it. Then, "Grab your coat and let's get out of here."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Peter followed him, but didn't believe it was really an angel--he thought he was dreaming.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Past the first guard and then the second, they came to the iron gate that led into the city. It swung open before them on its own, and they were out on the street, free as the breeze. At the first intersection the angel left him, going his own way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> That's when Peter realized it was no dream. "I can't believe it--this really happened! The Master sent his angel and rescued me from Herod's vicious little production and the spectacle the Jewish mob was looking forward to."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Still shaking his head, amazed, he went to Mary's house, the Mary who was John Mark's mother. The house was packed with praying friends.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> When he knocked on the door to the courtyard, a young woman named Rhoda came to see who it was.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But when she recognized his voice--Peter's voice!--she was so excited and eager to tell everyone Peter was there that she forgot to open the door and left him standing in the street.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But they wouldn't believe her, dismissing her, dismissing her report. "You're crazy," they said. She stuck by her story, insisting. They still wouldn't believe her and said, "It must be his angel."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> All this time poor Peter was standing out in the street, knocking away. Finally they opened up and saw him--and went wild!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Peter put his hands up and calmed them down. He described how the Master had gotten him out of jail, then said, "Tell James and the brothers what's happened." He left them and went off to another place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> At daybreak the jail was in an uproar. "Where is Peter? What's happened to Peter?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> When Herod sent for him and they could neither produce him nor explain why not, he ordered their execution: "Off with their heads!" Fed up with Judea and Jews, he went for a vacation to Caesarea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But things went from bad to worse for Herod. Now people from Tyre and Sidon put him on the warpath. But they got Blastus, King Herod's right-hand man, to put in a good word for them and got a delegation together to iron things out. Because they were dependent on Judea for food supplies, they couldn't afford to let this go on too long.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> On the day set for their meeting, Herod, robed in pomposity, took his place on the throne and regaled them with a lot of hot air.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The people played their part to the hilt and shouted flatteries: "The voice of God! The voice of God!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> That was the last straw. God had had enough of Herod's arrogance and sent an angel to strike him down. Herod had given God no credit for anything. Down he went. Rotten to the core, a maggoty old man if there ever was one, he died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Meanwhile, the ministry of God's Word grew by leaps and bounds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Barnabas and Saul, once they had delivered the relief offering to the church in Jerusalem, went back to Antioch. This time they took John with them, the one they called Mark.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The congregation in Antioch was blessed with a number of prophet-preachers and teachers: Barnabas, Simon, nicknamed Niger, Lucius the Cyrenian, Manaen, an advisor to the ruler Herod, Saul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> One day as they were worshiping God--they were also fasting as they waited for guidance--the Holy Spirit spoke: "Take Barnabas and Saul and commission them for the work I have called them to do."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> So they commissioned them. In that circle of intensity and obedience, of fasting and praying, they laid hands on their heads and sent them off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Sent off on their new assignment by the Holy Spirit, Barnabas and Saul went down to Seleucia and caught a ship for Cyprus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The first thing they did when they put in at Salamis was preach God's Word in the Jewish meeting places. They had John along to help out as needed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They traveled the length of the island, and at Paphos came upon a Jewish wizard</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> who had worked himself into the confidence of the governor, Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man not easily taken in by charlatans. The wizard's name was Bar-Jesus. He was as crooked as a corkscrew. The governor invited Barnabas and Saul in, wanting to hear God's Word firsthand from them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But Dr. Know-It-All (that's the wizard's name in plain English) stirred up a ruckus, trying to divert the governor from becoming a believer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But Saul (or Paul), full of the Holy Spirit and looking him straight in the eye, said,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "You bag of wind, you parody of a devil--why, you stay up nights inventing schemes to cheat people out of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But now you've come up against God himself, and your game is up. You're about to go blind--no sunlight for you for a good long stretch." He was plunged immediately into a shadowy mist and stumbled around, begging people to take his hand and show him the way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When the governor saw what happened, he became a believer, full of enthusiasm over what they were saying about the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> From Paphos, Paul and company put out to sea, sailing on to Perga in Pamphylia. That's where John called it quits and went back to Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> From Perga the rest of them traveled on to Antioch in Pisidia. On the Sabbath they went to the meeting place and took their places.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> After the reading of the Scriptures--God's Law and the Prophets--the president of the meeting asked them, "Friends, do you have anything you want to say? A word of encouragement, perhaps?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Paul stood up, paused and took a deep breath, then said, "Fellow Israelites and friends of God, listen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> God took a special interest in our ancestors, pulled our people who were beaten down in Egyptian exile to their feet, and led them out of there in grand style.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> He took good care of them for nearly forty years in that godforsaken wilderness</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> and then, having wiped out seven enemies who stood in the way, gave them the land of Canaan for their very own--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> a span in all of about four hundred fifty years. "Up to the time of Samuel the prophet, God provided judges to lead them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul, son of Kish, out of the tribe of Benjamin. After Saul had ruled forty years,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> God removed him from office and put King David in his place, with this commendation: 'I've searched the land and found this David, son of Jesse. He's a man whose heart beats to my heart, a man who will do what I tell him.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "From out of David's descendants God produced a Savior for Israel, Jesus, exactly as he promised--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> but only after John had thoroughly alerted the people to his arrival by preparing them for a total life-change.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> As John was finishing up his work, he said, 'Did you think I was the One? No, I'm not the One. But the One you've been waiting for all these years is just around the corner, about to appear. And I'm about to disappear.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "Dear brothers and sisters, children of Abraham, and friends of God, this message of salvation has been precisely targeted to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The citizens and rulers in Jerusalem didn't recognize who he was and condemned him to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> They couldn't find a good reason, but demanded that Pilate execute him anyway.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> They did just what the prophets said they would do, but had no idea they were following to the letter the script of the prophets, even though those same prophets are read every Sabbath in their meeting places. "After they had done everything the prophets said they would do, they took him down from the cross and buried him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> And then God raised him from death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> There is no disputing that--he appeared over and over again many times and places to those who had known him well in the Galilean years, and these same people continue to give witness that he is alive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "And we're here today bringing you good news: the Message that what God promised the fathers</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> has come true for the children--for us! He raised Jesus, exactly as described in the second Psalm: My Son! My very own Son! Today I celebrate you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> "When he raised him from the dead, he did it for good--no going back to that rot and decay for him. That's why Isaiah said, 'I'll give to all of you David's guaranteed blessings.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> So also the psalmist's prayer: 'You'll never let your Holy One see death's rot and decay.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> "David, of course, having completed the work God set out for him, has been in the grave, dust and ashes, a long time now.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> But the One God raised up--no dust and ashes for him!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> I want you to know, my very dear friends, that it is on account of this resurrected Jesus that the forgiveness of your sins can be promised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> He accomplishes, in those who believe, everything that the Law of Moses could never make good on. But everyone who believes in this raised-up Jesus is declared good and right and whole before God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> "Don't take this lightly. You don't want the prophet's sermon to describe you:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> Watch out, cynics; Look hard--watch your world fall to pieces. I'm doing something right before your eyes That you won't believe, though it's staring you in the face."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> When the service was over, Paul and Barnabas were invited back to preach again the next Sabbath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> As the meeting broke up, a good many Jews and converts to Judaism went along with Paul and Barnabas, who urged them in long conversations to stick with what they'd started, this living in and by God's grace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> When the next Sabbath came around, practically the whole city showed up to hear the Word of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> Some of the Jews, seeing the crowds, went wild with jealousy and tore into Paul, contradicting everything he was saying, making an ugly scene.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> But Paul and Barnabas didn't back down. Standing their ground they said, "It was required that God's Word be spoken first of all to you, the Jews. But seeing that you want no part of it--you've made it quite clear that you have no taste or inclination for eternal life--the door is open to all the outsiders. And we're on our way through it,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> following orders, doing what God commanded when he said, I've set you up as light to all nations. You'll proclaim salvation to the four winds and seven seas!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> When the non-Jewish outsiders heard this, they could hardly believe their good fortune. All who were marked out for real life put their trust in God--they honored God's Word by receiving that life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> And this Message of salvation spread like wildfire all through the region.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> Some of the Jews convinced the most respected women and leading men of the town that their precious way of life was about to be destroyed. Alarmed, they turned on Paul and Barnabas and forced them to leave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> Paul and Barnabas shrugged their shoulders and went on to the next town, Iconium,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> brimming with joy and the Holy Spirit, two happy disciples.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When they got to Iconium they went, as they always did, to the meeting place of the Jews and gave their message. The Message convinced both Jews and non-Jews--and not just a few, either.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> But the unbelieving Jews worked up a whispering campaign against Paul and Barnabas, sowing mistrust and suspicion in the minds of the people in the street.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The two apostles were there a long time, speaking freely, openly, and confidently as they presented the clear evidence of God's gifts, God corroborating their work with miracles and wonders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But then there was a split in public opinion, some siding with the Jews, some with the apostles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> One day, learning that both the Jews and non-Jews had been organized by their leaders to beat them up,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> they escaped as best they could to the next towns--Lyconia, Lystra, Derbe, and that neighborhood--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> but then were right back at it again, getting out the Message.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> There was a man in Lystra who couldn't walk. He sat there, crippled since the day of his birth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He heard Paul talking, and Paul, looking him in the eye, saw that he was ripe for God's work, ready to believe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So he said, loud enough for everyone to hear, "Up on your feet!" The man was up in a flash--jumped up and walked around as if he'd been walking all his life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they went wild, calling out in their Lyconian dialect, "The gods have come down! These men are gods!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They called Barnabas "Zeus" and Paul "Hermes" (since Paul did most of the speaking).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The priest of the local Zeus shrine got up a parade--bulls and banners and people lined right up to the gates, ready for the ritual of sacrifice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> When Barnabas and Paul finally realized what was going on, they stopped them. Waving their arms, they interrupted the parade, calling out,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "What do you think you're doing! We're not gods! We are men just like you, and we're here to bring you the Message, to persuade you to abandon these silly god-superstitions and embrace God himself, the living God. We don't make God; he makes us, and all of this--sky, earth, sea, and everything in them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "In the generations before us, God let all the different nations go their own way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But even then he didn't leave them without a clue, for he made a good creation, poured down rain and gave bumper crops. When your bellies were full and your hearts happy, there was evidence of good beyond your doing."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Talking fast and hard like this, they prevented them from carrying out the sacrifice that would have honored them as gods--but just barely.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Then some Jews from Antioch and Iconium caught up with them and turned the fickle crowd against them. They beat Paul unconscious, dragged him outside the town and left him for dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But as the disciples gathered around him, he came to and got up. He went back into town and the next day left with Barnabas for Derbe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> After proclaiming the Message in Derbe and establishing a strong core of disciples, they retraced their steps to Lystra, then Iconium, and then Antioch,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> putting muscle and sinew in the lives of the disciples, urging them to stick with what they had begun to believe and not quit, making it clear to them that it wouldn't be easy: "Anyone signing up for the kingdom of God has to go through plenty of hard times."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Paul and Barnabas handpicked leaders in each church. After praying--their prayers intensified by fasting--they presented these new leaders to the Master to whom they had entrusted their lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Working their way back through Pisidia, they came to Pamphylia</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> and preached in Perga. Finally, they made it to Attalia</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> and caught a ship back to Antioch, where it had all started--launched by God's grace and now safely home by God's grace. A good piece of work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> On arrival, they got the church together and reported on their trip, telling in detail how God had used them to throw the door of faith wide open so people of all nations could come streaming in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Then they settled down for a long, leisurely visit with the disciples.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> It wasn't long before some Jews showed up from Judea insisting that everyone be circumcised: "If you're not circumcised in the Mosaic fashion, you can't be saved."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Paul and Barnabas were up on their feet at once in fierce protest. The church decided to resolve the matter by sending Paul, Barnabas, and a few others to put it before the apostles and leaders in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> After they were sent off and on their way, they told everyone they met as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria about the breakthrough to the Gentile outsiders. Everyone who heard the news cheered--it was terrific news!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When they got to Jerusalem, Paul and Barnabas were graciously received by the whole church, including the apostles and leaders. They reported on their recent journey and how God had used them to open things up to the outsiders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Some Pharisees stood up to say their piece. They had become believers, but continued to hold to the hard party line of the Pharisees. "You have to circumcise the pagan converts," they said. "You must make them keep the Law of Moses."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The apostles and leaders called a special meeting to consider the matter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The arguments went on and on, back and forth, getting more and more heated. Then Peter took the floor: "Friends, you well know that from early on God made it quite plain that he wanted the pagans to hear the Message of this good news and embrace it--and not in any secondhand or roundabout way, but firsthand, straight from my mouth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And God, who can't be fooled by any pretense on our part but always knows a person's thoughts, gave them the Holy Spirit exactly as he gave him to us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He treated the outsiders exactly as he treated us, beginning at the very center of who they were and working from that center outward, cleaning up their lives as they trusted and believed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "So why are you now trying to out-god God, loading these new believers down with rules that crushed our ancestors and crushed us, too?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Don't we believe that we are saved because the Master Jesus amazingly and out of sheer generosity moved to save us just as he did those from beyond our nation? So what are we arguing about?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> There was dead silence. No one said a word. With the room quiet, Barnabas and Paul reported matter-of-factly on the miracles and wonders God had done among the other nations through their ministry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The silence deepened; you could hear a pin drop. James broke the silence. "Friends, listen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Simeon has told us the story of how God at the very outset made sure that racial outsiders were included.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> This is in perfect agreement with the words of the prophets:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> After this, I'm coming back; I'll rebuild David's ruined house; I'll put all the pieces together again; I'll make it look like new</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> So outsiders who seek will find, so they'll have a place to come to, All the pagan peoples included in what I'm doing. "God said it and now he's doing it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> It's no afterthought; he's always known he would do this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "So here is my decision: We're not going to unnecessarily burden non-Jewish people who turn to the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> We'll write them a letter and tell them, 'Be careful to not get involved in activities connected with idols, to guard the morality of sex and marriage, to not serve food offensive to Jewish Christians--blood, for instance.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> This is basic wisdom from Moses, preached and honored for centuries now in city after city as we have met and kept the Sabbath."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Everyone agreed: apostles, leaders, all the people. They picked Judas (nicknamed Barsabbas) and Silas--they both carried considerable weight in the church--and sent them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> with this letter: From the apostles and leaders, your friends, to our friends in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia: Hello!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> We heard that some men from our church went to you and said things that confused and upset you. Mind you, they had no authority from us; we didn't send them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> We have agreed unanimously to pick representatives and send them to you with our good friends Barnabas and Paul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> We picked men we knew you could trust, Judas and Silas--they've looked death in the face time and again for the sake of our Master Jesus Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> We've sent them to confirm in a face-to-face meeting with you what we've written.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> It seemed to the Holy Spirit and to us that you should not be saddled with any crushing burden, but be responsible only for these bare necessities:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Be careful not to get involved in activities connected with idols; avoid serving food offensive to Jewish Christians (blood, for instance); and guard the morality of sex and marriage. These guidelines are sufficient to keep relations congenial between us. And God be with you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> And so off they went to Antioch. On arrival, they gathered the church and read the letter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The people were greatly relieved and pleased.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Judas and Silas, good preachers both of them, strengthened their new friends with many words of courage and hope.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Then it was time to go home. They were sent off by their new friends with laughter and embraces all around to report back to those who had sent them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> (OMITTED TEXT)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Paul and Barnabas stayed on in Antioch, teaching and preaching the Word of God. But they weren't alone. There were a number of teachers and preachers at that time in Antioch.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> After a few days of this, Paul said to Barnabas, "Let's go back and visit all our friends in each of the towns where we preached the Word of God. Let's see how they're doing."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> Barnabas wanted to take John along, the John nicknamed Mark.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> But Paul wouldn't have him; he wasn't about to take along a quitter who, as soon as the going got tough, had jumped ship on them in Pamphylia.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Tempers flared, and they ended up going their separate ways: Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Paul chose Silas and, offered up by their friends to the grace of the Master,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> went to Syria and Cilicia to build up muscle and sinew in those congregations.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Paul came first to Derbe, then Lystra. He found a disciple there by the name of Timothy, son of a devout Jewish mother and Greek father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Friends in Lystra and Iconium all said what a fine young man he was.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Paul wanted to recruit him for their mission, but first took him aside and circumcised him so he wouldn't offend the Jews who lived in those parts. They all knew that his father was Greek.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> As they traveled from town to town, they presented the simple guidelines the Jerusalem apostles and leaders had come up with.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> That turned out to be most helpful. Day after day the congregations became stronger in faith and larger in size.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They went to Phrygia, and then on through the region of Galatia. Their plan was to turn west into Asia province, but the Holy Spirit blocked that route.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So they went to Mysia and tried to go north to Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus wouldn't let them go there either.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Proceeding on through Mysia, they went down to the seaport Troas.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> That night Paul had a dream: A Macedonian stood on the far shore and called across the sea, "Come over to Macedonia and help us!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The dream gave Paul his map. We went to work at once getting things ready to cross over to Macedonia. All the pieces had come together. We knew now for sure that God had called us to preach the good news to the Europeans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Putting out from the harbor at Troas, we made a straight run for Samothrace. The next day we tied up at New City</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> and walked from there to Philippi, the main city in that part of Macedonia and, even more importantly, a Roman colony. We lingered there several days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> On the Sabbath, we left the city and went down along the river where we had heard there was to be a prayer meeting. We took our place with the women who had gathered there and talked with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> One woman, Lydia, was from Thyatira and a dealer in expensive textiles, known to be a God-fearing woman. As she listened with intensity to what was being said, the Master gave her a trusting heart--and she believed!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> After she was baptized, along with everyone in her household, she said in a surge of hospitality, "If you're confident that I'm in this with you and believe in the Master truly, come home with me and be my guests." We hesitated, but she wouldn't take no for an answer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> One day, on our way to the place of prayer, a slave girl ran into us. She was a psychic and, with her fortunetelling, made a lot of money for the people who owned her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> She started following Paul around, calling everyone's attention to us by yelling out, "These men are working for the Most High God. They're laying out the road of salvation for you!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> She did this for a number of days until Paul, finally fed up with her, turned and commanded the spirit that possessed her, "Out! In the name of Jesus Christ, get out of her!" And it was gone, just like that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> When her owners saw that their lucrative little business was suddenly bankrupt, they went after Paul and Silas, roughed them up and dragged them into the market square. Then the police arrested them</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> and pulled them into a court with the accusation, "These men are disturbing the peace--dangerous Jewish agitators</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> subverting our Roman law and order."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> By this time the crowd had turned into a restless mob out for blood. The judges went along with the mob, had Paul and Silas's clothes ripped off and ordered a public beating.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> After beating them black and blue, they threw them into jail, telling the jailkeeper to put them under heavy guard so there would be no chance of escape.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He did just that--threw them into the maximum security cell in the jail and clamped leg irons on them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Along about midnight, Paul and Silas were at prayer and singing a robust hymn to God. The other prisoners couldn't believe their ears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Then, without warning, a huge earthquake! The jailhouse tottered, every door flew open, all the prisoners were loose.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Startled from sleep, the jailer saw all the doors swinging loose on their hinges. Assuming that all the prisoners had escaped, he pulled out his sword and was about to do himself in, figuring he was as good as dead anyway,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> when Paul stopped him: "Don't do that! We're all still here! Nobody's run away!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> The jailer got a torch and ran inside. Badly shaken, he collapsed in front of Paul and Silas.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> He led them out of the jail and asked, "Sirs, what do I have to do to be saved, to really live?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> They said, "Put your entire trust in the Master Jesus. Then you'll live as you were meant to live--and everyone in your house included!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> They went on to spell out in detail the story of the Master--the entire family got in on this part.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> They never did get to bed that night. The jailer made them feel at home, dressed their wounds, and then--he couldn't wait till morning!--was baptized, he and everyone in his family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> There in his home, he had food set out for a festive meal. It was a night to remember: He and his entire family had put their trust in God; everyone in the house was in on the celebration.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> At daybreak, the court judges sent officers with the instructions, "Release these men."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> The jailer gave Paul the message, "The judges sent word that you're free to go on your way. Congratulations! Go in peace!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> But Paul wouldn't budge. He told the officers, "They beat us up in public and threw us in jail, Roman citizens in good standing! And now they want to get us out of the way on the sly without anyone knowing? Nothing doing! If they want us out of here, let them come themselves and lead us out in broad daylight."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> When the officers reported this, the judges panicked. They had no idea that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> They hurried over and apologized, personally escorted them from the jail, and then asked them if they wouldn't please leave the city.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Walking out of the jail, Paul and Silas went straight to Lydia's house, saw their friends again, encouraged them in the faith, and only then went on their way.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="17">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> They took the road south through Amphipolis and Apollonia to Thessalonica, where there was a community of Jews.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Paul went to their meeting place, as he usually did when he came to a town, and for three Sabbaths running he preached to them from the Scriptures.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> He opened up the texts so they understood what they'd been reading all their lives: that the Messiah absolutely had to be put to death and raised from the dead--there were no other options--and that "this Jesus I'm introducing you to is that Messiah."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Some of them were won over and joined ranks with Paul and Silas, among them a great many God-fearing Greeks and a considerable number of women from the aristocracy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But the hard-line Jews became furious over the conversions. Mad with jealousy, they rounded up a bunch of brawlers off the streets and soon had an ugly mob terrorizing the city as they hunted down Paul and Silas. They broke into Jason's house, thinking that Paul and Silas were there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When they couldn't find them, they collared Jason and his friends instead and dragged them before the city fathers, yelling hysterically, "These people are out to destroy the world, and now they've shown up on our doorstep, attacking everything we hold dear!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And Jason is hiding them, these traitors and turncoats who say Jesus is king and Caesar is nothing!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The city fathers and the crowd of people were totally alarmed by what they heard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They made Jason and his friends post heavy bail and let them go while they investigated the charges.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> That night, under cover of darkness, their friends got Paul and Silas out of town as fast as they could. They sent them to Berea, where they again met with the Jewish community.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They were treated a lot better there than in Thessalonica. The Jews received Paul's message with enthusiasm and met with him daily, examining the Scriptures to see if they supported what he said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> A lot of them became believers, including many Greeks who were prominent in the community, women and men of influence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But it wasn't long before reports got back to the Thessalonian hard-line Jews that Paul was at it again, preaching the Word of God, this time in Berea. They lost no time responding, and created a mob scene there, too.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> With the help of his friends, Paul gave them the slip--caught a boat and put out to sea. Silas and Timothy stayed behind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The men who helped Paul escape got him as far as Athens and left him there. Paul sent word back with them to Silas and Timothy: "Come as quickly as you can!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The longer Paul waited in Athens for Silas and Timothy, the angrier he got--all those idols! The city was a junkyard of idols.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He discussed it with the Jews and other like-minded people at their meeting place. And every day he went out on the streets and talked with anyone who happened along.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> He got to know some of the Epicurean and Stoic intellectuals pretty well through these conversations. Some of them dismissed him with sarcasm: "What an airhead!" But others, listening to him go on about Jesus and the resurrection, were intrigued: "That's a new slant on the gods. Tell us more."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> These people got together and asked him to make a public presentation over at the Areopagus, where things were a little quieter. They said, "This is a new one on us. We've never heard anything quite like it. Where did you come up with this anyway?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Explain it so we can understand."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Downtown Athens was a great place for gossip. There were always people hanging around, natives and tourists alike, waiting for the latest tidbit on most anything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> So Paul took his stand in the open space at the Areopagus and laid it out for them. "It is plain to see that you Athenians take your religion seriously.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> When I arrived here the other day, I was fascinated with all the shrines I came across. And then I found one inscribed, TO THE GOD NOBODY KNOWS. I'm here to introduce you to this God so you can worship intelligently, know who you're dealing with.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "The God who made the world and everything in it, this Master of sky and land, doesn't live in custom-made shrines</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> or need the human race to run errands for him, as if he couldn't take care of himself. He makes the creatures; the creatures don't make him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Starting from scratch, he made the entire human race and made the earth hospitable, with plenty of time and space for living</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> so we could seek after God, and not just grope around in the dark but actually find him. He doesn't play hide-and-seek with us. He's not remote; he's near.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> We live and move in him, can't get away from him! One of your poets said it well: 'We're the God-created.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Well, if we are the God-created, it doesn't make a lot of sense to think we could hire a sculptor to chisel a god out of stone for us, does it?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> "God overlooks it as long as you don't know any better--but that time is past. The unknown is now known, and he's calling for a radical life-change.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> He has set a day when the entire human race will be judged and everything set right. And he has already appointed the judge, confirming him before everyone by raising him from the dead."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> At the phrase "raising him from the dead," the listeners split: Some laughed at him and walked off making jokes; others said, "Let's do this again. We want to hear more."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> But that was it for the day, and Paul left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> There were still others, it turned out, who were convinced then and there, and stuck with Paul--among them Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="18">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> After Athens, Paul went to Corinth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> That is where he discovered Aquila, a Jew born in Pontus, and his wife, Priscilla. They had just arrived from Italy, part of the general expulsion of Jews from Rome ordered by Claudius.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Paul moved in with them, and they worked together at their common trade of tentmaking.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But every Sabbath he was at the meeting place, doing his best to convince both Jews and Greeks about Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was able to give all his time to preaching and teaching, doing everything he could to persuade the Jews that Jesus was in fact God's Messiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But no such luck. All they did was argue contentiously and contradict him at every turn. Totally exasperated, Paul had finally had it with them and gave it up as a bad job. "Have it your way, then," he said. "You've made your bed; now lie in it. From now on I'm spending my time with the other nations."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He walked out and went to the home of Titius Justus, a God-fearing man who lived right next to the Jews' meeting place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But Paul's efforts with the Jews weren't a total loss, for Crispus, the meeting-place president, put his trust in the Master. His entire family believed with him. In the course of listening to Paul, a great many Corinthians believed and were baptized.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> One night the Master spoke to Paul in a dream: "Keep it up, and don't let anyone intimidate or silence you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> No matter what happens, I'm with you and no one is going to be able to hurt you. You have no idea how many people I have on my side in this city."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> That was all he needed to stick it out. He stayed another year and a half, faithfully teaching the Word of God to the Corinthians.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But when Gallio was governor of Achaia province, the Jews got up a campaign against Paul, hauled him into court,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> and filed chcrges: "This man is seducing people into acts of worship that are illegal."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Just as Paul was about to defend himself, Gallio interrupted and said to the Jews, "If this was a matter of criminal conduct, I would gladly hear you out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But it sounds to me like one more Jewish squabble, another of your endless hairsplitting quarrels over religion. Take care of it on your own time. I can't be bothered with this nonsense,"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> and he cleared them out of the courtroom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Now the street rabble turned on Sosthenes, the new meeting-place president, and beat him up in plain sight of the court. Gallio didn't raise a finger. He could not have cared less.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Paul stayed a while longer in Corinth, but then it was time to take leave of his friends. Saying his good-byes, he sailed for Syria, Priscilla and Aquila with him. Before boarding the ship in the harbor town of Cenchrea, he had his head shaved as part of a vow he had taken.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They landed in Ephesus, where Priscilla and Aquila got off and stayed. Paul left the ship briefly to go to the meeting place and preach to the Jews.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> They wanted him to stay longer, but he said he couldn't.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But after saying good-bye, he promised, "I'll be back, God willing." From Ephesus</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> he sailed to Caesarea. He greeted the assembly of Christians there, and then went on to Antioch, completing the journey.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> After spending a considerable time with the Antioch Christians, Paul set off again for Galatia and Phrygia, retracing his old tracks, one town after another, putting fresh heart into the disciples.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> A man named Apollos came to Ephesus. He was a Jew, born in Alexandria, Egypt, and a terrific speaker, eloquent and powerful in his preaching of the Scriptures.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> He was well-educated in the way of the Master and fiery in his enthusiasm. Apollos was accurate in everything he taught about Jesus up to a point, but he only went as far as the baptism of John.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> He preached with power in the meeting place. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and told him the rest of the story.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> When Apollos decided to go on to Achaia province, his Ephesian friends gave their blessing and wrote a letter of recommendation for him, urging the disciples there to welcome him with open arms. The welcome paid off: Apollos turned out to be a great help to those who had become believers through God's immense generosity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> He was particularly effective in public debate with the Jews as he brought out proof after convincing proof from the Scriptures that Jesus was in fact God's Messiah.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="19">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Now, it happened that while Apollos was away in Corinth, Paul made his way down through the mountains, came to Ephesus, and happened on some disciples there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The first thing he said was, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? Did you take God into your mind only, or did you also embrace him with your heart? Did he get inside you?" "We've never even heard of that--a Holy Spirit? God within us?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "How were you baptized, then?" asked Paul. "In John's baptism."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "That explains it," said Paul. "John preached a baptism of radical life-change so that people would be ready to receive the One coming after him, who turned out to be Jesus. If you've been baptized in John's baptism, you're ready now for the real thing, for Jesus."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And they were. As soon as they heard of it, they were baptized in the name of the Master Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Paul put his hands on their heads and the Holy Spirit entered them. From that moment on, they were praising God in tongues and talking about God's actions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Altogether there were about twelve people there that day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Paul then went straight to the meeting place. He had the run of the place for three months, doing his best to make the things of the kingdom of God real and convincing to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But then resistance began to form as some of them began spreading evil rumors through the congregation about the Christian way of life. So Paul left, taking the disciples with him, and set up shop in the school of Tyrannus, holding class there daily.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He did this for two years, giving everyone in the province of Asia, Jews as well as Greeks, ample opportunity to hear the Message of the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> God did powerful things through Paul, things quite out of the ordinary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The word got around and people started taking pieces of clothing--handkerchiefs and scarves and the like--that had touched Paul's skin and then touching the sick with them. The touch did it--they were healed and whole.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Some itinerant Jewish exorcists who happened to be in town at the time tried their hand at what they assumed to be Paul's "game." They pronounced the name of the Master Jesus over victims of evil spirits, saying, "I command you by the Jesus preached by Paul!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The seven sons of a certain Sceva, a Jewish high priest, were trying to do this on a man</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> when the evil spirit talked back: "I know Jesus and I've heard of Paul, but who are you?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Then the possessed man went berserk--jumped the exorcists, beat them up, and tore off their clothes. Naked and bloody, they got away as best they could.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> It was soon news all over Ephesus among both Jews and Greeks. The realization spread that God was in and behind this. Curiosity about Paul developed into reverence for the Master Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Many of those who thus believed came out of the closet and made a clean break with their secret sorceries.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> All kinds of witches and warlocks came out of the woodwork with their books of spells and incantations and made a huge bonfire of them. Someone estimated their worth at fifty thousand silver coins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> In such ways it became evident that the Word of the Master was now sovereign and prevailed in Ephesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> After all this had come to a head, Paul decided it was time to move on to Macedonia and Achaia provinces, and from there to Jerusalem. "Then," he said, "I'm off to Rome. I've got to see Rome!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> He sent two of his assistants, Timothy and Erastus, on to Macedonia while he stayed for a while and wrapped things up in Asia.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But before he got away, a huge ruckus occurred over what was now being referred to as "the Way."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> A certain silversmith, Demetrius, conducted a brisk trade in the manufacture of shrines to the goddess Artemis, employing a number of artisans in his business.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> He rounded up his workers and others similarly employed and said, "Men, you well know that we have a good thing going here--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> and you've seen how Paul has barged in and discredited what we're doing by telling people that there's no such thing as a god made with hands. A lot of people are going along with him, not only here in Ephesus but all through Asia province.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> "Not only is our little business in danger of falling apart, but the temple of our famous goddess Artemis will certainly end up a pile of rubble as her glorious reputation fades to nothing. And this is no mere local matter--the whole world worships our Artemis!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> That set them off in a frenzy. They ran into the street yelling, "Great Artemis of the Ephesians!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Great Artemis of the Ephesians!" They put the whole city in an uproar, stampeding into the stadium, and grabbing two of Paul's associates on the way, the Macedonians Gaius and Aristarchus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Paul wanted to go in, too, but the disciples wouldn't let him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Prominent religious leaders in the city who had become friendly to Paul concurred: "By no means go near that mob!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Some were yelling one thing, some another. Most of them had no idea what was going on or why they were there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> As the Jews pushed Alexander to the front to try to gain control, different factions clamored to get him on their side. But he brushed them off and quieted the mob with an impressive sweep of his arms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> But the moment he opened his mouth and they knew he was a Jew, they shouted him down: "Great Artemis of the Ephesians! Great Artemis of the Ephesians!"--on and on and on, for over two hours.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Finally, the town clerk got the mob quieted down and said, "Fellow citizens, is there anyone anywhere who doesn't know that our dear city Ephesus is protector of glorious Artemis and her sacred stone image that fell straight out of heaven?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Since this is beyond contradiction, you had better get hold of yourselves. This is conduct unworthy of Artemis.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> These men you've dragged in here have done nothing to harm either our temple or our goddess.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> "So if Demetrius and his guild of artisans have a complaint, they can take it to court and make all the accusations they want.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> If anything else is bothering you, bring it to the regularly scheduled town meeting and let it be settled there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> There is no excuse for what's happened today. We're putting our city in serious danger. Rome, remember, does not look kindly on rioters."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> With that, he sent them home.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="20">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> With things back to normal, Paul called the disciples together and encouraged them to keep up the good work in Ephesus. Then, saying his good-byes, he left for Macedonia.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Traveling through the country, passing from one gathering to another, he gave constant encouragement, lifting their spirits and charging them with fresh hope. Then he came to Greece</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> and stayed on for three months. Just as he was about to sail for Syria, the Jews cooked up a plot against him. So he went the other way, by land back through Macedonia, and gave them the slip.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> His companions for the journey were Sopater, son of Pyrrhus, from Berea; Aristarchus and Secundus, both Thessalonians; Gaius from Derbe; Timothy; and the two from western Asia, Tychicus and Trophimus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They went on ahead and waited for us in Troas.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Meanwhile, we stayed in Philippi for Passover Week, and then set sail. Within five days we were again in Troas and stayed a week.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> We met on Sunday to worship and celebrate the Master's Supper. Paul addressed the congregation. Our plan was to leave first thing in the morning, but Paul talked on, way past midnight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> We were meeting in a well-lighted upper room.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> A young man named Eutychus was sitting in an open window. As Paul went on and on, Eutychus fell sound asleep and toppled out the third-story window. When they picked him up, he was dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Paul went down, stretched himself on him, and hugged him hard. "No more crying," he said. "There's life in him yet."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then Paul got up and served the Master's Supper. And went on telling stories of the faith until dawn! On that note, they left--Paul going one way,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> the congregation another, leading the boy off alive, and full of life themselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> In the meantime, the rest of us had gone on ahead to the ship and sailed for Assos, where we planned to pick up Paul. Paul wanted to walk there, and so had made these arrangements earlier.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Things went according to plan: We met him in Assos, took him on board, and sailed to Mitylene.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The next day we put in opposite Chios, Samos a day later, and then Miletus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Paul had decided to bypass Ephesus so that he wouldn't be held up in Asia province. He was in a hurry to get to Jerusalem in time for the Feast of Pentecost, if at all possible.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> From Miletus he sent to Ephesus for the leaders of the congregation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When they arrived, he said, "You know that from day one of my arrival in Asia I was with you totally--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> laying my life on the line, serving the Master no matter what, putting up with no end of scheming by Jews who wanted to do me in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> I didn't skimp or trim in any way. Every truth and encouragement that could have made a difference to you, you got. I taught you out in public and I taught you in your homes,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> urging Jews and Greeks alike to a radical life-change before God and an equally radical trust in our Master Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "But there is another urgency before me now. I feel compelled to go to Jerusalem. I'm completely in the dark about what will happen when I get there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> I do know that it won't be any picnic, for the Holy Spirit has let me know repeatedly and clearly that there are hard times and imprisonment ahead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> But that matters little. What matters most to me is to finish what God started: the job the Master Jesus gave me of letting everyone I meet know all about this incredibly extravagant generosity of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "And so this is good-bye. You're not going to see me again, nor I you, you whom I have gone among for so long proclaiming the news of God's inaugurated kingdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> I've done my best for you, given you my all,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> held back nothing of God's will for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "Now it's up to you. Be on your toes--both for yourselves and your congregation of sheep. The Holy Spirit has put you in charge of these people--God's people they are--to guard and protect them. God himself thought they were worth dying for.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "I know that as soon as I'm gone, vicious wolves are going to show up and rip into this flock, men</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> from your very own ranks twisting words so as to seduce disciples into following them instead of Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> So stay awake and keep up your guard. Remember those three years I kept at it with you, never letting up, pouring my heart out with you, one after another.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> "Now I'm turning you over to God, our marvelous God whose gracious Word can make you into what he wants you to be and give you everything you could possibly need in this community of holy friends.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> "I've never, as you so well know, had any taste for wealth or fashion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> With these bare hands I took care of my own basic needs and those who worked with me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> In everything I've done, I have demonstrated to you how necessary it is to work on behalf of the weak and not exploit them. You'll not likely go wrong here if you keep remembering that our Master said, 'You're far happier giving than getting.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Then Paul went down on his knees, all of them kneeling with him, and prayed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> And then a river of tears. Much clinging to Paul, not wanting to let him go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> They knew they would never see him again--he had told them quite plainly. The pain cut deep. Then, bravely, they walked him down to the ship.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="21">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> And so, with the tearful good-byes behind us, we were on our way. We made a straight run to Cos, the next day reached Rhodes, and then Patara.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> There we found a ship going direct to Phoenicia, got on board, and set sail.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Cyprus came into view on our left, but was soon out of sight as we kept on course for Syria, and eventually docked in the port of Tyre. While the cargo was being unloaded,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> we looked up the local disciples and stayed with them seven days. Their message to Paul, from insight given by the Spirit, was "Don't go to Jerusalem."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When our time was up, they escorted us out of the city to the docks. Everyone came along--men, women, children. They made a farewell party of the occasion! We all kneeled together on the beach and prayed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then, after another round of saying good-bye, we climbed on board the ship while they drifted back to their homes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> A short run from Tyre to Ptolemais completed the voyage. We greeted our Christian friends there and stayed with them a day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> In the morning we went on to Caesarea and stayed with Philip the Evangelist, one of "the Seven."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Philip had four virgin daughters who prophesied.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> After several days of visiting, a prophet from Judea by the name of Agabus came down to see us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He went right up to Paul, took Paul's belt, and, in a dramatic gesture, tied himself up, hands and feet. He said, "This is what the Holy Spirit says: The Jews in Jerusalem are going to tie up the man who owns this belt just like this and hand him over to godless unbelievers."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When we heard that, we and everyone there that day begged Paul not to be stubborn and persist in going to Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But Paul wouldn't budge: "Why all this hysteria? Why do you insist on making a scene and making it even harder for me? You're looking at this backwards. The issue in Jerusalem is not what they do to me, whether arrest or murder, but what the Master Jesus does through my obedience. Can't you see that?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> We saw that we weren't making even a dent in his resolve, and gave up. "It's in God's hands now," we said. "Master, you handle it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> It wasn't long before we had our luggage together and were on our way to Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Some of the disciples from Caesarea went with us and took us to the home of Mnason, who received us warmly as his guests. A native of Cyprus, he had been among the earliest disciples.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> In Jerusalem, our friends, glad to see us, received us with open arms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The first thing next morning, we took Paul to see James. All the church leaders were there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> After a time of greeting and small talk, Paul told the story, detail by detail, of what God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> They listened with delight and gave God the glory. They had a story to tell, too: "And just look at what's been happening here--thousands upon thousands of God-fearing Jews have become believers in Jesus! But there's also a problem because they are more zealous than ever in observing the laws of Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They've been told that you advise believing Jews who live surrounded by Gentiles to go light on Moses, telling them that they don't need to circumcise their children or keep up the old traditions. This isn't sitting at all well with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "We're worried about what will happen when they discover you're in town. There's bound to be trouble. So here is what we want you to do:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> There are four men from our company who have taken a vow involving ritual purification, but have no money to pay the expenses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Join these men in their vows and pay their expenses. Then it will become obvious to everyone that there is nothing to the rumors going around about you and that you are in fact scrupulous in your reverence for the laws of Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> "In asking you to do this, we're not going back on our agreement regarding Gentiles who have become believers. We continue to hold fast to what we wrote in that letter, namely, to be careful not to get involved in activities connected with idols; to avoid serving food offensive to Jewish Christians; to guard the morality of sex and marriage."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> So Paul did it--took the men, joined them in their vows, and paid their way. The next day he went to the Temple to make it official and stay there until the proper sacrifices had been offered and completed for each of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> When the seven days of their purification were nearly up, some Jews from around Ephesus spotted him in the Temple. At once they turned the place upside-down. They grabbed Paul</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> and started yelling at the top of their lungs, "Help! You Israelites, help! This is the man who is going all over the world telling lies against us and our religion and this place. He's even brought Greeks in here and defiled this holy place."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> (What had happened was that they had seen Paul and Trophimus, the Ephesian Greek, walking together in the city and had just assumed that he had also taken him to the Temple and shown him around.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Soon the whole city was in an uproar, people running from everywhere to the Temple to get in on the action. They grabbed Paul, dragged him outside, and locked the Temple gates so he couldn't get back in and gain sanctuary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> As they were trying to kill him, word came to the captain of the guard, "A riot! The whole city's boiling over!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> He acted swiftly. His soldiers and centurions ran to the scene at once. As soon as the mob saw the captain and his soldiers, they quit beating Paul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> The captain came up and put Paul under arrest. He first ordered him handcuffed, and then asked who he was and what he had done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> All he got from the crowd were shouts, one yelling this, another that. It was impossible to tell one word from another in the mob hysteria, so the captain ordered Paul taken to the military barracks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> But when they got to the Temple steps, the mob became so violent that the soldiers had to carry Paul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> As they carried him away, the crowd followed, shouting, "Kill him! Kill him!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> When they got to the barracks and were about to go in, Paul said to the captain, "Can I say something to you?" He answered, "Oh, I didn't know you spoke Greek.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> I thought you were the Egyptian who not long ago started a riot here, and then hid out in the desert with his four thousand thugs."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Paul said, "No, I'm a Jew, born in Tarsus. And I'm a citizen still of that influential city. I have a simple request: Let me speak to the crowd."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Standing on the barracks steps, Paul turned and held his arms up. A hush fell over the crowd as Paul began to speak. He spoke in Hebrew.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="22">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> "My dear brothers and fathers, listen carefully to what I have to say before you jump to conclusions about me."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> When they heard him speaking Hebrew, they grew even quieter. No one wanted to miss a word of this. He continued,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "I am a good Jew, born in Tarsus in the province of Cilicia, but educated here in Jerusalem under the exacting eye of Rabbi Gamaliel, thoroughly instructed in our religious traditions. And I've always been passionately on God's side, just as you are right now.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "I went after anyone connected with this 'Way,' went at them hammer and tongs, ready to kill for God. I rounded up men and women right and left and had them thrown in prison.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You can ask the Chief Priest or anyone in the High Council to verify this; they all knew me well. Then I went off to our brothers in Damascus, armed with official documents authorizing me to hunt down the Christians there, arrest them, and bring them back to Jerusalem for sentencing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "As I arrived on the outskirts of Damascus about noon, a blinding light blazed out of the skies</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> and I fell to the ground, dazed. I heard a voice: 'Saul, Saul, why are you out to get me?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "'Who are you, Master?' I asked. "He said, 'I am Jesus the Nazarene, the One you're hunting down.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> My companions saw the light, but they didn't hear the conversation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Then I said, 'What do I do now, Master?' "He said, 'Get to your feet and enter Damascus. There you'll be told everything that's been set out for you to do.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And so we entered Damascus, but nothing like the entrance I had planned--I was blind as a bat and my companions had to lead me in by the hand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "And that's when I met Ananias, a man with a sterling reputation in observing our laws--the Jewish community in Damascus is unanimous on that score.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He came and put his arm on my shoulder. 'Look up,' he said. I looked, and found myself looking right into his eyes--I could see again!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Then he said, 'The God of our ancestors has handpicked you to be briefed on his plan of action. You've actually seen the Righteous Innocent and heard him speak.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> You are to be a key witness to everyone you meet of what you've seen and heard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So what are you waiting for? Get up and get yourself baptized, scrubbed clean of those sins and personally acquainted with God.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Well, it happened just as Ananias said. After I was back in Jerusalem and praying one day in the Temple, lost in the presence of God,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I saw him, saw God's Righteous Innocent, and heard him say to me, 'Hurry up! Get out of here as quickly as you can. None of the Jews here in Jerusalem are going to accept what you say about me.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "At first I objected: 'Who has better credentials? They all know how obsessed I was with hunting out those who believed in you, beating them up in the meeting places and throwing them in jail.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And when your witness Stephen was murdered, I was right there, holding the coats of the murderers and cheering them on. And now they see me totally converted. What better qualification could I have?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "But he said, 'Don't argue. Go. I'm sending you on a long journey to outsider Gentiles.'"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The people in the crowd had listened attentively up to this point, but now they broke loose, shouting out, "Kill him! He's an insect! Stomp on him!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They shook their fists. They filled the air with curses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> That's when the captain intervened and ordered Paul taken into the barracks. By now the captain was thoroughly exasperated. He decided to interrogate Paul under torture in order to get to the bottom of this, to find out what he had done that provoked this outraged violence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> As they spread-eagled him with thongs, getting him ready for the whip, Paul said to the centurion standing there, "Is this legal: torturing a Roman citizen without a fair trial?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> When the centurion heard that, he went directly to the captain. "Do you realize what you've done? This man is a Roman citizen!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The captain came back and took charge. "Is what I hear right? You're a Roman citizen?" Paul said, "I certainly am."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The captain was impressed. "I paid a huge sum for my citizenship. How much did it cost you?" "Nothing," said Paul. "It cost me nothing. I was free from the day of my birth."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> That put a stop to the interrogation. And it put the fear of God into the captain. He had put a Roman citizen in chains and come within a whisker of putting him under torture!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The next day, determined to get to the root of the trouble and know for sure what was behind the Jewish accusation, the captain released Paul and ordered a meeting of the high priests and the High Council to see what they could make of it. Paul was led in and took his place before them.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="23">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Paul surveyed the members of the council with a steady gaze, and then said his piece: "Friends, I've lived with a clear conscience before God all my life, up to this very moment."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> That set the Chief Priest Ananias off. He ordered his aides to slap Paul in the face.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Paul shot back, "God will slap you down! What a fake you are! You sit there and judge me by the Law and then break the Law by ordering me slapped around!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The aides were scandalized: "How dare you talk to God's Chief Priest like that!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Paul acted surprised. "How was I to know he was Chief Priest? He doesn't act like a Chief Priest. You're right, the Scripture does say, 'Don't speak abusively to a ruler of the people.' Sorry."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Paul, knowing some of the council was made up of Sadducees and others of Pharisees and how they hated each other, decided to exploit their antagonism: "Friends, I am a stalwart Pharisee from a long line of Pharisees. It's because of my Pharisee convictions--the hope and resurrection of the dead--that I've been hauled into this court."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The moment he said this, the council split right down the middle, Pharisees and Sadducees going at each other in heated argument.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Sadducees have nothing to do with a resurrection or angels or even a spirit. If they can't see it, they don't believe it. Pharisees believe it all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And so a huge and noisy quarrel broke out. Then some of the religion scholars on the Pharisee side shouted down the others: "We don't find anything wrong with this man! And what if a spirit has spoken to him? Or maybe an angel? What if it turns out we're fighting against God?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> That was fuel on the fire. The quarrel flamed up and became so violent the captain was afraid they would tear Paul apart, limb from limb. He ordered the soldiers to get him out of there and escort him back to the safety of the barracks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> That night the Master appeared to Paul: "It's going to be all right. Everything is going to turn out for the best. You've been a good witness for me here in Jerusalem. Now you're going to be my witness in Rome!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Next day the Jews worked up a plot against Paul. They took a solemn oath that they would neither eat nor drink until they had killed him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Over forty of them ritually bound themselves to this murder pact</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> and presented themselves to the high priests and religious leaders. "We've bound ourselves by a solemn oath to eat nothing until we have killed Paul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But we need your help. Send a request from the council to the captain to bring Paul back so that you can investigate the charges in more detail. We'll do the rest. Before he gets anywhere near you, we'll have killed him. You won't be involved."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Paul's nephew, his sister's son, overheard them plotting the ambush. He went immediately to the barracks and told Paul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Paul called over one of the centurions and said, "Take this young man to the captain. He has something important to tell him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The centurion brought him to the captain and said, "The prisoner Paul asked me to bring this young man to you. He said he has something urgent to tell you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The captain took him by the arm and led him aside privately. "What is it? What do you have to tell me?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Paul's nephew said, "The Jews have worked up a plot against Paul. They're going to ask you to bring Paul to the council first thing in the morning on the pretext that they want to investigate the charges against him in more detail.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But it's a trick to get him out of your safekeeping so they can murder him. Right now there are more than forty men lying in ambush for him. They've all taken a vow to neither eat nor drink until they've killed him. The ambush is set--all they're waiting for is for you to send him over."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The captain dismissed the nephew with a warning: "Don't breathe a word of this to a soul."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The captain called up two centurions. "Get two hundred soldiers ready to go immediately to Caesarea. Also seventy cavalry and two hundred light infantry. I want them ready to march by nine o'clock tonight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> And you'll need a couple of mules for Paul and his gear. We're going to present this man safe and sound to Governor Felix."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Then he wrote this letter:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> From Claudius Lysias, to the Most Honorable Governor Felix: Greetings!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> I rescued this man from a Jewish mob. They had seized him and were about to kill him when I learned that he was a Roman citizen. So I sent in my soldiers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Wanting to know what he had done wrong, I had him brought before their council.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> It turned out to be a squabble turned vicious over some of their religious differences, but nothing remotely criminal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The next thing I knew, they had cooked up a plot to murder him. I decided that for his own safety I'd better get him out of here in a hurry. So I'm sending him to you. I'm informing his accusers that he's now under your jurisdiction.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The soldiers, following orders, took Paul that same night to safety in Antipatris.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> In the morning the soldiers returned to their barracks in Jerusalem, sending Paul on to Caesarea under guard of the cavalry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> The cavalry entered Caesarea and handed Paul and the letter over to the governor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> After reading the letter, the governor asked Paul what province he came from and was told "Cilicia."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Then he said, "I'll take up your case when your accusers show up." He ordered him locked up for the meantime in King Herod's official quarters.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="24">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Within five days, the Chief Priest Ananias arrived with a contingent of leaders, along with Tertullus, a trial lawyer. They presented the governor with their case against Paul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> When Paul was called before the court, Tertullus spoke for the prosecution: "Most Honorable Felix, we are most grateful in all times and places for your wise and gentle rule.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> We are much aware that it is because of you and you alone that we enjoy all this peace and gain daily profit from your reforms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'm not going to tire you out with a long speech. I beg your kind indulgence in listening to me. I'll be quite brief.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "We've found this man time and again disturbing the peace, stirring up riots against Jews all over the world, the ringleader of a seditious sect called Nazarenes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He's a real bad apple, I must say. We caught him trying to defile our holy Temple and arrested him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> (OMITTED TEXT)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You'll be able to verify all these accusations when you examine him yourself."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The Jews joined in: "Hear, hear! That's right!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The governor motioned to Paul that it was now his turn. Paul said, "I count myself fortunate to be defending myself before you, Governor, knowing how fair-minded you've been in judging us all these years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I've been back in the country only twelve days--you can check out these dates easily enough. I came with the express purpose of worshiping in Jerusalem on Pentecost, and I've been minding my own business the whole time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Nobody can say they saw me arguing in the Temple or working up a crowd in the streets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Not one of their charges can be backed up with evidence or witnesses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "But I do freely admit this: In regard to the Way, which they malign as a dead-end street, I serve and worship the very same God served and worshiped by all our ancestors and embrace everything written in all our Scriptures.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And I admit to living in hopeful anticipation that God will raise the dead, both the good and the bad. If that's my crime, my accusers are just as guilty as I am.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Believe me, I do my level best to keep a clear conscience before God and my neighbors in everything I do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I've been out of the country for a number of years and now I'm back. While I was away, I took up a collection for the poor and brought that with me, along with offerings for the Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> It was while making those offerings that they found me quietly at my prayers in the Temple. There was no crowd, there was no disturbance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> It was some Jews from around Ephesus who started all this trouble. And you'll notice they're not here today. They're cowards, too cowardly to accuse me in front of you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "So ask these others what crime they've caught me in. Don't let them hide behind this smooth-talking Tertullus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The only thing they have on me is that one sentence I shouted out in the council: 'It's because I believe in the resurrection that I've been hauled into this court!' Does that sound to you like grounds for a criminal case?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Felix shilly-shallied. He knew far more about the Way than he let on, and could have settled the case then and there. But uncertain of his best move politically, he played for time. "When Captain Lysias comes down, I'll decide your case."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> He gave orders to the centurion to keep Paul in custody, but to more or less give him the run of the place and not prevent his friends from helping him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> A few days later Felix and his wife, Drusilla, who was Jewish, sent for Paul and listened to him talk about a life of believing in Jesus Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> As Paul continued to insist on right relations with God and his people, about a life of moral discipline and the coming Judgment, Felix felt things getting a little too close for comfort and dismissed him. "That's enough for today. I'll call you back when it's convenient."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> At the same time he was secretly hoping that Paul would offer him a substantial bribe. These conversations were repeated frequently.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> After two years of this, Felix was replaced by Porcius Festus. Still playing up to the Jews and ignoring justice, Felix left Paul in prison.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="25">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Three days after Festus arrived in Caesarea to take up his duties as governor, he went up to Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The high priests and top leaders renewed their vendetta against Paul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They asked Festus if he wouldn't please do them a favor by sending Paul to Jerusalem to respond to their charges. A lie, of course--they had revived their old plot to set an ambush and kill him along the way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Festus answered that Caesarea was the proper jurisdiction for Paul, and that he himself was going back there in a few days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "You're perfectly welcome," he said, "to go back with me then and accuse him of whatever you think he's done wrong."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> About eight or ten days later, Festus returned to Caesarea. The next morning he took his place in the courtroom and had Paul brought in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The minute he walked in, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem were all over him, hurling the most extreme accusations, none of which they could prove.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then Paul took the stand and said simply, "I've done nothing wrong against the Jewish religion, or the Temple, or Caesar. Period."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Festus, though, wanted to get on the good side of the Jews and so said, "How would you like to go up to Jerusalem, and let me conduct your trial there?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Paul answered, "I'm standing at this moment before Caesar's bar of justice, where I have a perfect right to stand. And I'm going to keep standing here. I've done nothing wrong to the Jews, and you know it as well as I do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> If I've committed a crime and deserve death, name the day. I can face it. But if there's nothing to their accusations--and you know there isn't--nobody can force me to go along with their nonsense. We've fooled around here long enough. I appeal to Caesar."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Festus huddled with his advisors briefly and then gave his verdict: "You've appealed to Caesar; you'll go to Caesar!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> A few days later King Agrippa and his wife, Bernice, visited Caesarea to welcome Festus to his new post.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> After several days, Festus brought up Paul's case to the king. "I have a man on my hands here, a prisoner left by Felix.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> When I was in Jerusalem, the high priests and Jewish leaders brought a bunch of accusations against him and wanted me to sentence him to death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I told them that wasn't the way we Romans did things. Just because a man is accused, we don't throw him out to the dogs. We make sure the accused has a chance to face his accusers and defend himself of the charges.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> So when they came down here I got right on the case. I took my place in the courtroom and put the man on the stand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "The accusers came at him from all sides,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> but their accusations turned out to be nothing more than arguments about their religion and a dead man named Jesus, who the prisoner claimed was alive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Since I'm a newcomer here and don't understand everything involved in cases like this, I asked if he'd be willing to go to Jerusalem and be tried there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Paul refused and demanded a hearing before His Majesty in our highest court. So I ordered him returned to custody until I could send him to Caesar in Rome."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Agrippa said, "I'd like to see this man and hear his story." "Good," said Festus. "We'll bring him in first thing in the morning and you'll hear it for yourself."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The next day everybody who was anybody in Caesarea found his way to the Great Hall, along with the top military brass. Agrippa and Bernice made a flourishing grand entrance and took their places. Festus then ordered Paul brought in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Festus said, "King Agrippa and distinguished guests, take a good look at this man. A bunch of Jews petitioned me first in Jerusalem, and later here, to do away with him. They have been most vehement in demanding his execution.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> I looked into it and decided that he had committed no crime. He requested a trial before Caesar and I agreed to send him to Rome.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> But what am I going to write to my master, Caesar? All the charges made by the Jews were fabrications, and I've uncovered nothing else. "That's why I've brought him before this company, and especially you, King Agrippa: so we can come up with something in the nature of a charge that will hold water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> For it seems to me silly to send a prisoner all that way for a trial and not be able to document what he did wrong."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="26">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Agrippa spoke directly to Paul: "Go ahead--tell us about yourself." Paul took the stand and told his story.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "I can't think of anyone, King Agrippa, before whom I'd rather be answering all these Jewish accusations than you,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> knowing how well you are acquainted with Jewish ways and all our family quarrels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "From the time of my youth, my life has been lived among my own people in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Practically every Jew in town who watched me grow up--and if they were willing to stick their necks out they'd tell you in person--knows that I lived as a strict Pharisee, the most demanding branch of our religion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> It's because I believed it and took it seriously,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> committed myself heart and soul to what God promised my ancestors--the identical hope, mind you, that the twelve tribes have lived for night and day all these centuries--it's because I have held on to this tested and tried hope that I'm being called on the carpet by the Jews. They should be the ones standing trial here, not me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> For the life of me, I can't see why it's a criminal offense to believe that God raises the dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "I admit that I didn't always hold to this position. For a time I thought it was my duty to oppose this Jesus of Nazareth with all my might.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Backed with the full authority of the high priests, I threw these believers--I had no idea they were God's people!--into the Jerusalem jail right and left, and whenever it came to a vote, I voted for their execution.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I stormed through their meeting places, bullying them into cursing Jesus, a one-man terror obsessed with obliterating these people. And then I started on the towns outside Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "One day on my way to Damascus, armed as always with papers from the high priests authorizing my action,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> right in the middle of the day a blaze of light, light outshining the sun, poured out of the sky on me and my companions. Oh, King, it was so bright!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> We fell flat on our faces. Then I heard a voice in Hebrew: 'Saul, Saul, why are you out to get me? Why do you insist on going against the grain?'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "I said, 'Who are you, Master?' "The voice answered, 'I am Jesus, the One you're hunting down like an animal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But now, up on your feet--I have a job for you. I've handpicked you to be a servant and witness to what's happened today, and to what I am going to show you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "'I'm sending you off</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> to open the eyes of the outsiders so they can see the difference between dark and light, and choose light, see the difference between Satan and God, and choose God. I'm sending you off to present my offer of sins forgiven, and a place in the family, inviting them into the company of those who begin real living by believing in me.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "What could I do, King Agrippa? I couldn't just walk away from a vision like that! I became an obedient believer on the spot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> I started preaching this life-change--this radical turn to God and everything it meant in everyday life--right there in Damascus, went on to Jerusalem and the surrounding countryside, and from there to the whole world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "It's because of this 'whole world' dimension that the Jews grabbed me in the Temple that day and tried to kill me. They want to keep God for themselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But God has stood by me, just as he promised, and I'm standing here saying what I've been saying to anyone, whether king or child, who will listen. And everything I'm saying is completely in line with what the prophets and Moses said would happen:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> One, the Messiah must die; two, raised from the dead, he would be the first rays of God's daylight shining on people far and near, people both godless and God-fearing."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> That was too much for Festus. He interrupted with a shout: "Paul, you're crazy! You've read too many books, spent too much time staring off into space! Get a grip on yourself, get back in the real world!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> But Paul stood his ground. "With all respect, Festus, Your Honor, I'm not crazy. I'm both accurate and sane in what I'm saying.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The King knows what I'm talking about. I'm sure that nothing of what I've said sounds crazy to him. He's known all about it for a long time. You must realize that this wasn't done behind the scenes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> You believe the prophets, don't you, King Agrippa? Don't answer that--I know you believe."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> But Agrippa did answer: "Keep this up much longer and you'll make a Christian out of me!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Paul, still in chains, said, "That's what I'm praying for, whether now or later, and not only you but everyone listening today, to become like me--except, of course, for this prison jewelry!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> The king and the governor, along with Bernice and their advisors, got up</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> and went into the next room to talk over what they had heard. They quickly agreed on Paul's innocence, saying, "There's nothing in this man deserving prison, let alone death."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Agrippa told Festus, "He could be set free right now if he hadn't requested the hearing before Caesar."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="27">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> As soon as arrangements were complete for our sailing to Italy, Paul and a few other prisoners were placed under the supervision of a centurion named Julius, a member of an elite guard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> We boarded a ship from Adramyttium that was bound for Ephesus and ports west. Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica, went with us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The next day we put in at Sidon. Julius treated Paul most decently--let him get off the ship and enjoy the hospitality of his friends there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Out to sea again, we sailed north under the protection of the northeast shore of Cyprus because winds out of the west were against us,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> and then along the coast westward to the port of Myra.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> There the centurion found an Egyptian ship headed for Italy and transferred us on board.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> We ran into bad weather and found it impossible to stay on course. After much difficulty, we finally made it to the southern coast of the island of Crete</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> and docked at Good Harbor (appropriate name!).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> By this time we had lost a lot of time. We had passed the autumn equinox, so it would be stormy weather from now on through the winter, too dangerous for sailing. Paul warned,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "I see only disaster ahead for cargo and ship--to say nothing of our lives!--if we put out to sea now."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The centurion set Paul's warning aside and let the ship captain and the shipowner talk him into trying for the next harbor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But it was not the best harbor for staying the winter. Phoenix, a few miles further on, was more suitable.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> When a gentle southerly breeze came up, they weighed anchor, thinking it would be smooth sailing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But they were no sooner out to sea than a gale-force wind, the infamous nor'easter, struck.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They lost all control of the ship. It was a cork in the storm.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> We came under the lee of the small island named Clauda, and managed to get a lifeboat ready and reef the sails.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But rocky shoals prevented us from getting close. We only managed to avoid them by throwing out drift anchors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Next day, out on the high seas again and badly damaged now by the storm, we dumped the cargo overboard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The third day the sailors lightened the ship further by throwing off all the tackle and provisions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> It had been many days since we had seen either sun or stars. Wind and waves were battering us unmercifully, and we lost all hope of rescue.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> With our appetite for both food and life long gone, Paul took his place in our midst and said, "Friends, you really should have listened to me back in Crete. We could have avoided all this trouble and trial.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But there's no need to dwell on that now. From now on, things are looking up! I can assure you that there'll not be a single drowning among us, although I can't say as much for the ship--the ship itself is doomed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> "Last night God's angel stood at my side, an angel of this God I serve,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> saying to me, 'Don't give up, Paul. You're going to stand before Caesar yet--and everyone sailing with you is also going to make it.'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> So, dear friends, take heart. I believe God will do exactly what he told me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> But we're going to shipwreck on some island or other."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> On the fourteenth night, adrift somewhere on the Adriatic Sea, at about midnight the sailors sensed that we were approaching land.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Sounding, they measured a depth of one hundred twenty feet, and shortly after that ninety feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Afraid that we were about to run aground, they threw out four anchors and prayed for daylight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Some of the sailors tried to jump ship. They let down the lifeboat, pretending they were going to set out more anchors from the bow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Paul saw through their guise and told the centurion and his soldiers, "If these sailors don't stay with the ship, we're all going down."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> So the soldiers cut the lines to the lifeboat and let it drift off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> With dawn about to break, Paul called everyone together and proposed breakfast: "This is the fourteenth day we've gone without food. None of us has felt like eating!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> But I urge you to eat something now. You'll need strength for the rescue ahead. You're going to come out of this without even a scratch!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> He broke the bread, gave thanks to God, passed it around,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> and they all ate heartily--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> two hundred seventy-six of us, all told!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> With the meal finished and everyone full, the ship was further lightened by dumping the grain overboard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> At daybreak, no one recognized the land--but then they did notice a bay with a nice beach. They decided to try to run the ship up on the beach.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> They cut the anchors, loosed the tiller, raised the sail, and ran before the wind toward the beach.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> But we didn't make it. Still far from shore, we hit a reef and the ship began to break up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> The soldiers decided to kill the prisoners so none could escape by swimming,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> but the centurion, determined to save Paul, stopped them. He gave orders for anyone who could swim to dive in and go for it,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> and for the rest to grab a plank. Everyone made it to shore safely.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="28">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Once everyone was accounted for and we realized we had all made it, we learned that we were on the island of Malta.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The natives went out of their way to be friendly to us. The day was rainy and cold and we were already soaked to the bone, but they built a huge bonfire and gathered us around it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Paul pitched in and helped. He had gathered up a bundle of sticks, but when he put it on the fire, a venomous snake, roused from its torpor by the heat, struck his hand and held on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Seeing the snake hanging from Paul's hand like that, the natives jumped to the conclusion that he was a murderer getting his just deserts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Paul shook the snake off into the fire, none the worse for wear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They kept expecting him to drop dead, but when it was obvious he wasn't going to, they jumped to the conclusion that he was a god!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The head man in that part of the island was Publius. He took us into his home as his guests, drying us out and putting us up in fine style for the next three days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Publius's father was sick at the time, down with a high fever and dysentery. Paul went to the old man's room, and when he laid hands on him and prayed, the man was healed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Word of the healing got around fast, and soon everyone on the island who was sick came and got healed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> We spent a wonderful three months on Malta. They treated us royally, took care of all our needs and outfitted us for the rest of the journey.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> When an Egyptian ship that had wintered there in the harbor prepared to leave for Italy, we got on board. The ship had a carved Gemini for its figurehead: "the Heavenly Twins."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> We put in at Syracuse for three days</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> and then went up the coast to Rhegium. Two days later, with the wind out of the south, we sailed into the Bay of Naples.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> We found Christian friends there and stayed with them for a week. And then we came to Rome.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Friends in Rome heard we were on the way and came out to meet us. One group got as far as Appian Court; another group met us at Three Taverns--emotion-packed meetings, as you can well imagine. Paul, brimming over with praise, led us in prayers of thanksgiving.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When we actually entered Rome, they let Paul live in his own private quarters with a soldier who had been assigned to guard him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Three days later, Paul called the Jewish leaders together for a meeting at his house. He said, "The Jews in Jerusalem arrested me on trumped-up charges, and I was taken into custody by the Romans. I assure you that I did absolutely nothing against Jewish laws or Jewish customs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> After the Romans investigated the charges and found there was nothing to them, they wanted to set me free,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> but the Jews objected so fiercely that I was forced to appeal to Caesar. I did this not to accuse them of any wrongdoing or to get our people in trouble with Rome. We've had enough trouble through the years that way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> I did it for Israel. I asked you to come and listen to me today to make it clear that I'm on Israel's side, not against her. I'm a hostage here for hope, not doom."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> They said, "Nobody wrote warning us about you. And no one has shown up saying anything bad about you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But we would like very much to hear more. The only thing we know about this Christian sect is that nobody seems to have anything good to say about it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They agreed on a time. When the day arrived, they came back to his home with a number of their friends. Paul talked to them all day, from morning to evening, explaining everything involved in the kingdom of God, and trying to persuade them all about Jesus by pointing out what Moses and the prophets had written about him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Some of them were persuaded by what he said, but others refused to believe a word of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> When the unbelievers got cantankerous and started bickering with each other, Paul interrupted: "I have just one more thing to say to you. The Holy Spirit sure knew what he was talking about when he addressed our ancestors through Isaiah the prophet:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Go to this people and tell them this: "You're going to listen with your ears, but you won't hear a word; You're going to stare with your eyes, but you won't see a thing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> These people are blockheads! They stick their fingers in their ears so they won't have to listen; They screw their eyes shut so they won't have to look, so they won't have to deal with me face-to-face and let me heal them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> "You've had your chance. The non-Jewish outsiders are next on the list. And believe me, they're going to receive it with open arms!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> (OMITTED TEXT)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Paul lived for two years in his rented house. He welcomed everyone who came to visit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> He urgently presented all matters of the kingdom of God. He explained everything about Jesus Christ. His door was always open.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="45" bname="Romans">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I, Paul, am a devoted slave of Jesus Christ on assignment, authorized as an apostle to proclaim God's words and acts. I write this letter to all the Christians in Rome, God's friends.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The sacred writings contain preliminary reports by the prophets</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> on God's Son. His descent from David roots him in history;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> his unique identity as Son of God was shown by the Spirit when Jesus was raised from the dead, setting him apart as the Messiah, our Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Through him we received both the generous gift of his life and the urgent task of passing it on to others who receive it by entering into obedient trust in Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> You are who you are through this gift and call of Jesus Christ!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And I greet you now with all the generosity of God our Father and our Master Jesus, the Messiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I thank God through Jesus for every one of you. That's first. People everywhere keep telling me about your lives of faith, and every time I hear them, I thank him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And God, whom I so love to worship and serve by spreading the good news of his Son--the Message!--knows that every time I think of you</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> in my prayers, which is practically all the time, I ask him to clear the way for me to come and see you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The longer this waiting goes on, the deeper the ache. I so want to be there to deliver God's gift in person and watch you grow stronger right before my eyes!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But don't think I'm not expecting to get something out of this, too! You have as much to give me as I do to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Please don't misinterpret my failure to visit you, friends. You have no idea how many times I've made plans for Rome. I've been determined to get some personal enjoyment out of God's work among you, as I have in so many other non-Jewish towns and communities. But something has always come up and prevented it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Everyone I meet--it matters little whether they're mannered or rude, smart or simple--deepens my sense of interdependence and obligation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And that's why I can't wait to get to you in Rome, preaching this wonderful good news of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> It's news I'm most proud to proclaim, this extraordinary Message of God's powerful plan to rescue everyone who trusts him, starting with Jews and then right on to everyone else!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> God's way of putting people right shows up in the acts of faith, confirming what Scripture has said all along: "The person in right standing before God by trusting him really lives."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But God's angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over truth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can't see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn't treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> So God said, in effect, "If that's what you want, that's what you get." It wasn't long before they were living in a pigpen, smeared with filth, filthy inside and out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> And all this because they traded the true God for a fake god, and worshiped the god they made instead of the God who made them--the God we bless, the God who blesses us. Oh, yes!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Worse followed. Refusing to know God, they soon didn't know how to be human either--women didn't know how to be women, men didn't know how to be men.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men--all lust, no love. And then they paid for it, oh, how they paid for it--emptied of God and love, godless and loveless wretches.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Since they didn't bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> And then all hell broke loose: rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing. They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating. Look at them: mean-spirited, venomous,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> fork-tongued God-bashers. Bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags! They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives. They ditch their parents when they get in the way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Stupid, slimy, cruel, cold-blooded.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> And it's not as if they don't know better. They know perfectly well they're spitting in God's face. And they don't care--worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Those people are on a dark spiral downward. But if you think that leaves you on the high ground where you can point your finger at others, think again. Every time you criticize someone, you condemn yourself. It takes one to know one. Judgmental criticism of others is a well-known way of escaping detection in your own crimes and misdemeanors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> But God isn't so easily diverted. He sees right through all such smoke screens and holds you to what you've done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You didn't think, did you, that just by pointing your finger at others you would distract God from seeing all your misdoings and from coming down on you hard?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Or did you think that because he's such a nice God, he'd let you off the hook? Better think this one through from the beginning. God is kind, but he's not soft. In kindness he takes us firmly by the hand and leads us into a radical life-change.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You're not getting by with anything. Every refusal and avoidance of God adds fuel to the fire. The day is coming when it's going to blaze hot and high, God's fiery and righteous judgment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Make no mistake: In the end you get what's coming to you--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Real Life for those who work on God's side,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> but to those who insist on getting their own way and take the path of least resistance, Fire!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> If you go against the grain, you get splinters, regardless of which neighborhood you're from, what your parents taught you, what schools you attended.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But if you embrace the way God does things, there are wonderful payoffs, again without regard to where you are from or how you were brought up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Being a Jew won't give you an automatic stamp of approval. God pays no attention to what others say (or what you think) about you. He makes up his own mind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> If you sin without knowing what you're doing, God takes that into account. But if you sin knowing full well what you're doing, that's a different story entirely.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Merely hearing God's law is a waste of your time if you don't do what he commands. Doing, not hearing, is what makes the difference with God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> When outsiders who have never heard of God's law follow it more or less by instinct, they confirm its truth by their obedience.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They show that God's law is not something alien, imposed on us from without, but woven into the very fabric of our creation. There is something deep within them that echoes God's yes and no, right and wrong.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Their response to God's yes and no will become public knowledge on the day God makes his final decision about every man and woman. The Message from God that I proclaim through Jesus Christ takes into account all these differences.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> If you're brought up Jewish, don't assume that you can lean back in the arms of your religion and take it easy, feeling smug because you're an insider to God's revelation,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> a connoisseur of the best things of God, informed on the latest doctrines!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I have a special word of caution for you who are sure that you have it all together yourselves and, because you know God's revealed Word inside and out,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> feel qualified to guide others through their blind alleys and dark nights and confused emotions to God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> While you are guiding others, who is going to guide you? I'm quite serious. While preaching "Don't steal!" are you going to rob people blind? Who would suspect you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The same with adultery. The same with idolatry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> You can get by with almost anything if you front it with eloquent talk about God and his law.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The line from Scripture, "It's because of you Jews that the outsiders are down on God," shows it's an old problem that isn't going to go away.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Circumcision, the surgical ritual that marks you as a Jew, is great if you live in accord with God's law. But if you don't, it's worse than not being circumcised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The reverse is also true: The uncircumcised who keep God's ways are as good as the circumcised--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> in fact, better. Better to keep God's law uncircumcised than break it circumcised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Don't you see: It's not the cut of a knife that makes a Jew.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> You become a Jew by who you are. It's the mark of God on your heart, not of a knife on your skin, that makes a Jew. And recognition comes from God, not legalistic critics.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> So what difference does it make who's a Jew and who isn't, who has been trained in God's ways and who hasn't?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> As it turns out, it makes a lot of difference--but not the difference so many have assumed. First, there's the matter of being put in charge of writing down and caring for God's revelation, these Holy Scriptures.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> So, what if, in the course of doing that, some of those Jews abandoned their post? God didn't abandon them. Do you think their faithlessness cancels out his faithfulness?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Not on your life! Depend on it: God keeps his word even when the whole world is lying through its teeth. Scripture says the same: Your words stand fast and true; Rejection doesn't faze you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But if our wrongdoing only underlines and confirms God's rightdoing, shouldn't we be commended for helping out? Since our bad words don't even make a dent in his good words, isn't it wrong of God to back us to the wall and hold us to our word? These questions come up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The answer to such questions is no, a most emphatic No! How else would things ever get straightened out if God didn't do the straightening?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> It's simply perverse to say, "If my lies serve to show off God's truth all the more gloriously, why blame me? I'm doing God a favor."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Some people are actually trying to put such words in our mouths, claiming that we go around saying, "The more evil we do, the more good God does, so let's just do it!" That's pure slander, as I'm sure you'll agree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So where does that put us? Do we Jews get a better break than the others? Not really. Basically, all of us, whether insiders or outsiders, start out in identical conditions, which is to say that we all start out as sinners. Scripture leaves no doubt about it:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> There's nobody living right, not even one,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> nobody who knows the score, nobody alert for God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They've all taken the wrong turn; they've all wandered down blind alleys. No one's living right; I can't find a single one.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Their throats are gaping graves, their tongues slick as mud slides. Every word they speak is tinged with poison.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They open their mouths and pollute the air.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They race for the honor of sinner-of-the-year,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> litter the land with heartbreak and ruin,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Don't know the first thing about living with others.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They never give God the time of day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> This makes it clear, doesn't it, that whatever is written in these Scriptures is not what God says about others but to us to whom these Scriptures were addressed in the first place! And it's clear enough, isn't it, that we're sinners, every one of us, in the same sinking boat with everybody else?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Our involvement with God's revelation doesn't put us right with God. What it does is force us to face our complicity in everyone else's sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But in our time something new has been added. What Moses and the prophets witnessed to all those years has happened.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Since we've compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we're in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin. Having faith in him sets us in the clear. God decided on this course of action in full view of the public--to set the world in the clear with himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins he had so patiently endured.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> This is not only clear, but it's now--this is current history! God sets things right. He also makes it possible for us to live in his rightness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> So where does that leave our proud Jewish insider claims and counterclaims? Canceled? Yes, canceled. What we've learned is this: God does not respond to what we do; we respond to what God does.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> We've finally figured it out. Our lives get in step with God and all others by letting him set the pace, not by proudly or anxiously trying to run the parade.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> And where does that leave our proud Jewish claim of having a corner on God? Also canceled. God is the God of outsider non-Jews as well as insider Jews.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> How could it be otherwise since there is only one God? God sets right all who welcome his action and enter into it, both those who follow our religious system and those who have never heard of our religion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> But by shifting our focus from what we do to what God does, don't we cancel out all our careful keeping of the rules and ways God commanded? Not at all. What happens, in fact, is that by putting that entire way of life in its proper place, we confirm it.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> So how do we fit what we know of Abraham, our first father in the faith, into this new way of looking at things?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> If Abraham, by what he did for God, got God to approve him, he could certainly have taken credit for it. But the story we're given is a God-story, not an Abraham-story.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> What we read in Scripture is, "Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point. He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> If you're a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay; we don't call your wages a gift.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it's something only God can do, and you trust him to do it--you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you worked--well, that trusting-him-to-do-it is what gets you set right with God, by God. Sheer gift.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> David confirms this way of looking at it, saying that the one who trusts God to do the putting-everything-right without insisting on having a say in it is one fortunate man:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Fortunate those whose crimes are carted off, whose sins are wiped clean from the slate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Fortunate the person against whom the Lord does not keep score.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Do you think for a minute that this blessing is only pronounced over those of us who keep our religious ways and are circumcised? Or do you think it possible that the blessing could be given to those who never even heard of our ways, who were never brought up in the disciplines of God? We all agree, don't we, that it was by embracing what God did for him that Abraham was declared fit before God?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Now think: Was that declaration made before or after he was marked by the covenant rite of circumcision? That's right, before he was marked.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> That means that he underwent circumcision as evidence and confirmation of what God had done long before to bring him into this acceptable standing with himself, an act of God he had embraced with his whole life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And it means further that Abraham is father of all people who embrace what God does for them while they are still on the "outs" with God, as yet unidentified as God's, in an "uncircumcised" condition. It is precisely these people in this condition who are called "set right by God and with God"! Abraham is also, of course, father of those who have undergone the religious rite of circumcision not just because of the ritual but because they were willing to live in the risky faith-embrace of God's action for them, the way Abraham lived long before he was marked by circumcision.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> That famous promise God gave Abraham--that he and his children would possess the earth--was not given because of something Abraham did or would do. It was based on God's decision to put everything together for him, which Abraham then entered when he believed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> If those who get what God gives them only get it by doing everything they are told to do and filling out all the right forms properly signed, that eliminates personal trust completely and turns the promise into an ironclad contract! That's not a holy promise; that's a business deal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> A contract drawn up by a hard-nosed lawyer and with plenty of fine print only makes sure that you will never be able to collect. But if there is no contract in the first place, simply a promise--and God's promise at that--you can't break it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> This is why the fulfillment of God's promise depends entirely on trusting God and his way, and then simply embracing him and what he does. God's promise arrives as pure gift. That's the only way everyone can be sure to get in on it, those who keep the religious traditions and those who have never heard of them. For Abraham is father of us all. He is not our racial father--that's reading the story backwards. He is our faith father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> We call Abraham "father" not because he got God's attention by living like a saint, but because God made something out of Abraham when he was a nobody. Isn't that what we've always read in Scripture, God saying to Abraham, "I set you up as father of many peoples"? Abraham was first named "father" and then became a father because he dared to trust God to do what only God could do: raise the dead to life, with a word make something out of nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn't do but on what God said he would do. And so he was made father of a multitude of peoples. God himself said to him, "You're going to have a big family, Abraham!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Abraham didn't focus on his own impotence and say, "It's hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child." Nor did he survey Sarah's decades of infertility and give up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He didn't tiptoe around God's promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> sure that God would make good on what he had said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> That's why it is said, "Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But it's not just Abraham;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> it's also us! The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The sacrificed Jesus made us fit for God, set us right with God.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us--set us right with him, make us fit for him--we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> And that's not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand--out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> There's more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary--we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn't, and doesn't, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn't been so weak, we wouldn't have known what to do anyway.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we're at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plodding prose. We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> You know the story of how Adam landed us in the dilemma we're in--first sin, then death, and no one exempt from either sin or death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> That sin disturbed relations with God in everything and everyone, but the extent of the disturbance was not clear until God spelled it out in detail to Moses. So death, this huge abyss separating us from God, dominated the landscape from Adam to Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Even those who didn't sin precisely as Adam did by disobeying a specific command of God still had to experience this termination of life, this separation from God. But Adam, who got us into this, also points ahead to the One who will get us out of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Yet the rescuing gift is not exactly parallel to the death-dealing sin. If one man's sin put crowds of people at the dead-end abyss of separation from God, just think what God's gift poured through one man, Jesus Christ, will do!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> There's no comparison between that death-dealing sin and this generous, life-giving gift. The verdict on that one sin was the death sentence; the verdict on the many sins that followed was this wonderful life sentence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> If death got the upper hand through one man's wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, sovereign life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that's the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life--a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I should hope not! If we've left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Or didn't you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace--a new life in a new land! That's what baptism into the life of Jesus means.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we're going in our new grace-sovereign country.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the Cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life--no longer at sin's every beck and call! What we believe is this:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> (SEE 6:6)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> If we get included in Christ's sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That's what Jesus did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don't give it the time of day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Don't even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time--remember, you've been raised from the dead!--into God's way of doing things.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Sin can't tell you how to live. After all, you're not living under that old tyranny any longer. You're living in the freedom of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So, since we're out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we're free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But thank God you've started listening to a new master,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I'm using this freedom language because it's easy to picture. You can readily recall, can't you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing--not caring about others, not caring about God--the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God's freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn't have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you're proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But now that you've found you don't have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God's gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> You shouldn't have any trouble understanding this, friends, for you know all the ins and outs of the law--how it works and how its power touches only the living.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> For instance, a wife is legally tied to her husband while he lives, but if he dies, she's free.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> If she lives with another man while her husband is living, she's obviously an adulteress. But if he dies, she is quite free to marry another man in good conscience, with no one's disapproval.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When Christ died he took that entire rule-dominated way of life down with him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to "marry" a resurrection life and bear "offspring" of faith for God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> For as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But now that we're no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we're free to live a new life in the freedom of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But I can hear you say, "If the law code was as bad as all that, it's no better than sin itself." That's certainly not true. The law code had a perfectly legitimate function. Without its clear guidelines for right and wrong, moral behavior would be mostly guesswork. Apart from the succinct, surgical command, "You shall not covet," I could have dressed covetousness up to look like a virtue and ruined my life with it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Don't you remember how it was? I do, perfectly well. The law code started out as an excellent piece of work. What happened, though, was that sin found a way to pervert the command into a temptation, making a piece of "forbidden fruit" out of it. The law code, instead of being used to guide me, was used to seduce me. Without all the paraphernalia of the law code, sin looked pretty dull and lifeless,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> and I went along without paying much attention to it. But once sin got its hands on the law code and decked itself out in all that finery, I was fooled, and fell for it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The very command that was supposed to guide me into life was cleverly used to trip me up, throwing me headlong.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> So sin was plenty alive, and I was stone dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But the law code itself is God's good and common sense, each command sane and holy counsel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I can already hear your next question: "Does that mean I can't even trust what is good [that is, the law]? Is good just as dangerous as evil?" No again! Sin simply did what sin is so famous for doing: using the good as a cover to tempt me to do what would finally destroy me. By hiding within God's good commandment, sin did far more mischief than it could ever have accomplished on its own.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself--after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I truly delight in God's commands,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ's being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that. The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them--living and breathing God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And God isn't pleased at being ignored.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells--even though you still experience all the limitations of sin--you yourself experience life on God's terms.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And we know we are going to get what's coming to us--an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us--who was raised to life for us!--is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> They kill us in cold blood because they hate you. We're sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> I'm absolutely convinced that nothing--nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> high or low, thinkable or unthinkable--absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> At the same time, you need to know that I carry with me at all times a huge sorrow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> It's an enormous pain deep within me, and I'm never free of it. I'm not exaggerating--Christ and the Holy Spirit are my witnesses. It's the Israelites . . .</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> If there were any way I could be cursed by the Messiah so they could be blessed by him, I'd do it in a minute. They're my family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I grew up with them. They had everything going for them--family, glory, covenants, revelation, worship, promises,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> to say nothing of being the race that produced the Messiah, the Christ, who is God over everything, always. Oh, yes!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Don't suppose for a moment, though, that God's Word has malfunctioned in some way or other. The problem goes back a long way. From the outset, not all Israelites of the flesh were Israelites of the spirit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> It wasn't Abraham's sperm that gave identity here, but God's promise. Remember how it was put: "Your family will be defined by Isaac"?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> That means that Israelite identity was never racially determined by sexual transmission, but it was God-determined by promise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Remember that promise, "When I come back next year at this time, Sarah will have a son"?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And that's not the only time. To Rebecca, also, a promise was made that took priority over genetics. When she became pregnant by our one-of-a-kind ancestor, Isaac,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> and her babies were still innocent in the womb--incapable of good or bad--she received a special assurance from God. What God did in this case made it perfectly plain that his purpose is not a hit-or-miss thing dependent on what we do or don't do, but a sure thing determined by his decision, flowing steadily from his initiative.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> God told Rebecca, "The firstborn of your twins will take second place."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Later that was turned into a stark epigram: "I loved Jacob; I hated Esau."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Is that grounds for complaining that God is unfair? Not so fast, please.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> God told Moses, "I'm in charge of mercy. I'm in charge of compassion."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Compassion doesn't originate in our bleeding hearts or moral sweat, but in God's mercy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The same point was made when God said to Pharaoh, "I picked you as a bit player in this drama of my salvation power."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> All we're saying is that God has the first word, initiating the action in which we play our part for good or ill.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Are you going to object, "So how can God blame us for anything since he's in charge of everything? If the big decisions are already made, what say do we have in it?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Who in the world do you think you are to second-guess God? Do you for one moment suppose any of us knows enough to call God into question? Clay doesn't talk back to the fingers that mold it, saying, "Why did you shape me like this?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Isn't it obvious that a potter has a perfect right to shape one lump of clay into a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> If God needs one style of pottery especially designed to show his angry displeasure</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> and another style carefully crafted to show his glorious goodness, isn't that all right?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Either or both happens to Jews, but it also happens to the other people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Hosea put it well: I'll call nobodies and make them somebodies; I'll call the unloved and make them beloved.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> In the place where they yelled out, "You're nobody!" they're calling you "God's living children."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Isaiah maintained this same emphasis: If each grain of sand on the seashore were numbered and the sum labeled "chosen of God," They'd be numbers still, not names; salvation comes by personal selection.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> God doesn't count us; he calls us by name. Arithmetic is not his focus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Isaiah had looked ahead and spoken the truth: If our powerful God had not provided us a legacy of living children, We would have ended up like ghost towns, like Sodom and Gomorrah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> How can we sum this up? All those people who didn't seem interested in what God was doing actually embraced what God was doing as he straightened out their lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> And Israel, who seemed so interested in reading and talking about what God was doing, missed it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were so absorbed in their "God projects" that they didn't notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Isaiah (again!) gives us the metaphor for pulling this together: Careful! I've put a huge stone on the road to Mount Zion, a stone you can't get around. But the stone is me! If you're looking for me, you'll find me on the way, not in the way.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Believe me, friends, all I want for Israel is what's best for Israel: salvation, nothing less. I want it with all my heart and pray to God for it all the time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I readily admit that the Jews are impressively energetic regarding God--but they are doing everything exactly backwards.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They don't seem to realize that this comprehensive setting-things-right that is salvation is God's business, and a most flourishing business it is. Right across the street they set up their own salvation shops and noisily hawk their wares. After all these years of refusing to really deal with God on his terms, insisting instead on making their own deals, they have nothing to show for it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The earlier revelation was intended simply to get us ready for the Messiah, who then puts everything right for those who trust him to do it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Moses wrote that anyone who insists on using the law code to live right before God soon discovers it's not so easy--every detail of life regulated by fine print!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But trusting God to shape the right living in us is a different story--no precarious climb up to heaven to recruit the Messiah,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> no dangerous descent into hell to rescue the Messiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> So what exactly was Moses saying? The word that saves is right here, as near as the tongue in your mouth, as close as the heart in your chest. It's the word of faith that welcomes God to go to work and set things right for us. This is the core of our preaching.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Say the welcoming word to God--"Jesus is my Master"--embracing, body and soul, God's work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That's it. You're not "doing" anything; you're simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That's salvation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: "God has set everything right between him and me!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Scripture reassures us, "No one who trusts God like this--heart and soul--will ever regret it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> It's exactly the same no matter what a person's religious background may be: the same God for all of us, acting the same incredibly generous way to everyone who calls out for help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Everyone who calls, 'Help, God!' gets help."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But how can people call for help if they don't know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven't heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And how is anyone going to tell them, unless someone is sent to do it? That's why Scripture exclaims, A sight to take your breath away! Grand processions of people telling all the good things of God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But not everybody is ready for this, ready to see and hear and act. Isaiah asked what we all ask at one time or another: "Does anyone care, God? Is anyone listening and believing a word of it?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The point is, Before you trust, you have to listen. But unless Christ's Word is preached, there's nothing to listen to.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But haven't there been plenty of opportunities for Israel to listen and understand what's going on? Plenty, I'd say. Preachers' voices have gone 'round the world, Their message to earth's seven seas.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> So the big question is, Why didn't Israel understand that she had no corner on this message? Moses had it right when he predicted, When you see God reach out to those you consider your inferiors--outsiders!-- you'll become insanely jealous. When you see God reach out to people you think are religiously stupid, you'll throw temper tantrums.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Isaiah dared to speak out these words of God: People found and welcomed me who never so much as looked for me. And I found and welcomed people who had never even asked about me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then he capped it with a damning indictment: Day after day after day, I beckoned Israel with open arms, And got nothing for my trouble but cold shoulders and icy stares.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Does this mean, then, that God is so fed up with Israel that he'll have nothing more to do with them? Hardly. Remember that I, the one writing these things, am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham out of the tribe of Benjamin. You can't get much more Semitic than that!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> So we're not talking about repudiation. God has been too long involved with Israel, has too much invested, to simply wash his hands of them. Do you remember that time Elijah was agonizing over this same Israel and cried out in prayer?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> God, they murdered your prophets, They trashed your altars; I'm the only one left and now they're after me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> And do you remember God's answer? I still have seven thousand who haven't quit, Seven thousand who are loyal to the finish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> It's the same today. There's a fiercely loyal minority still--not many, perhaps, but probably more than you think.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They're holding on, not because of what they think they're going to get out of it, but because they're convinced of God's grace and purpose in choosing them. If they were only thinking of their own immediate self-interest, they would have left long ago.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And then what happened? Well, when Israel tried to be right with God on her own, pursuing her own self-interest, she didn't succeed. The chosen ones of God were those who let God pursue his interest in them, and as a result received his stamp of legitimacy. The "self-interest Israel" became thick-skinned toward God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Moses and Isaiah both commented on this: Fed up with their quarrelsome, self-centered ways, God blurred their eyes and dulled their ears, Shut them in on themselves in a hall of mirrors, and they're there to this day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> David was upset about the same thing: I hope they get sick eating self-serving meals, break a leg walking their self-serving ways.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I hope they go blind staring in their mirrors, get ulcers from playing at god.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The next question is, "Are they down for the count? Are they out of this for good?" And the answer is a clear-cut no. Ironically when they walked out, they left the door open and the outsiders walked in. But the next thing you know, the Jews were starting to wonder if perhaps they had walked out on a good thing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Now, if their leaving triggered this worldwide coming of non-Jewish outsiders to God's kingdom, just imagine the effect of their coming back! What a homecoming!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But I don't want to go on about them. It's you, the outsiders, that I'm concerned with now. Because my personal assignment is focused on the so-called outsiders, I make as much of this as I can</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> when I'm among my Israelite kin, the so-called insiders, hoping they'll realize what they're missing and want to get in on what God is doing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> If their falling out initiated this worldwide coming together, their recovery is going to set off something even better: mass homecoming! If the first thing the Jews did, even though it was wrong for them, turned out for your good, just think what's going to happen when they get it right!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Behind and underneath all this there is a holy, God-planted, God-tended root. If the primary root of the tree is holy, there's bound to be some holy fruit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Some of the tree's branches were pruned and you wild olive shoots were grafted in. Yet the fact that you are now fed by that rich and holy root</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> gives you no cause to crow over the pruned branches. Remember, you aren't feeding the root; the root is feeding you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> It's certainly possible to say, "Other branches were pruned so that I could be grafted in!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Well and good. But they were pruned because they were deadwood, no longer connected by belief and commitment to the root. The only reason you're on the tree is because your graft "took" when you believed, and because you're connected to that belief-nurturing root. So don't get cocky and strut your branch. Be humbly mindful of the root that keeps you lithe and green.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> If God didn't think twice about taking pruning shears to the natural branches, why would he hesitate over you? He wouldn't give it a second thought.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Make sure you stay alert to these qualities of gentle kindness and ruthless severity that exist side by side in God--ruthless with the deadwood, gentle with the grafted shoot. But don't presume on this gentleness. The moment you become deadwood, you're out of there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> And don't get to feeling superior to those pruned branches down on the ground. If they don't persist in remaining deadwood, they could very well get grafted back in. God can do that. He can perform miracle grafts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Why, if he could graft you--branches cut from a tree out in the wild--into an orchard tree, he certainly isn't going to have any trouble grafting branches back into the tree they grew from in the first place. Just be glad you're in the tree, and hope for the best for the others.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> I want to lay all this out on the table as clearly as I can, friends. This is complicated. It would be easy to misinterpret what's going on and arrogantly assume that you're royalty and they're just rabble, out on their ears for good. But that's not it at all. This hardness on the part of insider Israel toward God is temporary. Its effect is to open things up to all the outsiders so that we end up with a full house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Before it's all over, there will be a complete Israel. As it is written, A champion will stride down from the mountain of Zion; he'll clean house in Jacob.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> And this is my commitment to my people: removal of their sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> From your point of view as you hear and embrace the good news of the Message, it looks like the Jews are God's enemies. But looked at from the long-range perspective of God's overall purpose, they remain God's oldest friends.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> God's gifts and God's call are under full warranty--never canceled, never rescinded.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> There was a time not so long ago when you were on the outs with God. But then the Jews slammed the door on him and things opened up for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Now they are on the outs. But with the door held wide open for you, they have a way back in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> In one way or another, God makes sure that we all experience what it means to be outside so that he can personally open the door and welcome us back in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Have you ever come on anything quite like this extravagant generosity of God, this deep, deep wisdom? It's way over our heads. We'll never figure it out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Is there anyone around who can explain God? Anyone smart enough to tell him what to do?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Anyone who has done him such a huge favor that God has to ask his advice?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Everything comes from him; Everything happens through him; Everything ends up in him. Always glory! Always praise! Yes. Yes. Yes.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life--your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life--and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I'm speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it's important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The body we're talking about is Christ's body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn't amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ's body,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren't. If you preach, just preach God's Message, nothing else;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> if you help, just help, don't take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don't get bossy; if you're put in charge, don't manipulate; if you're called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don't let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Don't burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> cheerfully expectant. Don't quit in hard times; pray all the harder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Laugh with your happy friends when they're happy; share tears when they're down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Get along with each other; don't be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don't be the great somebody.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Don't hit back; discover beauty in everyone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> If you've got it in you, get along with everybody.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Don't insist on getting even; that's not for you to do. "I'll do the judging," says God. "I'll take care of it."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he's thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Don't let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Be a good citizen. All governments are under God. Insofar as there is peace and order, it's God's order. So live responsibly as a citizen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> If you're irresponsible to the state, then you're irresponsible with God, and God will hold you responsible.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Duly constituted authorities are only a threat if you're trying to get by with something. Decent citizens should have nothing to fear. Do you want to be on good terms with the government? Be a responsible citizen and you'll get on just fine,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> the government working to your advantage. But if you're breaking the rules right and left, watch out. The police aren't there just to be admired in their uniforms. God also has an interest in keeping order, and he uses them to do it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> That's why you must live responsibly--not just to avoid punishment but also because it's the right way to live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> That's also why you pay taxes--so that an orderly way of life can be maintained.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Fulfill your obligations as a citizen. Pay your taxes, pay your bills, respect your leaders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Don't run up debts, except for the huge debt of love you owe each other. When you love others, you complete what the law has been after all along.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The law code--don't sleep with another person's spouse, don't take someone's life, don't take what isn't yours, don't always be wanting what you don't have, and any other "don't" you can think of--finally adds up to this: Love other people as well as you do yourself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You can't go wrong when you love others. When you add up everything in the law code, the sum total is love.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But make sure that you don't get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off, oblivious to God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The night is about over, dawn is about to break. Be up and awake to what God is doing! God is putting the finishing touches on the salvation work he began when we first believed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> We can't afford to waste a minute, must not squander these precious daylight hours in frivolity and indulgence, in sleeping around and dissipation, in bickering and grabbing everything in sight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Get out of bed and get dressed! Don't loiter and linger, waiting until the very last minute. Dress yourselves in Christ, and be up and about!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Welcome with open arms fellow believers who don't see things the way you do. And don't jump all over them every time they do or say something you don't agree with--even when it seems that they are strong on opinions but weak in the faith department. Remember, they have their own history to deal with. Treat them gently.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> For instance, a person who has been around for a while might well be convinced that he can eat anything on the table, while another, with a different background, might assume all Christians should be vegetarians and eat accordingly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But since both are guests at Christ's table, wouldn't it be terribly rude if they fell to criticizing what the other ate or didn't eat? God, after all, invited them both to the table.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Do you have any business crossing people off the guest list or interfering with God's welcome? If there are corrections to be made or manners to be learned, God can handle that without your help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Or, say, one person thinks that some days should be set aside as holy and another thinks that each day is pretty much like any other. There are good reasons either way. So, each person is free to follow the convictions of conscience.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> What's important in all this is that if you keep a holy day, keep it for God's sake; if you eat meat, eat it to the glory of God and thank God for prime rib; if you're a vegetarian, eat vegetables to the glory of God and thank God for broccoli.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> None of us are permitted to insist on our own way in these matters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> It's God we are answerable to--all the way from life to death and everything in between--not each other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> That's why Jesus lived and died and then lived again: so that he could be our Master across the entire range of life and death, and free us from the petty tyrannies of each other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So where does that leave you when you criticize a brother? And where does that leave you when you condescend to a sister? I'd say it leaves you looking pretty silly--or worse. Eventually, we're all going to end up kneeling side by side in the place of judgment, facing God. Your critical and condescending ways aren't going to improve your position there one bit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Read it for yourself in Scripture: "As I live and breathe," God says, "every knee will bow before me; Every tongue will tell the honest truth that I and only I am God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> So tend to your knitting. You've got your hands full just taking care of your own life before God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Forget about deciding what's right for each other. Here's what you need to be concerned about: that you don't get in the way of someone else, making life more difficult than it already is.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'm convinced--Jesus convinced me!--that everything as it is in itself is holy. We, of course, by the way we treat it or talk about it, can contaminate it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> If you confuse others by making a big issue over what they eat or don't eat, you're no longer a companion with them in love, are you? These, remember, are persons for whom Christ died. Would you risk sending them to hell over an item in their diet?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Don't you dare let a piece of God-blessed food become an occasion of soul-poisoning!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> God's kingdom isn't a matter of what you put in your stomach, for goodness' sake. It's what God does with your life as he sets it right, puts it together, and completes it with joy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Your task is to single-mindedly serve Christ. Do that and you'll kill two birds with one stone: pleasing the God above you and proving your worth to the people around you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> So let's agree to use all our energy in getting along with each other. Help others with encouraging words;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> don't drag them down by finding fault. You're certainly not going to permit an argument over what is served or not served at supper to wreck God's work among you, are you? I said it before and I'll say it again: All food is good, but it can turn bad if you use it badly, if you use it to trip others up and send them sprawling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> When you sit down to a meal, your primary concern should not be to feed your own face but to share the life of Jesus. So be sensitive and courteous to the others who are eating. Don't eat or say or do things that might interfere with the free exchange of love.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Cultivate your own relationship with God, but don't impose it on others. You're fortunate if your behavior and your belief are coherent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But if you're not sure, if you notice that you are acting in ways inconsistent with what you believe--some days trying to impose your opinions on others, other days just trying to please them--then you know that you're out of line. If the way you live isn't consistent with what you believe, then it's wrong.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Those of us who are strong and able in the faith need to step in and lend a hand to those who falter, and not just do what is most convenient for us. Strength is for service, not status.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, "How can I help?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> That's exactly what Jesus did. He didn't make it easy for himself by avoiding people's troubles, but waded right in and helped out. "I took on the troubles of the troubled," is the way Scripture puts it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Even if it was written in Scripture long ago, you can be sure it's written for us. God wants the combination of his steady, constant calling and warm, personal counsel in Scripture to come to characterize us, keeping us alert for whatever he will do next.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> May our dependably steady and warmly personal God develop maturity in you so that you get along with each other as well as Jesus gets along with us all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then we'll be a choir--not our voices only, but our very lives singing in harmony in a stunning anthem to the God and Father of our Master Jesus!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So reach out and welcome one another to God's glory. Jesus did it; now you do it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Jesus, staying true to God's purposes, reached out in a special way to the Jewish insiders so that the old ancestral promises would come true for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> As a result, the non-Jewish outsiders have been able to experience mercy and to show appreciation to God. Just think of all the Scriptures that will come true in what we do! For instance: Then I'll join outsiders in a hymn-sing; I'll sing to your name!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And this one: Outsiders and insiders, rejoice together!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And again: People of all nations, celebrate God! All colors and races, give hearty praise!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And Isaiah's word: There's the root of our ancestor Jesse, breaking through the earth and growing tree tall, Tall enough for everyone everywhere to see and take hope!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Oh! May the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Personally, I've been completely satisfied with who you are and what you are doing. You seem to me to be well-motivated and well-instructed, quite capable of guiding and advising one another.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So, my dear friends, don't take my rather bold and blunt language as criticism. It's not criticism. I'm simply underlining how very much I need your help in carrying out this highly focused assignment God gave me,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> this priestly and gospel work of serving the spiritual needs of the non-Jewish outsiders so they can be presented as an acceptable offering to God, made whole and holy by God's Holy Spirit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Looking back over what has been accomplished and what I have observed, I must say I am most pleased--in the context of Jesus, I'd even say proud, but only in that context.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I have no interest in giving you a chatty account of my adventures, only the wondrously powerful and transformingly present words and deeds of Christ in me that triggered a believing response among the outsiders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> In such ways I have trailblazed a preaching of the Message of Jesus all the way from Jerusalem far into northwestern Greece.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> This has all been pioneer work, bringing the Message only into those places where Jesus was not yet known and worshiped.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> My text has been, Those who were never told of him-- they'll see him! Those who've never heard of him-- they'll get the message!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> And that's why it has taken me so long to finally get around to coming to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But now that there is no more pioneering work to be done in these parts, and since I have looked forward to seeing you for many years,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> I'm planning my visit. I'm headed for Spain, and expect to stop off on the way to enjoy a good visit with you, and eventually have you send me off with God's blessing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> First, though, I'm going to Jerusalem to deliver a relief offering to the Christians there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The Greeks--all the way from the Macedonians in the north to the Achaians in the south--decided they wanted to take up a collection for the poor among the believers in Jerusalem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> They were happy to do this, but it was also their duty. Seeing that they got in on all the spiritual gifts that flowed out of the Jerusalem community so generously, it is only right that they do what they can to relieve their poverty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> As soon as I have done this--personally handed over this "fruit basket"--I'm off to Spain, with a stopover with you in Rome.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> My hope is that my visit with you is going to be one of Christ's more extravagant blessings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> I have one request, dear friends: Pray for me. Pray strenuously with and for me--to God the Father, through the power of our Master Jesus, through the love of the Spirit--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> that I will be delivered from the lions' den of unbelievers in Judea. Pray also that my relief offering to the Jerusalem Christians will be accepted in the spirit in which it is given.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Then, God willing, I'll be on my way to you with a light and eager heart, looking forward to being refreshed by your company.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> God's peace be with all of you. Oh, yes!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Be sure to welcome our friend Phoebe in the way of the Master, with all the generous hospitality we Christians are famous for. I heartily endorse both her and her work. She's a key representative of the church at Cenchrea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Help her out in whatever she asks. She deserves anything you can do for her. She's helped many a person, including me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Say hello to Priscilla and Aquila, who have worked hand in hand with me in serving Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They once put their lives on the line for me. And I'm not the only one grateful to them. All the non-Jewish gatherings of believers also owe them plenty,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> to say nothing of the church that meets in their house. Hello to my dear friend Epenetus. He was the very first Christian in the province of Asia.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Hello to Mary. What a worker she has turned out to be!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Hello to my cousins Andronicus and Junias. We once shared a jail cell. They were believers in Christ before I was. Both of them are outstanding leaders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Hello to Ampliatus, my good friend in the family of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Hello to Urbanus, our companion in Christ's work, and my good friend Stachys.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Hello to Apelles, a tried-and-true veteran in following Christ. Hello to the family of Aristobulus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Hello to my cousin Herodion. Hello to those Christians from the family of Narcissus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Hello to Tryphena and Tryphosa--such diligent women in serving the Master. Hello to Persis, a dear friend and hard worker in Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Hello to Rufus--a good choice by the Master!--and his mother. She has also been a dear mother to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Hello to Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and also to all of their families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Hello to Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas--and all the Christians who live with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Holy embraces all around! All the churches of Christ send their warmest greetings!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> One final word of counsel, friends. Keep a sharp eye out for those who take bits and pieces of the teaching that you learned and then use them to make trouble. Give these people a wide berth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They have no intention of living for our Master Christ. They're only in this for what they can get out of it, and aren't above using pious sweet talk to dupe unsuspecting innocents.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And so while there has never been any question about your honesty in these matters--I couldn't be more proud of you!--I want you also to be smart, making sure every "good" thing is the real thing. Don't be gullible in regard to smooth-talking evil. Stay alert like this,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> and before you know it the God of peace will come down on Satan with both feet, stomping him into the dirt. Enjoy the best of Jesus!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And here are some more greetings from our end. Timothy, my partner in this work, Lucius, and my cousins Jason and Sosipater all said to tell you hello.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I, Tertius, who wrote this letter at Paul's dictation, send you my personal greetings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Gaius, who is host here to both me and the whole church, wants to be remembered to you. Erastus, the city treasurer, and our good friend Quartus send their greetings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> (OMITTED TEXT)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> All of our praise rises to the One who is strong enough to make you strong, exactly as preached in Jesus Christ, precisely as revealed in the mystery kept secret for so long</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> but now an open book through the prophetic Scriptures. All the nations of the world can now know the truth and be brought into obedient belief, carrying out the orders of God, who got all this started, down to the very last letter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> All our praise is focused through Jesus on this incomparably wise God! Yes!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="46" bname="1 Corinthians">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I, Paul, have been called and sent by Jesus, the Messiah, according to God's plan, along with my friend Sosthenes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I send this letter to you in God's church at Corinth, Christians cleaned up by Jesus and set apart for a God-filled life. I include in my greeting all who call out to Jesus, wherever they live. He's their Master as well as ours!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> May all the gifts and benefits that come from God our Father, and the Master, Jesus Christ, be yours.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Every time I think of you--and I think of you often!--I thank God for your lives of free and open access to God, given by Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> There's no end to what has happened in you--it's beyond speech, beyond knowledge.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The evidence of Christ has been clearly verified in your lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Just think--you don't need a thing, you've got it all! All God's gifts are right in front of you as you wait expectantly for our Master Jesus to arrive on the scene for the Finale.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And not only that, but God himself is right alongside to keep you steady and on track until things are all wrapped up by Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> God, who got you started in this spiritual adventure, shares with us the life of his Son and our Master Jesus. He will never give up on you. Never forget that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I have a serious concern to bring up with you, my friends, using the authority of Jesus, our Master. I'll put it as urgently as I can: You must get along with each other. You must learn to be considerate of one another, cultivating a life in common.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I bring this up because some from Chloe's family brought a most disturbing report to my attention--that you're fighting among yourselves!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I'll tell you exactly what I was told: You're all picking sides, going around saying, "I'm on Paul's side," or "I'm for Apollos," or "Peter is my man," or "I'm in the Messiah group."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I ask you, "Has the Messiah been chopped up in little pieces so we can each have a relic all our own? Was Paul crucified for you? Was a single one of you baptized in Paul's name?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I was not involved with any of your baptisms--except for Crispus and Gaius--and on getting this report, I'm sure glad I wasn't.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> At least no one can go around saying he was baptized in my name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> (Come to think of it, I also baptized Stephanas's family, but as far as I can recall, that's it.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> God didn't send me out to collect a following for myself, but to preach the Message of what he has done, collecting a following for him. And he didn't send me to do it with a lot of fancy rhetoric of my own, lest the powerful action at the center--Christ on the Cross--be trivialized into mere words.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> It's written, I'll turn conventional wisdom on its head, I'll expose so-called experts as crackpots.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> So where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn't God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered dumb--preaching, of all things!--to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle--and Greeks pass it off as absurd.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> But to us who are personally called by God himself--both Jews and Greeks--Christ is God's ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Human wisdom is so tinny, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can't begin to compete with God's "weakness."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don't see many of "the brightest and the best" among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Isn't it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> chose these "nobodies" to expose the hollow pretensions of the "somebodies"?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Everything that we have--right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start--comes from God by way of Jesus Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> That's why we have the saying, "If you're going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> You'll remember, friends, that when I first came to you to let you in on God's master stroke, I didn't try to impress you with polished speeches and the latest philosophy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I deliberately kept it plain and simple: first Jesus and who he is; then Jesus and what he did--Jesus crucified.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I was unsure of how to go about this, and felt totally inadequate--I was scared to death, if you want the truth of it--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> and so nothing I said could have impressed you or anyone else. But the Message came through anyway. God's Spirit and God's power did it,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> which made it clear that your life of faith is a response to God's power, not to some fancy mental or emotional footwork by me or anyone else.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> We, of course, have plenty of wisdom to pass on to you once you get your feet on firm spiritual ground, but it's not popular wisdom, the fashionable wisdom of high-priced experts that will be out-of-date in a year or so.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> God's wisdom is something mysterious that goes deep into the interior of his purposes. You don't find it lying around on the surface. It's not the latest message, but more like the oldest--what God determined as the way to bring out his best in us, long before we ever arrived on the scene.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The experts of our day haven't a clue about what this eternal plan is. If they had, they wouldn't have killed the Master of the God-designed life on a cross.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> That's why we have this Scripture text: No one's ever seen or heard anything like this, Never so much as imagined anything quite like it-- What God has arranged for those who love him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But you've seen and heard it because God by his Spirit has brought it all out into the open before you. The Spirit, not content to flit around on the surface, dives into the depths of God, and brings out what God planned all along.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Who ever knows what you're thinking and planning except you yourself? The same with God--except that he not only knows what he's thinking,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> but he lets us in on it. God offers a full report on the gifts of life and salvation that he is giving us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> We don't have to rely on the world's guesses and opinions. We didn't learn this by reading books or going to school; we learned it from God, who taught us person-to-person through Jesus, and we're passing it on to you in the same firsthand, personal way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The unspiritual self, just as it is by nature, can't receive the gifts of God's Spirit. There's no capacity for them. They seem like so much silliness. Spirit can be known only by spirit--God's Spirit and our spirits in open communion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Spiritually alive, we have access to everything God's Spirit is doing, and can't be judged by unspiritual critics.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Isaiah's question, "Is there anyone around who knows God's Spirit, anyone who knows what he is doing?" has been answered: Christ knows, and we have Christ's Spirit.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> But for right now, friends, I'm completely frustrated by your unspiritual dealings with each other and with God. You're acting like infants in relation to Christ,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> capable of nothing much more than nursing at the breast. Well, then, I'll nurse you since you don't seem capable of anything more.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> As long as you grab for what makes you feel good or makes you look important, are you really much different than a babe at the breast, content only when everything's going your way?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When one of you says, "I'm on Paul's side," and another says, "I'm for Apollos," aren't you being totally infantile?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Who do you think Paul is, anyway? Or Apollos, for that matter? Servants, both of us--servants who waited on you as you gradually learned to entrust your lives to our mutual Master. We each carried out our servant assignment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I planted the seed, Apollos watered the plants, but God made you grow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> It's not the one who plants or the one who waters who is at the center of this process but God, who makes things grow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Planting and watering are menial servant jobs at minimum wages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> What makes them worth doing is the God we are serving. You happen to be God's field in which we are working. Or, to put it another way, you are God's house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Using the gift God gave me as a good architect, I designed blueprints; Apollos is putting up the walls. Let each carpenter who comes on the job take care to build on the foundation!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Remember, there is only one foundation, the one already laid: Jesus Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Take particular care in picking out your building materials.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Eventually there is going to be an inspection. If you use cheap or inferior materials, you'll be found out. The inspection will be thorough and rigorous. You won't get by with a thing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> If your work passes inspection, fine;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> if it doesn't, your part of the building will be torn out and started over. But you won't be torn out; you'll survive--but just barely.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> You realize, don't you, that you are the temple of God, and God himself is present in you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> No one will get by with vandalizing God's temple, you can be sure of that. God's temple is sacred--and you, remember, are the temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Don't fool yourself. Don't think that you can be wise merely by being up-to-date with the times.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Be God's fool--that's the path to true wisdom. What the world calls smart, God calls stupid. It's written in Scripture, He exposes the chicanery of the chic.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The Master sees through the smoke screens of the know-it-alls.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I don't want to hear any of you bragging about yourself or anyone else. Everything is already yours as a gift--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Paul, Apollos, Peter, the world, life, death, the present, the future--all of it is yours,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> and you are privileged to be in union with Christ, who is in union with God.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Don't imagine us leaders to be something we aren't. We are servants of Christ, not his masters. We are guides into God's most sublime secrets, not security guards posted to protect them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The requirements for a good guide are reliability and accurate knowledge.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> It matters very little to me what you think of me, even less where I rank in popular opinion. I don't even rank myself. Comparisons in these matters are pointless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'm not aware of anything that would disqualify me from being a good guide for you, but that doesn't mean much. The Master makes that judgment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> So don't get ahead of the Master and jump to conclusions with your judgments before all the evidence is in. When he comes, he will bring out in the open and place in evidence all kinds of things we never even dreamed of--inner motives and purposes and prayers. Only then will any one of us get to hear the "Well done!" of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> All I'm doing right now, friends, is showing how these things pertain to Apollos and me so that you will learn restraint and not rush into making judgments without knowing all the facts. It's important to look at things from God's point of view. I would rather not see you inflating or deflating reputations based on mere hearsay.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> For who do you know that really knows you, knows your heart? And even if they did, is there anything they would discover in you that you could take credit for? Isn't everything you have and everything you are sheer gifts from God? So what's the point of all this comparing and competing?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You already have all you need. You already have more access to God than you can handle. Without bringing either Apollos or me into it, you're sitting on top of the world--at least God's world--and we're right there, sitting alongside you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> It seems to me that God has put us who bear his Message on stage in a theater in which no one wants to buy a ticket. We're something everyone stands around and stares at, like an accident in the street.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> We're the Messiah's misfits. You might be sure of yourselves, but we live in the midst of frailties and uncertainties. You might be well-thought-of by others, but we're mostly kicked around.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Much of the time we don't have enough to eat, we wear patched and threadbare clothes, we get doors slammed in our faces,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> and we pick up odd jobs anywhere we can to eke out a living. When they call us names, we say, "God bless you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> When they spread rumors about us, we put in a good word for them. We're treated like garbage, potato peelings from the culture's kitchen. And it's not getting any better.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'm not writing all this as a neighborhood scold just to make you feel rotten. I'm writing as a father to you, my children. I love you and want you to grow up well, not spoiled.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> There are a lot of people around who can't wait to tell you what you've done wrong, but there aren't many fathers willing to take the time and effort to help you grow up. It was as Jesus helped me proclaim God's Message to you that I became your father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I'm not, you know, asking you to do anything I'm not already doing myself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> This is why I sent Timothy to you earlier. He is also my dear son, and true to the Master. He will refresh your memory on the instructions I regularly give all the churches on the way of Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I know there are some among you who are so full of themselves they never listen to anyone, let alone me. They don't think I'll ever show up in person.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But I'll be there sooner than you think, God willing, and then we'll see if they're full of anything but hot air.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> God's Way is not a matter of mere talk; it's an empowered life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> So how should I prepare to come to you? As a severe disciplinarian who makes you toe the mark? Or as a good friend and counselor who wants to share heart-to-heart with you? You decide.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I also received a report of scandalous sex within your church family, a kind that wouldn't be tolerated even outside the church: One of your men is sleeping with his stepmother.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> And you're so above it all that it doesn't even faze you! Shouldn't this break your hearts? Shouldn't it bring you to your knees in tears? Shouldn't this person and his conduct be confronted and dealt with?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I'll tell you what I would do. Even though I'm not there in person, consider me right there with you, because I can fully see what's going on. I'm telling you that this is wrong. You must not simply look the other way and hope it goes away on its own. Bring it out in the open and deal with it in the authority of Jesus our Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Assemble the community--I'll be present in spirit with you and our Master Jesus will be present in power.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Hold this man's conduct up to public scrutiny. Let him defend it if he can! But if he can't, then out with him! It will be totally devastating to him, of course, and embarrassing to you. But better devastation and embarrassment than damnation. You want him on his feet and forgiven before the Master on the Day of Judgment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Your flip and callous arrogance in these things bothers me. You pass it off as a small thing, but it's anything but that. Yeast, too, is a "small thing," but it works its way through a whole batch of bread dough pretty fast.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So get rid of this "yeast." Our true identity is flat and plain, not puffed up with the wrong kind of ingredient. The Messiah, our Passover Lamb, has already been sacrificed for the Passover meal, and we are the Unraised Bread part of the Feast.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> So let's live out our part in the Feast, not as raised bread swollen with the yeast of evil, but as flat bread--simple, genuine, unpretentious.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I wrote you in my earlier letter that you shouldn't make yourselves at home among the sexually promiscuous.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I didn't mean that you should have nothing at all to do with outsiders of that sort. Or with crooks, whether blue- or white-collar. Or with spiritual phonies, for that matter. You'd have to leave the world entirely to do that!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But I am saying that you shouldn't act as if everything is just fine when one of your Christian companions is promiscuous or crooked, is flip with God or rude to friends, gets drunk or becomes greedy and predatory. You can't just go along with this, treating it as acceptable behavior.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I'm not responsible for what the outsiders do, but don't we have some responsibility for those within our community of believers?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> God decides on the outsiders, but we need to decide when our brothers and sisters are out of line and, if necessary, clean house.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> And how dare you take each other to court! When you think you have been wronged, does it make any sense to go before a court that knows nothing of God's ways instead of a family of Christians?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The day is coming when the world is going to stand before a jury made up of Christians. If someday you are going to rule on the world's fate, wouldn't it be a good idea to practice on some of these smaller cases?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Why, we're even going to judge angels! So why not these everyday affairs?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> As these disagreements and wrongs surface, why would you ever entrust them to the judgment of people you don't trust in any other way?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I say this as bluntly as I can to wake you up to the stupidity of what you're doing. Is it possible that there isn't one levelheaded person among you who can make fair decisions when disagreements and disputes come up? I don't believe it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And here you are taking each other to court before people who don't even believe in God! How can they render justice if they don't believe in the God of justice?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> These court cases are an ugly blot on your community. Wouldn't it be far better to just take it, to let yourselves be wronged and forget it?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> All you're doing is providing fuel for more wrong, more injustice, bringing more hurt to the people of your own spiritual family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Don't you realize that this is not the way to live? Unjust people who don't care about God will not be joining in his kingdom. Those who use and abuse each other, use and abuse sex,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> use and abuse the earth and everything in it, don't qualify as citizens in God's kingdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> A number of you know from experience what I'm talking about, for not so long ago you were on that list. Since then, you've been cleaned up and given a fresh start by Jesus, our Master, our Messiah, and by our God present in us, the Spirit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Just because something is technically legal doesn't mean that it's spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I'd be a slave to my whims.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You know the old saying, "First you eat to live, and then you live to eat"? Well, it may be true that the body is only a temporary thing, but that's no excuse for stuffing your body with food, or indulging it with sex. Since the Master honors you with a body, honor him with your body!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> God honored the Master's body by raising it from the grave. He'll treat yours with the same resurrection power.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Until that time, remember that your bodies are created with the same dignity as the Master's body. You wouldn't take the Master's body off to a whorehouse, would you? I should hope not.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> There's more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Scripture, "The two become one."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever--the kind of sex that can never "become one."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> There is a sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God-given and God-modeled love, for "becoming one" with another.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Or didn't you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don't you see that you can't live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Now, getting down to the questions you asked in your letter to me. First, Is it a good thing to have sexual relations?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Certainly--but only within a certain context. It's good for a man to have a wife, and for a woman to have a husband. Sexual drives are strong, but marriage is strong enough to contain them and provide for a balanced and fulfilling sexual life in a world of sexual disorder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The marriage bed must be a place of mutuality--the husband seeking to satisfy his wife, the wife seeking to satisfy her husband.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Marriage is not a place to "stand up for your rights." Marriage is a decision to serve the other, whether in bed or out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Abstaining from sex is permissible for a period of time if you both agree to it, and if it's for the purposes of prayer and fasting--but only for such times. Then come back together again. Satan has an ingenious way of tempting us when we least expect it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I'm not, understand, commanding these periods of abstinence--only providing my best counsel if you should choose them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Sometimes I wish everyone were single like me--a simpler life in many ways! But celibacy is not for everyone any more than marriage is. God gives the gift of the single life to some, the gift of the married life to others.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I do, though, tell the unmarried and widows that singleness might well be the best thing for them, as it has been for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But if they can't manage their desires and emotions, they should by all means go ahead and get married. The difficulties of marriage are preferable by far to a sexually tortured life as a single.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And if you are married, stay married. This is the Master's command, not mine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> If a wife should leave her husband, she must either remain single or else come back and make things right with him. And a husband has no right to get rid of his wife.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> For the rest of you who are in mixed marriages--Christian married to nonChristian--we have no explicit command from the Master. So this is what you must do. If you are a man with a wife who is not a believer but who still wants to live with you, hold on to her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> If you are a woman with a husband who is not a believer but he wants to live with you, hold on to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The unbelieving husband shares to an extent in the holiness of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is likewise touched by the holiness of her husband. Otherwise, your children would be left out; as it is, they also are included in the spiritual purposes of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> On the other hand, if the unbelieving spouse walks out, you've got to let him or her go. You don't have to hold on desperately. God has called us to make the best of it, as peacefully as we can.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> You never know, wife: The way you handle this might bring your husband not only back to you but to God. You never know, husband: The way you handle this might bring your wife not only back to you but to God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And don't be wishing you were someplace else or with someone else. Where you are right now is God's place for you. Live and obey and love and believe right there. God, not your marital status, defines your life. Don't think I'm being harder on you than on the others. I give this same counsel in all the churches.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Were you Jewish at the time God called you? Don't try to remove the evidence. Were you non-Jewish at the time of your call? Don't become a Jew.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Being Jewish isn't the point. The really important thing is obeying God's call, following his commands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Stay where you were when God called your name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Were you a slave? Slavery is no roadblock to obeying and believing. I don't mean you're stuck and can't leave. If you have a chance at freedom, go ahead and take it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I'm simply trying to point out that under your new Master you're going to experience a marvelous freedom you would never have dreamed of. On the other hand, if you were free when Christ called you, you'll experience a delightful "enslavement to God" you would never have dreamed of.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> All of you, slave and free both, were once held hostage in a sinful society. Then a huge sum was paid out for your ransom. So please don't, out of old habit, slip back into being or doing what everyone else tells you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Friends, stay where you were called to be. God is there. Hold the high ground with him at your side.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The Master did not give explicit direction regarding virgins, but as one much experienced in the mercy of the Master and loyal to him all the way, you can trust my counsel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Because of the current pressures on us from all sides, I think it would probably be best to stay just as you are.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Are you married? Stay married. Are you unmarried? Don't get married.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> But there's certainly no sin in getting married, whether you're a virgin or not. All I am saying is that when you marry, you take on additional stress in an already stressful time, and I want to spare you if possible.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> I do want to point out, friends, that time is of the essence. There is no time to waste, so don't complicate your lives unnecessarily. Keep it simple--in marriage,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> grief, joy, whatever. Even in ordinary things--your daily routines of shopping, and so on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Deal as sparingly as possible with the things the world thrusts on you. This world as you see it is on its way out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> I want you to live as free of complications as possible. When you're unmarried, you're free to concentrate on simply pleasing the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Marriage involves you in all the nuts and bolts of domestic life and in wanting to please your spouse,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> leading to so many more demands on your attention. The time and energy that married people spend on caring for and nurturing each other, the unmarried can spend in becoming whole and holy instruments of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> I'm trying to be helpful and make it as easy as possible for you, not make things harder. All I want is for you to be able to develop a way of life in which you can spend plenty of time together with the Master without a lot of distractions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> If a man has a woman friend to whom he is loyal but never intended to marry, having decided to serve God as a "single," and then changes his mind, deciding he should marry her, he should go ahead and marry. It's no sin; it's not even a "step down" from celibacy, as some say.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> On the other hand, if a man is comfortable in his decision for a single life in service to God and it's entirely his own conviction and not imposed on him by others, he ought to stick with it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> Marriage is spiritually and morally right and not inferior to singleness in any way, although as I indicated earlier, because of the times we live in, I do have pastoral reasons for encouraging singleness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> A wife must stay with her husband as long as he lives. If he dies, she is free to marry anyone she chooses. She will, of course, want to marry a believer and have the blessing of the Master</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> . By now you know that I think she'll be better off staying single. The Master, in my opinion, thinks so, too.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The question keeps coming up regarding meat that has been offered up to an idol: Should you attend meals where such meat is served, or not? We sometimes tend to think we know all we need to know to answer these kinds of questions--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> but sometimes our humble hearts can help us more than our proud minds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> We never really know enough until we recognize that God alone knows it all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Some people say, quite rightly, that idols have no actual existence, that there's nothing to them, that there is no God other than our one God,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> that no matter how many of these so-called gods are named and worshiped they still don't add up to anything but a tall story.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They say--again, quite rightly--that there is only one God the Father, that everything comes from him, and that he wants us to live for him. Also, they say that there is only one Master--Jesus the Messiah--and that everything is for his sake, including us. Yes. It's true.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> In strict logic, then, nothing happened to the meat when it was offered up to an idol. It's just like any other meat. I know that, and you know that. But knowing isn't everything. If it becomes everything, some people end up as know-it-alls who treat others as know-nothings. Real knowledge isn't that insensitive. We need to be sensitive to the fact that we're not all at the same level of understanding in this. Some of you have spent your entire lives eating "idol meat," and are sure that there's something bad in the meat that then becomes something bad inside of you. An imagination and conscience shaped under those conditions isn't going to change overnight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But fortunately God doesn't grade us on our diet. We're neither commended when we clean our plate nor reprimanded when we just can't stomach it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But God does care when you use your freedom carelessly in a way that leads a Christian still vulnerable to those old associations to be thrown off track.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> For instance, say you flaunt your freedom by going to a banquet thrown in honor of idols, where the main course is meat sacrificed to idols. Isn't there great danger if someone still struggling over this issue, someone who looks up to you as knowledgeable and mature, sees you go into that banquet? The danger is that he will become terribly confused--maybe even to the point of getting mixed up himself in what his conscience tells him is wrong.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Christ gave up his life for that person. Wouldn't you at least be willing to give up going to dinner for him--because, as you say, it doesn't really make any difference? But it does make a difference if you hurt your friend terribly, risking his eternal ruin!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When you hurt your friend, you hurt Christ. A free meal here and there isn't worth it at the cost of even one of these "weak ones."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> So, never go to these idol-tainted meals if there's any chance it will trip up one of your brothers or sisters.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> And don't tell me that I have no authority to write like this. I'm perfectly free to do this--isn't that obvious? Haven't I been given a job to do? Wasn't I commissioned to this work in a face-to-face meeting with Jesus, our Master? Aren't you yourselves proof of the good work that I've done for the Master?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Even if no one else admits the authority of my commission, you can't deny it. Why, my work with you is living proof of my authority!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I'm not shy in standing up to my critics.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> We who are on missionary assignments for God have a right to decent accommodations,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> and we have a right to support for us and our families. You don't seem to have raised questions with the other apostles and our Master's brothers and Peter in these matters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So, why me? Is it just Barnabas and I who have to go it alone and pay our own way?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Are soldiers self-employed? Are gardeners forbidden to eat vegetables from their own gardens? Don't milkmaids get to drink their fill from the pail?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I'm not just sounding off because I'm irritated. This is all written in the scriptural law.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Moses wrote, "Don't muzzle an ox to keep it from eating the grain when it's threshing." Do you think Moses' primary concern was the care of farm animals?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Don't you think his concern extends to us? Of course. Farmers plow and thresh expecting something when the crop comes in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> So if we have planted spiritual seed among you, is it out of line to expect a meal or two from you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Others demand plenty from you in these ways. Don't we who have never demanded deserve even more? But we're not going to start demanding now what we've always had a perfect right to. Our decision all along has been to put up with anything rather than to get in the way or detract from the Message of Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> All I'm concerned with right now is that you not use our decision to take advantage of others, depriving them of what is rightly theirs. You know, don't you, that it's always been taken for granted that those who work in the Temple live off the proceeds of the Temple, and that those who offer sacrifices at the altar eat their meals from what has been sacrificed?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Along the same lines, the Master directed that those who spread the Message be supported by those who believe the Message.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Still, I want it made clear that I've never gotten anything out of this for myself, and that I'm not writing now to get something. I'd rather die than give anyone ammunition to discredit me or impugn my motives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> If I proclaim the Message, it's not to get something out of it for myself. I'm compelled to do it, and doomed if I don't!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> If this was my own idea of just another way to make a living, I'd expect some pay. But since it's not my idea but something solemnly entrusted to me, why would I expect to get paid?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> So am I getting anything out of it? Yes, as a matter of fact: the pleasure of proclaiming the Message at no cost to you. You don't even have to pay my expenses!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> religious, nonreligious,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> the defeated, the demoralized--whoever. I didn't take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ--but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I've become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> I did all this because of the Message. I didn't just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> You've all been to the stadium and seen the athletes race. Everyone runs; one wins. Run to win.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> All good athletes train hard. They do it for a gold medal that tarnishes and fades. You're after one that's gold eternally.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> I don't know about you, but I'm running hard for the finish line. I'm giving it everything I've got. No sloppy living for me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> I'm staying alert and in top condition. I'm not going to get caught napping, telling everyone else all about it and then missing out myself.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Remember our history, friends, and be warned. All our ancestors were led by the providential Cloud and taken miraculously through the Sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> They went through the waters, in a baptism like ours, as Moses led them from enslaving death to salvation life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They all ate</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> and drank identical food and drink, meals provided daily by God. They drank from the Rock, God's fountain for them that stayed with them wherever they were. And the Rock was Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But just experiencing God's wonder and grace didn't seem to mean much--most of them were defeated by temptation during the hard times in the desert, and God was not pleased.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The same thing could happen to us. We must be on guard so that we never get caught up in wanting our own way as they did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And we must not turn our religion into a circus as they did--"First the people partied, then they threw a dance."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> We must not be sexually promiscuous--they paid for that, remember, with twenty-three thousand deaths in one day!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> We must never try to get Christ to serve us instead of us serving him; they tried it, and God launched an epidemic of poisonous snakes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> We must be careful not to stir up discontent; discontent destroyed them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> These are all warning markers--DANGER!--in our history books, written down so that we don't repeat their mistakes. Our positions in the story are parallel--they at the beginning, we at the end--and we are just as capable of messing it up as they were.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Don't be so naive and self-confident. You're not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else. Forget about self-confidence; it's useless. Cultivate God-confidence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he'll never let you be pushed past your limit; he'll always be there to help you come through it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> So, my very dear friends, when you see people reducing God to something they can use or control, get out of their company as fast as you can.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I assume I'm addressing believers now who are mature. Draw your own conclusions:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When we drink the cup of blessing, aren't we taking into ourselves the blood, the very life, of Christ? And isn't it the same with the loaf of bread we break and eat? Don't we take into ourselves the body, the very life, of Christ?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Because there is one loaf, our many-ness becomes one-ness--Christ doesn't become fragmented in us. Rather, we become unified in him. We don't reduce Christ to what we are; he raises us to what he is.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> That's basically what happened even in old Israel--those who ate the sacrifices offered on God's altar entered into God's action at the altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Do you see the difference? Sacrifices offered to idols are offered to nothing, for what's the idol but a nothing?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Or worse than nothing, a minus, a demon! I don't want you to become part of something that reduces you to less than yourself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And you can't have it both ways, banqueting with the Master one day and slumming with demons the next.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Besides, the Master won't put up with it. He wants us--all or nothing. Do you think you can get off with anything less?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Looking at it one way, you could say, "Anything goes. Because of God's immense generosity and grace, we don't have to dissect and scrutinize every action to see if it will pass muster." But the point is not to just get by.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> We want to live well, but our foremost efforts should be to help others live well.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> With that as a base to work from, common sense can take you the rest of the way. Eat anything sold at the butcher shop, for instance; you don't have to run an "idolatry test" on every item.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "The earth," after all, "is God's, and everything in it." That "everything" certainly includes the leg of lamb in the butcher shop.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> If a nonbeliever invites you to dinner and you feel like going, go ahead and enjoy yourself; eat everything placed before you. It would be both bad manners and bad spirituality to cross-examine your host on the ethical purity of each course as it is served.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> On the other hand, if he goes out of his way to tell you that this or that was sacrificed to god or goddess so-and-so, you should pass. Even though you may be indifferent as to where it came from, he isn't, and you don't want to send mixed messages to him about who you are worshiping.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> But, except for these special cases, I'm not going to walk around on eggshells worrying about what small-minded people might say; I'm going to stride free and easy, knowing what our large-minded Master has already said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> If I eat what is served to me, grateful to God for what is on the table, how can I worry about what someone will say? I thanked God for it and he blessed it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> So eat your meals heartily, not worrying about what others say about you--you're eating to God's glory, after all, not to please them. As a matter of fact, do everything that way, heartily and freely to God's glory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> At the same time, don't be callous in your exercise of freedom, thoughtlessly stepping on the toes of those who aren't as free as you are.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> I try my best to be considerate of everyone's feelings in all these matters; I hope you will be, too.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> It pleases me that you continue to remember and honor me by keeping up the traditions of the faith I taught you. All actual authority stems from Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> (SEE 11:1)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> In a marriage relationship, there is authority from Christ to husband, and from husband to wife. The authority of Christ is the authority of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Any man who speaks with God or about God in a way that shows a lack of respect for the authority of Christ, dishonors Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> In the same way, a wife who speaks with God in a way that shows a lack of respect for the authority of her husband, dishonors her husband.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Worse, she dishonors herself--an ugly sight, like a woman with her head shaved. This is basically the origin of these customs we have of women wearing head coverings in worship, while men take their hats off. By these symbolic acts,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> men and women, who far too often butt heads with each other, submit their "heads" to the Head: God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> (SEE 11:7)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> (SEE 11:7)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Don't, by the way, read too much into the differences here between men and women.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Neither man nor woman can go it alone or claim priority. Man was created first, as a beautiful shining reflection of God--that is true. But the head on a woman's body clearly outshines in beauty the head of her "head," her husband.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The first woman came from man, true--but ever since then, every man comes from a woman! And since virtually everything comes from God anyway, let's quit going through these "who's first" routines.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Don't you agree there is something naturally powerful in the symbolism--a woman, her beautiful hair reminiscent of angels, praying in adoration; a man, his head bared in reverence, praying in submission?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> (SEE 11:13)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> (SEE 11:13)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I hope you're not going to be argumentative about this. All God's churches see it this way; I don't want you standing out as an exception.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Regarding this next item, I'm not at all pleased. I am getting the picture that when you meet together it brings out your worst side instead of your best!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> First, I get this report on your divisiveness, competing with and criticizing each other. I'm reluctant to believe it, but there it is.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The best that can be said for it is that the testing process will bring truth into the open and confirm it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And then I find that you bring your divisions to worship--you come together, and instead of eating the Lord's Supper,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> you bring in a lot of food from the outside and make pigs of yourselves. Some are left out, and go home hungry. Others have to be carried out, too drunk to walk. I can't believe it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Don't you have your own homes to eat and drink in? Why would you stoop to desecrating God's church? Why would you actually shame God's poor? I never would have believed you would stoop to this. And I'm not going to stand by and say nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Let me go over with you again exactly what goes on in the Lord's Supper and why it is so centrally important. I received my instructions from the Master himself and passed them on to you. The Master, Jesus, on the night of his betrayal, took bread.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Having given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body, broken for you. Do this to remember me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> After supper, he did the same thing with the cup: This cup is my blood, my new covenant with you. Each time you drink this cup, remember me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> What you must solemnly realize is that every time you eat this bread and every time you drink this cup, you reenact in your words and actions the death of the Master. You will be drawn back to this meal again and again until the Master returns. You must never let familiarity breed contempt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Anyone who eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Master irreverently is like part of the crowd that jeered and spit on him at his death. Is that the kind of "remembrance" you want to be part of?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Examine your motives, test your heart, come to this meal in holy awe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> If you give no thought (or worse, don't care) about the broken body of the Master when you eat and drink, you're running the risk of serious consequences.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> That's why so many of you even now are listless and sick, and others have gone to an early grave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> If we get this straight now, we won't have to be straightened out later on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Better to be confronted by the Master now than to face a fiery confrontation later.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> So, my friends, when you come together to the Lord's Table, be reverent and courteous with one another.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> If you're so hungry that you can't wait to be served, go home and get a sandwich. But by no means risk turning this Meal into an eating and drinking binge or a family squabble. It is a spiritual meal--a love feast. The other things you asked about, I'll respond to in person when I make my next visit.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> What I want to talk about now is the various ways God's Spirit gets worked into our lives. This is complex and often misunderstood, but I want you to be informed and knowledgeable.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Remember how you were when you didn't know God, led from one phony god to another, never knowing what you were doing, just doing it because everybody else did it? It's different in this life. God wants us to use our intelligence, to seek to understand as well as we can.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> For instance, by using your heads, you know perfectly well that the Spirit of God would never prompt anyone to say "Jesus be damned!" Nor would anyone be inclined to say "Jesus is Master!" without the insight of the Holy Spirit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> God's various gifts are handed out everywhere; but they all originate in God's Spirit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> God's various ministries are carried out everywhere; but they all originate in God's Spirit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> God's various expressions of power are in action everywhere; but God himself is behind it all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The variety is wonderful: wise counsel clear understanding</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> simple trust healing the sick</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> miraculous acts proclamation distinguishing between spirits tongues interpretation of tongues.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> All these gifts have a common origin, but are handed out one by one by the one Spirit of God. He decides who gets what, and when.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts--limbs, organs, cells--but no matter how many parts you can name, you're still one body. It's exactly the same with Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. (This is what we proclaimed in word and action when we were baptized.) Each of us is now a part of his resurrection body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain--his Spirit--where we all come to drink. The old labels we once used to identify ourselves--labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free--are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn't just a single part blown up into something huge. It's all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> If Foot said, "I'm not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don't belong to this body," would that make it so?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> If Ear said, "I'm not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don't deserve a place on the head," would you want to remove it from the body?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn't be a body, but a monster.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, "Get lost; I don't need you"? Or, Head telling Foot, "You're fired; your job has been phased out"?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way--the "lower" the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> When it's a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honor just as it is, without comparisons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn't you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don't,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> the parts we see and the parts we don't. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> You are Christ's body--that's who you are! You must never forget this. Only as you accept your part of that body does your "part" mean anything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> You're familiar with some of the parts that God has formed in his church, which is his "body": apostles prophets teachers miracle workers healers helpers organizers those who pray in tongues.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> But it's obvious by now, isn't it, that Christ's church is a complete Body and not a gigantic, unidimensional Part? It's not all Apostle, not all Prophet, not all Miracle Worker,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> not all Healer, not all Prayer in Tongues, not all Interpreter of Tongues.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> And yet some of you keep competing for so-called "important" parts. But now I want to lay out a far better way for you.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn't want what it doesn't have. Love doesn't strut, Doesn't have a swelled head,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Doesn't force itself on others, Isn't always "me first," Doesn't fly off the handle, Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Doesn't revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Go after a life of love as if your life depended on it--because it does. Give yourselves to the gifts God gives you. Most of all, try to proclaim his truth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> If you praise him in the private language of tongues, God understands you but no one else does, for you are sharing intimacies just between you and him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But when you proclaim his truth in everyday speech, you're letting others in on the truth so that they can grow and be strong and experience his presence with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The one who prays using a private "prayer language" certainly gets a lot out of it, but proclaiming God's truth to the church in its common language brings the whole church into growth and strength.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I want all of you to develop intimacies with God in prayer, but please don't stop with that. Go on and proclaim his clear truth to others. It's more important that everyone have access to the knowledge and love of God in language everyone understands than that you go off and cultivate God's presence in a mysterious prayer language--unless, of course, there is someone who can interpret what you are saying for the benefit of all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Think, friends: If I come to you and all I do is pray privately to God in a way only he can understand, what are you going to get out of that? If I don't address you plainly with some insight or truth or proclamation or teaching, what help am I to you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> If musical instruments--flutes, say, or harps--aren't played so that each note is distinct and in tune, how will anyone be able to catch the melody and enjoy the music?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> If the trumpet call can't be distinguished, will anyone show up for the battle?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So if you speak in a way no one can understand, what's the point of opening your mouth?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> There are many languages in the world and they all mean something to someone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But if I don't understand the language, it's not going to do me much good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> It's no different with you. Since you're so eager to participate in what God is doing, why don't you concentrate on doing what helps everyone in the church?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> So, when you pray in your private prayer language, don't hoard the experience for yourself. Pray for the insight and ability to bring others into that intimacy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> If I pray in tongues, my spirit prays but my mind lies fallow, and all that intelligence is wasted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So what's the solution? The answer is simple enough. Do both. I should be spiritually free and expressive as I pray, but I should also be thoughtful and mindful as I pray. I should sing with my spirit, and sing with my mind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> If you give a blessing using your private prayer language, which no one else understands, how can some outsider who has just shown up and has no idea what's going on know when to say "Amen"?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Your blessing might be beautiful, but you have very effectively cut that person out of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I'm grateful to God for the gift of praying in tongues that he gives us for praising him, which leads to wonderful intimacies we enjoy with him. I enter into this as much or more than any of you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But when I'm in a church assembled for worship, I'd rather say five words that everyone can understand and learn from than say ten thousand that sound to others like gibberish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> To be perfectly frank, I'm getting exasperated with your infantile thinking. How long before you grow up and use your head--your adult head? It's all right to have a childlike unfamiliarity with evil; a simple no is all that's needed there. But there's far more to saying yes to something. Only mature and well-exercised intelligence can save you from falling into gullibility.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> It's written in Scripture that God said, In strange tongues and from the mouths of strangers I will preach to this people, but they'll neither listen nor believe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> So where does it get you, all this speaking in tongues no one understands? It doesn't help believers, and it only gives unbelievers something to gawk at. Plain truth-speaking, on the other hand, goes straight to the heart of believers and doesn't get in the way of unbelievers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> If you come together as a congregation and some unbelieving outsiders walk in on you as you're all praying in tongues, unintelligible to each other and to them, won't they assume you've taken leave of your senses and get out of there as fast as they can?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> But if some unbelieving outsiders walk in on a service where people are speaking out God's truth, the plain words will bring them up against the truth</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> and probe their hearts. Before you know it, they're going to be on their faces before God, recognizing that God is among you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> So here's what I want you to do. When you gather for worship, each one of you be prepared with something that will be useful for all: Sing a hymn, teach a lesson, tell a story, lead a prayer, provide an insight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> If prayers are offered in tongues, two or three's the limit, and then only if someone is present who can interpret what you're saying.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Otherwise, keep it between God and yourself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> And no more than two or three speakers at a meeting, with the rest of you listening and taking it to heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Take your turn, no one person taking over.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Then each speaker gets a chance to say something special from God, and you all learn from each other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> If you choose to speak, you're also responsible for how and when you speak.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> When we worship the right way, God doesn't stir us up into confusion; he brings us into harmony. This goes for all the churches--no exceptions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Wives must not disrupt worship, talking when they should be listening,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> asking questions that could more appropriately be asked of their husbands at home. God's Book of the law guides our manners and customs here. Wives have no license to use the time of worship for unwarranted speaking.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Do you--both women and men--imagine that you're a sacred oracle determining what's right and wrong? Do you think everything revolves around you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> If any one of you thinks God has something for you to say or has inspired you to do something, pay close attention to what I have written. This is the way the Master wants it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> If you won't play by these rules, God can't use you. Sorry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Three things, then, to sum this up: When you speak forth God's truth, speak your heart out. Don't tell people how they should or shouldn't pray when they're praying in tongues that you don't understand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> Be courteous and considerate in everything.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Friends, let me go over the Message with you one final time--this Message that I proclaimed and that you made your own; this Message on which you took your stand</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> and by which your life has been saved. (I'm assuming, now, that your belief was the real thing and not a passing fancy, that you're in this for good and holding fast.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The first thing I did was place before you what was placed so emphatically before me: that the Messiah died for our sins, exactly as Scripture tells it;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> that he was buried; that he was raised from death on the third day, again exactly as Scripture says;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> that he presented himself alive to Peter, then to his closest followers,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> and later to more than five hundred of his followers all at the same time, most of them still around (although a few have since died);</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> that he then spent time with James and the rest of those he commissioned to represent him;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> and that he finally presented himself alive to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> It was fitting that I bring up the rear. I don't deserve to be included in that inner circle, as you well know, having spent all those early years trying my best to stamp God's church right out of existence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But because God was so gracious, so very generous, here I am. And I'm not about to let his grace go to waste. Haven't I worked hard trying to do more than any of the others? Even then, my work didn't amount to all that much. It was God giving me the work to do, God giving me the energy to do it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> So whether you heard it from me or from those others, it's all the same: We spoke God's truth and you entrusted your lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Now, let me ask you something profound yet troubling. If you became believers because you trusted the proclamation that Christ is alive, risen from the dead, how can you let people say that there is no such thing as a resurrection?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> If there's no resurrection, there's no living Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And face it--if there's no resurrection for Christ, everything we've told you is smoke and mirrors, and everything you've staked your life on is smoke and mirrors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Not only that, but we would be guilty of telling a string of barefaced lies about God, all these affidavits we passed on to you verifying that God raised up Christ--sheer fabrications, if there's no resurrection.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> If corpses can't be raised, then Christ wasn't, because he was indeed dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And if Christ wasn't raised, then all you're doing is wandering about in the dark, as lost as ever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> It's even worse for those who died hoping in Christ and resurrection, because they're already in their graves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we're a pretty sorry lot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But the truth is that Christ has been raised up, the first in a long legacy of those who are going to leave the cemeteries.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> There is a nice symmetry in this: Death initially came by a man, and resurrection from death came by a man.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Everybody dies in Adam; everybody comes alive in Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> But we have to wait our turn: Christ is first, then those with him at his Coming,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> the grand consummation when, after crushing the opposition, he hands over his kingdom to God the Father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> He won't let up until the last enemy is down--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> and the very last enemy is death!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> As the psalmist said, "He laid them low, one and all; he walked all over them." When Scripture says that "he walked all over them," it's obvious that he couldn't at the same time be walked on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> When everything and everyone is finally under God's rule, the Son will step down, taking his place with everyone else, showing that God's rule is absolutely comprehensive--a perfect ending!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Why do you think people offer themselves to be baptized for those already in the grave? If there's no chance of resurrection for a corpse, if God's power stops at the cemetery gates, why do we keep doing things that suggest he's going to clean the place out someday, pulling everyone up on their feet alive?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> And why do you think I keep risking my neck in this dangerous work?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> I look death in the face practically every day I live. Do you think I'd do this if I wasn't convinced of your resurrection and mine as guaranteed by the resurrected Messiah Jesus?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Do you think I was just trying to act heroic when I fought the wild beasts at Ephesus, hoping it wouldn't be the end of me? Not on your life! It's resurrection, resurrection, always resurrection, that undergirds what I do and say, the way I live. If there's no resurrection, "We eat, we drink, the next day we die," and that's all there is to it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> But don't fool yourselves. Don't let yourselves be poisoned by this anti-resurrection loose talk. "Bad company ruins good manners."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> Think straight. Awaken to the holiness of life. No more playing fast and loose with resurrection facts. Ignorance of God is a luxury you can't afford in times like these. Aren't you embarrassed that you've let this kind of thing go on as long as you have?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Some skeptic is sure to ask, "Show me how resurrection works. Give me a diagram; draw me a picture. What does this 'resurrection body' look like?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> If you look at this question closely, you realize how absurd it is. There are no diagrams for this kind of thing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> We do have a parallel experience in gardening. You plant a "dead" seed; soon there is a flourishing plant. There is no visual likeness between seed and plant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> You could never guess what a tomato would look like by looking at a tomato seed. What we plant in the soil and what grows out of it don't look anything alike. The dead body that we bury in the ground and the resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically different.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> You will notice that the variety of bodies is stunning. Just as there are different kinds of seeds, there are different kinds of bodies--humans, animals, birds, fish--each unprecedented in its form.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> You get a hint at the diversity of resurrection glory by looking at the diversity of bodies not only on earth but in the skies--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="41"> sun, moon, stars--all these varieties of beauty and brightness. And we're only looking at pre-resurrection "seeds"--who can imagine what the resurrection "plants" will be like!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="42"> This image of planting a dead seed and raising a live plant is a mere sketch at best, but perhaps it will help in approaching the mystery of the resurrection body--but only if you keep in mind that when we're raised, we're raised for good, alive forever!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="43"> The corpse that's planted is no beauty, but when it's raised, it's glorious. Put in the ground weak, it comes up powerful.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="44"> The seed sown is natural; the seed grown is supernatural--same seed, same body, but what a difference from when it goes down in physical mortality to when it is raised up in spiritual immortality!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="45"> We follow this sequence in Scripture: The First Adam received life, the Last Adam is a life-giving Spirit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="46"> Physical life comes first, then spiritual--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="47"> a firm base shaped from the earth, a final completion coming out of heaven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="48"> The First Man was made out of earth, and people since then are earthy; the Second Man was made out of heaven, and people now can be heavenly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="49"> In the same way that we've worked from our earthy origins, let's embrace our heavenly ends.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="50"> I need to emphasize, friends, that our natural, earthy lives don't in themselves lead us by their very nature into the kingdom of God. Their very "nature" is to die, so how could they "naturally" end up in the Life kingdom?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="51"> But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I'll probably never fully understand. We're not all going to die--but we are all going to be changed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="52"> You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes--it's over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we'll all be changed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="53"> In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="54"> Then the saying will come true: Death swallowed by triumphant Life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="55"> Who got the last word, oh, Death? Oh, Death, who's afraid of you now?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="56"> It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="57"> But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three--sin, guilt, death--are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="58"> With all this going for us, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground. And don't hold back. Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Regarding the relief offering for poor Christians that is being collected, you get the same instructions I gave the churches in Galatia.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Every Sunday each of you make an offering and put it in safekeeping. Be as generous as you can. When I get there you'll have it ready, and I won't have to make a special appeal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then after I arrive, I'll write letters authorizing whomever you delegate, and send them off to Jerusalem to deliver your gift.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> If you think it best that I go along, I'll be glad to travel with them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I plan to visit you after passing through northern Greece. I won't be staying long there,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> but maybe I can stay awhile with you--maybe even spend the winter? Then you could give me a good send-off, wherever I may be headed next.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I don't want to just drop by in between other "primary" destinations. I want a good, long, leisurely visit. If the Master agrees, we'll have it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> For the present, I'm staying right here in Ephesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> A huge door of opportunity for good work has opened up here. (There is also mushrooming opposition.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> If Timothy shows up, take good care of him. Make him feel completely at home among you. He works so hard for the Master, just as I do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Don't let anyone disparage him. After a while, send him on to me with your blessing. Tell him I'm expecting him, and any friends he has with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> About our friend Apollos, I've done my best to get him to pay you a visit, but haven't talked him into it yet. He doesn't think this is the right time. But there will be a "right time."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Keep your eyes open, hold tight to your convictions, give it all you've got, be resolute,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> and love without stopping.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Would you do me a favor, friends, and give special recognition to the family of Stephanas? You know, they were among the first converts in Greece, and they've put themselves out, serving Christians ever since then. I want you to</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> honor and look up to people like that: companions and workers who show us how to do it, giving us something to aspire to.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I want you to know how delighted I am to have Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus here with me. They partially make up for your absence!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They've refreshed me by keeping me in touch with you. Be proud that you have people like this among you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The churches here in western Asia send greetings. Aquila, Priscilla, and the church that meets in their house say hello.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> All the friends here say hello. Pass the greetings around with holy embraces!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And I, Paul--in my own handwriting!--send you my regards.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> If anyone won't love the Master, throw him out. Make room for the Master!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Our Master Jesus has his arms wide open for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> And I love all of you in the Messiah, in Jesus.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="47" bname="2 Corinthians">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I, Paul, have been sent on a special mission by the Messiah, Jesus, planned by God himself. I write this to God's congregation in Corinth, and to believers all over Achaia province.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> May all the gifts and benefits that come from God our Father and the Master, Jesus Christ, be yours! Timothy, someone you know and trust, joins me in this greeting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> We have plenty of hard times that come from following the Messiah, but no more so than the good times of his healing comfort--we get a full measure of that, too.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When we suffer for Jesus, it works out for your healing and salvation. If we are treated well, given a helping hand and encouraging word, that also works to your benefit, spurring you on, face forward, unflinching. Your hard times are also our hard times.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When we see that you're just as willing to endure the hard times as to enjoy the good times, we know you're going to make it, no doubt about it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> We don't want you in the dark, friends, about how hard it was when all this came down on us in Asia province. It was so bad we didn't think we were going to make it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> We felt like we'd been sent to death row, that it was all over for us. As it turned out, it was the best thing that could have happened. Instead of trusting in our own strength or wits to get out of it, we were forced to trust God totally--not a bad idea since he's the God who raises the dead!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And he did it, rescued us from certain doom. And he'll do it again, rescuing us as many times as we need rescuing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> You and your prayers are part of the rescue operation--I don't want you in the dark about that either. I can see your faces even now, lifted in praise for God's deliverance of us, a rescue in which your prayers played such a crucial part.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Now that the worst is over, we're pleased we can report that we've come out of this with conscience and faith intact, and can face the world--and even more importantly, face you with our heads held high. But it wasn't by any fancy footwork on our part. It was God who kept us focused on him, uncompromised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Don't try to read between the lines or look for hidden meanings in this letter. We're writing plain, unembellished truth, hoping that</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> you'll now see the whole picture as well as you've seen some of the details. We want you to be as proud of us as we are of you when we stand together before our Master Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Confident of your welcome, I had originally planned two great visits with you--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> coming by on my way to Macedonia province, and then again on my return trip. Then we could have had a bon-voyage party as you sent me off to Judea. That was the plan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Are you now going to accuse me of being flip with my promises because it didn't work out? Do you think I talk out of both sides of my mouth--a glib yes one moment, a glib no the next?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Well, you're wrong. I try to be as true to my word as God is to his. Our word to you wasn't a careless yes canceled by an indifferent no. How could it be?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> When Silas and Timothy and I proclaimed the Son of God among you, did you pick up on any yes-and-no, on-again, off-again waffling? Wasn't it a clean, strong Yes?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Whatever God has promised gets stamped with the Yes of Jesus. In him, this is what we preach and pray, the great Amen, God's Yes and our Yes together, gloriously evident.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> God affirms us, making us a sure thing in Christ, putting his Yes within us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> By his Spirit he has stamped us with his eternal pledge--a sure beginning of what he is destined to complete.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Now, are you ready for the real reason I didn't visit you in Corinth? As God is my witness, the only reason I didn't come was to spare you pain. I was being considerate of you, not indifferent, not manipulative.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> We're not in charge of how you live out the faith, looking over your shoulders, suspiciously critical. We're partners, working alongside you, joyfully expectant. I know that you stand by your own faith, not by ours.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> That's why I decided not to make another visit that could only be painful to both of us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> If by merely showing up I would put you in an embarrassingly painful position, how would you then be free to cheer and refresh me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> That was my reason for writing a letter instead of coming--so I wouldn't have to spend a miserable time disappointing the very friends I had looked forward to cheering me up. I was convinced at the time I wrote it that what was best for me was also best for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> As it turned out, there was pain enough just in writing that letter, more tears than ink on the parchment. But I didn't write it to cause pain; I wrote it so you would know how much I care--oh, more than care--love you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Now, regarding the one who started all this--the person in question who caused all this pain--I want you to know that I am not the one injured in this as much as, with a few exceptions, all of you. So I don't want to come down too hard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> What the majority of you agreed to as punishment is punishment enough.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Now is the time to forgive this man and help him back on his feet. If all you do is pour on the guilt, you could very well drown him in it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> My counsel now is to pour on the love.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The focus of my letter wasn't on punishing the offender but on getting you to take responsibility for the health of the church.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So if you forgive him, I forgive him. Don't think I'm carrying around a list of personal grudges. The fact is that I'm joining in with your forgiveness, as Christ is with us, guiding us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> After all, we don't want to unwittingly give Satan an opening for yet more mischief--we're not oblivious to his sly ways!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When I arrived in Troas to proclaim the Message of the Messiah, I found the place wide open: God had opened the door; all I had to do was walk through it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> But when I didn't find Titus waiting for me with news of your condition, I couldn't relax. Worried about you, I left and came on to Macedonia province looking for Titus and a reassuring word on you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And I got it, thank God! In the Messiah, in Christ, God leads us from place to place in one perpetual victory parade. Through us, he brings knowledge of Christ. Everywhere we go, people breathe in the exquisite fragrance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God, which is recognized by those on the way of salvation--an aroma redolent with life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But those on the way to destruction treat us more like the stench from a rotting corpse. This is a terrific responsibility. Is anyone competent to take it on?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> No--but at least we don't take God's Word, water it down, and then take it to the streets to sell it cheap. We stand in Christ's presence when we speak; God looks us in the face. We get what we say straight from God and say it as honestly as we can.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Does it sound like we're patting ourselves on the back, insisting on our credentials, asserting our authority? Well, we're not. Neither do we need letters of endorsement, either to you or from you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> You yourselves are all the endorsement we need. Your very lives are a letter that anyone can read by just looking at you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Christ himself wrote it--not with ink, but with God's living Spirit; not chiseled into stone, but carved into human lives--and we publish it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> We couldn't be more sure of ourselves in this--that you, written by Christ himself for God, are our letter of recommendation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> We wouldn't think of writing this kind of letter about ourselves. Only God can write such a letter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> His letter authorizes us to help carry out this new plan of action. The plan wasn't written out with ink on paper, with pages and pages of legal footnotes, killing your spirit. It's written with Spirit on spirit, his life on our lives!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The Government of Death, its constitution chiseled on stone tablets, had a dazzling inaugural. Moses' face as he delivered the tablets was so bright that day (even though it would fade soon enough) that the people of Israel could no more look right at him than stare into the sun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> How much more dazzling, then, the Government of Living Spirit?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> If the Government of Condemnation was impressive, how about this Government of Affirmation?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Bright as that old government was, it would look downright dull alongside this new one.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> If that makeshift arrangement impressed us, how much more this brightly shining government installed for eternity?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> With that kind of hope to excite us, nothing holds us back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Unlike Moses, we have nothing to hide. Everything is out in the open with us. He wore a veil so the children of Israel wouldn't notice that the glory was fading away--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> and they didn't notice. They didn't notice it then and they don't notice it now, don't notice that there's nothing left behind that veil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Even today when the proclamations of that old, bankrupt government are read out, they can't see through it. Only Christ can get rid of the veil so they can see for themselves that there's nothing there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are--face to face!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We're free of it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Since God has so generously let us in on what he is doing, we're not about to throw up our hands and walk off the job just because we run into occasional hard times.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> We refuse to wear masks and play games. We don't maneuver and manipulate behind the scenes. And we don't twist God's Word to suit ourselves. Rather, we keep everything we do and say out in the open, the whole truth on display, so that those who want to can see and judge for themselves in the presence of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> If our Message is obscure to anyone, it's not because we're holding back in any way. No, it's because these other people are looking or going the wrong way and refuse to give it serious attention.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> All they have eyes for is the fashionable god of darkness. They think he can give them what they want, and that they won't have to bother believing a Truth they can't see. They're stone-blind to the dayspring brightness of the Message that shines with Christ, who gives us the best picture of God we'll ever get.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Remember, our Message is not about ourselves; we're proclaiming Jesus Christ, the Master. All we are is messengers, errand runners from Jesus for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> It started when God said, "Light up the darkness!" and our lives filled up with light as we saw and understood God in the face of Christ, all bright and beautiful.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That's to prevent anyone from confusing God's incomparable power with us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> As it is, there's not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we're not much to look at. We've been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we're not demoralized; we're not sure what to do,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> but we know that God knows what to do; we've been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn't left our side; we've been thrown down, but we haven't broken.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> What they did to Jesus, they do to us--trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us--he lives!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Our lives are at constant risk for Jesus' sake, which makes Jesus' life all the more evident in us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> While we're going through the worst, you're getting in on the best!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> We're not keeping this quiet, not on your life. Just like the psalmist who wrote, "I believed it, so I said it," we say what we believe.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And what we believe is that the One who raised up the Master Jesus will just as certainly raise us up with you, alive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Every detail works to your advantage and to God's glory: more and more grace, more and more people, more and more praise!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So we're not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> There's far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can't see now will last forever.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> For instance, we know that when these bodies of ours are taken down like tents and folded away, they will be replaced by resurrection bodies in heaven--God-made, not handmade--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> and we'll never have to relocate our "tents" again. Sometimes we can hardly wait to move--and so we cry out in frustration. Compared to what's coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we're tired of it! We've been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> (SEE 5:2)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> (SEE 5:2)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what's ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we'll never settle for less.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> That's why we live with such good cheer. You won't see us drooping our heads or dragging our feet! Cramped conditions here don't get us down. They only remind us of the spacious living conditions ahead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> It's what we trust in but don't yet see that keeps us going.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Do you suppose a few ruts in the road or rocks in the path are going to stop us? When the time comes, we'll be plenty ready to exchange exile for homecoming.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But neither exile nor homecoming is the main thing. Cheerfully pleasing God is the main thing, and that's what we aim to do, regardless of our conditions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Sooner or later we'll all have to face God, regardless of our conditions. We will appear before Christ and take what's coming to us as a result of our actions, either good or bad.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> That keeps us vigilant, you can be sure. It's no light thing to know that we'll all one day stand in that place of Judgment. That's why we work urgently with everyone we meet to get them ready to face God. God alone knows how well we do this, but I hope you realize how much and deeply we care.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> We're not saying this to make ourselves look good to you. We just thought it would make you feel good, proud even, that we're on your side and not just nice to your face as so many people are.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> If I acted crazy, I did it for God; if I acted overly serious, I did it for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Christ's love has moved me to such extremes. His love has the first and last word in everything we do. Our firm decision is to work from this focused center: One man died for everyone. That puts everyone in the same boat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He included everyone in his death so that everyone could also be included in his life, a resurrection life, a far better life than people ever lived on their own.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Because of this decision we don't evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don't look at him that way anymore.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> We're Christ's representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God's work of making things right between them. We're speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he's already a friend with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> How? you say. In Christ. God put the wrong on him who never did anything wrong, so we could be put right with God.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Companions as we are in this work with you, we beg you, please don't squander one bit of this marvelous life God has given us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> God reminds us, I heard your call in the nick of time; The day you needed me, I was there to help. Well, now is the right time to listen, the day to be helped.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Don't put it off; don't frustrate God's work by showing up late, throwing a question mark over everything we're doing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Our work as God's servants gets validated--or not--in the details. People are watching us as we stay at our post, alertly, unswervingly . . . in hard times, tough times, bad times;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> when we're beaten up, jailed, and mobbed; working hard, working late, working without eating;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> with pure heart, clear head, steady hand; in gentleness, holiness, and honest love;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> when we're telling the truth, and when God's showing his power; when we're doing our best setting things right;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> when we're praised, and when we're blamed; slandered, and honored; true to our word, though distrusted;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> ignored by the world, but recognized by God; terrifically alive, though rumored to be dead; beaten within an inch of our lives, but refusing to die;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> immersed in tears, yet always filled with deep joy; living on handouts, yet enriching many; having nothing, having it all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Dear, dear Corinthians, I can't tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> We didn't fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren't small, but you're living them in a small way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I'm speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Don't become partners with those who reject God. How can you make a partnership out of right and wrong? That's not partnership; that's war. Is light best friends with dark?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Does Christ go strolling with the Devil? Do trust and mistrust hold hands?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Who would think of setting up pagan idols in God's holy Temple? But that is exactly what we are, each of us a temple in whom God lives. God himself put it this way: "I'll live in them, move into them; I'll be their God and they'll be my people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> So leave the corruption and compromise; leave it for good," says God. "Don't link up with those who will pollute you. I want you all for myself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I'll be a Father to you; you'll be sons and daughters to me." The Word of the Master, God.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> With promises like this to pull us on, dear friends, let's make a clean break with everything that defiles or distracts us, both within and without. Let's make our entire lives fit and holy temples for the worship of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Trust us. We've never hurt a soul, never exploited or taken advantage of anyone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Don't think I'm finding fault with you. I told you earlier that I'm with you all the way, no matter what.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I have, in fact, the greatest confidence in you. If only you knew how proud I am of you! I am overwhelmed with joy despite all our troubles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When we arrived in Macedonia province, we couldn't settle down. The fights in the church and the fears in our hearts kept us on pins and needles. We couldn't relax because we didn't know how it would turn out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then the God who lifts up the downcast lifted our heads and our hearts with the arrival of Titus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> We were glad just to see him, but the true reassurance came in what he told us about you: how much you cared, how much you grieved, how concerned you were for me. I went from worry to tranquility in no time!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I know I distressed you greatly with my letter. Although I felt awful at the time, I don't feel at all bad now that I see how it turned out. The letter upset you, but only for a while.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Now I'm glad--not that you were upset, but that you were jarred into turning things around. You let the distress bring you to God, not drive you from him. The result was all gain, no loss.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Distress that drives us to God does that. It turns us around. It gets us back in the way of salvation. We never regret that kind of pain. But those who let distress drive them away from God are full of regrets, end up on a deathbed of regrets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And now, isn't it wonderful all the ways in which this distress has goaded you closer to God? You're more alive, more concerned, more sensitive, more reverent, more human, more passionate, more responsible. Looked at from any angle, you've come out of this with purity of heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And that is what I was hoping for in the first place when I wrote the letter. My primary concern was not for the one who did the wrong or even the one wronged, but for you--that you would realize and act upon the deep, deep ties between us before God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> That's what happened--and we felt just great. And then, when we saw how Titus felt--his exuberance over your response--our joy doubled. It was wonderful to see how revived and refreshed he was by everything you did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> If I went out on a limb in telling Titus how great I thought you were, you didn't cut off that limb. As it turned out, I hadn't exaggerated one bit. Titus saw for himself that everything I had said about you was true.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He can't quit talking about it, going over again and again the story of your prompt obedience, and the dignity and sensitivity of your hospitality. He was quite overwhelmed by it all!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> And I couldn't be more pleased--I'm so confident and proud of you.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Now, friends, I want to report on the surprising and generous ways in which God is working in the churches in Macedonia province.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Fierce troubles came down on the people of those churches, pushing them to the very limit. The trial exposed their true colors: They were incredibly happy, though desperately poor. The pressure triggered something totally unexpected: an outpouring of pure and generous gifts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I was there and saw it for myself. They gave offerings of whatever they could--far more than they could afford!--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> pleading for the privilege of helping out in the relief of poor Christians.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> This was totally spontaneous, entirely their own idea, and caught us completely off guard. What explains it was that they had first given themselves unreservedly to God and to us. The other giving simply flowed out of the purposes of God working in their lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> That's what prompted us to ask Titus to bring the relief offering to your attention, so that what was so well begun could be finished up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You do so well in so many things--you trust God, you're articulate, you're insightful, you're passionate, you love us--now, do your best in this, too.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I'm not trying to order you around against your will. But by bringing in the Macedonians' enthusiasm as a stimulus to your love, I am hoping to bring the best out of you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You are familiar with the generosity of our Master, Jesus Christ. Rich as he was, he gave it all away for us--in one stroke he became poor and we became rich.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So here's what I think: The best thing you can do right now is to finish what you started last year and not let those good intentions grow stale.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Your heart's been in the right place all along. You've got what it takes to finish it up, so go to it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Once the commitment is clear, you do what you can, not what you can't. The heart regulates the hands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> This isn't so others can take it easy while you sweat it out. No, you're shoulder to shoulder with them all the way,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> your surplus matching their deficit, their surplus matching your deficit. In the end you come out even.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> As it is written, Nothing left over to the one with the most, Nothing lacking to the one with the least.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I thank God for giving Titus the same devoted concern for you that I have.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He was most considerate of how we felt, but his eagerness to go to you and help out with this relief offering is his own idea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> We're sending a companion along with him, someone very popular in the churches for his preaching of the Message.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But there's far more to him than popularity. He's rock-solid trustworthy. The churches handpicked him to go with us as we travel about doing this work of sharing God's gifts to honor God as well as we can,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> taking every precaution against scandal. We don't want anyone suspecting us of taking one penny of this money for ourselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> We're being as careful in our reputation with the public as in our reputation with God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> That's why we're sending another trusted friend along. He's proved his dependability many times over, and carries on as energetically as the day he started. He's heard much about you, and liked what he's heard--so much so that he can't wait to get there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> I don't need to say anything further about Titus. We've been close associates in this work of serving you for a long time. The brothers who travel with him are delegates from churches, a real credit to Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Show them what you're made of, the love I've been talking up in the churches. Let them see it for themselves!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> If I wrote any more on this relief offering for the poor Christians, I'd be repeating myself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I know you're on board and ready to go. I've been bragging about you all through Macedonia province, telling them, "Achaia province has been ready to go on this since last year." Your enthusiasm by now has spread to most of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Now I'm sending the brothers to make sure you're ready, as I said you would be, so my bragging won't turn out to be just so much hot air.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> If some Macedonians and I happened to drop in on you and found you weren't prepared, we'd all be pretty red-faced--you and us--for acting so sure of ourselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> So to make sure there will be no slipup, I've recruited these brothers as an advance team to get you and your promised offering all ready before I get there. I want you to have all the time you need to make this offering in your own way. I don't want anything forced or hurried at the last minute.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Remember: A stingy planter gets a stingy crop; a lavish planter gets a lavish crop.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I want each of you to take plenty of time to think it over, and make up your own mind what you will give. That will protect you against sob stories and arm-twisting. God loves it when the giver delights in the giving.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> God can pour on the blessings in astonishing ways so that you're ready for anything and everything, more than just ready to do what needs to be done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> As one psalmist puts it, He throws caution to the winds, giving to the needy in reckless abandon. His right-living, right-giving ways never run out, never wear out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> This most generous God who gives seed to the farmer that becomes bread for your meals is more than extravagant with you. He gives you something you can then give away, which grows into full-formed lives, robust in God,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> wealthy in every way, so that you can be generous in every way, producing with us great praise to God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Carrying out this social relief work involves far more than helping meet the bare needs of poor Christians. It also produces abundant and bountiful thanksgivings to God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> This relief offering is a prod to live at your very best, showing your gratitude to God by being openly obedient to the plain meaning of the Message of Christ. You show your gratitude through your generous offerings to your needy brothers and sisters, and really toward everyone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Meanwhile, moved by the extravagance of God in your lives, they'll respond by praying for you in passionate intercession for whatever you need.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Thank God for this gift, his gift. No language can praise it enough!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> And now a personal but most urgent matter; I write in the gentle but firm spirit of Christ. I hear that I'm being painted as cringing and wishy-washy when I'm with you, but harsh and demanding when at a safe distance writing letters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Please don't force me to take a hard line when I'm present with you. Don't think that I'll hesitate a single minute to stand up to those who say I'm an unprincipled opportunist. Then they'll have to eat their words.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The world is unprincipled. It's dog-eat-dog out there! The world doesn't fight fair. But we don't live or fight our battles that way--never have and never will.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The tools of our trade aren't for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You stare and stare at the obvious, but you can't see the forest for the trees. If you're looking for a clear example of someone on Christ's side, why do you so quickly cut me out? Believe me, I am quite sure of my standing with Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You may think I overstate the authority he gave me, but I'm not backing off. Every bit of my commitment is for the purpose of building you up, after all, not tearing you down.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And what's this talk about me bullying you with my letters?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "His letters are brawny and potent, but in person he's a weakling and mumbles when he talks."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Such talk won't survive scrutiny. What we write when away, we do when present. We're the exact same people, absent or present, in letter or in person.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> We're not, understand, putting ourselves in a league with those who boast that they're our superiors. We wouldn't dare do that. But in all this comparing and grading and competing, they quite miss the point.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> We aren't making outrageous claims here. We're sticking to the limits of what God has set for us. But there can be no question that those limits reach to and include you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> We're not moving into someone else's "territory." We were already there with you, weren't we? We were the first ones to get there with the Message of Christ, right? So how can there be any question of overstepping our bounds by writing or visiting you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> We're not barging in on the rightful work of others, interfering with their ministries, demanding a place in the sun with them. What we're hoping for is that as your lives grow in faith, you'll play a part within our expanding work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> And we'll all still be within the limits God sets as we proclaim the Message in countries beyond Corinth. But we have no intention of moving in on what others have done and taking credit for it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "If you want to claim credit, claim it for God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> What you say about yourself means nothing in God's work. It's what God says about you that makes the difference.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Will you put up with a little foolish aside from me? Please, just for a moment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The thing that has me so upset is that I care about you so much--this is the passion of God burning inside me! I promised your hand in marriage to Christ, presented you as a pure virgin to her husband.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And now I'm afraid that exactly as the Snake seduced Eve with his smooth patter, you are being lured away from the simple purity of your love for Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> It seems that if someone shows up preaching quite another Jesus than we preached--different spirit, different message--you put up with him quite nicely.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But if you put up with these big-shot "apostles," why can't you put up with simple me? I'm as good as they are.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> It's true that I don't have their voice, haven't mastered that smooth eloquence that impresses you so much. But when I do open my mouth, I at least know what I'm talking about. We haven't kept anything back. We let you in on everything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> I wonder, did I make a bad mistake in proclaiming God's Message to you without asking for something in return, serving you free of charge so that you wouldn't be inconvenienced by me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> It turns out that the other churches paid my way so that you could have a free ride.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Not once during the time I lived among you did anyone have to lift a finger to help me out. My needs were always supplied by the Christians from Macedonia province. I was careful never to be a burden to you, and I never will be, you can count on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> With Christ as my witness, it's a point of honor with me, and I'm not going to keep it quiet just to protect you from what the neighbors will think.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> It's not that I don't love you; God knows I do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I'm just trying to keep things open and honest between us. And I'm not changing my position on this. I'd die before taking your money. I'm giving nobody grounds for lumping me in with those money-grubbing "preachers," vaunting themselves as something special.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They're a sorry bunch--pseudo-apostles, lying preachers, crooked workers--posing as Christ's agents but sham to the core.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And no wonder! Satan does it all the time, dressing up as a beautiful angel of light.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So it shouldn't surprise us when his servants masquerade as servants of God. But they're not getting by with anything. They'll pay for it in the end.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Let me come back to where I started--and don't hold it against me if I continue to sound a little foolish. Or if you'd rather, just accept that I am a fool and let me rant on a little.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I didn't learn this kind of talk from Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Oh, no, it's a bad habit I picked up from the three-ring preachers that are so popular these days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Since you sit there in the judgment seat observing all these shenanigans, you can afford to humor an occasional fool who happens along.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> You have such admirable tolerance for impostors who rob your freedom, rip you off, steal you blind, put you down--even slap your face!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I shouldn't admit it to you, but our stomachs aren't strong enough to tolerate that kind of stuff. Since you admire the egomaniacs of the pulpit so much (remember, this is your old friend, the fool, talking), let me try my hand at it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Do they brag of being Hebrews, Israelites, the pure race of Abraham? I'm their match.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Are they servants of Christ? I can go them one better. (I can't believe I'm saying these things. It's crazy to talk this way! But I started, and I'm going to finish.) I've worked much harder, been jailed more often, beaten up more times than I can count, and at death's door time after time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> I've been flogged five times with the Jews' thirty-nine lashes,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> beaten by Roman rods three times, pummeled with rocks once. I've been shipwrecked three times, and immersed in the open sea for a night and a day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> In hard traveling year in and year out, I've had to ford rivers, fend off robbers, struggle with friends, struggle with foes. I've been at risk in the city, at risk in the country, endangered by desert sun and sea storm, and betrayed by those I thought were my brothers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> I've known drudgery and hard labor, many a long and lonely night without sleep, many a missed meal, blasted by the cold, naked to the weather.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> And that's not the half of it, when you throw in the daily pressures and anxieties of all the churches.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> When someone gets to the end of his rope, I feel the desperation in my bones. When someone is duped into sin, an angry fire burns in my gut.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> If I have to "brag" about myself, I'll brag about the humiliations that make me like Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> The eternal and blessed God and Father of our Master Jesus knows I'm not lying.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Remember the time I was in Damascus and the governor of King Aretas posted guards at the city gates to arrest me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> I crawled through a window in the wall, was let down in a basket, and had to run for my life.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> You've forced me to talk this way, and I do it against my better judgment. But now that we're at it, I may as well bring up the matter of visions and revelations that God gave me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> For instance, I know a man who, fourteen years ago, was seized by Christ and swept in ecstasy to the heights of heaven. I really don't know if this took place in the body or out of it; only God knows.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I also know that this man was hijacked into paradise--again, whether in or out of the body, I don't know; God knows. There he heard the unspeakable spoken, but was forbidden to tell what he heard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> (SEE 12:3)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> This is the man I want to talk about. But about myself, I'm not saying another word apart from the humiliations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> If I had a mind to brag a little, I could probably do it without looking ridiculous, and I'd still be speaking plain truth all the way. But I'll spare you. I don't want anyone imagining me as anything other than the fool you'd encounter if you saw me on the street or heard me talk.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn't get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan's angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> At first I didn't think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> and then he told me, My grace is enough; it's all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness. Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size--abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Well, now I've done it! I've made a complete fool of myself by going on like this. But it's not all my fault; you put me up to it. You should have been doing this for me, sticking up for me and commending me instead of making me do it for myself. You know from personal experience that even if I'm a nobody, a nothing, I wasn't second-rate compared to those big-shot apostles you're so taken with.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> All the signs that mark a true apostle were in evidence while I was with you through both good times and bad: signs of portent, signs of wonder, signs of power.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Did you get less of me or of God than any of the other churches? The only thing you got less of was less responsibility for my upkeep. Well, I'm sorry. Forgive me for depriving you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Everything is in readiness now for this, my third visit to you. But don't worry about it; you won't have to put yourselves out. I'll be no more of a bother to you this time than on the other visits. I have no interest in what you have--only in you. Children shouldn't have to look out for their parents; parents look out for the children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I'd be most happy to empty my pockets, even mortgage my life, for your good. So how does it happen that the more I love you, the less I'm loved?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> And why is it that I keep coming across these whiffs of gossip about how my self-support was a front behind which I worked an elaborate scam? Where's the evidence?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Did I cheat or trick you through anyone I sent?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I asked Titus to visit, and sent some brothers along. Did they swindle you out of anything? And haven't we always been just as aboveboard, just as honest?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I hope you don't think that all along we've been making our defense before you, the jury. You're not the jury; God is the jury--God revealed in Christ--and we make our case before him. And we've gone to all the trouble of supporting ourselves so that we won't be in the way or get in the way of your growing up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> I do admit that I have fears that when I come you'll disappoint me and I'll disappoint you, and in frustration with each other everything will fall to pieces--quarrels, jealousy, flaring tempers, taking sides, angry words, vicious rumors, swelled heads, and general bedlam.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I don't look forward to a second humiliation by God among you, compounded by hot tears over that crowd that keeps sinning over and over in the same old ways, who refuse to turn away from the pigsty of evil, sexual disorder, and indecency in which they wallow.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Well, this is my third visit coming up. Remember the Scripture that says, "A matter becomes clear after two or three witnesses give evidence"?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> On my second visit I warned that bunch that keeps sinning over and over in the same old ways that when I came back I wouldn't go easy on them. Now, preparing for the third, I'm saying it again from a distance. If you haven't changed your ways by the time I get there, look out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You who have been demanding proof that Christ speaks through me will get more than you bargained for. You'll get the full force of Christ, don't think you won't.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He was sheer weakness and humiliation when he was killed on the Cross, but oh, he's alive now--in the mighty power of God! We weren't much to look at, either, when we were humiliated among you, but when we deal with you this next time, we'll be alive in Christ, strengthened by God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Test yourselves to make sure you are solid in the faith. Don't drift along taking everything for granted. Give yourselves regular checkups. You need firsthand evidence, not mere hearsay, that Jesus Christ is in you. Test it out. If you fail the test, do something about it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I hope the test won't show that we have failed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But if it comes to that, we'd rather the test showed our failure than yours.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> We're rooting for the truth to win out in you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> We couldn't possibly do otherwise. We don't just put up with our limitations; we celebrate them, and then go on to celebrate every strength, every triumph of the truth in you. We pray hard that it will all come together in your lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I'm writing this to you now so that when I come I won't have to say another word on the subject. The authority the Master gave me is for putting people together, not taking them apart. I want to get on with it, and not have to spend time on reprimands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And that's about it, friends. Be cheerful. Keep things in good repair. Keep your spirits up. Think in harmony. Be agreeable. Do all that, and the God of love and peace will be with you for sure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Greet one another with a holy embrace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> All the brothers and sisters here say hello.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The amazing grace of the Master, Jesus Christ, the extravagant love of God, the intimate friendship of the Holy Spirit, be with all of you.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="48" bname="Galatians">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I, Paul, and my companions in faith here, send greetings to the Galatian churches. My authority for writing to you does not come from any popular vote of the people, nor does it come through the appointment of some human higher-up. It comes directly from Jesus the Messiah and God the Father, who raised him from the dead. I'm God-commissioned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> (SEE 1:1)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> So I greet you with the great words, grace and peace!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> We know the meaning of those words because Jesus Christ rescued us from this evil world we're in by offering himself as a sacrifice for our sins. God's plan is that we all experience that rescue.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Glory to God forever! Oh, yes!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I can't believe your fickleness--how easily you have turned traitor to him who called you by the grace of Christ by embracing a variant message!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> It is not a minor variation, you know; it is completely other, an alien message, a no-message, a lie about God. Those who are provoking this agitation among you are turning the Message of Christ on its head.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Let me be blunt: If one of us--even if an angel from heaven!--were to preach something other than what we preached originally, let him be cursed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I said it once; I'll say it again: If anyone, regardless of reputation or credentials, preaches something other than what you received originally, let him be cursed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Do you think I speak this strongly in order to manipulate crowds? Or curry favor with God? Or get popular applause? If my goal was popularity, I wouldn't bother being Christ's slave.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Know this--I am most emphatic here, friends--this great Message I delivered to you is not mere human optimism.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I didn't receive it through the traditions, and I wasn't taught it in some school. I got it straight from God, received the Message directly from Jesus Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I'm sure that you've heard the story of my earlier life when I lived in the Jewish way. In those days I went all out in persecuting God's church. I was systematically destroying it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I was so enthusiastic about the traditions of my ancestors that I advanced head and shoulders above my peers in my career.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Even then God had designs on me. Why, when I was still in my mother's womb he chose and called me out of sheer generosity!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Now he has intervened and revealed his Son to me so that I might joyfully tell non-Jews about him. Immediately after my calling--without consulting anyone around me</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> and without going up to Jerusalem to confer with those who were apostles long before I was--I got away to Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> but it was three years before I went up to Jerusalem to compare stories with Peter. I was there only fifteen days--but what days they were!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Except for our Master's brother James, I saw no other apostles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> (I'm telling you the absolute truth in this.)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Then I began my ministry in the regions of Syria and Cilicia.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> After all that time and activity I was still unknown by face among the Christian churches in Judea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> There was only this report: "That man who once persecuted us is now preaching the very message he used to try to destroy."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Their response was to recognize and worship God because of me!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Fourteen years after that first visit, Barnabas and I went up to Jerusalem and took Titus with us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I went to clarify with them what had been revealed to me. At that time I placed before them exactly what I was preaching to the non-Jews. I did this in private with the leaders, those held in esteem by the church, so that our concern would not become a controversial public issue, marred by ethnic tensions, exposing my years of work to denigration and endangering my present ministry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Significantly, Titus, non-Jewish though he was, was not required to be circumcised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> While we were in conference we were infiltrated by spies pretending to be Christians, who slipped in to find out just how free true Christians are. Their ulterior motive was to reduce us to their brand of servitude.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> We didn't give them the time of day. We were determined to preserve the truth of the Message for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> As for those who were considered important in the church, their reputation doesn't concern me. God isn't impressed with mere appearances, and neither am I. And of course these leaders were able to add nothing to the message I had been preaching.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> It was soon evident that God had entrusted me with the same message to the non-Jews as Peter had been preaching to the Jews.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> (SEE 2:7)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Recognizing that my calling had been given by God, James, Peter, and John--the pillars of the church--shook hands with me and Barnabas, assigning us to a ministry to the non-Jews, while they continued to be responsible for reaching out to the Jews.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The only additional thing they asked was that we remember the poor, and I was already eager to do that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Later, when Peter came to Antioch, I had a face-to-face confrontation with him because he was clearly out of line.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Here's the situation. Earlier, before certain persons had come from James, Peter regularly ate with the non-Jews. But when that conservative group came from Jerusalem, he cautiously pulled back and put as much distance as he could manage between himself and his non-Jewish friends. That's how fearful he was of the conservative Jewish clique that's been pushing the old system of circumcision.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Unfortunately, the rest of the Jews in the Antioch church joined in that hypocrisy so that even Barnabas was swept along in the charade.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But when I saw that they were not maintaining a steady, straight course according to the Message, I spoke up to Peter in front of them all: "If you, a Jew, live like a non-Jew when you're not being observed by the watchdogs from Jerusalem, what right do you have to require non-Jews to conform to Jewish customs just to make a favorable impression on your old Jerusalem cronies?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> We Jews know that we have no advantage of birth over "non-Jewish sinners."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> We know very well that we are not set right with God by rule-keeping but only through personal faith in Jesus Christ. How do we know? We tried it--and we had the best system of rules the world has ever seen! Convinced that no human being can please God by self-improvement, we believed in Jesus as the Messiah so that we might be set right before God by trusting in the Messiah, not by trying to be good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Have some of you noticed that we are not yet perfect? (No great surprise, right?) And are you ready to make the accusation that since people like me, who go through Christ in order to get things right with God, aren't perfectly virtuous, Christ must therefore be an accessory to sin? The accusation is frivolous.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> If I was "trying to be good," I would be rebuilding the same old barn that I tore down. I would be acting as a charlatan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God's man.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I am not going to go back on that. Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God's grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> You crazy Galatians! Did someone put a hex on you? Have you taken leave of your senses? Something crazy has happened, for it's obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives. His sacrifice on the Cross was certainly set before you clearly enough.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God's Message to you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren't smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Answer this question: Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Don't these things happen among you just as they happened with Abraham? He believed God, and that act of belief was turned into a life that was right with God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Is it not obvious to you that persons who put their trust in Christ (not persons who put their trust in the law!) are like Abraham: children of faith?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> It was all laid out beforehand in Scripture that God would set things right with non-Jews by faith. Scripture anticipated this in the promise to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed in you."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So those now who live by faith are blessed along with Abraham, who lived by faith--this is no new doctrine!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And that means that anyone who tries to live by his own effort, independent of God, is doomed to failure. Scripture backs this up: "Utterly cursed is every person who fails to carry out every detail written in the Book of the law."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The obvious impossibility of carrying out such a moral program should make it plain that no one can sustain a relationship with God that way. The person who lives in right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him. Doing things for God is the opposite of entering into what God does for you. Habakkuk had it right: "The person who believes God, is set right by God--and that's the real life."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Rule-keeping does not naturally evolve into living by faith, but only perpetuates itself in more and more rule-keeping, a fact observed in Scripture: "The one who does these things [rule-keeping]continues to live by them."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Christ redeemed us from that self-defeating, cursed life by absorbing it completely into himself. Do you remember the Scripture that says, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"? That is what happened when Jesus was nailed to the Cross: He became a curse, and at the same time dissolved the curse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And now, because of that, the air is cleared and we can see that Abraham's blessing is present and available for non-Jews, too. We are all able to receive God's life, his Spirit, in and with us by believing--just the way Abraham received it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Friends, let me give you an example from everyday affairs of the free life I am talking about. Once a person's will has been ratified, no one else can annul it or add to it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Now, the promises were made to Abraham and to his descendant. You will observe that Scripture, in the careful language of a legal document, does not say "to descendants," referring to everybody in general, but "to your descendant" (the noun, note, is singular), referring to Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> This is the way I interpret this: A will, earlier ratified by God, is not annulled by an addendum attached 430 years later, thereby negating the promise of the will.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> No, this addendum, with its instructions and regulations, has nothing to do with the promised inheritance in the will. What is the point, then, of the law, the attached addendum? It was a thoughtful addition to the original covenant promises made to Abraham.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The purpose of the law was to keep a sinful people in the way of salvation until Christ (the descendant) came, inheriting the promises and distributing them to us. Obviously this law was not a firsthand encounter with God. It was arranged by angelic messengers through a middleman, Moses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But if there is a middleman as there was at Sinai, then the people are not dealing directly with God, are they? But the original promise is the direct blessing of God, received by faith.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> If such is the case, is the law, then, an anti-promise, a negation of God's will for us? Not at all. Its purpose was to make obvious to everyone that we are, in ourselves, out of right relationship with God, and therefore to show us the futility of devising some religious system for getting by our own efforts what we can only get by waiting in faith for God to complete his promise. For if any kind of rule-keeping had power to create life in us, we would certainly have gotten it by this time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> (SEE 3:21)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Until the time when we were mature enough to respond freely in faith to the living God, we were carefully surrounded and protected by the Mosaic law.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The law was like those Greek tutors, with which you are familiar, who escort children to school and protect them from danger or distraction, making sure the children will really get to the place they set out for.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> But now you have arrived at your destination:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> By faith in Christ you are in direct relationship with God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Your baptism in Christ was not just washing you up for a fresh start. It also involved dressing you in an adult faith wardrobe--Christ's life, the fulfillment of God's original promise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> In Christ's family there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female. Among us you are all equal. That is, we are all in a common relationship with Jesus Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Also, since you are Christ's family, then you are Abraham's famous "descendant," heirs according to the covenant promises.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Let me show you the implications of this. As long as the heir is a minor, he has no advantage over the slave. Though legally he owns the entire inheritance,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> he is subject to tutors and administrators until whatever date the father has set for emancipation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> That is the way it is with us: When we were minors, we were just like slaves ordered around by simple instructions (the tutors and administrators of this world), with no say in the conduct of our own lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But when the time arrived that was set by God the Father, God sent his Son, born among us of a woman, born under the conditions of the law so that he might redeem those of us who have been kidnapped by the law.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Thus we have been set free to experience our rightful heritage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> You can tell for sure that you are now fully adopted as his own children because God sent the Spirit of his Son into our lives crying out, "Papa! Father!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Doesn't that privilege of intimate conversation with God make it plain that you are not a slave, but a child? And if you are a child, you're also an heir, with complete access to the inheritance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Earlier, before you knew God personally, you were enslaved to so-called gods that had nothing of the divine about them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But now that you know the real God--or rather since God knows you--how can you possibly subject yourselves again to those paper tigers?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> For that is exactly what you do when you are intimidated into scrupulously observing all the traditions, taboos, and superstitions associated with special days and seasons and years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I am afraid that all my hard work among you has gone up in a puff of smoke!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> My dear friends, what I would really like you to do is try to put yourselves in my shoes to the same extent that I, when I was with you, put myself in yours. You were very sensitive and kind then. You did not come down on me personally.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You were well aware that the reason I ended up preaching to you was that I was physically broken, and so, prevented from continuing my journey, I was forced to stop with you. That is how I came to preach to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And don't you remember that even though taking in a sick guest was most troublesome for you, you chose to treat me as well as you would have treated an angel of God--as well as you would have treated Jesus himself if he had visited you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> What has happened to the satisfaction you felt at that time? There were some of you then who, if possible, would have given your very eyes to me--that is how deeply you cared!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> And now have I suddenly become your enemy simply by telling you the truth? I can't believe it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Those heretical teachers go to great lengths to flatter you, but their motives are rotten. They want to shut you out of the free world of God's grace so that you will always depend on them for approval and direction, making them feel important.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> It is a good thing to be ardent in doing good, but not just when I am in your presence. Can't you continue the same concern for both my person and my message when I am away from you that you had when I was with you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Do you know how I feel right now, and will feel until Christ's life becomes visible in your lives? Like a mother in the pain of childbirth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Oh, I keep wishing that I was with you. Then I wouldn't be reduced to this blunt, letter-writing language out of sheer frustration.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Tell me now, you who have become so enamored with the law: Have you paid close attention to that law?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Abraham, remember, had two sons: one by the slave woman and one by the free woman.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The son of the slave woman was born by human connivance; the son of the free woman was born by God's promise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> This illustrates the very thing we are dealing with now. The two births represent two ways of being in relationship with God. One is from Mount Sinai in Arabia.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> It corresponds with what is now going on in Jerusalem--a slave life, producing slaves as offspring. This is the way of Hagar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> In contrast to that, there is an invisible Jerusalem, a free Jerusalem, and she is our mother--this is the way of Sarah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Remember what Isaiah wrote: Rejoice, barren woman who bears no children, shout and cry out, woman who has no birth pangs, Because the children of the barren woman now surpass the children of the chosen woman.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Isn't it clear, friends, that you, like Isaac, are children of promise?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> In the days of Hagar and Sarah, the child who came from faithless connivance (Ishmael) harassed the child who came--empowered by the Spirit--from the faithful promise (Isaac). Isn't it clear that the harassment you are now experiencing from the Jerusalem heretics follows that old pattern?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> There is a Scripture that tells us what to do: "Expel the slave mother with her son, for the slave son will not inherit with the free son."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Isn't that conclusive? We are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ's hard-won gift of freedom is squandered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You were running superbly! Who cut in on you, deflecting you from the true course of obedience?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> This detour doesn't come from the One who called you into the race in the first place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And please don't toss this off as insignificant. It only takes a minute amount of yeast, you know, to permeate an entire loaf of bread.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Deep down, the Master has given me confidence that you will not defect. But the one who is upsetting you, whoever he is, will bear the divine judgment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> As for the rumor that I continue to preach the ways of circumcision (as I did in those pre-Damascus Road days), that is absurd. Why would I still be persecuted, then? If I were preaching that old message, no one would be offended if I mentioned the Cross now and then--it would be so watered-down it wouldn't matter one way or the other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Why don't these agitators, obsessive as they are about circumcision, go all the way and castrate themselves!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don't use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that's how freedom grows.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> For everything we know about God's Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That's an act of true freedom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> If you bite and ravage each other, watch out--in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spirit. Then you won't feed the compulsions of selfishness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Why don't you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on. This isn't the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God's kingdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard--things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely. Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good--crucified.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day's out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ's law.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don't be impressed with yourself. Don't compare yourself with others.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Be very sure now, you who have been trained to a self-sufficient maturity, that you enter into a generous common life with those who have trained you, sharing all the good things that you have and experience.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Don't be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others--ignoring God!--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> harvests a crop of weeds. All he'll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God's Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So let's not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don't give up, or quit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Now, in these last sentences, I want to emphasize in the bold scrawls of my personal handwriting the immense importance of what I have written to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> These people who are attempting to force the ways of circumcision on you have only one motive: They want an easy way to look good before others, lacking the courage to live by a faith that shares Christ's suffering and death. All their talk about the law is gas.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> They themselves don't keep the law! And they are highly selective in the laws they do observe. They only want you to be circumcised so they can boast of their success in recruiting you to their side. That is contemptible!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> For my part, I am going to boast about nothing but the Cross of our Master, Jesus Christ. Because of that Cross, I have been crucified in relation to the world, set free from the stifling atmosphere of pleasing others and fitting into the little patterns that they dictate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Can't you see the central issue in all this? It is not what you and I do--submit to circumcision, reject circumcision. It is what God is doing, and he is creating something totally new, a free life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> All who walk by this standard are the true Israel of God--his chosen people. Peace and mercy on them!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Quite frankly, I don't want to be bothered anymore by these disputes. I have far more important things to do--the serious living of this faith. I bear in my body scars from my service to Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> May what our Master Jesus Christ gives freely be deeply and personally yours, my friends. Oh, yes!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="49" bname="Ephesians">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I, Paul, am under God's plan as an apostle, a special agent of Christ Jesus, writing to you faithful Christians in Ephesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I greet you with the grace and peace poured into our lives by God our Father and our Master, Jesus Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He's the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Long before he laid down earth's foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we're a free people--free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> It's in Christ that you, once you heard the truth and believed it (this Message of your salvation), found yourselves home free--signed, sealed, and delivered by the Holy Spirit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> This signet from God is the first installment on what's coming, a reminder that we'll get everything God has planned for us, a praising and glorious life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> That's why, when I heard of the solid trust you have in the Master Jesus and your outpouring of love to all the Christians,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I couldn't stop thanking God for you--every time I prayed, I'd think of you and give thanks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But I do more than thank. I ask--ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory--to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for Christians,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him--endless energy, boundless strength!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> All this energy issues from Christ: God raised him from death and set him on a throne in deep heaven,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> in charge of running the universe, everything from galaxies to governments, no name and no power exempt from his rule. And not just for the time being, but forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> He is in charge of it all, has the final word on everything. At the center of all this, Christ rules the church.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ's body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> It wasn't so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> You let the world, which doesn't know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It's a wonder God didn't lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But don't take any of this for granted. It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God's ways</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> had no idea of any of this, didn't know the first thing about the way God works, hadn't the faintest idea of Christ. You knew nothing of that rich history of God's covenants and promises in Israel, hadn't a clue about what God was doing in the world at large.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Now because of Christ--dying that death, shedding that blood--you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The Messiah has made things up between us so that we're now together on this, both non-Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders. He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He repealed the law code that had become so clogged with fine print and footnotes that it hindered more than it helped. Then he started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Christ brought us together through his death on the Cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Christ came and preached peace to you outsiders and peace to us insiders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> He treated us as equals, and so made us equals. Through him we both share the same Spirit and have equal access to the Father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> That's plain enough, isn't it? You're no longer wandering exiles. This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You're no longer strangers or outsiders. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. God is building a home. He's using us all--irrespective of how we got here--in what he is building.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he's using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day--a holy temple built by God,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> This is why I, Paul, am in jail for Christ, having taken up the cause of you outsiders, so-called.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I take it that you're familiar with the part I was given in God's plan for including everybody.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I got the inside story on this from God himself, as I just wrote you in brief.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> As you read over what I have written to you, you'll be able to see for yourselves into the mystery of Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> None of our ancestors understood this. Only in our time has it been made clear by God's Spirit through his holy apostles and prophets of this new order.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The mystery is that people who have never heard of God and those who have heard of him all their lives (what I've been calling outsiders and insiders) stand on the same ground before God. They get the same offer, same help, same promises in Christ Jesus. The Message is accessible and welcoming to everyone, across the board.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> This is my life work: helping people understand and respond to this Message. It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> When it came to presenting the Message to people who had no background in God's way, I was the least qualified of any of the available Christians. God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities. And so here I am, preaching and writing about things that are way over my head, the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> My task is to bring out in the open and make plain what God, who created all this in the first place, has been doing in secret and behind the scenes all along.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Through Christians like yourselves gathered in churches, this extraordinary plan of God is becoming known and talked about even among the angels!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> All this is proceeding along lines planned all along by God and then executed in Christ Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> When we trust in him, we're free to say whatever needs to be said, bold to go wherever we need to go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> So don't let my present trouble on your behalf get you down. Be proud!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> My response is to get down on my knees before the Father,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit--not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> you'll be able to take in with all Christians the extravagant dimensions of Christ's love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> God can do anything, you know--far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Glory to God in the church! Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus! Glory down all the generations! Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In light of all this, here's what I want you to do. While I'm locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk--better yet, run!--on the road God called you to travel. I don't want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don't want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> And mark that you do this with humility and discipline--not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You were all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You have one Master, one faith, one baptism,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> one God and Father of all, who rules over all, works through all, and is present in all. Everything you are and think and do is permeated with Oneness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But that doesn't mean you should all look and speak and act the same. Out of the generosity of Christ, each of us is given his own gift.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The text for this is, He climbed the high mountain, He captured the enemy and seized the booty, He handed it all out in gifts to the people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> It's true, is it not, that the One who climbed up also climbed down, down to the valley of earth?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And the One who climbed down is the One who climbed back up, up to highest heaven. He handed out gifts above and below, filled heaven with his gifts,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> filled earth with his gifts. He handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> to train Christians in skilled servant work, working within Christ's body, the church,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> until we're all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God's Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> No prolonged infancies among us, please. We'll not tolerate babes in the woods, small children who are an easy mark for impostors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love--like Christ in everything. We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He keeps us in step with each other. His very breath and blood flow through us, nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God, robust in love.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And so I insist--and God backs me up on this--that there be no going along with the crowd, the empty-headed, mindless crowd.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They've refused for so long to deal with God that they've lost touch not only with God but with reality itself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They can't think straight anymore. Feeling no pain, they let themselves go in sexual obsession, addicted to every sort of perversion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But that's no life for you. You learned Christ!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> My assumption is that you have paid careful attention to him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Since, then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything--and I do mean everything--connected with that old way of life has to go. It's rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life--a God-fashioned life,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> a life renewed from the inside</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> What this adds up to, then, is this: no more lies, no more pretense. Tell your neighbor the truth. In Christ's body we're all connected to each other, after all. When you lie to others, you end up lying to yourself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry--but don't use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don't stay angry. Don't go to bed angry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Don't give the Devil that kind of foothold in your life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Did you used to make ends meet by stealing? Well, no more! Get an honest job so that you can help others who can't work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Watch the way you talk. Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your mouth. Say only what helps, each word a gift.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Don't grieve God. Don't break his heart. His Holy Spirit, moving and breathing in you, is the most intimate part of your life, making you fit for himself. Don't take such a gift for granted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Don't allow love to turn into lust, setting off a downhill slide into sexual promiscuity, filthy practices, or bullying greed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Though some tongues just love the taste of gossip, Christians have better uses for language than that. Don't talk dirty or silly. That kind of talk doesn't fit our style. Thanksgiving is our dialect.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You can be sure that using people or religion or things just for what you can get out of them--the usual variations on idolatry--will get you nowhere, and certainly nowhere near the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Don't let yourselves get taken in by religious smooth talk. God gets furious with people who are full of religious sales talk but want nothing to do with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Don't even hang around people like that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You groped your way through that murk once, but no longer. You're out in the open now. The bright light of Christ makes your way plain. So no more stumbling around. Get on with it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The good, the right, the true--these are the actions appropriate for daylight hours.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Figure out what will please Christ, and then do it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Don't waste your time on useless work, mere busywork, the barren pursuits of darkness. Expose these things for the sham they are.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> It's a scandal when people waste their lives on things they must do in the darkness where no one will see.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Rip the cover off those frauds and see how attractive they look in the light of Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Wake up from your sleep, Climb out of your coffins; Christ will show you the light!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So watch your step. Use your head.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Make the most of every chance you get. These are desperate times!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Don't live carelessly, unthinkingly. Make sure you understand what the Master wants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Don't drink too much wine. That cheapens your life. Drink the Spirit of God, huge draughts of him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Sing hymns instead of drinking songs! Sing songs from your heart to Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Sing praises over everything, any excuse for a song to God the Father in the name of our Master, Jesus Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Out of respect for Christ, be courteously reverent to one another.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Wives, understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The husband provides leadership to his wife the way Christ does to his church, not by domineering but by cherishing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> So just as the church submits to Christ as he exercises such leadership, wives should likewise submit to their husbands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church--a love marked by giving, not getting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Christ's love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They're really doing themselves a favor--since they're already "one" in marriage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> No one abuses his own body, does he? No, he feeds and pampers it. That's how Christ treats us, the church,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> since we are part of his body.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> And this is why a man leaves father and mother and cherishes his wife. No longer two, they become "one flesh."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> This is a huge mystery, and I don't pretend to understand it all. What is clearest to me is the way Christ treats the church.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> And this provides a good picture of how each husband is to treat his wife, loving himself in loving her, and how each wife is to honor her husband.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Children, do what your parents tell you. This is only right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Honor your father and mother" is the first commandment that has a promise attached to it, namely,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "so you will live well and have a long life."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Fathers, don't exasperate your children by coming down hard on them. Take them by the hand and lead them in the way of the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Servants, respectfully obey your earthly masters but always with an eye to obeying the real master, Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Don't just do what you have to do to get by, but work heartily, as Christ's servants doing what God wants you to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And work with a smile on your face, always keeping in mind that no matter who happens to be giving the orders, you're really serving God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Good work will get you good pay from the Master, regardless of whether you are slave or free.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Masters, it's the same with you. No abuse, please, and no threats. You and your servants are both under the same Master in heaven. He makes no distinction between you and them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And that about wraps it up. God is strong, and he wants you strong.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> So take everything the Master has set out for you, well-made weapons of the best materials. And put them to use so you will be able to stand up to everything the Devil throws your way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> This is no afternoon athletic contest that we'll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Be prepared. You're up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it's all over but the shouting you'll still be on your feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Truth, righteousness,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> peace,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> faith,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You'll need them throughout your life. God's Word is an indispensable weapon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each other's spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> And don't forget to pray for me. Pray that I'll know what to say and have the courage to say it at the right time, telling the mystery to one and all, the Message that I,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> jailbird preacher that I am, am responsible for getting out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Tychicus, my good friend here, will tell you what I'm doing and how things are going with me. He is certainly a dependable servant of the Master!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I've sent him not only to tell you about us but to cheer you on in your faith.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Good-bye, friends. Love mixed with faith be yours from God the Father and from the Master, Jesus Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Pure grace and nothing but grace be with all who love our Master, Jesus Christ.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="50" bname="Philippians">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Paul and Timothy, both of us committed servants of Christ Jesus, write this letter to all the Christians in Philippi, pastors and ministers included.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> We greet you with the grace and peace that comes from God our Father and our Master, Jesus Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Every time you cross my mind, I break out in exclamations of thanks to God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Each exclamation is a trigger to prayer. I find myself praying for you with a glad heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I am so pleased that you have continued on in this with us, believing and proclaiming God's Message, from the day you heard it right up to the present.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> It's not at all fanciful for me to think this way about you. My prayers and hopes have deep roots in reality. You have, after all, stuck with me all the way from the time I was thrown in jail, put on trial, and came out of it in one piece. All along you have experienced with me the most generous help from God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He knows how much I love and miss you these days. Sometimes I think I feel as strongly about you as Christ does!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover's life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I want to report to you, friends, that my imprisonment here has had the opposite of its intended effect. Instead of being squelched, the Message has actually prospered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> All the soldiers here, and everyone else too, found out that I'm in jail because of this Messiah. That piqued their curiosity, and now they've learned all about him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Not only that, but most of the Christians here have become far more sure of themselves in the faith than ever, speaking out fearlessly about God, about the Messiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> It's true that some here preach Christ because with me out of the way, they think they'll step right into the spotlight. But the others do it with the best heart in the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> One group is motivated by pure love, knowing that I am here defending the Message, wanting to help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The others, now that I'm out of the picture, are merely greedy, hoping to get something out of it for themselves. Their motives are bad. They see me as their competition, and so the worse it goes for me, the better--they think--for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> So how am I to respond? I've decided that I really don't care about their motives, whether mixed, bad, or indifferent. Every time one of them opens his mouth, Christ is proclaimed, so I just cheer them on! And I'm going to keep that celebration going</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> because I know how it's going to turn out. Through your faithful prayers and the generous response of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, everything he wants to do in and through me will be done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> I can hardly wait to continue on my course. I don't expect to be embarrassed in the least. On the contrary, everything happening to me in this jail only serves to make Christ more accurately known, regardless of whether I live or die. They didn't shut me up; they gave me a pulpit!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Alive, I'm Christ's messenger; dead, I'm his bounty. Life versus even more life! I can't lose.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> As long as I'm alive in this body, there is good work for me to do. If I had to choose right now, I hardly know which I'd choose.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Hard choice! The desire to break camp here and be with Christ is powerful. Some days I can think of nothing better</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> . But most days, because of what you are going through, I am sure that it's better for me to stick it out here.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> So I plan to be around awhile, companion to you as your growth and joy in this life of trusting God continues.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> You can start looking forward to a great reunion when I come visit you again. We'll be praising Christ, enjoying each other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Meanwhile, live in such a way that you are a credit to the Message of Christ. Let nothing in your conduct hang on whether I come or not. Your conduct must be the same whether I show up to see things for myself or hear of it from a distance. Stand united, singular in vision, contending for people's trust in the Message, the good news,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> not flinching or dodging in the slightest before the opposition. Your courage and unity will show them what they're up against: defeat for them, victory for you--and both because of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> There's far more to this life than trusting in Christ. There's also suffering for him. And the suffering is as much a gift as the trusting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> You're involved in the same kind of struggle you saw me go through, on which you are now getting an updated report in this letter.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> If you've gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Don't push your way to the front; don't sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death--and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> so that all created beings in heaven and on earth--even those long ago dead and buried--will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> What I'm getting at, friends, is that you should simply keep on doing what you've done from the beginning. When I was living among you, you lived in responsive obedience. Now that I'm separated from you, keep it up. Better yet, redouble your efforts. Be energetic in your life of salvation, reverent and sensitive before God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> That energy is God's energy, an energy deep within you, God himself willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Do everything readily and cheerfully--no bickering, no second-guessing allowed!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society. Provide people with a glimpse of good living and of the living God. Carry the light-giving Message into the night</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> so I'll have good cause to be proud of you on the day that Christ returns. You'll be living proof that I didn't go to all this work for nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Even if I am executed here and now, I'll rejoice in being an element in the offering of your faith that you make on Christ's altar, a part of your rejoicing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> But turnabout's fair play--you must join me in my rejoicing. Whatever you do, don't feel sorry for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I plan (according to Jesus' plan) to send Timothy to you very soon so he can bring back all the news of you he can gather. Oh, how that will do my heart good!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> I have no one quite like Timothy. He is loyal, and genuinely concerned for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Most people around here are looking out for themselves, with little concern for the things of Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But you know yourselves that Timothy's the real thing. He's been a devoted son to me as together we've delivered the Message.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> As soon as I see how things are going to fall out for me here, I plan to send him off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> And then I'm hoping and praying to be right on his heels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> But for right now, I'm dispatching Epaphroditus, my good friend and companion in my work. You sent him to help me out; now I'm sending him to help you out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> He has been wanting in the worst way to get back with you. Especially since recovering from the illness you heard about, he's been wanting to get back and reassure you that he is just fine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> He nearly died, as you know, but God had mercy on him. And not only on him--he had mercy on me, too. His death would have been one huge grief piled on top of all the others.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> So you can see why I'm so delighted to send him on to you. When you see him again, hale and hearty, how you'll rejoice and how relieved I'll be.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Give him a grand welcome, a joyful embrace! People like him deserve the best you can give.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> Remember the ministry to me that you started but weren't able to complete? Well, in the process of finishing up that work, he put his life on the line and nearly died doing it.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> And that's about it, friends. Be glad in God! I don't mind repeating what I have written in earlier letters, and I hope you don't mind hearing it again. Better safe than sorry--so here goes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Steer clear of the barking dogs, those religious busybodies, all bark and no bite. All they're interested in is appearances--knife-happy circumcisers, I call them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The real believers are the ones the Spirit of God leads to work away at this ministry, filling the air with Christ's praise as we do it. We couldn't carry this off by our own efforts, and we know it--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> even though we can list what many might think are impressive credentials. You know my pedigree:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> a legitimate birth, circumcised on the eighth day; an Israelite from the elite tribe of Benjamin; a strict and devout adherent to God's law;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> a fiery defender of the purity of my religion, even to the point of persecuting Christians; a meticulous observer of everything set down in God's law Book.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I'm tearing up and throwing out with the trash--along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant--dog dung. I've dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> and be embraced by him. I didn't want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ--God's righteousness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I'm not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward--to Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So let's keep focused on that goal, those of us who want everything God has for us. If any of you have something else in mind, something less than total commitment, God will clear your blurred vision--you'll see it yet!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Now that we're on the right track, let's stay on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Stick with me, friends. Keep track of those you see running this same course, headed for this same goal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> There are many out there taking other paths, choosing other goals, and trying to get you to go along with them. I've warned you of them many times; sadly, I'm having to do it again. All they want is easy street. They hate Christ's Cross.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> But easy street is a dead-end street. Those who live there make their bellies their gods; belches are their praise; all they can think of is their appetites.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But there's far more to life for us. We're citizens of high heaven! We're waiting the arrival of the Savior, the Master, Jesus Christ,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> who will transform our earthy bodies into glorious bodies like his own. He'll make us beautiful and whole with the same powerful skill by which he is putting everything as it should be, under and around him.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> My dear, dear friends! I love you so much. I do want the very best for you. You make me feel such joy, fill me with such pride. Don't waver. Stay on track, steady in God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I urge Euodia and Syntyche to iron out their differences and make up. God doesn't want his children holding grudges.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And, oh, yes, Syzygus, since you're right there to help them work things out, do your best with them. These women worked for the Message hand in hand with Clement and me, and with the other veterans--worked as hard as any of us. Remember, their names are also in the book of life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in him!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you're on their side, working with them and not against them. Help them see that the Master is about to arrive. He could show up any minute!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious--the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I'm glad in God, far happier than you would ever guess--happy that you're again showing such strong concern for me. Not that you ever quit praying and thinking about me. You just had no chance to show it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Actually, I don't have a sense of needing anything personally. I've learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I'm just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I've found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I don't mean that your help didn't mean a lot to me--it did. It was a beautiful thing that you came alongside me in my troubles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> You Philippians well know, and you can be sure I'll never forget it, that when I first left Macedonia province, venturing out with the Message, not one church helped out in the give-and-take of this work except you. You were the only one.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Even while I was in Thessalonica, you helped out--and not only once, but twice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Not that I'm looking for handouts, but I do want you to experience the blessing that issues from generosity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And now I have it all--and keep getting more! The gifts you sent with Epaphroditus were more than enough, like a sweet-smelling sacrifice roasting on the altar, filling the air with fragrance, pleasing God no end.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> You can be sure that God will take care of everything you need, his generosity exceeding even yours in the glory that pours from Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Our God and Father abounds in glory that just pours out into eternity. Yes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Give our regards to every Christian you meet. Our friends here say hello.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> All the Christians here, especially the believers who work in the palace of Caesar, want to be remembered to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Receive and experience the amazing grace of the Master, Jesus Christ, deep, deep within yourselves.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="51" bname="Colossians">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I, Paul, have been sent on special assignment by Christ as part of God's master plan. Together with my friend Timothy,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I greet the Christians and stalwart followers of Christ who live in Colosse. May everything good from God our Father be yours!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Our prayers for you are always spilling over into thanksgivings. We can't quit thanking God our Father and Jesus our Messiah for you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> We keep getting reports on your steady faith in Christ, our Jesus, and the love you continuously extend to all Christians.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The lines of purpose in your lives never grow slack, tightly tied as they are to your future in heaven, kept taut by hope. The Message is as true among you today as when you first heard it. It doesn't diminish or weaken over time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> It's the same all over the world. The Message bears fruit and gets larger and stronger, just as it has in you. From the very first day you heard and recognized the truth of what God is doing, you've been hungry for more.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> It's as vigorous in you now as when you learned it from our friend and close associate Epaphras. He is one reliable worker for Christ! I could always depend on him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He's the one who told us how thoroughly love had been worked into your lives by the Spirit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Be assured that from the first day we heard of you, we haven't stopped praying for you, asking God to give you wise minds and spirits attuned to his will, and so acquire a thorough understanding of the ways in which God works.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> We pray that you'll live well for the Master, making him proud of you as you work hard in his orchard. As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> We pray that you'll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul--not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> God rescued us from dead-end alleys and dark dungeons. He's set us up in the kingdom of the Son he loves so much,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> the Son who got us out of the pit we were in, got rid of the sins we were doomed to keep repeating.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God's original purpose in everything created.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels--everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body. He was supreme in the beginning and--leading the resurrection parade--he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe--people and things, animals and atoms--get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the Cross.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> You yourselves are a case study of what he does. At one time you all had your backs turned to God, thinking rebellious thoughts of him, giving him trouble every chance you got.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But now, by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for you, Christ brought you over to God's side and put your lives together, whole and holy in his presence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> You don't walk away from a gift like that! You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted. There is no other Message--just this one. Every creature under heaven gets this same Message. I, Paul, am a messenger of this Message.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> I want you to know how glad I am that it's me sitting here in this jail and not you. There's a lot of suffering to be entered into in this world--the kind of suffering Christ takes on. I welcome the chance to take my share in the church's part of that suffering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> When I became a servant in this church, I experienced this suffering as a sheer gift, God's way of helping me serve you, laying out the whole truth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> This mystery has been kept in the dark for a long time, but now it's out in the open.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> God wanted everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out, regardless of their background, regardless of their religious standing. The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, therefore you can look forward to sharing in God's glory. It's that simple. That is the substance of our Message.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> We preach Christ, warning people not to add to the Message. We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity. To be mature is to be basic. Christ! No more, no less.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> That's what I'm working so hard at day after day, year after year, doing my best with the energy God so generously gives me.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I want you to realize that I continue to work as hard as I know how for you, and also for the Christians over at Laodicea. Not many of you have met me face-to-face, but that doesn't make any difference. Know that I'm on your side, right alongside you. You're not in this alone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God's great mystery.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> All the richest treasures of wisdom and knowledge are embedded in that mystery and nowhere else. And we've been shown the mystery!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I'm telling you this because I don't want anyone leading you off on some wild-goose chase, after other so-called mysteries, or "the Secret."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I'm a long way off, true, and you may never lay eyes on me, but believe me, I'm on your side, right beside you. I am delighted to hear of the careful and orderly ways you conduct your affairs, and impressed with the solid substance of your faith in Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you've been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You're deeply rooted in him. You're well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you've been taught. School's out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings. But that's not the way of Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Everything of God gets expressed in him, so you can see and hear him clearly. You don't need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too. His power extends over everything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It's not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you're already in--insiders--not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> If it's an initiation ritual you're after, you've already been through it by submitting to baptism. Going under the water was a burial of your old life; coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as he did Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive--right along with Christ! Think of it! All sins forgiven,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ's Cross.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So don't put up with anyone pressuring you in details of diet, worship services, or holy days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> All those things are mere shadows cast before what was to come; the substance is Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Don't tolerate people who try to run your life, ordering you to bow and scrape, insisting that you join their obsession with angels and that you seek out visions. They're a lot of hot air, that's all they are.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They're completely out of touch with the source of life, Christ, who puts us together in one piece, whose very breath and blood flow through us. He is the Head and we are the body. We can grow up healthy in God only as he nourishes us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> So, then, if with Christ you've put all that pretentious and infantile religion behind you, why do you let yourselves be bullied by it?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> "Don't touch this! Don't taste that! Don't go near this!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Do you think things that are here today and gone tomorrow are worth that kind of attention?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Such things sound impressive if said in a deep enough voice. They even give the illusion of being pious and humble and ascetic. But they're just another way of showing off, making yourselves look important.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> So if you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ--that's where the action is. See things from his perspective.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life--even though invisible to spectators--is with Christ in God. He is your life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When Christ (your real life, remember) shows up again on this earth, you'll show up, too--the real you, the glorious you. Meanwhile, be content with obscurity, like Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And that means killing off everything connected with that way of death: sexual promiscuity, impurity, lust, doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it, and grabbing whatever attracts your fancy. That's a life shaped by things and feelings instead of by God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> It's because of this kind of thing that God is about to explode in anger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> It wasn't long ago that you were doing all that stuff and not knowing any better.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But you know better now, so make sure it's all gone for good: bad temper, irritability, meanness, profanity, dirty talk.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Don't lie to one another. You're done with that old life. It's like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you've stripped off and put in the fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Now you're dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Words like Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilized and uncouth, slave and free, mean nothing. From now on everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It's your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Let the Word of Christ--the Message--have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Let every detail in your lives--words, actions, whatever--be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Wives, understand and support your husbands by submitting to them in ways that honor the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Husbands, go all out in love for your wives. Don't take advantage of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Children, do what your parents tell you. This delights the Master no end.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Parents, don't come down too hard on your children or you'll crush their spirits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Servants, do what you're told by your earthly masters. And don't just do the minimum that will get you by. Do your best.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Work from the heart for your real Master, for God,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> confident that you'll get paid in full when you come into your inheritance. Keep in mind always that the ultimate Master you're serving is Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The sullen servant who does shoddy work will be held responsible. Being Christian doesn't cover up bad work.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> And masters, treat your servants considerately. Be fair with them. Don't forget for a minute that you, too, serve a Master--God in heaven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Pray diligently. Stay alert, with your eyes wide open in gratitude.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Don't forget to pray for us, that God will open doors for telling the mystery of Christ, even while I'm locked up in this jail.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Pray that every time I open my mouth I'll be able to make Christ plain as day to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Use your heads as you live and work among outsiders. Don't miss a trick. Make the most of every opportunity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Be gracious in your speech. The goal is to bring out the best in others in a conversation, not put them down, not cut them out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> My good friend Tychicus will tell you all about me. He's a trusted minister and companion in the service of the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I've sent him to you so that you would know how things are with us, and so he could encourage you in your faith.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And I've sent Onesimus with him. Onesimus is one of you, and has become such a trusted and dear brother! Together they'll bring you up-to-date on everything that has been going on here.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Aristarchus, who is in jail here with me, sends greetings; also Mark, cousin of Barnabas (you received a letter regarding him; if he shows up, welcome him);</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> and also Jesus, the one they call Justus. These are the only ones left from the old crowd who have stuck with me in working for God's kingdom. Don't think they haven't been a big help!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Epaphras, who is one of you, says hello. What a trooper he has been! He's been tireless in his prayers for you, praying that you'll stand firm, mature and confident in everything God wants you to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I've watched him closely, and can report on how hard he has worked for you and for those in Laodicea and Hierapolis.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Luke, good friend and physician, and Demas both send greetings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Say hello to our friends in Laodicea; also to Nympha and the church that meets in her house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> After this letter has been read to you, make sure it gets read also in Laodicea. And get the letter that went to Laodicea and have it read to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And, oh, yes, tell Archippus, "Do your best in the job you received from the Master. Do your very best."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I'm signing off in my own handwriting--Paul. Remember to pray for me in this jail. Grace be with you.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="52" bname="1 Thessalonians">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I, Paul, together here with Silas and Timothy, send greetings to the church at Thessalonica, Christians assembled by God the Father and by the Master, Jesus Christ. God's amazing grace be with you! God's robust peace!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Every time we think of you, we thank God for you. Day and night you're in our prayers</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> as we call to mind your work of faith, your labor of love, and your patience of hope in following our Master, Jesus Christ, before God our Father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> It is clear to us, friends, that God not only loves you very much but also has put his hand on you for something special.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When the Message we preached came to you, it wasn't just words. Something happened in you. The Holy Spirit put steel in your convictions. You paid careful attention to the way we lived among you,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> and determined to live that way yourselves. In imitating us, you imitated the Master. Although great trouble accompanied the Word, you were able to take great joy from the Holy Spirit!--taking the trouble with the joy, the joy with the trouble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Do you know that all over the provinces of both Macedonia and Achaia believers look up to you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The word has gotten around. Your lives are echoing the Master's Word, not only in the provinces but all over the place. The news of your faith in God is out. We don't even have to say anything anymore--you're the message!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> People come up and tell us how you received us with open arms, how you deserted the dead idols of your old life so you could embrace and serve God, the true God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They marvel at how expectantly you await the arrival of his Son, whom he raised from the dead--Jesus, who rescued us from certain doom.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> So, friends, it's obvious that our visit to you was no waste of time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> We had just been given rough treatment in Philippi, as you know, but that didn't slow us down. We were sure of ourselves in God, and went right ahead and said our piece, presenting God's Message to you, defiant of the opposition.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> God tested us thoroughly to make sure we were qualified to be trusted with this Message.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Be assured that when we speak to you we're not after crowd approval--only God approval. Since we've been put through that battery of tests, you're guaranteed that both we and the Message are free of error, mixed motives, or hidden agendas.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> We never used words to butter you up. No one knows that better than you. And God knows we never used words as a smoke screen to take advantage of you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Even though we had some standing as Christ's apostles, we never threw our weight around or tried to come across as important, with you or anyone else.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> We weren't aloof with you. We took you just as you were. We were never patronizing, never condescending, but we cared for you the way a mother cares for her children.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> We loved you dearly. Not content to just pass on the Message, we wanted to give you our hearts. And we did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You remember us in those days, friends, working our fingers to the bone, up half the night, moonlighting so you wouldn't have the burden of supporting us while we proclaimed God's Message to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You saw with your own eyes how discreet and courteous we were among you, with keen sensitivity to you as fellow believers. And God knows we weren't freeloaders!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> You experienced it all firsthand. With each of you we were like a father with his child,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> holding your hand, whispering encouragement, showing you step-by-step how to live well before God, who called us into his own kingdom, into this delightful life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And now we look back on all this and thank God, an artesian well of thanks! When you got the Message of God we preached, you didn't pass it off as just one more human opinion, but you took it to heart as God's true word to you, which it is, God himself at work in you believers!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Friends, do you realize that you followed in the exact footsteps of the churches of God in Judea, those who were the first to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ? You got the same bad treatment from your countrymen as they did from theirs, the Jews</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> who killed the Master Jesus (to say nothing of the prophets) and followed it up by running us out of town. They make themselves offensive to God and everyone else</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> by trying to keep us from telling people who've never heard of our God how to be saved. They've made a career of opposing God, and have gotten mighty good at it. But God is fed up, ready to put an end to it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Do you have any idea how very homesick we became for you, dear friends? Even though it hadn't been that long and it was only our bodies that were separated from you, not our hearts, we tried our very best to get back to see you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> You can't imagine how much we missed you! I, Paul, tried over and over to get back, but Satan stymied us each time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Who do you think we're going to be proud of when our Master Jesus appears if it's not you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> You're our pride and joy!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> So when we couldn't stand being separated from you any longer and could find no way to visit you ourselves, we stayed in Athens</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> and sent Timothy to get you up and about, cheering you on so you wouldn't be discouraged by these hard times. He's a brother and companion in the faith, God's man in spreading the Message, preaching Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Not that the troubles should come as any surprise to you. You've always known that we're in for this kind of thing. It's part of our calling.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When we were with you, we made it quite clear that there was trouble ahead. And now that it's happened, you know what it's like.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> That's why I couldn't quit worrying; I had to know for myself how you were doing in the faith. I didn't want the Tempter getting to you and tearing down everything we had built up together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But now that Timothy is back, bringing this terrific report on your faith and love, we feel a lot better. It's especially gratifying to know that you continue to think well of us, and that you want to see us as much as we want to see you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> In the middle of our trouble and hard times here, just knowing how you're doing keeps us going.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Knowing that your faith is alive keeps us alive.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> What would be an adequate thanksgiving to offer God for all the joy we experience before him because of you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> We do what we can, praying away, night and day, asking for the bonus of seeing your faces again and doing what we can to help when your faith falters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> May God our Father himself and our Master Jesus clear the road to you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And may the Master pour on the love so it fills your lives and splashes over on everyone around you, just as it does from us to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> May you be infused with strength and purity, filled with confidence in the presence of God our Father when our Master Jesus arrives with all his followers.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> One final word, friends. We ask you--urge is more like it--that you keep on doing what we told you to do to please God, not in a dogged religious plod, but in a living, spirited dance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> You know the guidelines we laid out for you from the Master Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> God wants you to live a pure life. Keep yourselves from sexual promiscuity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Learn to appreciate and give dignity to your body,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> not abusing it, as is so common among those who know nothing of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Don't run roughshod over the concerns of your brothers and sisters. Their concerns are God's concerns, and he will take care of them. We've warned you about this before.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> God hasn't invited us into a disorderly, unkempt life but into something holy and beautiful--as beautiful on the inside as the outside.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> If you disregard this advice, you're not offending your neighbors; you're rejecting God, who is making you a gift of his Holy Spirit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Regarding life together and getting along with each other, you don't need me to tell you what to do. You're God-taught in these matters. Just love one another!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You're already good at it; your friends all over the province of Macedonia are the evidence. Keep it up; get better and better at it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Stay calm; mind your own business; do your own job. You've heard all this from us before, but a reminder never hurts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> We want you living in a way that will command the respect of outsiders, not lying around sponging off your friends.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And regarding the question, friends, that has come up about what happens to those already dead and buried, we don't want you in the dark any longer. First off, you must not carry on over them like people who have nothing to look forward to, as if the grave were the last word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Since Jesus died and broke loose from the grave, God will most certainly bring back to life those who died in Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And then this: We can tell you with complete confidence--we have the Master's word on it--that when the Master comes again to get us, those of us who are still alive will not get a jump on the dead and leave them behind. In actual fact, they'll be ahead of us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The Master himself will give the command. Archangel thunder! God's trumpet blast! He'll come down from heaven and the dead in Christ will rise--they'll go first.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then the rest of us who are still alive at the time will be caught up with them into the clouds to meet the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Oh, we'll be walking on air! And then there will be one huge family reunion with the Master. So reassure one another with these words.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I don't think, friends, that I need to deal with the question of when all this is going to happen.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> You know as well as I that the day of the Master's coming can't be posted on our calendars. He won't call ahead and make an appointment any more than a burglar would.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> About the time everybody's walking around complacently, congratulating each other--"We've sure got it made! Now we can take it easy!"--suddenly everything will fall apart. It's going to come as suddenly and inescapably as birth pangs to a pregnant woman.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But friends, you're not in the dark, so how could you be taken off guard by any of this?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You're sons of Light, daughters of Day. We live under wide open skies and know where we stand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So let's not sleepwalk through life like those others. Let's keep our eyes open and be smart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> People sleep at night and get drunk at night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But not us! Since we're creatures of Day, let's act like it. Walk out into the daylight sober, dressed up in faith, love, and the hope of salvation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> God didn't set us up for an angry rejection but for salvation by our Master, Jesus Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He died for us, a death that triggered life. Whether we're awake with the living or asleep with the dead, we're alive with him!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> So speak encouraging words to one another. Build up hope so you'll all be together in this, no one left out, no one left behind. I know you're already doing this; just keep on doing it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And now, friends, we ask you to honor those leaders who work so hard for you, who have been given the responsibility of urging and guiding you along in your obedience.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Overwhelm them with appreciation and love! Get along among yourselves, each of you doing your part.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Our counsel is that you warn the freeloaders to get a move on. Gently encourage the stragglers, and reach out for the exhausted, pulling them to their feet. Be patient with each person, attentive to individual needs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And be careful that when you get on each other's nerves you don't snap at each other. Look for the best in each other, and always do your best to bring it out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Be cheerful no matter what;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> pray all the time;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Don't suppress the Spirit,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> and don't stifle those who have a word from the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> On the other hand, don't be gullible. Check out everything, and keep only what's good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Throw out anything tainted with evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> May God himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together--spirit, soul, and body--and keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The One who called you is completely dependable. If he said it, he'll do it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Friends, keep up your prayers for us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Greet all the Christians there with a holy embrace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> And make sure this letter gets read to all the brothers and sisters. Don't leave anyone out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The amazing grace of Jesus Christ be with you!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="53" bname="2 Thessalonians">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I, Paul, together with Silas and Timothy, greet the church of the Thessalonian Christians in the name of God our Father and our Master, Jesus Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Our God gives you everything you need, makes you everything you're to be.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You need to know, friends, that thanking God over and over for you is not only a pleasure; it's a must. We have to do it. Your faith is growing phenomenally; your love for each other is developing wonderfully. Why, it's only right that we give thanks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> We're so proud of you; you're so steady and determined in your faith despite all the hard times that have come down on you. We tell everyone we meet in the churches all about you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> All this trouble is a clear sign that God has decided to make you fit for the kingdom. You're suffering now,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> but justice is on the way. When the Master Jesus appears out of heaven in a blaze of fire with his strong angels, he'll even up the score by settling accounts with those who gave you such a bad time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> His coming will be the break we've been waiting for.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Those who refuse to know God and refuse to obey the Message will pay for what they've done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Eternal exile from the presence of the Master and his splendid power is their sentence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But on that very same day when he comes, he will be exalted by his followers and celebrated by all who believe--and all because you believed what we told you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Because we know that this extraordinary day is just ahead, we pray for you all the time--pray that our God will make you fit for what he's called you to be, pray that he'll fill your good ideas and acts of faith with his own energy so that it all amounts to something.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> If your life honors the name of Jesus, he will honor you. Grace is behind and through all of this, our God giving himself freely, the Master, Jesus Christ, giving himself freely.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Now, friends, read these next words carefully. Slow down and don't go jumping to conclusions regarding the day when our Master, Jesus Christ, will come back and we assemble to welcome him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Don't let anyone shake you up or get you excited over some breathless report or rumored letter from me that the day of the Master's arrival has come and gone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Don't fall for any line like that. Before that day comes, a couple of things have to happen. First, the Apostasy. Second, the debut of the Anarchist, a real dog of Satan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He'll defy and then take over every so-called god or altar. Having cleared away the opposition, he'll then set himself up in God's Temple as "God Almighty."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Don't you remember me going over all this in detail when I was with you? Are your memories that short?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> You'll also remember that I told you the Anarchist is being held back until just the right time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> That doesn't mean that the spirit of anarchy is not now at work. It is, secretly and underground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But the time will come when the Anarchist will no longer be held back, but will be let loose. But don't worry. The Master Jesus will be right on his heels and blow him away. The Master appears and--puff!--the Anarchist is out of there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The Anarchist's coming is all Satan's work. All his power and signs and miracles are fake,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> evil sleight of hand that plays to the gallery of those who hate the truth that could save them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And since they're so obsessed with evil, God rubs their noses in it--gives them what they want.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Since they refuse to trust truth, they're banished to their chosen world of lies and illusions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Meanwhile, we've got our hands full continually thanking God for you, our good friends--so loved by God! God picked you out as his from the very start. Think of it: included in God's original plan of salvation by the bond of faith in the living truth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> This is the life of the Spirit he invited you to through the Message we delivered, in which you get in on the glory of our Master, Jesus Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> So, friends, take a firm stand, feet on the ground and head high. Keep a tight grip on what you were taught, whether in personal conversation or by our letter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> May Jesus himself and God our Father, who reached out in love and surprised you with gifts of unending help and confidence,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> put a fresh heart in you, invigorate your work, enliven your speech.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> One more thing, friends: Pray for us. Pray that the Master's Word will simply take off and race through the country to a groundswell of response, just as it did among you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> And pray that we'll be rescued from these scoundrels who are trying to do us in. I'm finding that not all "believers" are believers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But the Master never lets us down. He'll stick by you and protect you from evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Because of the Master, we have great confidence in you. We know you're doing everything we told you and will continue doing it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> May the Master take you by the hand and lead you along the path of God's love and Christ's endurance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Our orders--backed up by the Master, Jesus--are to refuse to have anything to do with those among you who are lazy and refuse to work the way we taught you. Don't permit them to freeload on the rest.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> We showed you how to pull your weight when we were with you, so get on with it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> We didn't sit around on our hands expecting others to take care of us. In fact, we worked our fingers to the bone, up half the night moonlighting so you wouldn't be burdened with taking care of us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And it wasn't because we didn't have a right to your support; we did. We simply wanted to provide an example of diligence, hoping it would prove contagious.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Don't you remember the rule we had when we lived with you? "If you don't work, you don't eat."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And now we're getting reports that a bunch of lazy good-for-nothings are taking advantage of you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> This must not be tolerated. We command them to get to work immediately--no excuses, no arguments--and earn their own keep.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Friends, don't slack off in doing your duty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> If anyone refuses to obey our clear command written in this letter, don't let him get by with it. Point out such a person and refuse to subsidize his freeloading. Maybe then he'll think twice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But don't treat him as an enemy. Sit him down and talk about the problem as someone who cares.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> May the Master of Peace himself give you the gift of getting along with each other at all times, in all ways. May the Master be truly among you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I, Paul, bid you good-bye in my own handwriting. I do this in all my letters, so examine my signature as proof that the letter is genuine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The incredible grace of our Master, Jesus Christ, be with all of you!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="54" bname="1 Timothy">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I, Paul, am an apostle on special assignment for Christ, our living hope. Under God our Savior's command,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I'm writing this to you, Timothy, my son in the faith. All the best from our God and Christ be yours!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> On my way to the province of Macedonia, I advised you to stay in Ephesus. Well, I haven't changed my mind. Stay right there on top of things so that the teaching stays on track.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Apparently some people have been introducing fantasy stories and fanciful family trees that digress into silliness instead of pulling the people back into the center, deepening faith and obedience.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The whole point of what we're urging is simply love--love uncontaminated by self-interest and counterfeit faith, a life open to God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Those who fail to keep to this point soon wander off into cul-de-sacs of gossip.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They set themselves up as experts on religious issues, but haven't the remotest idea of what they're holding forth with such imposing eloquence.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> It's true that moral guidance and counsel need to be given, but the way you say it and to whom you say it are as important as what you say.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> It's obvious, isn't it, that the law code isn't primarily for people who live responsibly, but for the irresponsible, who defy all authority, riding roughshod over God, life,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> sex, truth, whatever!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They are contemptuous of this great Message I've been put in charge of by this great God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I'm so grateful to Christ Jesus for making me adequate to do this work. He went out on a limb, you know, in trusting me with this ministry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The only credentials I brought to it were invective and witch hunts and arrogance. But I was treated mercifully because I didn't know what I was doing--didn't know Who I was doing it against!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Grace mixed with faith and love poured over me and into me. And all because of Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Here's a word you can take to heart and depend on: Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. I'm proof--Public Sinner Number One--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> of someone who could never have made it apart from sheer mercy. And now he shows me off--evidence of his endless patience--to those who are right on the edge of trusting him forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Deep honor and bright glory to the King of All Time-- One God, Immortal, Invisible, ever and always. Oh, yes!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I'm passing this work on to you, my son Timothy. The prophetic word that was directed to you prepared us for this. All those prayers are coming together now so you will do this well, fearless in your struggle,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> keeping a firm grip on your faith and on yourself. After all, this is a fight we're in. There are some, you know, who by relaxing their grip and thinking anything goes have made a thorough mess of their faith.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Hymenaeus and Alexander are two of them. I let them wander off to Satan to be taught a lesson or two about not blaspheming.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Pray especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> This is the way our Savior God wants us to live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He wants not only us but everyone saved, you know, everyone to get to know the truth we've learned:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> that there's one God and only one, and one Priest-Mediator between God and us--Jesus,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> who offered himself in exchange for everyone held captive by sin, to set them all free. Eventually the news is going to get out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> This and this only has been my appointed work: getting this news to those who have never heard of God, and explaining how it works by simple faith and plain truth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Since prayer is at the bottom of all this, what I want mostly is for men to pray--not shaking angry fists at enemies but raising holy hands to God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And I want women to get in there with the men in humility before God, not primping before a mirror or chasing the latest fashions</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> but doing something beautiful for God and becoming beautiful doing it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I don't let women take over and tell the men what to do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They should study to be quiet and obedient along with everyone else.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Adam was made first, then Eve;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> woman was deceived first--our pioneer in sin!--with Adam right on her heels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> On the other hand, her childbearing brought about salvation, reversing Eve. But this salvation only comes to those who continue in faith, love, and holiness, gathering it all into maturity. You can depend on this.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> If anyone wants to provide leadership in the church, good!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> But there are preconditions: A leader must be well-thought-of, committed to his wife, cool and collected, accessible, and hospitable. He must know what he's talking about,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> not be overfond of wine, not pushy but gentle, not thin-skinned, not money-hungry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He must handle his own affairs well, attentive to his own children and having their respect.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> For if someone is unable to handle his own affairs, how can he take care of God's church?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> He must not be a new believer, lest the position go to his head and the Devil trip him up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Outsiders must think well of him, or else the Devil will figure out a way to lure him into his trap.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The same goes for those who want to be servants in the church: serious, not deceitful, not too free with the bottle, not in it for what they can get out of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They must be reverent before the mystery of the faith, not using their position to try to run things.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Let them prove themselves first. If they show they can do it, take them on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> No exceptions are to be made for women--same qualifications: serious, dependable, not sharp-tongued, not overfond of wine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Servants in the church are to be committed to their spouses, attentive to their own children, and diligent in looking after their own affairs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Those who do this servant work will come to be highly respected, a real credit to this Jesus-faith.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I hope to visit you soon, but just in case I'm delayed, I'm writing this letter so</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> you'll know how things ought to go in God's household, this God-alive church, bastion of truth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> This Christian life is a great mystery, far exceeding our understanding, but some things are clear enough: He appeared in a human body, was proved right by the invisible Spirit, was seen by angels. He was proclaimed among all kinds of peoples, believed in all over the world, taken up into heavenly glory.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Spirit makes it clear that as time goes on, some are going to give up on the faith and chase after demonic illusions put forth by professional liars.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> These liars have lied so well and for so long that they've lost their capacity for truth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They will tell you not to get married. They'll tell you not to eat this or that food--perfectly good food God created to be eaten heartily and with thanksgiving by Christians!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Everything God created is good, and to be received with thanks. Nothing is to be sneered at and thrown out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> God's Word and our prayers make every item in creation holy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> You've been raised on the Message of the faith and have followed sound teaching. Now pass on this counsel to the Christians there, and you'll be a good servant of Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Stay clear of silly stories that get dressed up as religion. Exercise daily in God--no spiritual flabbiness, please!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Workouts in the gymnasium are useful, but a disciplined life in God is far more so, making you fit both today and forever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You can count on this. Take it to heart.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> This is why we've thrown ourselves into this venture so totally. We're banking on the living God, Savior of all men and women, especially believers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Get the word out. Teach all these things.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And don't let anyone put you down because you're young. Teach believers with your life: by word, by demeanor, by love, by faith, by integrity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Stay at your post reading Scripture, giving counsel, teaching.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And that special gift of ministry you were given when the leaders of the church laid hands on you and prayed--keep that dusted off and in use.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Cultivate these things. Immerse yourself in them. The people will all see you mature right before their eyes!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Keep a firm grasp on both your character and your teaching. Don't be diverted. Just keep at it. Both you and those who hear you will experience salvation.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Don't be harsh or impatient with an older man. Talk to him as you would your own father, and to the younger men as your brothers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Reverently honor an older woman as you would your mother, and the younger women as sisters.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Take care of widows who are destitute.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> If a widow has family members to take care of her, let them learn that religion begins at their own doorstep and that they should pay back with gratitude some of what they have received. This pleases God immensely.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You can tell a legitimate widow by the way she has put all her hope in God, praying to him constantly for the needs of others as well as her own.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But a widow who exploits people's emotions and pocketbooks--well, there's nothing to her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Tell these things to the people so that they will do the right thing in their extended family.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Anyone who neglects to care for family members in need repudiates the faith. That's worse than refusing to believe in the first place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Sign some widows up for the special ministry of offering assistance. They will in turn receive support from the church. They must be over sixty, married only once,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> and have a reputation for helping out with children, strangers, tired Christians, the hurt and troubled.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Don't put young widows on this list. No sooner will they get on than they'll want to get off, obsessed with wanting to get a husband rather than serving Christ in this way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> By breaking their word, they're liable to go from bad to worse,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> frittering away their days on empty talk, gossip, and trivialities.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> No, I'd rather the young widows go ahead and get married in the first place, have children, manage their homes, and not give critics any foothold for finding fault.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Some of them have already left and gone after Satan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Any Christian woman who has widows in her family is responsible for them. They shouldn't be dumped on the church. The church has its hands full already with widows who need help.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Give a bonus to leaders who do a good job, especially the ones who work hard at preaching and teaching.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Scripture tells us, "Don't muzzle a working ox," and, "A worker deserves his pay."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Don't listen to a complaint against a leader that isn't backed up by two or three responsible witnesses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> If anyone falls into sin, call that person on the carpet. Those who are inclined that way will know right off they can't get by with it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> God and Jesus and angels all back me up in these instructions. Carry them out without favoritism, without taking sides.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Don't appoint people to church leadership positions too hastily. If a person is involved in some serious sins, you don't want to become an unwitting accomplice. In any event, keep a close check on yourself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> And don't worry too much about what the critics will say. Go ahead and drink a little wine, for instance; it's good for your digestion, good medicine for what ails you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The sins of some people are blatant and march them right into court. The sins of others don't show up until much later.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The same with good deeds. Some you see right off, but none are hidden forever.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Whoever is a slave must make the best of it, giving respect to his master so that outsiders don't blame God and our teaching for his behavior.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Slaves with Christian masters all the more so--their masters are really their beloved brothers! These are the things I want you to teach and preach.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> If you have leaders there who teach otherwise, who refuse the solid words of our Master Jesus and this godly instruction,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> tag them for what they are: ignorant windbags who infect the air with germs of envy, controversy, bad-mouthing, suspicious rumors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Eventually there's an epidemic of backstabbing, and truth is but a distant memory. They think religion is a way to make a fast buck.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> A devout life does bring wealth, but it's the rich simplicity of being yourself before God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Since we entered the world penniless and will leave it penniless,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> if we have bread on the table and shoes on our feet, that's enough.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But if it's only money these leaders are after, they'll self-destruct in no time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Lust for money brings trouble and nothing but trouble. Going down that path, some lose their footing in the faith completely and live to regret it bitterly ever after.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But you, Timothy, man of God: Run for your life from all this. Pursue a righteous life--a life of wonder, faith, love, steadiness, courtesy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Run hard and fast in the faith. Seize the eternal life, the life you were called to, the life you so fervently embraced in the presence of so many witnesses.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I'm charging you before the life-giving God and before Christ, who took his stand before Pontius Pilate and didn't give an inch:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Keep this command to the letter, and don't slack off. Our Master, Jesus Christ, is on his way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> He'll show up right on time, his arrival guaranteed by the Blessed and Undisputed Ruler, High King, High God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> He's the only one death can't touch, his light so bright no one can get close. He's never been seen by human eyes--human eyes can't take him in! Honor to him, and eternal rule! Oh, yes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Tell those rich in this world's wealth to quit being so full of themselves and so obsessed with money, which is here today and gone tomorrow. Tell them to go after God, who piles on all the riches we could ever manage--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> If they do that, they'll build a treasury that will last, gaining life that is truly life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And oh, my dear Timothy, guard the treasure you were given! Guard it with your life. Avoid the talk-show religion and the practiced confusion of the so-called experts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> People caught up in a lot of talk can miss the whole point of faith. Overwhelming grace keep you!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="55" bname="2 Timothy">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I, Paul, am on special assignment for Christ, carrying out God's plan laid out in the Message of Life by Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I write this to you, Timothy, the son I love so much. All the best from our God and Christ be yours!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Every time I say your name in prayer--which is practically all the time--I thank God for you, the God I worship with my whole life in the tradition of my ancestors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I miss you a lot, especially when I remember that last tearful good-bye, and I look forward to a joy-packed reunion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> That precious memory triggers another: your honest faith--and what a rich faith it is, handed down from your grandmother Lois to your mother Eunice, and now to you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And the special gift of ministry you received when I laid hands on you and prayed--keep that ablaze!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> God doesn't want us to be shy with his gifts, but bold and loving and sensible.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> So don't be embarrassed to speak up for our Master or for me, his prisoner. Take your share of suffering for the Message along with the rest of us. We can only keep on going, after all, by the power of God,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> who first saved us and then called us to this holy work. We had nothing to do with it. It was all his idea, a gift prepared for us in Jesus long before we knew anything about it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But we know it now. Since the appearance of our Savior, nothing could be plainer: death defeated, life vindicated in a steady blaze of light, all through the work of Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> This is the Message I've been set apart to proclaim as preacher, emissary, and teacher.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> It's also the cause of all this trouble I'm in. But I have no regrets. I couldn't be more sure of my ground--the One I've trusted in can take care of what he's trusted me to do right to the end.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> So keep at your work, this faith and love rooted in Christ, exactly as I set it out for you. It's as sound as the day you first heard it from me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Guard this precious thing placed in your custody by the Holy Spirit who works in us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> I'm sure you know by now that everyone in the province of Asia deserted me, even Phygelus and Hermogenes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But God bless Onesiphorus and his family! Many's the time I've been refreshed in that house. And he wasn't embarrassed a bit that I was in jail.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The first thing he did when he got to Rome was look me up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> May God on the Last Day treat him as well as he treated me. And then there was all the help he provided in Ephesus--but you know that better than I.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> So, my son, throw yourself into this work for Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Pass on what you heard from me--the whole congregation saying Amen!--to reliable leaders who are competent to teach others.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When the going gets rough, take it on the chin with the rest of us, the way Jesus did.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> A soldier on duty doesn't get caught up in making deals at the marketplace. He concentrates on carrying out orders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> An athlete who refuses to play by the rules will never get anywhere.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> It's the diligent farmer who gets the produce.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Think it over. God will make it all plain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Fix this picture firmly in your mind: Jesus, descended from the line of David, raised from the dead. It's what you've heard from me all along.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> It's what I'm sitting in jail for right now--but God's Word isn't in jail!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> That's why I stick it out here--so that everyone God calls will get in on the salvation of Christ in all its glory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> This is a sure thing: If we die with him, we'll live with him;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> If we stick it out with him, we'll rule with him; If we turn our backs on him, he'll turn his back on us;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> If we give up on him, he does not give up-- for there's no way he can be false to himself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Repeat these basic essentials over and over to God's people. Warn them before God against pious nitpicking, which chips away at the faith. It just wears everyone out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Concentrate on doing your best for God, work you won't be ashamed of, laying out the truth plain and simple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Stay clear of pious talk that is only talk. Words are not mere words, you know. If they're not backed by a godly life,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> they accumulate as poison in the soul. Hymenaeus and Philetus are examples,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> throwing believers off stride and missing the truth by a mile by saying the resurrection is over and done with.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Meanwhile, God's firm foundation is as firm as ever, these sentences engraved on the stones: GOD KNOWS WHO BELONGS TO HIM. SPURN EVIL, ALL YOU WHO NAME GOD AS GOD.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> In a well-furnished kitchen there are not only crystal goblets and silver platters, but waste cans and compost buckets--some containers used to serve fine meals, others to take out the garbage.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Become the kind of container God can use to present any and every kind of gift to his guests for their blessing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Run away from infantile indulgence. Run after mature righteousness--faith, love, peace--joining those who are in honest and serious prayer before God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Refuse to get involved in inane discussions; they always end up in fights.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> God's servant must not be argumentative, but a gentle listener and a teacher who keeps cool,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> working firmly but patiently with those who refuse to obey. You never know how or when God might sober them up with a change of heart and a turning to the truth,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> enabling them to escape the Devil's trap, where they are caught and held captive, forced to run his errands.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Don't be naive. There are difficult times ahead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> As the end approaches, people are going to be self-absorbed, money-hungry, self-promoting, stuck-up, profane, contemptuous of parents, crude, coarse,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> dog-eat-dog, unbending, slanderers, impulsively wild, savage, cynical,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> treacherous, ruthless, bloated windbags, addicted to lust, and allergic to God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They'll make a show of religion, but behind the scenes they're animals. Stay clear of these people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> These are the kind of people who smooth-talk themselves into the homes of unstable and needy women and take advantage of them; women who, depressed by their sinfulness, take up with every new religious fad that calls itself "truth."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They get exploited every time and never really learn.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> These men are like those old Egyptian frauds Jannes and Jambres, who challenged Moses. They were rejects from the faith, twisted in their thinking, defying truth itself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But nothing will come of these latest impostors. Everyone will see through them, just as people saw through that Egyptian hoax.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You've been a good apprentice to me, a part of my teaching, my manner of life, direction, faith, steadiness, love, patience,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> troubles, sufferings--suffering along with me in all the grief I had to put up with in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. And you also well know that God rescued me!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Anyone who wants to live all out for Christ is in for a lot of trouble; there's no getting around it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Unscrupulous con men will continue to exploit the faith. They're as deceived as the people they lead astray. As long as they are out there, things can only get worse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But don't let it faze you. Stick with what you learned and believed, sure of the integrity of your teachers--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> why, you took in the sacred Scriptures with your mother's milk! There's nothing like the written Word of God for showing you the way to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another--showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God's way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I can't impress this on you too strongly. God is looking over your shoulder. Christ himself is the Judge, with the final say on everyone, living and dead. He is about to break into the open with his rule,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> so proclaim the Message with intensity; keep on your watch. Challenge, warn, and urge your people. Don't ever quit. Just keep it simple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You're going to find that there will be times when people will have no stomach for solid teaching, but will fill up on spiritual junk food--catchy opinions that tickle their fancy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They'll turn their backs on truth and chase mirages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But you--keep your eye on what you're doing; accept the hard times along with the good; keep the Message alive; do a thorough job as God's servant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> You take over. I'm about to die, my life an offering on God's altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> This is the only race worth running. I've run hard right to the finish, believed all the way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> All that's left now is the shouting--God's applause! Depend on it, he's an honest judge. He'll do right not only by me, but by everyone eager for his coming.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Get here as fast as you can.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Demas, chasing fads, went off to Thessalonica and left me here. Crescens is in Galatia province, Titus in Dalmatia.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Luke is the only one here with me. Bring Mark with you; he'll be my right-hand man</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> since I'm sending Tychicus to Ephesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Bring the winter coat I left in Troas with Carpus; also the books and parchment notebooks.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Watch out for Alexander the coppersmith.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Fiercely opposed to our Message, he caused no end of trouble. God will give him what he's got coming.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> At my preliminary hearing no one stood by me. They all ran like scared rabbits. But it doesn't matter--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> the Master stood by me and helped me spread the Message loud and clear to those who had never heard it. I was snatched from the jaws of the lion!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> God's looking after me, keeping me safe in the kingdom of heaven. All praise to him, praise forever! Oh, yes!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Say hello to Priscilla and Aquila; also, the family of Onesiphorus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Erastus stayed behind in Corinth. I had to leave Trophimus sick in Miletus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Try hard to get here before winter. Eubulus, Pudens, Linus, Claudia, and all your friends here send greetings.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> God be with you. Grace be with you.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="56" bname="Titus">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I, Paul, am God's slave and Christ's agent for promoting the faith among God's chosen people, getting out the accurate word on God and how to respond rightly to it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> My aim is to raise hopes by pointing the way to life without end. This is the life God promised long ago--and he doesn't break promises!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And then when the time was ripe, he went public with his truth. I've been entrusted to proclaim this Message by order of our Savior, God himself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Dear Titus, legitimate son in the faith: Receive everything God our Father and Jesus our Savior give you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I left you in charge in Crete so you could complete what I left half-done. Appoint leaders in every town according to my instructions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> As you select them, ask, "Is this man well-thought-of? Are his children believers? Do they respect him and stay out of trouble?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> It's important that a church leader, responsible for the affairs in God's house, be looked up to--not pushy, not short-tempered, not a drunk, not a bully, not money-hungry.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> He must welcome people, be helpful, wise, fair, reverent, have a good grip on himself,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> and have a good grip on the Message, knowing how to use the truth to either spur people on in knowledge or stop them in their tracks if they oppose it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> For there are a lot of rebels out there, full of loose, confusing, and deceiving talk. Those who were brought up religious and ought to know better are the worst.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They've got to be shut up. They're disrupting entire families with their teaching, and all for the sake of a fast buck.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> One of their own prophets said it best: The Cretans are liars from the womb, barking dogs, lazy bellies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He certainly spoke the truth. Get on them right away. Stop that diseased talk of Jewish make-believe and made-up rules</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> so they can recover a robust faith.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Everything is clean to the clean-minded; nothing is clean to dirty-minded unbelievers. They leave their dirty fingerprints on every thought and act.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> They say they know God, but their actions speak louder than their words. They're real creeps, disobedient good-for-nothings.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Your job is to speak out on the things that make for solid doctrine.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Guide older men into lives of temperance, dignity, and wisdom, into healthy faith, love, and endurance.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Guide older women into lives of reverence so they end up as neither gossips nor drunks, but models of goodness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> By looking at them, the younger women will know how to love their husbands and children,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> be virtuous and pure, keep a good house, be good wives. We don't want anyone looking down on God's Message because of their behavior.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Also, guide the young men to live disciplined lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But mostly, show them all this by doing it yourself, incorruptible in your teaching,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> your words solid and sane. Then anyone who is dead set against us, when he finds nothing weird or misguided, might eventually come around.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Guide slaves into being loyal workers, a bonus to their masters--no back talk,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> no petty thievery. Then their good character will shine through their actions, adding luster to the teaching of our Savior God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> God's readiness to give and forgive is now public. Salvation's available for everyone!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> We're being shown how to turn our backs on a godless, indulgent life, and how to take on a God-filled, God-honoring life. This new life is starting right now,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> and is whetting our appetites for the glorious day when our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, appears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He offered himself as a sacrifice to free us from a dark, rebellious life into this good, pure life, making us a people he can be proud of, energetic in goodness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Tell them all this. Build up their courage, and discipline them if they get out of line. You're in charge. Don't let anyone put you down.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Remind the people to respect the government and be law-abiding, always ready to lend a helping hand</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> No insults, no fights. God's people should be bighearted and courteous.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> It wasn't so long ago that we ourselves were stupid and stubborn, dupes of sin, ordered every which way by our glands, going around with a chip on our shoulder, hated and hating back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> But when God, our kind and loving Savior God, stepped in,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> he saved us from all that. It was all his doing; we had nothing to do with it. He gave us a good bath, and we came out of it new people, washed inside and out by the Holy Spirit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Our Savior Jesus poured out new life so generously.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> God's gift has restored our relationship with him and given us back our lives. And there's more life to come--an eternity of life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You can count on this. I want you to put your foot down. Take a firm stand on these matters so that those who have put their trust in God will concentrate on the essentials that are good for everyone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Stay away from mindless, pointless quarreling over genealogies and fine print in the law code. That gets you nowhere.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Warn a quarrelsome person once or twice, but then be done with him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> It's obvious that such a person is out of line, rebellious against God. By persisting in divisiveness he cuts himself off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> As soon as I send either Artemas or Tychicus to you, come immediately and meet me in Nicopolis. I've decided to spend the winter there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Give Zenas the lawyer and Apollos a hearty send-off. Take good care of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Our people have to learn to be diligent in their work so that all necessities are met (especially among the needy) and they don't end up with nothing to show for their lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> All here want to be remembered to you. Say hello to our friends in the faith. Grace to all of you.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="57" bname="Philemon">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I, Paul, am a prisoner for the sake of Christ, here with my brother Timothy. I write this letter to you, Philemon, my good friend and companion in this work--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> also to our sister Apphia, to Archippus, a real trooper, and to the church that meets in your house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> God's best to you! Christ's blessings on you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Every time your name comes up in my prayers, I say, "Oh, thank you, God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> " I keep hearing of the love and faith you have for the Master Jesus, which brims over to other Christians.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And I keep praying that this faith we hold in common keeps showing up in the good things we do, and that people recognize Christ in all of it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Friend, you have no idea how good your love makes me feel, doubly so when I see your hospitality to fellow believers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> In line with all this I have a favor to ask of you. As Christ's ambassador and now a prisoner for him, I wouldn't hesitate to command this if I thought it necessary,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> but I'd rather make it a personal request.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> While here in jail, I've fathered a child, so to speak. And here he is, hand-carrying this letter--Onesimus!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He was useless to you before; now he's useful to both of us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I'm sending him back to you, but it feels like I'm cutting off my right arm in doing so.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I wanted in the worst way to keep him here as your stand-in to help out while I'm in jail for the Message.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> But I didn't want to do anything behind your back, make you do a good deed that you hadn't willingly agreed to.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Maybe it's all for the best that you lost him for a while. You're getting him back now for good--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> and no mere slave this time, but a true Christian brother! That's what he was to me--he'll be even more than that to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> So if you still consider me a comrade-in-arms, welcome him back as you would me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> If he damaged anything or owes you anything, chalk it up to my account.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> This is my personal signature--Paul--and I stand behind it. (I don't need to remind you, do I, that you owe your very life to me?)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Do me this big favor, friend. You'll be doing it for Christ, but it will also do my heart good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I know you well enough to know you will. You'll probably go far beyond what I've written.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> And by the way, get a room ready for me. Because of your prayers, I fully expect to be your guest again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Epaphras, my cellmate in the cause of Christ, says hello.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Also my coworkers Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> All the best to you from the Master, Jesus Christ!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="58" bname="Hebrews">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Going through a long line of prophets, God has been addressing our ancestors in different ways for centuries.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Recently he spoke to us directly through his Son. By his Son, God created the world in the beginning, and it will all belong to the Son at the end.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> This Son perfectly mirrors God, and is stamped with God's nature. He holds everything together by what he says--powerful words! After he finished the sacrifice for sins, the Son took his honored place high in the heavens right alongside God,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> far higher than any angel in rank and rule.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Did God ever say to an angel, "You're my Son; today I celebrate you"? Or, "I'm his Father, he's my Son"?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When he presents his honored Son to the world, he says, "All angels must worship him."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Regarding angels he says, The messengers are winds, the servants are tongues of fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But he says to the Son, You're God, and on the throne for good; your rule makes everything right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> You love it when things are right; you hate it when things are wrong. That is why God, your God, poured fragrant oil on your head, Marking you out as king, far above your dear companions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And again to the Son, You, Master, started it all, laid earth's foundations, then crafted the stars in the sky.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Earth and sky will wear out, but not you; they become threadbare like an old coat;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> You'll fold them up like a worn-out cloak, and lay them away on the shelf. But you'll stay the same, year after year; you'll never fade, you'll never wear out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And did he ever say anything like this to an angel? Sit alongside me here on my throne Until I make your enemies a stool for your feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Isn't it obvious that all angels are sent to help out with those lined up to receive salvation?</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> It's crucial that we keep a firm grip on what we've heard so that we don't drift off.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> If the old message delivered by the angels was valid and nobody got away with anything,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> do you think we can risk neglecting this latest message, this magnificent salvation? First of all, it was delivered in person by the Master, then accurately passed on to us by those who heard it from him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> All the while God was validating it with gifts through the Holy Spirit, all sorts of signs and miracles, as he saw fit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> God didn't put angels in charge of this business of salvation that we're dealing with here.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> It says in Scripture, What is man and woman that you bother with them; why take a second look their way?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> You made them not quite as high as angels, bright with Eden's dawn light;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Then you put them in charge of your entire handcrafted world. When God put them in charge of everything, nothing was excluded. But we don't see it yet, don't see everything under human jurisdiction.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> What we do see is Jesus, made "not quite as high as angels," and then, through the experience of death, crowned so much higher than any angel, with a glory "bright with Eden's dawn light." In that death, by God's grace, he fully experienced death in every person's place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> It makes good sense that the God who got everything started and keeps everything going now completes the work by making the Salvation Pioneer perfect through suffering as he leads all these people to glory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Since the One who saves and those who are saved have a common origin, Jesus doesn't hesitate to treat them as family,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> saying, I'll tell my good friends, my brothers and sisters, all I know about you; I'll join them in worship and praise to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Again, he puts himself in the same family circle when he says, Even I live by placing my trust in God. And yet again, I'm here with the children God gave me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Since the children are made of flesh and blood, it's logical that the Savior took on flesh and blood in order to rescue them by his death. By embracing death, taking it into himself, he destroyed the Devil's hold on death</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> and freed all who cower through life, scared to death of death.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> It's obvious, of course, that he didn't go to all this trouble for angels. It was for people like us, children of Abraham.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> That's why he had to enter into every detail of human life. Then, when he came before God as high priest to get rid of the people's sins,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> he would have already experienced it all himself--all the pain, all the testing--and would be able to help where help was needed.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> So, my dear Christian friends, companions in following this call to the heights, take a good hard look at Jesus. He's the centerpiece of everything we believe,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> faithful in everything God gave him to do. Moses was also faithful,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> but Jesus gets far more honor. A builder is more valuable than a building any day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Every house has a builder, but the Builder behind them all is God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Moses did a good job in God's house, but it was all servant work, getting things ready for what was to come.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Christ as Son is in charge of the house. Now, if we can only keep a firm grip on this bold confidence, we're the house!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> That's why the Holy Spirit says, Today, please listen;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> don't turn a deaf ear as in "the bitter uprising," that time of wilderness testing!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Even though they watched me at work for forty years, your ancestors refused to let me do it my way; over and over they tried my patience.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And I was provoked, oh, so provoked! I said, "They'll never keep their minds on God; they refuse to walk down my road."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Exasperated, I vowed, "They'll never get where they're going, never be able to sit down and rest."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> So watch your step, friends. Make sure there's no evil unbelief lying around that will trip you up and throw you off course, diverting you from the living God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> For as long as it's still God's Today, keep each other on your toes so sin doesn't slow down your reflexes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> If we can only keep our grip on the sure thing we started out with, we're in this with Christ for the long haul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> These words keep ringing in our ears: Today, please listen; don't turn a deaf ear as in the bitter uprising.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> For who were the people who turned a deaf ear? Weren't they the very ones Moses led out of Egypt?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> And who was God provoked with for forty years? Wasn't it those who turned a deaf ear and ended up corpses in the wilderness?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> And when he swore that they'd never get where they were going, wasn't he talking to the ones who turned a deaf ear?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They never got there because they never listened, never believed.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> For as long, then, as that promise of resting in him pulls us on to God's goal for us, we need to be careful that we're not disqualified.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> We received the same promises as those people in the wilderness, but the promises didn't do them a bit of good because they didn't receive the promises with faith.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> If we believe, though, we'll experience that state of resting. But not if we don't have faith. Remember that God said, Exasperated, I vowed, "They'll never get where they're going, never be able to sit down and rest." God made that vow, even though he'd finished his part before the foundation of the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Somewhere it's written, "God rested the seventh day, having completed his work,"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> but in this other text he says, "They'll never be able to sit down and rest."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So this promise has not yet been fulfilled. Those earlier ones never did get to the place of rest because they were disobedient.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> God keeps renewing the promise and setting the date as today, just as he did in David's psalm, centuries later than the original invitation: Today, please listen, don't turn a deaf ear . . .</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And so this is still a live promise. It wasn't canceled at the time of Joshua; otherwise, God wouldn't keep renewing the appointment for "today."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The promise of "arrival" and "rest" is still there for God's people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> God himself is at rest. And at the end of the journey we'll surely rest with God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> So let's keep at it and eventually arrive at the place of rest, not drop out through some sort of disobedience.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> God means what he says. What he says goes. His powerful Word is sharp as a surgeon's scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open to listen and obey.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Nothing and no one is impervious to God's Word. We can't get away from it--no matter what.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Now that we know what we have--Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God--let's not let it slip through our fingers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> We don't have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He's been through weakness and testing, experienced it all--all but the sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So let's walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Every high priest selected to represent men and women before God and offer sacrifices for their sins</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> should be able to deal gently with their failings, since he knows what it's like from his own experience.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But that also meaos that he has to offer sacrifices for his own sins as well as the people's.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> No one elects himself to this honored position. He's called to it by God, as Aaron was.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Neither did Christ presume to set himself up as high priest, but was set apart by the One who said to him, "You're my Son; today I celebrate you!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> In another place God declares, "You're a priest forever in the royal order of Melchizedek."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> While he lived on earth, anticipating death, Jesus cried out in pain and wept in sorrow as he offered up priestly prayers to God. Because he honored God, God answered him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Though he was God's Son, he learned trusting-obedience by what he suffered, just as we do.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Then, having arrived at the full stature of his maturity and having been announced by God as high priest in the order of Melchizedek,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> he became the source of eternal salvation to all who believingly obey him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I have a lot more to say about this, but it is hard to get it across to you since you've picked up this bad habit of not listening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> By this time you ought to be teachers yourselves, yet here I find you need someone to sit down with you and go over the basics on God again, starting from square one--baby's milk, when you should have been on solid food long ago!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Milk is for beginners, inexperienced in God's ways;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> solid food is for the mature, who have some practice in telling right from wrong.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> So come on, let's leave the preschool fingerpainting exercises on Christ and get on with the grand work of art. Grow up in Christ. The basic foundational truths are in place: turning your back on "salvation by self-help" and turning in trust toward God;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> baptismal instructions; laying on of hands; resurrection of the dead; eternal judgment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> God helping us, we'll stay true to all that. But there's so much more. Let's get on with it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Once people have seen the light, gotten a taste of heaven and been part of the work of the Holy Spirit,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> once they've personally experienced the sheer goodness of God's Word and the powers breaking in on us--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> if then they turn their backs on it, washing their hands of the whole thing, well, they can't start over as if nothing happened. That's impossible. Why, they've re-crucified Jesus! They've repudiated him in public!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Parched ground that soaks up the rain and then produces an abundance of carrots and corn for its gardener gets God's "Well done!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But if it produces weeds and thistles, it's more likely to get cussed out. Fields like that are burned, not harvested.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'm sure that won't happen to you, friends. I have better things in mind for you--salvation things!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> God doesn't miss anything. He knows perfectly well all the love you've shown him by helping needy Christians, and that you keep at it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> And now I want each of you to extend that same intensity toward a full-bodied hope, and keep at it till the finish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Don't drag your feet. Be like those who stay the course with committed faith and then get everything promised to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> When God made his promise to Abraham, he backed it to the hilt, putting his own reputation on the line.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> He said, "I promise that I'll bless you with everything I have--bless and bless and bless!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Abraham stuck it out and got everything that had been promised to him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> When people make promises, they guarantee them by appeal to some authority above them so that if there is any question that they'll make good on the promise, the authority will back them up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> When God wanted to guarantee his promises, he gave his word, a rock-solid guarantee--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> God can't break his word. And because his word cannot change, the promise is likewise unchangeable. We who have run for our very lives to God have every reason to grab the promised hope with both hands and never let go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> It's an unbreakable spiritual lifeline, reaching past all appearances right to the very presence of God</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> where Jesus, running on ahead of us, has taken up his permanent post as high priest for us, in the order of Melchizedek.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Melchizedek was king of Salem and priest of the Highest God. He met Abraham, who was returning from "the royal massacre," and gave him his blessing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Abraham in turn gave him a tenth of the spoils. "Melchizedek" means "King of Righteousness." "Salem" means "Peace." So, he is also "King of Peace."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Melchizedek towers out of the past--without record of family ties, no account of beginning or end. In this way he is like the Son of God, one huge priestly presence dominating the landscape always.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You realize just how great Melchizedek is when you see that Father Abraham gave him a tenth of the captured treasure.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Priests descended from Levi are commanded by law to collect tithes from the people, even though they are all more or less equals, priests and people, having a common father in Abraham.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But this man, a complete outsider, collected tithes from Abraham and blessed him, the one to whom the promises had been given.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> In acts of blessing, the lesser is blessed by the greater.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Or look at it this way: We pay our tithes to priests who die, but Abraham paid tithes to a priest who, the Scripture says, "lives."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Ultimately you could even say that since Levi descended from Abraham, who paid tithes to Melchizedek,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> when we pay tithes to the priestly tribe of Levi they end up with Melchizedek.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> If the priesthood of Levi and Aaron, which provided the framework for the giving of the law, could really make people perfect, there wouldn't have been need for a new priesthood like that of Melchizedek.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> But since it didn't get the job done, there was a change of priesthood, which brought with it a radical new kind of law.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> There is no way of understanding this in terms of the old Levitical priesthood,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> which is why there is nothing in Jesus' family tree connecting him with that priestly line.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But the Melchizedek story provides a perfect analogy: Jesus, a priest like Melchizedek,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> not by genealogical descent but by the sheer force of resurrection life--he lives!--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "priest forever in the royal order of Melchizedek."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The former way of doing things, a system of commandments that never worked out the way it was supposed to, was set aside;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> the law brought nothing to maturity. Another way--Jesus!--a way that does work, that brings us right into the presence of God, is put in its place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The old priesthood of Aaron perpetuated itself automatically, father to son, without explicit confirmation by God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> But then God intervened and called this new, permanent priesthood into being with an added promise: God gave his word; he won't take it back: "You're the permanent priest."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> This makes Jesus the guarantee of a far better way between us and God--one that really works! A new covenant.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Earlier there were a lot of priests, for they died and had to be replaced.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> But Jesus' priesthood is permanent. He's there from now to eternity</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> to save everyone who comes to God through him, always on the job to speak up for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> So now we have a high priest who perfectly fits our needs: completely holy, uncompromised by sin, with authority extending as high as God's presence in heaven itself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Unlike the other high priests, he doesn't have to offer sacrifices for his own sins every day before he can get around to us and our sins. He's done it, once and for all: offered up himself as the sacrifice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> The law appoints as high priests men who are never able to get the job done right. But this intervening command of God, which came later, appoints the Son, who is absolutely, eternally perfect.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> In essence, we have just such a high priest: authoritative right alongside God,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> conducting worship in the one true sanctuary built by God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The assigned task of a high priest is to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and it's no different with the priesthood of Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> If he were limited to earth, he wouldn't even be a priest. We wouldn't need him since there are plenty of priests who offer the gifts designated in the law.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> These priests provide only a hint of what goes on in the true sanctuary of heaven, which Moses caught a glimpse of as he was about to set up the tent-shrine. It was then that God said, "Be careful to do it exactly as you saw it on the Mountain."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But Jesus' priestly work far surpasses what these other priests do, since he's working from a far better plan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> If the first plan--the old covenant--had worked out, a second wouldn't have been needed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But we know the first was found wanting, because God said, Heads up! The days are coming when I'll set up a new plan for dealing with Israel and Judah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I'll throw out the old plan I set up with their ancestors when I led them by the hand out of Egypt. They didn't keep their part of the bargain, so I looked away and let it go.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> This new plan I'm making with Israel isn't going to be written on paper, isn't going to be chiseled in stone; This time I'm writing out the plan in them, carving it on the lining of their hearts. I'll be their God, they'll be my people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They won't go to school to learn about me, or buy a book called God in Five Easy Lessons. They'll all get to know me firsthand, the little and the big, the small and the great.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> They'll get to know me by being kindly forgiven, with the slate of their sins forever wiped clean.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> By coming up with a new plan, a new covenant between God and his people, God put the old plan on the shelf. And there it stays, gathering dust.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> That first plan contained directions for worship, and a specially designed place of worship.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> A large outer tent was set up. The lampstand, the table, and "the bread of presence" were placed in it. This was called "the Holy Place."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then a curtain was stretched, and behind it a smaller, inside tent set up. This was called "the Holy of Holies."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> In it were placed the gold incense altar and the gold-covered ark of the covenant containing the gold urn of manna, Aaron's rod that budded, the covenant tablets,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> and the angel-wing-shadowed mercy seat. But we don't have time to comment on these now.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> After this was set up, the priests went about their duties in the large tent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Only the high priest entered the smaller, inside tent, and then only once a year, offering a blood sacrifice for his own sins and the people's accumulated sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> This was the Holy Spirit's way of showing with a visible parable that as long as the large tent stands, people can't just walk in on God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Under this system, the gifts and sacrifices can't really get to the heart of the matter, can't assuage the conscience of the people,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> but are limited to matters of ritual and behavior. It's essentially a temporary arrangement until a complete overhaul could be made.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But when the Messiah arrived, high priest of the superior things of this new covenant, he bypassed the old tent and its trappings in this created world and went straight into heaven's "tent"--the true Holy Place--once and for all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> He also bypassed the sacrifices consisting of goat and calf blood, instead using his own blood as the price to set us free once and for all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> If that animal blood and the other rituals of purification were effective in cleaning up certain matters of our religion and behavior,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> think how much more the blood of Christ cleans up our whole lives, inside and out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Through the Spirit, Christ offered himself as an unblemished sacrifice, freeing us from all those dead-end efforts to make ourselves respectable, so that we can live all out for God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Like a will that takes effect when someone dies, the new covenant was put into action at Jesus' death. His death marked the transition from the old plan to the new one, canceling the old obligations and accompanying sins, and summoning the heirs to receive the eternal inheritance that was promised them. He brought together God and his people in this new way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> (SEE 9:16)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Even the first plan required a death to set it in motion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> After Moses had read out all the terms of the plan of the law--God's "will"--he took the blood of sacrificed animals and, in a solemn ritual, sprinkled the document and the people who were its beneficiaries.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And then he attested its validity with the words, "This is the blood of the covenant commanded by God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> He did the same thing with the place of worship and its furniture.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Moses said to the people, "This is the blood of the covenant God has established with you." Practically everything in a will hinges on a death. That's why blood, the evidence of death, is used so much in our tradition, especially regarding forgiveness of sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> That accounts for the prominence of blood and death in all these secondary practices that point to the realities of heaven. It also accounts for why, when the real thing takes place, these animal sacrifices aren't needed anymore, having served their purpose.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> For Christ didn't enter the earthly version of the Holy Place; he entered the Place Itself, and offered himself to God as the sacrifice for our sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> He doesn't do this every year as the high priests did under the old plan with blood that was not their own;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> if that had been the case, he would have to sacrifice himself repeatedly throughout the course of history. But instead he sacrificed himself once and for all, summing up all the other sacrifices in this sacrifice of himself, the final solution of sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Everyone has to die once, then face the consequences.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Christ's death was also a one-time event, but it was a sacrifice that took care of sins forever. And so, when he next appears, the outcome for those eager to greet him is, precisely, salvation.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The old plan was only a hint of the good things in the new plan. Since that old "law plan" wasn't complete in itself, it couldn't complete those who followed it. No matter how many sacrifices were offered year after year, they never added up to a complete solution.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> If they had, the worshipers would have gone merrily on their way, no longer dragged down by their sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> But instead of removing awareness of sin, when those animal sacrifices were repeated over and over they actually heightened awareness and guilt.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The plain fact is that bull and goat blood can't get rid of sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> That is what is meant by this prophecy, put in the mouth of Christ: You don't want sacrifices and offerings year after year; you've prepared a body for me for a sacrifice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> It's not fragrance and smoke from the altar that whet your appetite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So I said, "I'm here to do it your way, O God, the way it's described in your Book."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> When he said, "You don't want sacrifices and offerings," he was referring to practices according to the old plan.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When he added, "I'm here to do it your way," he set aside the first in order to enact the new plan--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> God's way--by which we are made fit for God by the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Every priest goes to work at the altar each day, offers the same old sacrifices year in, year out, and never makes a dent in the sin problem.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> As a priest, Christ made a single sacrifice for sins, and that was it! Then he sat down right beside God</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> and waited for his enemies to cave in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> It was a perfect sacrifice by a perfect person to perfect some very imperfect people. By that single offering, he did everything that needed to be done for everyone who takes part in the purifying process.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The Holy Spirit confirms this:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> This new plan I'm making with Israel isn't going to be written on paper, isn't going to be chiseled in stone; This time "I'm writing out the plan in them, carving it on the lining of their hearts."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> He concludes, I'll forever wipe the slate clean of their sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Once sins are taken care of for good, there's no longer any need to offer sacrifices for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> So, friends, we can now--without hesitation--walk right up to God, into "the Holy Place." Jesus has cleared the way by the blood of his sacrifice, acting as our priest before God. The "curtain" into God's presence is his body.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> (SEE 10:19)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> (SEE 10:19)</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> So let's do it--full of belief, confident that we're presentable inside and out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Let's keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. He always keeps his word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Let's see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> If we give up and turn our backs on all we've learned, all we've been given, all the truth we now know, we repudiate Christ's sacrifice</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> and are left on our own to face the Judgment--and a mighty fierce judgment it will be!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> If the penalty for breaking the law of Moses is physical death,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> what do you think will happen if you turn on God's Son, spit on the sacrifice that made you whole, and insult this most gracious Spirit?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> This is no light matter. God has warned us that he'll hold us to account and make us pay. He was quite explicit: "Vengeance is mine, and I won't overlook a thing," and, "God will judge his people."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> Nobody's getting by with anything, believe me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> Remember those early days after you first saw the light? Those were the hard times!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Kicked around in public, targets of every kind of abuse--some days it was you, other days your friends.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> If some friends went to prison, you stuck by them. If some enemies broke in and seized your goods, you let them go with a smile, knowing they couldn't touch your real treasure. Nothing they did bothered you, nothing set you back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> So don't throw it all away now. You were sure of yourselves then. It's still a sure thing!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> But you need to stick it out, staying with God's plan so you'll be there for the promised completion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> It won't be long now, he's on the way; he'll show up most any minute.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> But anyone who is right with me thrives on loyal trust; if he cuts and runs, I won't be very happy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> But we're not quitters who lose out. Oh, no! We'll stay with it and survive, trusting all the way.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It's our handle on what we can't see.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> By faith, we see the world called into existence by God's word, what we see created by what we don't see.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> By an act of faith, Abel brought a better sacrifice to God than Cain. It was what he believed, not what he brought, that made the difference. That's what God noticed and approved as righteous. After all these centuries, that belief continues to catch our notice.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> By an act of faith, Enoch skipped death completely. "They looked all over and couldn't find him because God had taken him." We know on the basis of reliable testimony that before he was taken "he pleased God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> It's impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> By faith, Noah built a ship in the middle of dry land. He was warned about something he couldn't see, and acted on what he was told. The result? His family was saved. His act of faith drew a sharp line between the evil of the unbelieving world and the rightness of the believing world. As a result, Noah became intimate with God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> By an act of faith, Abraham said yes to God's call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home. When he left he had no idea where he was going.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> By an act of faith he lived in the country promised him, lived as a stranger camping in tents. Isaac and Jacob did the same, living under the same promise.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Abraham did it by keeping his eye on an unseen city with real, eternal foundations--the City designed and built by God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> By faith, barren Sarah was able to become pregnant, old woman as she was at the time, because she believed the One who made a promise would do what he said.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> That's how it happened that from one man's dead and shriveled loins there are now people numbering into the millions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Each one of these people of faith died not yet having in hand what was promised, but still believing. How did they do it? They saw it way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true home.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> If they were homesick for the old country, they could have gone back any time they wanted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But they were after a far better country than that--heaven country. You can see why God is so proud of them, and has a City waiting for them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> By faith, Abraham, at the time of testing, offered Isaac back to God. Acting in faith, he was as ready to return the promised son, his only son, as he had been to receive him--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> and this after he had already been told, "Your descendants shall come from Isaac."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Abraham figured that if God wanted to, he could raise the dead. In a sense, that's what happened when he received Isaac back, alive from off the altar.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> By an act of faith, Isaac reached into the future as he blessed Jacob and Esau.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> By an act of faith, Jacob on his deathbed blessed each of Joseph's sons in turn, blessing them with God's blessing, not his own--as he bowed worshipfully upon his staff.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> By an act of faith, Joseph, while dying, prophesied the exodus of Israel, and made arrangements for his own burial.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> By an act of faith, Moses' parents hid him away for three months after his birth. They saw the child's beauty, and they braved the king's decree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> By faith, Moses, when grown, refused the privileges of the Egyptian royal house.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> He chose a hard life with God's people rather than an opportunistic soft life of sin with the oppressors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> He valued suffering in the Messiah's camp far greater than Egyptian wealth because he was looking ahead, anticipating the payoff.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> By an act of faith, he turned his heel on Egypt, indifferent to the king's blind rage. He had his eye on the One no eye can see, and kept right on going.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> By an act of faith, he kept the Passover Feast and sprinkled Passover blood on each house so that the destroyer of the firstborn wouldn't touch them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> By an act of faith, Israel walked through the Red Sea on dry ground. The Egyptians tried it and drowned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="30"> By faith, the Israelites marched around the walls of Jericho for seven days, and the walls fell flat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="31"> By an act of faith, Rahab, the Jericho harlot, welcomed the spies and escaped the destruction that came on those who refused to trust God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="32"> I could go on and on, but I've run out of time. There are so many more--Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, the prophets. . . .</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="33"> Through acts of faith, they toppled kingdoms, made justice work, took the promises for themselves. They were protected from lions,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="34"> fires, and sword thrusts, turned disadvantage to advantage, won battles, routed alien armies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="35"> Women received their loved ones back from the dead. There were those who, under torture, refused to give in and go free, preferring something better: resurrection.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="36"> Others braved abuse and whips, and, yes, chains and dungeons.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="37"> We have stories of those who were stoned, sawed in two, murdered in cold blood; stories of vagrants wandering the earth in animal skins, homeless, friendless, powerless--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="38"> the world didn't deserve them!--making their way as best they could on the cruel edges of the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="39"> Not one of these people, even though their lives of faith were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="40"> God had a better plan for us: that their faith and our faith would come together to make one completed whole, their lives of faith not complete apart from ours.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Do you see what this means--all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we'd better get on with it. Strip down, start running--and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we're in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed--that exhilarating finish in and with God--he could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever. And now he's there, in the place of honor, right alongside God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> In this all-out match against sin, others have suffered far worse than you, to say nothing of what Jesus went through--all that bloodshed!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> So don't feel sorry for yourselves. Or have you forgotten how good parents treat children, and that God regards you as his children? My dear child, don't shrug off God's discipline, but don't be crushed by it either.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> It's the child he loves that he disciplines; the child he embraces, he also corrects.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> God is educating you; that's why you must never drop out. He's treating you as dear children. This trouble you're in isn't punishment; it's training,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> the normal experience of children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves. Would you prefer an irresponsible God?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God's training so we can truly live?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God's holy best.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> At the time, discipline isn't much fun. It always feels like it's going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it's the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> So don't sit around on your hands! No more dragging your feet!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Clear the path for long-distance runners so no one will trip and fall, so no one will step in a hole and sprain an ankle. Help each other out. And run for it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Work at getting along with each other and with God. Otherwise you'll never get so much as a glimpse of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Make sure no one gets left out of God's generosity. Keep a sharp eye out for weeds of bitter discontent. A thistle or two gone to seed can ruin a whole garden in no time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Watch out for the Esau syndrome: trading away God's lifelong gift in order to satisfy a short-term appetite.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> You well know how Esau later regretted that impulsive act and wanted God's blessing--but by then it was too late, tears or no tears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Unlike your ancestors, you didn't come to Mount Sinai--all that volcanic blaze and earthshaking rumble--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> to hear God speak. The earsplitting words and soul-shaking message terrified them and they begged him to stop.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> When they heard the words--"If an animal touches the Mountain, it's as good as dead"--they were afraid to move.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Even Moses was terrified.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> No, that's not your experience at all. You've come to Mount Zion, the city where the living God resides. The invisible Jerusalem is populated by throngs of festive angels</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> and Christian citizens. It is the city where God is Judge, with judgments that make us just.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> You've come to Jesus, who presents us with a new covenant, a fresh charter from God. He is the Mediator of this covenant. The murder of Jesus, unlike Abel's--a homicide that cried out for vengeance--became a proclamation of grace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> So don't turn a deaf ear to these gracious words. If those who ignored earthly warnings didn't get away with it, what will happen to us if we turn our backs on heavenly warnings?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> His voice that time shook the earth to its foundations; this time--he's told us this quite plainly--he'll also rock the heavens: "One last shaking, from top to bottom, stem to stern."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> The phrase "one last shaking" means a thorough housecleaning, getting rid of all the historical and religious junk so that the unshakable essentials stand clear and uncluttered.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> Do you see what we've got? An unshakable kingdom! And do you see how thankful we must be? Not only thankful, but brimming with worship, deeply reverent before God. For God is not an indifferent bystander.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> He's actively cleaning house, torching all that needs to burn, and he won't quit until it's all cleansed. God himself is Fire!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Stay on good terms with each other, held together by love.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Be ready with a meal or a bed when it's needed. Why, some have extended hospitality to angels without ever knowing it!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Regard prisoners as if you were in prison with them. Look on victims of abuse as if what happened to them had happened to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Honor marriage, and guard the sacredness of sexual intimacy between wife and husband. God draws a firm line against casual and illicit sex.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Don't be obsessed with getting more material things. Be relaxed with what you have. Since God assured us, "I'll never let you down, never walk off and leave you,"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> we can boldly quote, God is there, ready to help; I'm fearless no matter what. Who or what can get to me?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Appreciate your pastoral leaders who gave you the Word of God. Take a good look at the way they live, and let their faithfulness instruct you, as well as their truthfulness. There should be a consistency that runs through us all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> For Jesus doesn't change--yesterday, today, tomorrow, he's always totally himself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Don't be lured away from him by the latest speculations about him. The grace of Christ is the only good ground for life. Products named after Christ don't seem to do much for those who buy them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The altar from which God gives us the gift of himself is not for exploitation by insiders who grab and loot.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> In the old system, the animals are killed and the bodies disposed of outside the camp. The blood is then brought inside to the altar as a sacrifice for sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> It's the same with Jesus. He was crucified outside the city gates--that is where he poured out the sacrificial blood that was brought to God's altar to cleanse his people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> So let's go outside, where Jesus is, where the action is--not trying to be privileged insiders, but taking our share in the abuse of Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> This "insider world" is not our home. We have our eyes peeled for the City about to come.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Let's take our place outside with Jesus, no longer pouring out the sacrificial blood of animals but pouring out sacrificial praises from our lips to God in Jesus' name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Make sure you don't take things for granted and go slack in working for the common good; share what you have with others. God takes particular pleasure in acts of worship--a different kind of "sacrifice"--that take place in kitchen and workplace and on the streets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Be responsive to your pastoral leaders. Listen to their counsel. They are alert to the condition of your lives and work under the strict supervision of God. Contribute to the joy of their leadership, not its drudgery. Why would you want to make things harder for them?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Pray for us. We have no doubts about what we're doing or why, but it's hard going and we need your prayers. All we care about is living well before God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Pray that we may be together soon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> May God, who puts all things together, makes all things whole, Who made a lasting mark through the sacrifice of Jesus, the sacrifice of blood that sealed the eternal covenant, Who led Jesus, our Great Shepherd, up and alive from the dead,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Now put you together, provide you with everything you need to please him, Make us into what gives him most pleasure, by means of the sacrifice of Jesus, the Messiah. All glory to Jesus forever and always! Oh, yes, yes, yes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Friends, please take what I've written most seriously. I've kept this as brief as possible; I haven't piled on a lot of extras.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> You'll be glad to know that Timothy has been let out of prison. If he leaves soon, I'll come with him and get to see you myself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Say hello to your pastoral leaders and all the congregations. Everyone here in Italy wants to be remembered to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Grace be with you, every one.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="59" bname="James">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I, James, am a slave of God and the Master Jesus, writing to the twelve tribes scattered to Kingdom Come: Hello!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> If you don't know what you're doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You'll get his help, and won't be condescended to when you ask for it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who "worry their prayers" are like wind-whipped waves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Don't think you're going to get anything from the Master that way,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When down-and-outers get a break, cheer!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> And when the arrogant rich are brought down to size, cheer! Prosperity is as short-lived as a wildflower, so don't ever count on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> You know that as soon as the sun rises, pouring down its scorching heat, the flower withers. Its petals wilt and, before you know it, that beautiful face is a barren stem. Well, that's a picture of the "prosperous life." At the very moment everyone is looking on in admiration, it fades away to nothing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Anyone who meets a testing challenge head-on and manages to stick it out is mighty fortunate. For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Don't let anyone under pressure to give in to evil say, "God is trying to trip me up." God is impervious to evil, and puts evil in no one's way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> So, my very dear friends, don't get thrown off course.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> He brought us to life using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all his creatures.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> God's righteousness doesn't grow from human anger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Don't fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Those who hear and don't act are like those who glance in the mirror,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God--the free life!--even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no distracted scatterbrain but a man or woman of action. That person will find delight and affirmation in the action.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> Anyone who sets himself up as "religious" by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> My dear friends, don't let public opinion influence how you live out our glorious, Christ-originated faith.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> If a man enters your church wearing an expensive suit, and a street person wearing rags comes in right after him,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> and you say to the man in the suit, "Sit here, sir; this is the best seat in the house!" and either ignore the street person or say, "Better sit here in the back row,"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> haven't you segregated God's children and proved that you are judges who can't be trusted?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Listen, dear friends. Isn't it clear by now that God operates quite differently? He chose the world's down-and-out as the kingdom's first citizens, with full rights and privileges. This kingdom is promised to anyone who loves God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And here you are abusing these same citizens! Isn't it the high and mighty who exploit you, who use the courts to rob you blind?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Aren't they the ones who scorn the new name--"Christian"--used in your baptisms?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You do well when you complete the Royal Rule of the Scriptures: "Love others as you love yourself."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But if you play up to these so-called important people, you go against the Rule and stand convicted by it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> You can't pick and choose in these things, specializing in keeping one or two things in God's law and ignoring others.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The same God who said, "Don't commit adultery," also said, "Don't murder." If you don't commit adultery but go ahead and murder, do you think your non-adultery will cancel out your murder? No, you're a murderer, period.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Talk and act like a person expecting to be judged by the Rule that sets us free.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> For if you refuse to act kindly, you can hardly expect to be treated kindly. Kind mercy wins over harsh judgment every time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Dear friends, do you think you'll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> and say, "Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!" and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup--where does that get you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Isn't it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I can already hear one of you agreeing by saying, "Sounds good. You take care of the faith department, I'll handle the works department." Not so fast. You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Do I hear you professing to believe in the one and only God, but then observe you complacently sitting back as if you had done something wonderful? That's just great. Demons do that, but what good does it do them?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Use your heads! Do you suppose for a minute that you can cut faith and works in two and not end up with a corpse on your hands?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Wasn't our ancestor Abraham "made right with God by works" when he placed his son Isaac on the sacrificial altar?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Isn't it obvious that faith and works are yoked partners, that faith expresses itself in works? That the works are "works of faith"?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The full meaning of "believe" in the Scripture sentence, "Abraham believed God and was set right with God," includes his action. It's that mesh of believing and acting that got Abraham named "God's friend."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Is it not evident that a person is made right with God not by a barren faith but by faith fruitful in works?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> The same with Rahab, the Jericho harlot. Wasn't her action in hiding God's spies and helping them escape--that seamless unity of believing and doing--what counted with God?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> The very moment you separate body and spirit, you end up with a corpse. Separate faith and works and you get the same thing: a corpse.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Don't be in any rush to become a teacher, my friends. Teaching is highly responsible work. Teachers are held to the strictest standards.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> And none of us is perfectly qualified. We get it wrong nearly every time we open our mouths. If you could find someone whose speech was perfectly true, you'd have a perfect person, in perfect control of life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything--or destroy it! It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> This is scary: You can tame a tiger,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> but you can't tame a tongue--it's never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Curses and blessings out of the same mouth! My friends, this can't go on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> A spring doesn't gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Apple trees don't bear strawberries, do they? Raspberry bushes don't bear apples, do they? You're not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here's what you do: Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It's the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Mean-spirited ambition isn't wisdom. Boasting that you are wise isn't wisdom. Twisting the truth to make yourselves sound wise isn't wisdom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> It's the furthest thing from wisdom--it's animal cunning, devilish conniving.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Whenever you're trying to look better than others or get the better of others, things fall apart and everyone ends up at the others' throats.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Real wisdom, God's wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because you want your own way, and fight for it deep inside yourselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> You lust for what you don't have and are willing to kill to get it. You want what isn't yours and will risk violence to get your hands on it. You wouldn't think of just asking God for it, would you?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And why not? Because you know you'd be asking for what you have no right to. You're spoiled children, each wanting your own way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> You're cheating on God. If all you want is your own way, flirting with the world every chance you get, you end up enemies of God and his way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And do you suppose God doesn't care? The proverb has it that "he's a fiercely jealous lover."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And what he gives in love is far better than anything else you'll find. It's common knowledge that "God goes against the willful proud; God gives grace to the willing humble."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So let God work his will in you. Yell a loud no to the Devil and watch him scamper.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Say a quiet yes to God and he'll be there in no time. Quit dabbling in sin. Purify your inner life. Quit playing the field.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Hit bottom, and cry your eyes out. The fun and games are over. Get serious, really serious.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Get down on your knees before the Master; it's the only way you'll get on your feet.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Don't bad-mouth each other, friends. It's God's Word, his Message, his Royal Rule, that takes a beating in that kind of talk. You're supposed to be honoring the Message, not writing graffiti all over it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> God is in charge of deciding human destiny. Who do you think you are to meddle in the destiny of others?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And now I have a word for you who brashly announce, "Today--at the latest, tomorrow--we're off to such and such a city for the year. We're going to start a business and make a lot of money."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> You don't know the first thing about tomorrow. You're nothing but a wisp of fog, catching a brief bit of sun before disappearing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Instead, make it a habit to say, "If the Master wills it and we're still alive, we'll do this or that."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> As it is, you are full of your grandiose selves. All such vaunting self-importance is evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> In fact, if you know the right thing to do and don't do it, that, for you, is evil.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> And a final word to you arrogant rich: Take some lessons in lament. You'll need buckets for the tears when the crash comes upon you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Your money is corrupt and your fine clothes stink.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Your greedy luxuries are a cancer in your gut, destroying your life from within. You thought you were piling up wealth. What you've piled up is judgment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> All the workers you've exploited and cheated cry out for judgment. The groans of the workers you used and abused are a roar in the ears of the Master Avenger.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> You've looted the earth and lived it up. But all you'll have to show for it is a fatter than usual corpse.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> In fact, what you've done is condemn and murder perfectly good persons, who stand there and take it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Meanwhile, friends, wait patiently for the Master's Arrival. You see farmers do this all the time, waiting for their valuable crops to mature, patiently letting the rain do its slow but sure work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Be patient like that. Stay steady and strong. The Master could arrive at any time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Friends, don't complain about each other. A far greater complaint could be lodged against you, you know. The Judge is standing just around the corner.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Take the old prophets as your mentors. They put up with anything, went through everything, and never once quit, all the time honoring God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> What a gift life is to those who stay the course! You've heard, of course, of Job's staying power, and you know how God brought it all together for him at the end. That's because God cares, cares right down to the last detail.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And since you know that he cares, let your language show it. Don't add words like "I swear to God" to your own words. Don't show your impatience by concocting oaths to hurry up God. Just say yes or no. Just say what is true. That way, your language can't be used against you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Are you hurting? Pray. Do you feel great? Sing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Are you sick? Call the church leaders together to pray and anoint you with oil in the name of the Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Believing-prayer will heal you, and Jesus will put you on your feet. And if you've sinned, you'll be forgiven--healed inside and out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Elijah, for instance, human just like us, prayed hard that it wouldn't rain, and it didn't--not a drop for three and a half years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Then he prayed that it would rain, and it did. The showers came and everything started growing again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> My dear friends, if you know people who have wandered off from God's truth, don't write them off. Go after them. Get them back</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> and you will have rescued precious lives from destruction and prevented an epidemic of wandering away from God.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="60" bname="1 Peter">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I, Peter, am an apostle on assignment by Jesus, the Messiah, writing to exiles scattered to the four winds. Not one is missing, not one forgotten.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> God the Father has his eye on each of you, and has determined by the work of the Spirit to keep you obedient through the sacrifice of Jesus. May everything good from God be yours!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we've been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> including a future in heaven--and the future starts now!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you'll have it all--life healed and whole.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I know how great this makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, it's your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of his victory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> You never saw him, yet you love him. You still don't see him, yet you trust him--with laughter and singing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Because you kept on believing, you'll get what you're looking forward to: total salvation.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The prophets who told us this was coming asked a lot of questions about this gift of life God was preparing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The Messiah's Spirit let them in on some of it--that the Messiah would experience suffering, followed by glory. They clamored to know who and when.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> All they were told was that they were serving you, you who by orders from heaven have now heard for yourselves--through the Holy Spirit--the Message of those prophecies fulfilled. Do you realize how fortunate you are? Angels would have given anything to be in on this!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that's coming when Jesus arrives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Don't lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn't know any better then; you do now.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God's life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> God said, "I am holy; you be holy."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> You call out to God for help and he helps--he's a good Father that way. But don't forget, he's also a responsible Father, and won't let you get by with sloppy living. Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> It cost God plenty to get you out of that dead-end, empty-headed life you grew up in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He paid with Christ's sacred blood, you know. He died like an unblemished, sacrificial lamb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And this was no afterthought. Even though it has only lately--at the end of the ages--become public knowledge, God always knew he was going to do this for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> It's because of this sacrificed Messiah, whom God then raised from the dead and glorified, that you trust God, that you know you have a future in God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Now that you've cleaned up your lives by following the truth, love one another as if your lives depended on it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Your new life is not like your old life. Your old birth came from mortal sperm; your new birth comes from God's living Word. Just think: a life conceived by God himself!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> That's why the prophet said, The old life is a grass life, its beauty as short-lived as wildflowers; Grass dries up, flowers droop,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> God's Word goes on and on forever. This is the Word that conceived the new life in you.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> So clean house! Make a clean sweep of malice and pretense, envy and hurtful talk.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Now, like infants at the breast, drink deep of God's pure kindness. Then you'll grow up mature and whole in God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You've had a taste of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Welcome to the living Stone, the source of life. The workmen took one look and threw it out; God set it in the place of honor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Present yourselves as building stones for the construction of a sanctuary vibrant with life, in which you'll serve as holy priests offering Christ-approved lives up to God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The Scriptures provide precedent: Look! I'm setting a stone in Zion, a cornerstone in the place of honor. Whoever trusts in this stone as a foundation will never have cause to regret it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> To you who trust him, he's a Stone to be proud of, but to those who refuse to trust him, The stone the workmen threw out is now the chief foundation stone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> For the untrusting it's . . . a stone to trip over, a boulder blocking the way. They trip and fall because they refuse to obey, just as predicted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> But you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God's instruments to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference he made for you--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Friends, this world is not your home, so don't make yourselves cozy in it. Don't indulge your ego at the expense of your soul.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Live an exemplary life among the natives so that your actions will refute their prejudices. Then they'll be won over to God's side and be there to join in the celebration when he arrives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Make the Master proud of you by being good citizens. Respect the authorities, whatever their level;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> they are God's emissaries for keeping order.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> It is God's will that by doing good, you might cure the ignorance of the fools who think you're a danger to society.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Exercise your freedom by serving God, not by breaking the rules.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Treat everyone you meet with dignity. Love your spiritual family. Revere God. Respect the government.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> You who are servants, be good servants to your masters--not just to good masters, but also to bad ones.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> What counts is that you put up with it for God's sake when you're treated badly for no good reason.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> There's no particular virtue in accepting punishment that you well deserve. But if you're treated badly for good behavior and continue in spite of it to be a good servant, that is what counts with God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> This is the kind of life you've been invited into, the kind of life Christ lived. He suffered everything that came his way so you would know that it could be done, and also know how to do it, step-by-step.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> He never did one thing wrong, Not once said anything amiss.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> They called him every name in the book and he said nothing back. He suffered in silence, content to let God set things right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> He used his servant body to carry our sins to the Cross so we could be rid of sin, free to live the right way. His wounds became your healing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> You were lost sheep with no idea who you were or where you were going. Now you're named and kept for good by the Shepherd of your souls.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The same goes for you wives: Be good wives to your husbands, responsive to their needs. There are husbands who, indifferent as they are to any words about God, will be captivated</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> by your life of holy beauty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> What matters is not your outer appearance--the styling of your hair, the jewelry you wear, the cut of your clothes--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> but your inner disposition. Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The holy women of old were beautiful before God that way, and were good, loyal wives to their husbands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Sarah, for instance, taking care of Abraham, would address him as "my dear husband." You'll be true daughters of Sarah if you do the same, unanxious and unintimidated.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The same goes for you husbands: Be good husbands to your wives. Honor them, delight in them. As women they lack some of your advantages. But in the new life of God's grace, you're equals. Treat your wives, then, as equals so your prayers don't run aground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Summing up: Be agreeable, be sympathetic, be loving, be compassionate, be humble.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> That goes for all of you, no exceptions. No retaliation. No sharp-tongued sarcasm. Instead, bless--that's your job, to bless. You'll be a blessing and also get a blessing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Whoever wants to embrace life and see the day fill up with good, Here's what you do: Say nothing evil or hurtful;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Snub evil and cultivate good; run after peace for all you're worth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> God looks on all this with approval, listening and responding well to what he's asked; But he turns his back on those who do evil things.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> If with heart and soul you're doing good, do you think you can be stopped?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Even if you suffer for it, you're still better off. Don't give the opposition a second thought.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you're living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They'll end up realizing that they're the ones who need a bath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> It's better to suffer for doing good, if that's what God wants, than to be punished for doing bad.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> That's what Christ did definitively: suffered because of others' sins, the Righteous One for the unrighteous ones. He went through it all--was put to death and then made alive--to bring us to God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> He went and proclaimed God's salvation to earlier generations who ended up in the prison of judgment</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> because they wouldn't listen. You know, even though God waited patiently all the days that Noah built his ship, only a few were saved then, eight to be exact--saved from the water by the water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The waters of baptism do that for you, not by washing away dirt from your skin but by presenting you through Jesus' resurrection before God with a clear conscience.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Jesus has the last word on everything and everyone, from angels to armies. He's standing right alongside God, and what he says goes.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Since Jesus went through everything you're going through and more, learn to think like him. Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Then you'll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> You've already put in your time in that God-ignorant way of life, partying night after night, a drunken and profligate life. Now it's time to be done with it for good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Of course, your old friends don't understand why you don't join in with the old gang anymore. But you don't have to give an account to them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They're the ones who will be called on the carpet--and before God himself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Listen to the Message. It was preached to those believers who are now dead, and yet even though they died (just as all people must), they will still get in on the life that God has given in Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Everything in the world is about to be wrapped up, so take nothing for granted. Stay wide-awake in prayer.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Be quick to give a meal to the hungry, a bed to the homeless--cheerfully.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Be generous with the different things God gave you, passing them around so all get in on it:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> if words, let it be God's words; if help, let it be God's hearty help. That way, God's bright presence will be evident in everything through Jesus, and he'll get all the credit as the One mighty in everything--encores to the end of time. Oh, yes!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Friends, when life gets really difficult, don't jump to the conclusion that God isn't on the job.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Instead, be glad that you are in the very thick of what Christ experienced. This is a spiritual refining process, with glory just around the corner.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> If you're abused because of Christ, count yourself fortunate. It's the Spirit of God and his glory in you that brought you to the notice of others.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> If they're on you because you broke the law or disturbed the peace, that's a different matter.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But if it's because you're a Christian, don't give it a second thought. Be proud of the distinguished status reflected in that name!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> It's judgment time for Christians. We're first in line. If it starts with us, think what it's going to be like for those who refuse God's Message!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> If good people barely make it, What's in store for the bad?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> So if you find life difficult because you're doing what God said, take it in stride. Trust him. He knows what he's doing, and he'll keep on doing it.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I have a special concern for you church leaders. I know what it's like to be a leader, in on Christ's sufferings as well as the coming glory.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Here's my concern: that you care for God's flock with all the diligence of a shepherd. Not because you have to, but because you want to please God. Not calculating what you can get out of it, but acting spontaneously.[</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Not bossily telling others what to do, but tenderly showing them the way.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When God, who is the best shepherd of all, comes out in the open with his rule, he'll see that you've done it right and commend you lavishly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> And you who are younger must follow your leaders. But all of you, leaders and followers alike, are to be down to earth with each other, for-- God has had it with the proud, But takes delight in just plain people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So be content with who you are, and don't put on airs. God's strong hand is on you; he'll promote you at the right time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Live carefree before God; he is most careful with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Keep a cool head. Stay alert. The Devil is poised to pounce, and would like nothing better than to catch you napping.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Keep your guard up. You're not the only ones plunged into these hard times. It's the same with Christians all over the world. So keep a firm grip on the faith.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The suffering won't last forever. It won't be long before this generous God who has great plans for us in Christ--eternal and glorious plans they are!--will have you put together and on your feet for good.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> He gets the last word; yes, he does.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I'm sending this brief letter to you by Silas, a most dependable brother. I have the highest regard for him. I've written as urgently and accurately as I know how. This is God's generous truth; embrace it with both arms!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The church in exile here with me--but not for a moment forgotten by God--wants to be remembered to you. Mark, who is like a son to me, says hello.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Give holy embraces all around! Peace to you--to all who walk in Christ's ways.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="61" bname="2 Peter">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I, Simon Peter, am a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ. I write this to you whose experience with God is as life-changing as ours, all due to our God's straight dealing and the intervention of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Grace and peace to you many times over as you deepen in your experience with God and Jesus, our Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you--your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> So don't lose a minute in building on what you've been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Without these qualities you can't see what's right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> So, friends, confirm God's invitation to you, his choice of you. Don't put it off; do it now. Do this, and you'll have your life on a firm footing,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> the streets paved and the way wide open into the eternal kingdom of our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Because the stakes are so high, even though you're up-to-date on all this truth and practice it inside and out, I'm not going to let up for a minute in calling you to attention before it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> This is the post to which I've been assigned--keeping you alert with frequent reminders--and I'm sticking to it as long as I live.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I know that I'm to die soon; the Master has made that quite clear to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And so I am especially eager that you have all this down in black and white so that after I die, you'll have it for ready reference.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> We weren't, you know, just wishing on a star when we laid the facts out before you regarding the powerful return of our Master, Jesus Christ. We were there for the preview! We saw it with our own eyes:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Jesus resplendent with light from God the Father as the voice of Majestic Glory spoke: "This is my Son, marked by my love, focus of all my delight."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> We were there on the holy mountain with him. We heard the voice out of heaven with our very own ears.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> We couldn't be more sure of what we saw and heard--God's glory, God's voice. The prophetic Word was confirmed to us. You'll do well to keep focusing on it. It's the one light you have in a dark time as you wait for daybreak and the rising of the Morning Star in your hearts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The main thing to keep in mind here is that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of private opinion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And why? Because it's not something concocted in the human heart. Prophecy resulted when the Holy Spirit prompted men and women to speak God's Word.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> But there were also lying prophets among the people then, just as there will be lying religious teachers among you. They'll smuggle in destructive divisions, pitting you against each other--biting the hand of the One who gave them a chance to have their lives back! They've put themselves on a fast downhill slide to destruction,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> but not before they recruit a crowd of mixed-up followers who can't tell right from wrong. They give the way of truth a bad name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They're only out for themselves. They'll say anything, anything, that sounds good to exploit you. They won't, of course, get by with it. They'll come to a bad end, for God has never just stood by and let that kind of thing go on.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> God didn't let the rebel angels off the hook, but jailed them in hell till Judgment Day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Neither did he let the ancient ungodly world off. He wiped it out with a flood, rescuing only eight people--Noah, the sole voice of righteousness, was one of them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> God decreed destruction for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. A mound of ashes was all that was left--grim warning to anyone bent on an ungodly life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But that good man Lot, driven nearly out of his mind by the sexual filth and perversity, was rescued.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Surrounded by moral rot day after day after day, that righteous man was in constant torment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> So God knows how to rescue the godly from evil trials. And he knows how to hold the feet of the wicked to the fire until Judgment Day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> God is especially incensed against these "teachers" who live by lust, addicted to a filthy existence. They despise interference from true authority, preferring to indulge in self-rule. Insolent egotists, they don't hesitate to speak evil against the most splendid of creatures.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Even angels, their superiors in every way, wouldn't think of throwing their weight around like that, trying to slander others before God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> These people are nothing but brute beasts, born in the wild, predators on the prowl. In the very act of bringing down others with their ignorant blasphemies, they themselves will be brought down, losers in the end.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Their evil will boomerang on them. They're so despicable and addicted to pleasure that they indulge in wild parties, carousing in broad daylight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They're obsessed with adultery, compulsive in sin, seducing every vulnerable soul they come upon. Their specialty is greed, and they're experts at it. Dead souls!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> They've left the main road and are directionless, having taken the way of Balaam, son of Beor, the prophet who turned profiteer, a connoisseur of evil.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> But Balaam was stopped in his wayward tracks: A dumb animal spoke in a human voice and prevented the prophet's craziness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> There's nothing to these people--they're dried-up fountains, storm-scattered clouds, headed for a black hole in hell.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> They are loudmouths, full of hot air, but still they're dangerous. Men and women who have recently escaped from a deviant life are most susceptible to their brand of seduction.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They promise these newcomers freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption, for if they're addicted to corruption--and they are--they're enslaved.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> If they've escaped from the slum of sin by experiencing our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ, and then slid back into that same old life again, they're worse than if they had never left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Better not to have started out on the straight road to God than to start out and then turn back, repudiating the experience and the holy command.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> They prove the point of the proverbs, "A dog goes back to its own vomit," and, "A scrubbed-up pig heads for the mud."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> My dear friends, this is now the second time I've written to you, both letters reminders to hold your minds in a state of undistracted attention.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Keep in mind what the holy prophets said, and the command of our Master and Savior that was passed on by your apostles.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> First off, you need to know that in the last days, mockers are going to have a heyday. Reducing everything to the level of their puny feelings,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> they'll mock, "So what's happened to the promise of his Coming? Our ancestors are dead and buried, and everything's going on just as it has from the first day of creation. Nothing's changed."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They conveniently forget that long ago all the galaxies and this very planet were brought into existence out of watery chaos by God's word.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then God's word brought the chaos back in a flood that destroyed the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The current galaxies and earth are fuel for the final fire. God is poised, ready to speak his word again, ready to give the signal for the judgment and destruction of the desecrating skeptics.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Don't overlook the obvious here, friends. With God, one day is as good as a thousand years, a thousand years as a day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> God isn't late with his promise as some measure lateness. He is restraining himself on account of you, holding back the End because he doesn't want anyone lost. He's giving everyone space and time to change.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But when the Day of God's Judgment does come, it will be unannounced, like a thief. The sky will collapse with a thunderous bang, everything disintegrating in a huge conflagration, earth and all its works exposed to the scrutiny of Judgment.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Since everything here today might well be gone tomorrow, do you see how essential it is to live a holy life?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Daily expect the Day of God, eager for its arrival. The galaxies will burn up and the elements melt down that day--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> but we'll hardly notice. We'll be looking the other way, ready for the promised new heavens and the promised new earth, all landscaped with righteousness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> So, my dear friends, since this is what you have to look forward to, do your very best to be found living at your best, in purity and peace.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Interpret our Master's patient restraint for what it is: salvation. Our good brother Paul, who was given much wisdom in these matters,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> refers to this in all his letters, and has written you essentially the same thing. Some things Paul writes are difficult to understand. Irresponsible people who don't know what they are talking about twist them every which way. They do it to the rest of the Scriptures, too, destroying themselves as they do it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But you, friends, are well-warned. Be on guard lest you lose your footing and get swept off your feet by these lawless and loose-talking teachers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Grow in grace and understanding of our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ. Glory to the Master, now and forever! Yes!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="62" bname="1 John">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> From the very first day, we were there, taking it all in--we heard it with our own ears, saw it with our own eyes, verified it with our own hands.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The Word of Life appeared right before our eyes; we saw it happen! And now we're telling you in most sober prose that what we witnessed was, incredibly, this: The infinite Life of God himself took shape before us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> We saw it, we heard it, and now we're telling you so you can experience it along with us, this experience of communion with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Our motive for writing is simply this: We want you to enjoy this, too. Your joy will double our joy!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> This, in essence, is the message we heard from Christ and are passing on to you: God is light, pure light; there's not a trace of darkness in him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> If we claim that we experience a shared life with him and continue to stumble around in the dark, we're obviously lying through our teeth--we're not living what we claim.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God's Son, purges all our sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> If we claim that we're free of sin, we're only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> On the other hand, if we admit our sins--make a clean breast of them--he won't let us down; he'll be true to himself. He'll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> If we claim that we've never sinned, we out-and-out contradict God--make a liar out of him. A claim like that only shows off our ignorance of God.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I write this, dear children, to guide you out of sin. But if anyone does sin, we have a Priest-Friend in the presence of the Father: Jesus Christ, righteous Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> When he served as a sacrifice for our sins, he solved the sin problem for good--not only ours, but the whole world's.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Here's how we can be sure that we know God in the right way: Keep his commandments.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> If someone claims, "I know him well!" but doesn't keep his commandments, he's obviously a liar. His life doesn't match his words.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But the one who keeps God's word is the person in whom we see God's mature love. This is the only way to be sure we're in God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Anyone who claims to be intimate with God ought to live the same kind of life Jesus lived.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> My dear friends, I'm not writing anything new here. This is the oldest commandment in the book, and you've known it from day one. It's always been implicit in the Message you've heard.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> On the other hand, perhaps it is new, freshly minted as it is in both Christ and you--the darkness on its way out and the True Light already blazing!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Anyone who claims to live in God's light and hates a brother or sister is still in the dark.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> It's the person who loves brother and sister who dwells in God's light and doesn't block the light from others.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> But whoever hates is still in the dark, stumbles around in the dark, doesn't know which end is up, blinded by the darkness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I remind you, my dear children: Your sins are forgiven in Jesus' name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> You veterans were in on the ground floor, and know the One who started all this; you newcomers have won a big victory over the Evil One. And a second reminder, dear children: You know the Father from personal experience.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> You veterans know the One who started it all; and you newcomers--such vitality and strength! God's word is so steady in you. Your fellowship with God enables you to gain a victory over the Evil One.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Don't love the world's ways. Don't love the world's goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Practically everything that goes on in the world--wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important--has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out--but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Children, time is just about up. You heard that Antichrist is coming. Well, they're all over the place, antichrists everywhere you look. That's how we know that we're close to the end.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They left us, but they were never really with us. If they had been, they would have stuck it out with us, loyal to the end. In leaving, they showed their true colors, showed they never did belong.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But you belong. The Holy One anointed you, and you all know it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I haven't been writing this to tell you something you don't know, but to confirm the truth you do know, and to remind you that the truth doesn't breed lies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> So who is lying here? It's the person who denies that Jesus is the Divine Christ, that's who. This is what makes an antichrist: denying the Father, denying the Son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> No one who denies the Son has any part with the Father, but affirming the Son is an embrace of the Father as well.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> Stay with what you heard from the beginning, the original message. Let it sink into your life. If what you heard from the beginning lives deeply in you, you will live deeply in both Son and Father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> This is exactly what Christ promised: eternal life, real life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> I've written to warn you about those who are trying to deceive you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> But they're no match for what is embedded deeply within you--Christ's anointing, no less! You don't need any of their so-called teaching. Christ's anointing teaches you the truth on everything you need to know about yourself and him, uncontaminated by a single lie. Live deeply in what you were taught.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> And now, children, stay with Christ. Live deeply in Christ. Then we'll be ready for him when he appears, ready to receive him with open arms, with no cause for red-faced guilt or lame excuses when he arrives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> Once you're convinced that he is right and righteous, you'll recognize that all who practice righteousness are God's true children.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> What marvelous love the Father has extended to us! Just look at it--we're called children of God! That's who we really are. But that's also why the world doesn't recognize us or take us seriously, because it has no idea who he is or what he's up to.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> But friends, that's exactly who we are: children of God. And that's only the beginning. Who knows how we'll end up! What we know is that when Christ is openly revealed, we'll see him--and in seeing him, become like him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> All of us who look forward to his Coming stay ready, with the glistening purity of Jesus' life as a model for our own.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> All who indulge in a sinful life are dangerously lawless, for sin is a major disruption of God's order.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Surely you know that Christ showed up in order to get rid of sin. There is no sin in him, and sin is not part of his program.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> No one who lives deeply in Christ makes a practice of sin. None of those who do practice sin have taken a good look at Christ. They've got him all backwards.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> So, my dear children, don't let anyone divert you from the truth. It's the person who acts right who is right, just as we see it lived out in our righteous Messiah.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Those who make a practice of sin are straight from the Devil, the pioneer in the practice of sin. The Son of God entered the scene to abolish the Devil's ways.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> People conceived and brought into life by God don't make a practice of sin. How could they? God's seed is deep within them, making them who they are. It's not in the nature of the God-begotten to practice and parade sin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Here's how you tell the difference between God's children and the Devil's children: The one who won't practice righteous ways isn't from God, nor is the one who won't love brother or sister. A simple test.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> For this is the original message we heard: We should love each other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> We must not be like Cain, who joined the Evil One and then killed his brother. And why did he kill him? Because he was deep in the practice of evil, while the acts of his brother were righteous.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> So don't be surprised, friends, when the world hates you. This has been going on a long time.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The way we know we've been transferred from death to life is that we love our brothers and sisters. Anyone who doesn't love is as good as dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know very well that eternal life and murder don't go together.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> This is how we've come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God's love? It disappears. And you made it disappear.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> My dear children, let's not just talk about love; let's practice real love.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> This is the only way we'll know we're living truly, living in God's reality.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> It's also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> And friends, once that's taken care of and we're no longer accusing or condemning ourselves, we're bold and free before God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> We're able to stretch our hands out and receive what we asked for because we're doing what he said, doing what pleases him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Again, this is God's command: to believe in his personally named Son, Jesus Christ. He told us to love each other, in line with the original command.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> As we keep his commands, we live deeply and surely in him, and he lives in us. And this is how we experience his deep and abiding presence in us: by the Spirit he gave us.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> My dear friends, don't believe everything you hear. Carefully weigh and examine what people tell you. Not everyone who talks about God comes from God. There are a lot of lying preachers loose in the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Here's how you test for the genuine Spirit of God. Everyone who confesses openly his faith in Jesus Christ--the Son of God, who came as an actual flesh-and-blood person--comes from God and belongs to God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And everyone who refuses to confess faith in Jesus has nothing in common with God. This is the spirit of antichrist that you heard was coming. Well, here it is, sooner than we thought!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> My dear children, you come from God and belong to God. You have already won a big victory over those false teachers, for the Spirit in you is far stronger than anything in the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> These people belong to the Christ-denying world. They talk the world's language and the world eats it up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> But we come from God and belong to God. Anyone who knows God understands us and listens. The person who has nothing to do with God will, of course, not listen to us. This is another test for telling the Spirit of Truth from the spirit of deception.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The person who refuses to love doesn't know the first thing about God, because God is love--so you can't know him if you don't love.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> This is the kind of love we are talking about--not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they've done to our relationship with God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us--perfect love!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> This is how we know we're living steadily and deeply in him, and he in us: He's given us life from his life, from his very own Spirit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Also, we've seen for ourselves and continue to state openly that the Father sent his Son as Savior of the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Everyone who confesses that Jesus is God's Son participates continuously in an intimate relationship with God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> We know it so well, we've embraced it heart and soul, this love that comes from God. God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we're free of worry on Judgment Day--our standing in the world is identical with Christ's.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life--fear of death, fear of judgment--is one not yet fully formed in love.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> We, though, are going to love--love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> If anyone boasts, "I love God," and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won't love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can't see?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You've got to love both.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Every person who believes that Jesus is, in fact, the Messiah, is God-begotten. If we love the One who conceives the child, we'll surely love the child who was conceived.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The reality test on whether or not we love God's children is this: Do we love God? Do we keep his commands?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The proof that we love God comes when we keep his commandments and they are not at all troublesome.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Every God-begotten person conquers the world's ways. The conquering power that brings the world to its knees is our faith.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The person who wins out over the world's ways is simply the one who believes Jesus is the Son of God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Jesus--the Divine Christ! He experienced a life-giving birth and a death-killing death. Not only birth from the womb, but baptismal birth of his ministry and sacrificial death. And all the while the Spirit is confirming the truth, the reality of God's presence at Jesus' baptism and crucifixion, bringing those occasions alive for us.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> A triple testimony:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> the Spirit, the Baptism, the Crucifixion. And the three in perfect agreement.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> If we take human testimony at face value, how much more should we be reassured when God gives testimony as he does here, testifying concerning his Son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Whoever believes in the Son of God inwardly confirms God's testimony. Whoever refuses to believe in effect calls God a liar, refusing to believe God's own testimony regarding his Son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> This is the testimony in essence: God gave us eternal life; the life is in his Son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> So, whoever has the Son, has life; whoever rejects the Son, rejects life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> My purpose in writing is simply this: that you who believe in God's Son will know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you have eternal life, the reality and not the illusion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> And how bold and free we then become in his presence, freely asking according to his will, sure that he's listening.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And if we're confident that he's listening, we know that what we've asked for is as good as ours.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> For instance, if we see a Christian believer sinning (clearly I'm not talking about those who make a practice of sin in a way that is "fatal," leading to eternal death), we ask for God's help and he gladly gives it, gives life to the sinner whose sin is not fatal. There is such a thing as a fatal sin, and I'm not urging you to pray about that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Everything we do wrong is sin, but not all sin is fatal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> We know that none of the God-begotten makes a practice of sin--fatal sin. The God-begotten are also the God-protected. The Evil One can't lay a hand on them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> We know that we are held firm by God; it's only the people of the world who continue in the grip of the Evil One.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> And we know that the Son of God came so we could recognize and understand the truth of God--what a gift!--and we are living in the Truth itself, in God's Son, Jesus Christ. This Jesus is both True God and Real Life.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Dear children, be on guard against all clever facsimiles.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="63" bname="2 John">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> My dear congregation, I, your pastor, love you in very truth. And I'm not alone--everyone who knows the Truth</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> that has taken up permanent residence in us loves you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Let grace, mercy, and peace be with us in truth and love from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, Son of the Father!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I can't tell you how happy I am to learn that many members of your congregation are diligent in living out the Truth, exactly as commanded by the Father.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> But permit me a reminder, friends, and this is not a new commandment but simply a repetition of our original and basic charter: that we love each other.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Love means following his commandments, and his unifying commandment is that you conduct your lives in love. This is the first thing you heard, and nothing has changed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> There are a lot of smooth-talking charlatans loose in the world who refuse to believe that Jesus Christ was truly human, a flesh-and-blood human being. Give them their true title: Deceiver! Antichrist!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> And be very careful around them so you don't lose out on what we've worked so diligently in together; I want you to get every reward you have coming to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Anyone who gets so progressive in his thinking that he walks out on the teaching of Christ, walks out on God. But whoever stays with the teaching, stays faithful to both the Father and the Son.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> If anyone shows up who doesn't hold to this teaching, don't invite him in and give him the run of the place.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> That would just give him a platform to perpetuate his evil ways, making you his partner.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I have a lot more things to tell you, but I'd rather not use paper and ink. I hope to be there soon in person and have a heart-to-heart talk. That will be far more satisfying to both you and me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Everyone here in your sister congregation sends greetings.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="64" bname="3 John">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The Pastor, to my good friend Gaius: How truly I love you!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> We're the best of friends, and I pray for good fortune in everything you do, and for your good health--that your everyday affairs prosper, as well as your soul!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I was most happy when some friends arrived and brought the news that you persist in following the way of Truth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Nothing could make me happier than getting reports that my children continue diligently in the way of Truth!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Dear friend, when you extend hospitality to Christian brothers and sisters, even when they are strangers, you make the faith visible.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They've made a full report back to the church here, a message about your love. It's good work you're doing, helping these travelers on their way, hospitality worthy of God himself!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> They set out under the banner of the Name, and get no help from unbelievers.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> So they deserve any support we can give them. In providing meals and a bed, we become their companions in spreading the Truth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Earlier I wrote something along this line to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves being in charge, denigrates my counsel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> If I come, you can be sure I'll hold him to account for spreading vicious rumors about us. As if that weren't bad enough, he not only refuses hospitality to traveling Christians but tries to stop others from welcoming them. Worse yet, instead of inviting them in he throws them out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Friend, don't go along with evil. Model the good. The person who does good does God's work. The person who does evil falsifies God, doesn't know the first thing about God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Everyone has a good word for Demetrius--the Truth itself stands up for Demetrius! We concur, and you know we don't hand out endorsements lightly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I have a lot more things to tell you, but I'd rather not use pen and ink.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I hope to be there soon in person and have a heart-to-heart talk. Peace to you. The friends here say hello. Greet our friends there by name.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="65" bname="Jude">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I, Jude, am a slave to Jesus Christ and brother to James, writing to those loved by God the Father, called and kept safe by Jesus Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Relax, everything's going to be all right; rest, everything's coming together; open your hearts, love is on the way!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Dear friends, I've dropped everything to write you about this life of salvation that we have in common. I have to write insisting--begging!--that you fight with everything you have in you for this faith entrusted to us as a gift to guard and cherish.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> What has happened is that some people have infiltrated our ranks (our Scriptures warned us this would happen), who beneath their pious skin are shameless scoundrels. Their design is to replace the sheer grace of our God with sheer license--which means doing away with Jesus Christ, our one and only Master.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I'm laying this out as clearly as I can, even though you once knew all this well enough and shouldn't need reminding. Here it is in brief: The Master saved a people out of the land of Egypt. Later he destroyed those who defected.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> And you know the story of the angels who didn't stick to their post, abandoning it for other, darker missions. But they are now chained and jailed in a black hole until the great Judgment Day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Sodom and Gomorrah, which went to sexual rack and ruin along with the surrounding cities that acted just like them, are another example. Burning and burning and never burning up, they serve still as a stock warning.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> This is exactly the same program of these latest infiltrators: dirty sex, rule and rulers thrown out, glory dragged in the mud.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The Archangel Michael, who went to the mat with the Devil as they fought over the body of Moses, wouldn't have dared level him with a blasphemous curse, but said simply, "No you don't. God will take care of you!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> But these people sneer at anything they can't understand, and by doing whatever they feel like doing--living by animal instinct only--they participate in their own destruction.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I'm fed up with them! They've gone down Cain's road; they've been sucked into Balaam's error by greed; they're canceled out in Korah's rebellion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> These people are warts on your love feasts as you worship and eat together. They're giving you a black eye--carousing shamelessly, grabbing anything that isn't nailed down. They're-- Puffs of smoke pushed by gusts of wind; late autumn trees stripped clean of leaf and fruit, Doubly dead, pulled up by the roots;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> wild ocean waves leaving nothing on the beach but the foam of their shame; Lost stars in outer space on their way to the black hole.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Enoch, the seventh after Adam, prophesied of them: "Look! The Master comes with thousands of holy angels</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> to bring judgment against them all, convicting each person of every defiling act of shameless sacrilege, of every dirty word they have spewed of their pious filth."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> These are the "grumpers," the bellyachers, grabbing for the biggest piece of the pie, talking big, saying anything they think will get them ahead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> But remember, dear friends, that the apostles of our Master, Jesus Christ, told us this would happen:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "In the last days there will be people who don't take these things seriously anymore. They'll treat them like a joke, and make a religion of their own whims and lusts."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> These are the ones who split churches, thinking only of themselves. There's nothing to them, no sign of the Spirit!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> But you, dear friends, carefully build yourselves up in this most holy faith by praying in the Holy Spirit,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> staying right at the center of God's love, keeping your arms open and outstretched, ready for the mercy of our Master, Jesus Christ. This is the unending life, the real life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Go easy on those who hesitate in the faith.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> Go after those who take the wrong way. Be tender with sinners, but not soft on sin. The sin itself stinks to high heaven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> And now to him who can keep you on your feet, standing tall in his bright presence, fresh and celebrating--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> to our one God, our only Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Master, be glory, majesty, strength, and rule before all time, and now, and to the end of all time. Yes.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
	<BIBLEBOOK bnumber="66" bname="Revelation">
		<CHAPTER cnumber="1">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A revealing of Jesus, the Messiah. God gave it to make plain to his servants what is about to happen. He published and delivered it by Angel to his servant John.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> And John told everything he saw: God's Word--the witness of Jesus Christ!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> How blessed the reader! How blessed the hearers and keepers of these oracle words, all the words written in this book! Time is just about up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I, John, am writing this to the seven churches in Asia province: All the best to you from THE GOD WHO IS, THE GOD WHO WAS, AND THE GOD ABOUT TO ARRIVE, and from the Seven Spirits assembled before his throne,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> and from Jesus Christ--Loyal Witness, Firstborn from the dead, Ruler of all earthly kings. Glory and strength to Christ, who loves us, who blood-washed our sins from our lives,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Who made us a Kingdom, Priests for his Father, forever--and yes, he's on his way!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Riding the clouds, he'll be seen by every eye, those who mocked and killed him will see him, People from all nations and all times will tear their clothes in lament. Oh, Yes.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The Master declares, "I'm A to Z. I'm THE GOD WHO IS, THE GOD WHO WAS, AND THE GOD ABOUT TO ARRIVE. I'm the Sovereign-Strong."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I, John, with you all the way in the trial and the Kingdom and the passion of patience in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of God's Word, the witness of Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> It was Sunday and I was in the Spirit, praying. I heard a loud voice behind me, trumpet-clear and piercing:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Write what you see into a book. Send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I turned and saw the voice. I saw a gold menorah with seven branches,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> And in the center, the Son of Man, in a robe and gold breastplate,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> hair a blizzard of white, Eyes pouring fire-blaze,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> both feet furnace-fired bronze, His voice a cataract,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> right hand holding the Seven Stars, His mouth a sharp-biting sword, his face a perigee sun.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I saw this and fainted dead at his feet. His right hand pulled me upright, his voice reassured me: "Don't fear: I am First, I am Last,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I'm Alive. I died, but I came to life, and my life is now forever. See these keys in my hand? They open and lock Death's doors, they open and lock Hell's gates.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> Now write down everything you see: things that are, things about to be.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The Seven Stars you saw in my right hand and the seven-branched gold menorah--do you want to know what's behind them? The Seven Stars are the Angels of the seven churches; the menorah's seven branches are the seven churches."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="2">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Write this to Ephesus, to the Angel of the church. The One with Seven Stars in his right-fist grip, striding through the golden seven-lights' circle, speaks:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "I see what you've done, your hard, hard work, your refusal to quit. I know you can't stomach evil, that you weed out apostolic pretenders.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I know your persistence, your courage in my cause, that you never wear out.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "But you walked away from your first love--why? What's going on with you, anyway?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Do you have any idea how far you've fallen? A Lucifer fall! "Turn back! Recover your dear early love. No time to waste, for I'm well on my way to removing your light from the golden circle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "You do have this to your credit: You hate the Nicolaitan business. I hate it, too.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "Are your ears awake? Listen. Listen to the Wind Words, the Spirit blowing through the churches. I'm about to call each conqueror to dinner. I'm spreading a banquet of Tree-of-Life fruit, a supper plucked from God's orchard."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Write this to Smyrna, to the Angel of the church. The Beginning and Ending, the First and Final One, the Once Dead and Then Come Alive, speaks:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "I can see your pain and poverty--constant pain, dire poverty--but I also see your wealth. And I hear the lie in the claims of those who pretend to be good Jews, who in fact belong to Satan's crowd.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Fear nothing in the things you're about to suffer--but stay on guard! Fear nothing! The Devil is about to throw you in jail for a time of testing--ten days. It won't last forever. "Don't quit, even if it costs you your life. Stay there believing. I have a Life-Crown sized and ready for you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Are your ears awake? Listen. Listen to the Wind Words, the Spirit blowing through the churches. Christ-conquerors are safe from Devil-death."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Write this to Pergamum, to the Angel of the church. The One with the sharp-biting sword draws from the sheath of his mouth--out come the sword words:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "I see where you live, right under the shadow of Satan's throne. But you continue boldly in my Name; you never once denied my Name, even when the pressure was worst, when they martyred Antipas, my witness who stayed faithful to me on Satan's turf.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "But why do you indulge that Balaam crowd? Don't you remember that Balaam was an enemy agent, seducing Balak and sabotaging Israel's holy pilgrimage by throwing unholy parties?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And why do you put up with the Nicolaitans, who do the same thing?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "Enough! Don't give in to them; I'll be with you soon. I'm fed up and about to cut them to pieces with my sword-sharp words.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Are your ears awake? Listen. Listen to the Wind Words, the Spirit blowing through the churches. I'll give the sacred manna to every conqueror; I'll also give a clear, smooth stone inscribed with your new name, your secret new name."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Write this to Thyatira, to the Angel of the church. God's Son, eyes pouring fire-blaze, standing on feet of furnace-fired bronze, says this:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "I see everything you're doing for me. Impressive! The love and the faith, the service and persistence. Yes, very impressive! You get better at it every day.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "But why do you let that Jezebel who calls herself a prophet mislead my dear servants into Cross-denying, self-indulging religion?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> I gave her a chance to change her ways, but she has no intention of giving up a career in the god-business.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> I'm about to lay her low, along with her partners, as they play their sex-and-religion games.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The bastard offspring of their idol-whoring I'll kill. Then every church will know that appearances don't impress me. I x-ray every motive and make sure you get what's coming to you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> "The rest of you Thyatirans, who have nothing to do with this outrage, who scorn this playing around with the Devil that gets paraded as profundity, be assured I'll not make life any harder for you than it already is.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Hold on to the truth you have until I get there.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> "Here's the reward I have for every conqueror, everyone who keeps at it, refusing to give up: You'll rule the nations,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> your Shepherd-King rule as firm as an iron staff, their resistance fragile as clay pots. This was the gift my Father gave me; I pass it along to you--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="28"> and with it, the Morning Star!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="29"> "Are your ears awake? Listen. Listen to the Wind Words, the Spirit blowing through the churches."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="3">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Write this to Sardis, to the Angel of the church. The One holding the Seven Spirits of God in one hand, a firm grip on the Seven Stars with the other, speaks: "I see right through your work. You have a reputation for vigor and zest, but you're dead, stone dead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> "Up on your feet! Take a deep breath! Maybe there's life in you yet. But I wouldn't know it by looking at your busywork; nothing of God's work has been completed. Your condition is desperate.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Think of the gift you once had in your hands, the Message you heard with your ears--grasp it again and turn back to God. "If you pull the covers back over your head and sleep on, oblivious to God, I'll return when you least expect it, break into your life like a thief in the night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> "You still have a few Christians in Sardis who haven't ruined themselves wallowing in the muck of the world's ways. They'll walk with me on parade! They've proved their worth!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> "Conquerors will march in the victory parade, their names indelible in the Book of Life. I'll lead them up and present them by name to my Father and his Angels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> "Are your ears awake? Listen. Listen to the Wind Words, the Spirit blowing through the churches."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Write this to Philadelphia, to the Angel of the church. The Holy, the True--David's key in his hand, opening doors no one can lock, locking doors no one can open--speaks:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> "I see what you've done. Now see what I've done. I've opened a door before you that no one can slam shut. You don't have much strength, I know that; you used what you had to keep my Word. You didn't deny me when times were rough.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "And watch as I take those who call themselves true believers but are nothing of the kind, pretenders whose true membership is in the club of Satan--watch as I strip off their pretensions and they're forced to acknowledge it's you that I've loved.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> "Because you kept my Word in passionate patience, I'll keep you safe in the time of testing that will be here soon, and all over the earth, every man, woman, and child put to the test.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "I'm on my way; I'll be there soon. Keep a tight grip on what you have so no one distracts you and steals your crown.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "I'll make each conqueror a pillar in the sanctuary of my God, a permanent position of honor. Then I'll write names on you, the pillars: the Name of my God, the Name of God's City--the new Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven--and my new Name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> "Are your ears awake? Listen. Listen to the Wind Words, the Spirit blowing through the churches."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Write to Laodicea, to the Angel of the church. God's Yes, the Faithful and Accurate Witness, the First of God's creation, says:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "I know you inside and out, and find little to my liking. You're not cold, you're not hot--far better to be either cold or hot!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> You're stale. You're stagnant. You make me want to vomit.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> You brag, 'I'm rich, I've got it made, I need nothing from anyone,' oblivious that in fact you're a pitiful, blind beggar, threadbare and homeless.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> "Here's what I want you to do: Buy your gold from me, gold that's been through the refiner's fire. Then you'll be rich. Buy your clothes from me, clothes designed in Heaven. You've gone around half-naked long enough. And buy medicine for your eyes from me so you can see, really see.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> "The people I love, I call to account--prod and correct and guide so that they'll live at their best. Up on your feet, then! About face! Run after God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "Look at me. I stand at the door. I knock. If you hear me call and open the door, I'll come right in and sit down to supper with you.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Conquerors will sit alongside me at the head table, just as I, having conquered, took the place of honor at the side of my Father. That's my gift to the conquerors!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> "Are your ears awake? Listen. Listen to the Wind Words, the Spirit blowing through the churches."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="4">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then I looked, and, oh!--a door open into Heaven. The trumpet-voice, the first voice in my vision, called out, "Ascend and enter. I'll show you what happens next."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I was caught up at once in deep worship and, oh!--a Throne set in Heaven with One Seated on the Throne,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> suffused in gem hues of amber and flame with a nimbus of emerald.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Twenty-four thrones circled the Throne, with Twenty-four Elders seated, white-robed, gold-crowned.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Lightning flash and thunder crash pulsed from the Throne. Seven fire-blazing torches fronted the Throne (these are the Sevenfold Spirit of God).</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Before the Throne it was like a clear crystal sea. Prowling around the Throne were Four Animals, all eyes. Eyes to look ahead, eyes to look behind.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The first Animal like a lion, the second like an ox, the third with a human face, the fourth like an eagle in flight.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The Four Animals were winged, each with six wings. They were all eyes, seeing around and within. And they chanted night and day, never taking a break: Holy, holy, holy Is God our Master, Sovereign-Strong, THE WAS, THE IS, THE COMING.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Every time the Animals gave glory and honor and thanks to the One Seated on the Throne--the age-after-age Living One--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> the Twenty-four Elders would fall prostrate before the One Seated on the Throne. They worshiped the age-after-age Living One. They threw their crowns at the foot of the Throne, chanting,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Worthy, O Master! Yes, our God! Take the glory! the honor! the power! You created it all; It was created because you wanted it.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="5">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I saw a scroll in the right hand of the One Seated on the Throne. It was written on both sides, fastened with seven seals.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I also saw a powerful Angel, calling out in a voice like thunder, "Is there anyone who can open the scroll, who can break its seals?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> There was no one--no one in Heaven, no one on earth, no one from the underworld--able to break open the scroll and read it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I wept and wept and wept that no one was found able to open the scroll, able to read it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> One of the Elders said, "Don't weep. Look--the Lion from Tribe Judah, the Root of David's Tree, has conquered. He can open the scroll, can rip through the seven seals."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> So I looked, and there, surrounded by Throne, Animals, and Elders, was a Lamb, slaughtered but standing tall. Seven horns he had, and seven eyes, the Seven Spirits of God sent into all the earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He came to the One Seated on the Throne and took the scroll from his right hand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The moment he took the scroll, the Four Animals and Twenty-four Elders fell down and worshiped the Lamb. Each had a harp and each had a bowl, a gold bowl filled with incense, the prayers of God's holy people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> And they sang a new song: Worthy! Take the scroll, open its seals. Slain! Paying in blood, you bought men and women, Bought them back from all over the earth, Bought them back for God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then you made them a Kingdom, Priests for our God, Priest-kings to rule over the earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I looked again. I heard a company of Angels around the Throne, the Animals, and the Elders--ten thousand times ten thousand their number, thousand after thousand after thousand</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> in full song: The slain Lamb is worthy! Take the power, the wealth, the wisdom, the strength! Take the honor, the glory, the blessing!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Then I heard every creature in Heaven and earth, in underworld and sea, join in, all voices in all places, singing: To the One on the Throne! To the Lamb! The blessing, the honor, the glory, the strength, For age after age after age.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The Four Animals called out, "Oh, Yes!" The Elders fell to their knees and worshiped.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="6">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I watched while the Lamb ripped off the first of the seven seals. I heard one of the Animals roar, "Come out!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I looked--I saw a white horse. Its rider carried a bow and was given a victory garland. He rode off victorious, conquering right and left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> When the Lamb ripped off the second seal, I heard the second Animal cry, "Come out!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Another horse appeared, this one red. Its rider was off to take peace from the earth, setting people at each other's throats, killing one another. He was given a huge sword.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> When he ripped off the third seal, I heard the third Animal cry, "Come out!" I looked. A black horse this time. Its rider carried a set of scales in his hand.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I heard a message (it seemed to issue from the Four Animals): "A quart of wheat for a day's wages, or three quarts of barley, but all the oil and wine you want."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When he ripped off the fourth seal, I heard the fourth Animal cry, "Come out!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I looked. A colorless horse, sickly pale. Its rider was Death, and Hell was close on its heels. They were given power to destroy a fourth of the earth by war, famine, disease, and wild beasts.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> When he ripped off the fifth seal, I saw the souls of those killed because they had held firm in their witness to the Word of God. They were gathered under the Altar,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> and cried out in loud prayers, "How long, Strong God, Holy and True? How long before you step in and avenge our murders?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then each martyr was given a white robe and told to sit back and wait until the full number of martyrs was filled from among their servant companions and friends in the faith.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I watched while he ripped off the sixth seal: a bone-jarring earthquake, sun turned black as ink, moon all bloody,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> stars falling out of the sky like figs shaken from a tree in a high wind,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> sky snapped shut like a book, islands and mountains sliding this way and that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> And then pandemonium, everyone and his dog running for cover--kings, princes, generals, rich and strong, along with every commoner, slave or free. They hid in mountain caves and rocky dens,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> calling out to mountains and rocks, "Refuge! Hide us from the One Seated on the Throne and the wrath of the Lamb!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The great Day of their wrath has come--who can stand it?"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="7">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Immediately I saw Four Angels standing at the four corners of earth, standing steady with a firm grip on the four winds so no wind would blow on earth or sea, not even rustle a tree.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Then I saw another Angel rising from where the sun rose, carrying the seal of the Living God. He thundered to the Four Angels assigned the task of hurting earth and sea,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Don't hurt the earth! Don't hurt the sea! Don't so much as hurt a tree until I've sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I heard the count of those who were sealed: 144,000! They were sealed out of every Tribe of Israel:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> 12,000 sealed from Judah, 12,000 from Reuben, 12,000 from Gad,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> 12,000 from Asher, 12,000 from Naphtali, 12,000 from Manasseh,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> 12,000 from Simeon, 12,000 from Levi, 12,000 from Issachar,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> 12,000 from Zebulun, 12,000 from Joseph, 12,000 sealed from Benjamin.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I looked again. I saw a huge crowd, too huge to count. Everyone was there--all nations and tribes, all races and languages. And they were standing, dressed in white robes and waving palm branches, standing before the Throne and the Lamb</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> and heartily singing: Salvation to our God on his Throne! Salvation to the Lamb!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> All who were standing around the Throne--Angels, Elders, Animals--fell on their faces before the Throne and worshiped God,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> singing: Oh, Yes! The blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving, The honor and power and strength, To our God forever and ever and ever! Oh, Yes!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Just then one of the Elders addressed me: "Who are these dressed in white robes, and where did they come from?"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Taken aback, I said, "O Sir, I have no idea--but you must know." Then he told me, "These are those who come from the great tribulation, and they've washed their robes, scrubbed them clean in the blood of the Lamb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> That's why they're standing before God's Throne. They serve him day and night in his Temple. The One on the Throne will pitch his tent there for them:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> no more hunger, no more thirst, no more scorching heat.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The Lamb on the Throne will shepherd them, will lead them to spring waters of Life. And God will wipe every last tear from their eyes."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="8">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> When the Lamb ripped off the seventh seal, Heaven fell quiet--complete silence for about half an hour.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I saw the Seven Angels who are always in readiness before God handed seven trumpets.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then another Angel, carrying a gold censer, came and stood at the Altar. He was given a great quantity of incense so that he could offer up the prayers of all the holy people of God on the Golden Altar before the Throne.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Smoke billowed up from the incense-laced prayers of the holy ones, rose before God from the hand of the Angel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then the Angel filled the censer with fire from the Altar and heaved it to earth. It set off thunders, voices, lightnings, and an earthquake.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The Seven Angels with the trumpets got ready to blow them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> At the first trumpet blast, hail and fire mixed with blood were dumped on earth. A third of the earth was scorched, a third of the trees, and every blade of green grass--burned to a crisp.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The second Angel trumpeted. Something like a huge mountain blazing with fire was flung into the sea. A third of the sea turned to blood,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> a third of the living sea creatures died, and a third of the ships sank.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The third Angel trumpeted. A huge Star, blazing like a torch, fell from Heaven, wiping out a third of the rivers and a third of the springs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The Star's name was Wormwood. A third of the water turned bitter, and many people died from the poisoned water.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The fourth Angel trumpeted. A third of the sun, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars were hit, blacked out by a third, both day and night in one-third blackout.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I looked hard; I heard a lone eagle, flying through Middle-Heaven, crying out ominously, "Doom! Doom! Doom to everyone left on earth! There are three more Angels about to blow their trumpets. Doom is on its way!"</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="9">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> The fifth Angel trumpeted. I saw a Star plummet from Heaven to earth. The Star was handed a key to the Well of the Abyss.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He unlocked the Well of the Abyss--smoke poured out of the Well, billows and billows of smoke, sun and air in blackout from smoke pouring out of the Well.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then out of the smoke crawled locusts with the venom of scorpions.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They were given their orders: "Don't hurt the grass, don't hurt anything green, don't hurt a single tree--only men and women, and then only those who lack the seal of God on their foreheads."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> They were ordered to torture but not kill, torture them for five months, the pain like a scorpion sting.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> When this happens, people are going to prefer death to torture, look for ways to kill themselves. But they won't find a way--death will have gone into hiding.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The locusts looked like horses ready for war. They had gold crowns, human faces,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> women's hair, the teeth of lions,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> and iron breastplates. The sound of their wings was the sound of horse-drawn chariots charging into battle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Their tails were equipped with stings, like scorpion tails. With those tails they were ordered to torture the human race for five months.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They had a king over them, the Angel of the Abyss. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, in Greek, Apollyon--"Destroyer."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The first doom is past. Two dooms yet to come.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> The sixth Angel trumpeted. I heard a voice speaking to the sixth Angel from the horns of the Golden Altar before God:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "Let the Four Angels loose, the Angels confined at the great River Euphrates."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The Four Angels were untied and let loose, Four Angels all prepared for the exact year, month, day, and even hour when they were to kill a third of the human race.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The number of the army of horsemen was twice ten thousand times ten thousand. I heard the count</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> and saw both horses and riders in my vision: fiery breastplates on the riders, lion heads on the horses breathing out fire and smoke and brimstone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> With these three weapons--fire and smoke and brimstone--they killed a third of the human race.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The horses killed with their mouths and tails; their serpentlike tails also had heads that wreaked havoc.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The remaining men and women who weren't killed by these weapons went on their merry way--didn't change their way of life, didn't quit worshiping demons, didn't quit centering their lives around lumps of gold and silver and brass, hunks of stone and wood that couldn't see or hear or move.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> There wasn't a sign of a change of heart. They plunged right on in their murderous, occult, promiscuous, and thieving ways.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="10">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I saw another powerful Angel coming down out of Heaven wrapped in a cloud. There was a rainbow over his head, his face was sun-radiant, his legs pillars of fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He had a small book open in his hand. He placed his right foot on the sea and his left foot on land,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> then called out thunderously, a lion roar. When he called out, the Seven Thunders called back.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> When the Seven Thunders spoke, I started to write it all down, but a voice out of Heaven stopped me, saying, "Seal with silence the Seven Thunders; don't write a word."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then the Angel I saw astride sea and land lifted his right hand to Heaven</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> and swore by the One Living Forever and Ever, who created Heaven and everything in it, earth and everything in it, sea and everything in it, that time was up--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> that when the seventh Angel blew his trumpet, which he was about to do, the Mystery of God, all the plans he had revealed to his servants, the prophets, would be completed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The voice out of Heaven spoke to me again: "Go, take the book held open in the hand of the Angel astride sea and earth."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> I went up to the Angel and said, "Give me the little book." He said, "Take it, then eat it. It will taste sweet like honey, but turn sour in your stomach."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I took the little book from the Angel's hand and it was sweet honey in my mouth, but when I swallowed, my stomach curdled.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then I was told, "You must go back and prophesy again over many peoples and nations and languages and kings."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="11">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I was given a stick for a measuring rod and told, "Get up and measure God's Temple and Altar and everyone worshiping in it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> Exclude the outside court; don't measure it. It's been handed over to non-Jewish outsiders. They'll desecrate the Holy City for forty-two months.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> "Meanwhile, I'll provide my two Witnesses. Dressed in sackcloth, they'll prophesy for one thousand two hundred sixty days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> These are the two Olive Trees, the two Lampstands, standing at attention before God on earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> If anyone tries to hurt them, a blast of fire from their mouths will incinerate them--burn them to a crisp just like that.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They'll have power to seal the sky so that it doesn't rain for the time of their prophesying, power to turn rivers and springs to blood, power to hit earth with any and every disaster as often as they want.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> "When they've completed their witness, the Beast from the Abyss will emerge and fight them, conquer and kill them,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> leaving their corpses exposed on the street of the Great City spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, the same City where their Master was crucified.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> For three and a half days they'll be there--exposed, prevented from getting a decent burial, stared at by the curious from all over the world.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Those people will cheer at the spectacle, shouting 'Good riddance!' and calling for a celebration, for these two prophets pricked the conscience of all the people on earth, made it impossible for them to enjoy their sins.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "Then, after three and a half days, the Living Spirit of God will enter them--they're on their feet!--and all those gloating spectators will be scared to death."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> I heard a strong voice out of Heaven calling, "Come up here!" and up they went to Heaven, wrapped in a cloud, their enemies watching it all.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> At that moment there was a gigantic earthquake--a tenth of the city fell to ruin, seven thousand perished in the earthquake, the rest frightened to the core of their being, frightened into giving honor to the God of Heaven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The second doom is past, the third doom coming right on its heels.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The seventh Angel trumpeted. A crescendo of voices in Heaven sang out, The kingdom of the world is now the Kingdom of our God and his Messiah! He will rule forever and ever!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The Twenty-four Elders seated before God on their thrones fell to their knees, worshiped,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> and sang, We thank you, O God, Sovereign-Strong, WHO IS AND WHO WAS. You took your great power and took over--reigned!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The angry nations now get a taste of your anger. The time has come to judge the dead, to reward your servants, all prophets and saints, Reward small and great who fear your Name, and destroy the destroyers of earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The doors of God's Temple in Heaven flew open, and the Ark of his Covenant was clearly seen surrounded by flashes of lightning, loud shouts, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and a fierce hailstorm.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="12">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> A great Sign appeared in Heaven: a Woman dressed all in sunlight, standing on the moon, and crowned with Twelve Stars.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> She was giving birth to a Child and cried out in the pain of childbirth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> And then another Sign alongside the first: a huge and fiery Dragon! It had seven heads and ten horns, a crown on each of the seven heads.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> With one flick of its tail it knocked a third of the Stars from the sky and dumped them on earth. The Dragon crouched before the Woman in childbirth, poised to eat up the Child when it came.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The Woman gave birth to a Son who will shepherd all nations with an iron rod. Her Son was seized and placed safely before God on his Throne.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The Woman herself escaped to the desert to a place of safety prepared by God, all comforts provided her for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> War broke out in Heaven. Michael and his Angels fought the Dragon. The Dragon and his Angels fought back,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> but were no match for Michael. They were cleared out of Heaven, not a sign of them left.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The great Dragon--ancient Serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, the one who led the whole earth astray--thrown out, and all his Angels thrown out with him, thrown down to earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> Then I heard a strong voice out of Heaven saying, Salvation and power are established! Kingdom of our God, authority of his Messiah! The Accuser of our brothers and sisters thrown out, who accused them day and night before God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> They defeated him through the blood of the Lamb and the bold word of their witness. They weren't in love with themselves; they were willing to die for Christ.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> So rejoice, O Heavens, and all who live there, but doom to earth and sea, For the Devil's come down on you with both feet; he's had a great fall; He's wild and raging with anger; he hasn't much time and he knows it.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> When the Dragon saw he'd been thrown to earth, he went after the Woman who had given birth to the Man-Child.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The Woman was given wings of a great eagle to fly to a place in the desert to be kept in safety and comfort for a time and times and half a time, safe and sound from the Serpent.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The Serpent vomited a river of water to swamp and drown her,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> but earth came to her help, swallowing the water the Dragon spewed from its mouth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Helpless with rage, the Dragon raged at the Woman, then went off to make war with the rest of her children, the children who keep God's commands and hold firm to the witness of Jesus.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="13">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> And the Dragon stood on the shore of the sea. I saw a Beast rising from the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads--on each horn a crown, and each head inscribed with a blasphemous name.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The Beast I saw looked like a leopard with bear paws and a lion's mouth. The Dragon turned over its power to it, its throne and great authority.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> One of the Beast's heads looked as if it had been struck a deathblow, and then healed. The whole earth was agog, gaping at the Beast.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> They worshiped the Dragon who gave the Beast authority, and they worshiped the Beast, exclaiming, "There's never been anything like the Beast! No one would dare go to war with the Beast!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The Beast had a loud mouth, boastful and blasphemous. It could do anything it wanted for forty-two months.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> It yelled blasphemies against God, blasphemed his Name, blasphemed his Church, especially those already dwelling with God in Heaven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> It was permitted to make war on God's holy people and conquer them. It held absolute sway over all tribes and peoples, tongues and races.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Everyone on earth whose name was not written from the world's foundation in the slaughtered Lamb's Book of Life will worship the Beast.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Are you listening to this?</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They've made their bed; now they must lie in it. Anyone marked for prison goes straight to prison; anyone pulling a sword goes down by the sword. Meanwhile, God's holy people passionately and faithfully stand their ground.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I saw another Beast rising out of the ground. It had two horns like a lamb but sounded like a dragon when it spoke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> It was a puppet of the first Beast, made earth and everyone in it worship the first Beast, which had been healed of its deathblow.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> This second Beast worked magical signs, dazzling people by making fire come down from Heaven.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> It used the magic it got from the Beast to dupe earth dwellers, getting them to make an image of the Beast that received the deathblow and lived.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> It was able to animate the image of the Beast so that it talked, and then arrange that anyone not worshiping the Beast would be killed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> It forced all people, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to have a mark on the right hand or forehead.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Without the mark of the name of the Beast or the number of its name, it was impossible to buy or sell anything.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Solve a riddle: Put your heads together and figure out the meaning of the number of the Beast. It's a human number: six hundred sixty-six.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="14">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I saw--it took my breath away!--the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, One Hundred and Forty-four Thousand standing there with him, his Name and the Name of his Father inscribed on their foreheads.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> And I heard a voice out of Heaven, the sound like a cataract, like the crash of thunder. And then I heard music, harp music</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> and the harpists singing a new song before the Throne and the Four Animals and the Elders. Only the Hundred and Forty-four Thousand could learn to sing the song. They were bought from earth,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> lived without compromise, virgin-fresh before God. Wherever the Lamb went, they followed. They were bought from humankind, firstfruits of the harvest for God and the Lamb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Not a false word in their mouths. A perfect offering.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I saw another Angel soaring in Middle-Heaven. He had an Eternal Message to preach to all who were still on earth, every nation and tribe, every tongue and people.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> He preached in a loud voice, "Fear God and give him glory! His hour of judgment has come! Worship the Maker of Heaven and earth, salt sea and fresh water!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> A second Angel followed, calling out, "Ruined, ruined, Great Babylon ruined! She made all the nations drunk on the wine of her whoring!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> A third Angel followed, shouting, warning, "If anyone worships the Beast and its image and takes the mark on forehead or hand,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> that person will drink the wine of God's wrath, prepared unmixed in his chalice of anger, and suffer torment from fire and brimstone in the presence of Holy Angels, in the presence of the Lamb.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Smoke from their torment will rise age after age. No respite for those who worship the Beast and its image, who take the mark of its name."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> Meanwhile, the saints stand passionately patient, keeping God's commands, staying faithful to Jesus.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I heard a voice out of Heaven, "Write this: Blessed are those who die in the Master from now on; how blessed to die that way!" "Yes," says the Spirit, "and blessed rest from their hard, hard work. None of what they've done is wasted; God blesses them for it all in the end."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> I looked up, I caught my breath!--a white cloud and one like the Son of Man sitting on it. He wore a gold crown and held a sharp sickle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Another Angel came out of the Temple, shouting to the Cloud-Enthroned, "Swing your sickle and reap. It's harvest time. Earth's harvest is ripe for reaping."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The Cloud-Enthroned gave a mighty sweep of his sickle, began harvesting earth in a stroke.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Then another Angel came out of the Temple in Heaven. He also had a sharp sickle.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Yet another Angel, the one in charge of tending the fire, came from the Altar. He thundered to the Angel who held the sharp sickle, "Swing your sharp sickle. Harvest earth's vineyard. The grapes are bursting with ripeness."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The Angel swung his sickle, harvested earth's vintage, and heaved it into the winepress, the giant winepress of God's wrath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The winepress was outside the City. As the vintage was trodden, blood poured from the winepress as high as a horse's bridle, a river of blood for two hundred miles.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="15">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I saw another Sign in Heaven, huge and breathtaking: seven Angels with seven disasters. These are the final disasters, the wrap-up of God's wrath.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I saw something like a sea made of glass, the glass all shot through with fire. Carrying harps of God, triumphant over the Beast, its image, and the number of its name, the saved ones stood on the sea of glass.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> They sang the Song of Moses, servant of God; they sang the Song of the Lamb: Mighty your acts and marvelous, O God, the Sovereign-Strong! Righteous your ways and true, King of the nations!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Who can fail to fear you, God, give glory to your Name? Because you and you only are holy, all nations will come and worship you, because they see your judgments are right.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Then I saw the doors of the Temple, the Tent of Witness in Heaven, open wide.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The Seven Angels carrying the seven disasters came out of the Temple. They were dressed in clean, bright linen and wore gold vests.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> One of the Four Animals handed the Seven Angels seven gold bowls, brimming with the wrath of God, who lives forever and ever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> Smoke from God's glory and power poured out of the Temple. No one was permitted to enter the Temple until the seven disasters of the Seven Angels were finished.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="16">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I heard a shout of command from the Temple to the Seven Angels: "Begin! Pour out the seven bowls of God's wrath on earth!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> The first Angel stepped up and poured his bowl out on earth: Loathsome, stinking sores erupted on all who had taken the mark of the Beast and worshiped its image.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> The second Angel poured his bowl on the sea: The sea coagulated into blood, and everything in it died.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The third Angel poured his bowl on rivers and springs: The waters turned to blood.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> I heard the Angel of Waters say, Righteous you are, and your judgments are righteous, THE WAS, THE IS, THE HOLY.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> They poured out the blood of saints and prophets so you've given them blood to drink-- they've gotten what they deserve!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Just then I heard the Altar chime in, Yes, O God, the Sovereign-Strong! Your judgments are true and just!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The fourth Angel poured his bowl on the sun: Fire blazed from the sun and scorched men and women.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> Burned and blistered, they cursed God's Name, the God behind these disasters. They refused to repent, refused to honor God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The fifth Angel poured his bowl on the throne of the Beast: Its kingdom fell into sudden eclipse. Mad with pain, men and women bit and chewed their tongues,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> cursed the God of Heaven for their torment and sores, and refused to repent and change their ways.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> The sixth Angel poured his bowl on the great Euphrates River: It dried up to nothing. The dry riverbed became a fine roadbed for the kings from the East.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> From the mouths of the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet I saw three foul demons crawl out--they looked like frogs.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> These are demon spirits performing signs. They're after the kings of the whole world to get them gathered for battle on the Great Day of God, the Sovereign-Strong.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "Keep watch! I come unannounced, like a thief. You're blessed if, awake and dressed, you're ready for me. Too bad if you're found running through the streets, naked and ashamed."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The frog-demons gathered the kings together at the place called in Hebrew Armageddon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> The seventh Angel poured his bowl into the air: From the Throne in the Temple came a shout, "Done!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> followed by lightning flashes and shouts, thunder crashes and a colossal earthquake--a huge and devastating earthquake, never an earthquake like it since time began.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The Great City split three ways, the cities of the nations toppled to ruin. Great Babylon had to drink the wine of God's raging anger--God remembered to give her the cup!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> Every island fled and not a mountain was to be found.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> Hailstones weighing a ton plummeted, crushing and smashing men and women as they cursed God for the hail, the epic disaster of hail.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="17">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> One of the Seven Angels who carried the seven bowls came and invited me, "Come, I'll show you the judgment of the great Whore who sits enthroned over many waters,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> the Whore with whom the kings of the earth have gone whoring, show you the judgment on earth dwellers drunk on her whorish lust."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> In the Spirit he carried me out in the desert. I saw a woman mounted on a Scarlet Beast. Stuffed with blasphemies, the Beast had seven heads and ten horns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, festooned with gold and gems and pearls. She held a gold chalice in her hand, brimming with defiling obscenities, her foul fornications.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> A riddle-name was branded on her forehead: GREAT BABYLON, MOTHER OF WHORES AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> I could see that the woman was drunk, drunk on the blood of God's holy people, drunk on the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. Astonished, I rubbed my eyes. I shook my head in wonder.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> The Angel said, "Does this surprise you? Let me tell you the riddle of the woman and the Beast she rides, the Beast with seven heads and ten horns.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> The Beast you saw once was, is no longer, and is about to ascend from the Abyss and head straight for Hell. Earth dwellers whose names weren't written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world will be dazzled when they see the Beast that once was, is no longer, and is to come.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "But don't drop your guard. Use your head. The seven heads are seven hills; they are where the woman sits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They are also seven kings: five dead, one living, the other not yet here--and when he does come his time will be brief.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> The Beast that once was and is no longer is both an eighth and one of the seven--and headed for Hell.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "The ten horns you saw are ten kings, but they're not yet in power. They will come to power with the Scarlet Beast, but won't last long--a very brief reign.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> These kings will agree to turn over their power and authority to the Beast.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> They will go to war against the Lamb but the Lamb will defeat them, proof that he is Lord over all lords, King over all kings, and those with him will be the called, chosen, and faithful."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The Angel continued, "The waters you saw on which the Whore was enthroned are peoples and crowds, nations and languages.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> And the ten horns you saw, together with the Beast, will turn on the Whore--they'll hate her, violate her, strip her naked, rip her apart with their teeth, then set fire to her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> It was God who put the idea in their heads to turn over their rule to the Beast until the words of God are completed.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The woman you saw is the great city, tyrannizing the kings of the earth."</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="18">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Following this I saw another Angel descend from Heaven. His authority was immense, his glory flooded earth with brightness,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> his voice thunderous: Ruined, ruined, Great Babylon, ruined! A ghost town for demons is all that's left! A garrison of carrion spirits, garrison of loathsome, carrion birds.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> All nations drank the wild wine of her whoring; kings of the earth went whoring with her; entrepreneurs made millions exploiting her.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> Just then I heard another shout out of Heaven: Get out, my people, as fast as you can, so you don't get mixed up in her sins, so you don't get caught in her doom.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Her sins stink to high Heaven; God has remembered every evil she's done.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Give her back what she's given, double what she's doubled in her works, double the recipe in the cup she mixed;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Bring her flaunting and wild ways to torment and tears. Because she gloated, "I'm queen over all, and no widow, never a tear on my face,"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> In one day, disasters will crush her-- death, heartbreak, and famine-- Then she'll be burned by fire, because God, the Strong God who judges her, has had enough.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> "The kings of the earth will see the smoke of her burning, and they'll cry and carry on, the kings who went night after night to her brothel.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> They'll keep their distance for fear they'll get burned, and they'll cry their lament: Doom, doom, the great city doomed! City of Babylon, strong city! In one hour it's over, your judgment come!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> "The traders will cry and carry on because the bottom dropped out of business, no more market for their goods:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> gold, silver, precious gems, pearls; fabrics of fine linen, purple, silk, scarlet; perfumed wood and vessels of ivory, precious woods, bronze, iron, and marble;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> cinnamon and spice, incense, myrrh, and frankincense; wine and oil, flour and wheat; cattle, sheep, horses, and chariots. And slaves--their terrible traffic in human lives.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Everything you've lived for, gone! All delicate and delectable luxury, lost! Not a scrap, not a thread to be found!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> "The traders who made millions off her kept their distance for fear of getting burned, and cried and carried on all the more:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> Doom, doom, the great city doomed! Dressed in the latest fashions, adorned with the finest jewels,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> in one hour such wealth wiped out! "All the ship captains and travelers by sea, sailors and toilers of the sea, stood off at a distance</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> and cried their lament when they saw the smoke from her burning: 'Oh, what a city! There was never a city like her!'</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> They threw dust on their heads and cried as if the world had come to an end: Doom, doom, the great city doomed! All who owned ships or did business by sea Got rich on her getting and spending. And now it's over--wiped out in one hour!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> "O Heaven, celebrate! And join in, saints, apostles, and prophets! God has judged her; every wrong you suffered from her has been judged."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> A strong Angel reached for a boulder--huge, like a millstone--and heaved it into the sea, saying, Heaved and sunk, the great city Babylon, sunk in the sea, not a sign of her ever again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> Silent the music of harpists and singers-- you'll never hear flutes and trumpets again. Artisans of every kind--gone; you'll never see their likes again. The voice of a millstone grinding falls dumb; you'll never hear that sound again.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The light from lamps, never again; never again laughter of bride and groom. Her traders robbed the whole earth blind, and by black-magic arts deceived the nations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The only thing left of Babylon is blood-- the blood of saints and prophets, the murdered and the martyred.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="19">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I heard a sound like massed choirs in Heaven singing, Hallelujah! The salvation and glory and power are God's--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> his judgments true, his judgments just. He judged the great Whore who corrupted the earth with her lust. He avenged on her the blood of his servants.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Then, more singing: Hallelujah! The smoke from her burning billows up to high Heaven forever and ever and ever.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> The Twenty-four Elders and the Four Animals fell to their knees and worshiped God on his Throne, praising, Amen! Yes! Hallelujah!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> From the Throne came a shout, a command: Praise our God, all you his servants, All you who fear him, small and great!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then I heard the sound of massed choirs, the sound of a mighty cataract, the sound of strong thunder: Hallelujah! The Master reigns, our God, the Sovereign-Strong!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Let us celebrate, let us rejoice, let us give him the glory! The Marriage of the Lamb has come; his Wife has made herself ready.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> She was given a bridal gown of bright and shining linen. The linen is the righteousness of the saints.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> The Angel said to me, "Write this: 'Blessed are those invited to the Wedding Supper of the Lamb.'" He added, "These are the true words of God!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> I fell at his feet to worship him, but he wouldn't let me. "Don't do that," he said. "I'm a servant just like you, and like your brothers and sisters who hold to the witness of Jesus. The witness of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Then I saw Heaven open wide--and oh! a white horse and its Rider. The Rider, named Faithful and True, judges and makes war in pure righteousness.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> His eyes are a blaze of fire, on his head many crowns. He has a Name inscribed that's known only to himself.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> He is dressed in a robe soaked with blood, and he is addressed as "Word of God."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The armies of Heaven, mounted on white horses and dressed in dazzling white linen, follow him.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> A sharp sword comes out of his mouth so he can subdue the nations, then rule them with a rod of iron. He treads the winepress of the raging wrath of God, the Sovereign-Strong.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> On his robe and thigh is written, KING OF KINGS, LORD OF LORDS.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> I saw an Angel standing in the sun, shouting to all flying birds in Middle-Heaven, "Come to the Great Supper of God!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> Feast on the flesh of kings and captains and champions, horses and their riders. Eat your fill of them all--free and slave, small and great!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> I saw the Beast and, assembled with him, earth's kings and their armies, ready to make war against the One on the horse and his army.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> The Beast was taken, and with him, his puppet, the False Prophet, who used signs to dazzle and deceive those who had taken the mark of the Beast and worshiped his image. They were thrown alive, those two, into Lake Fire and Brimstone.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The rest were killed by the sword of the One on the horse, the sword that comes from his mouth. All the birds held a feast on their flesh.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="20">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I saw an Angel descending out of Heaven. He carried the key to the Abyss and a chain--a huge chain.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> He grabbed the Dragon, that old Snake--the very Devil, Satan himself!--chained him up for a thousand years,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> dumped him into the Abyss, slammed it shut and sealed it tight. No more trouble out of him, deceiving the nations--until the thousand years are up. After that he has to be let loose briefly.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> I saw thrones. Those put in charge of judgment sat on the thrones. I also saw the souls of those beheaded because of their witness to Jesus and the Word of God, who refused to worship either the Beast or his image, refused to take his mark on forehead or hand--they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The rest of the dead did not live until the thousand years were up. This is the first resurrection--</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> and those involved most blessed, most holy. No second death for them! They're priests of God and Christ; they'll reign with him a thousand years.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> When the thousand years are up, Satan will be let loose from his cell,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> and will launch again his old work of deceiving the nations, searching out victims in every nook and cranny of earth, even Gog and Magog! He'll talk them into going to war and will gather a huge army, millions strong.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> They'll stream across the earth, surround and lay siege to the camp of God's holy people, the Beloved City. They'll no sooner get there than fire will pour out of Heaven and burn them up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The Devil who deceived them will be hurled into Lake Fire and Brimstone, joining the Beast and False Prophet, the three in torment around the clock for ages without end.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> I saw a Great White Throne and the One Enthroned. Nothing could stand before or against the Presence, nothing in Heaven, nothing on earth.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> And then I saw all the dead, great and small, standing there--before the Throne! And books were opened. Then another book was opened: the Book of Life. The dead were judged by what was written in the books, by the way they had lived.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> Sea released its dead, Death and Hell turned in their dead. Each man and woman was judged by the way he or she had lived.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> Then Death and Hell were hurled into Lake Fire. This is the second death--Lake Fire.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> Anyone whose name was not found inscribed in the Book of Life was hurled into Lake Fire.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="21">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> I saw Heaven and earth new-created. Gone the first Heaven, gone the first earth, gone the sea.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> I saw Holy Jerusalem, new-created, descending resplendent out of Heaven, as ready for God as a bride for her husband.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> I heard a voice thunder from the Throne: "Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They're his people, he's their God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> He'll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good--tears gone, crying gone, pain gone--all the first order of things gone."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> The Enthroned continued, "Look! I'm making everything new. Write it all down--each word dependable and accurate."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> Then he said, "It's happened. I'm A to Z. I'm the Beginning, I'm the Conclusion. From Water-of-Life Well I give freely to the thirsty.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> Conquerors inherit all this. I'll be God to them, they'll be sons and daughters to me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> But for the rest--the feckless and faithless, degenerates and murderers, sex peddlers and sorcerers, idolaters and all liars--for them it's Lake Fire and Brimstone. Second death!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> One of the Seven Angels who had carried the bowls filled with the seven final disasters spoke to me: "Come here. I'll show you the Bride, the Wife of the Lamb."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> He took me away in the Spirit to an enormous, high mountain and showed me Holy Jerusalem descending out of Heaven from God,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> resplendent in the bright glory of God. The City shimmered like a precious gem, light-filled, pulsing light.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> She had a wall majestic and high with twelve gates. At each gate stood an Angel, and on the gates were inscribed the names of the Twelve Tribes of the sons of Israel:</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, three gates on the west.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> The wall was set on twelve foundations, the names of the Twelve Apostles of the Lamb inscribed on them.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> The Angel speaking with me had a gold measuring stick to measure the City, its gates, and its wall.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> The City was laid out in a perfect square. He measured the City with the measuring stick: twelve thousand stadia, its length, width, and height all equal.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> Using the standard measure, the Angel measured the thickness of its wall: 144 cubits.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> The wall was jasper, the color of Glory, and the City was pure gold, translucent as glass.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> The foundations of the City walls were garnished with every precious gem imaginable: the first foundation jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate a single pearl. The main street of the City was pure gold, translucent as glass.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="22"> But there was no sign of a Temple, for the Lord God--the Sovereign-Strong--and the Lamb are the Temple.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="23"> The City doesn't need sun or moon for light. God's Glory is its light, the Lamb its lamp!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="24"> The nations will walk in its light and earth's kings bring in their splendor.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="25"> Its gates will never be shut by day, and there won't be any night.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="26"> They'll bring the glory and honor of the nations into the City.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="27"> Nothing dirty or defiled will get into the City, and no one who defiles or deceives. Only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life will get in.</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
		<CHAPTER cnumber="22">
			<VERS vnumber="1"> Then the Angel showed me Water-of-Life River, crystal bright. It flowed from the Throne of God and the Lamb,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="2"> right down the middle of the street. The Tree of Life was planted on each side of the River, producing twelve kinds of fruit, a ripe fruit each month. The leaves of the Tree are for healing the nations.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="3"> Never again will anything be cursed. The Throne of God and of the Lamb is at the center. His servants will offer God service--worshiping,</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="4"> they'll look on his face, their foreheads mirroring God.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="5"> Never again will there be any night. No one will need lamplight or sunlight. The shining of God, the Master, is all the light anyone needs. And they will rule with him age after age after age.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="6"> The Angel said to me, "These are dependable and accurate words, every one. The God and Master of the spirits of the prophets sent his Angel to show his servants what must take place, and soon.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="7"> And tell them, 'Yes, I'm on my way!' Blessed be the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="8"> I, John, saw all these things with my own eyes, heard them with my ears. Immediately when I heard and saw, I fell on my face to worship at the feet of the Angel who laid it all out before me.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="9"> He objected, "No you don't! I'm a servant just like you and your companions, the prophets, and all who keep the words of this book. Worship God!"</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="10"> The Angel continued, "Don't seal the words of the prophecy of this book; don't put it away on the shelf. Time is just about up.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="11"> Let evildoers do their worst and the dirty-minded go all out in pollution, but let the righteous maintain a straight course and the holy continue on in holiness."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="12"> "Yes, I'm on my way! I'll be there soon! I'm bringing my payroll with me. I'll pay all people in full for their life's work.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="13"> I'm A to Z, the First and the Final, Beginning and Conclusion.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="14"> "How blessed are those who wash their robes! The Tree of Life is theirs for good, and they'll walk through the gates to the City.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="15"> But outside for good are the filthy curs: sorcerers, fornicators, murderers, idolaters--all who love and live lies.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="16"> "I, Jesus, sent my Angel to testify to these things for the churches. I'm the Root and Branch of David, the Bright Morning Star."</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="17"> "Come!" say the Spirit and the Bride. Whoever hears, echo, "Come!" Is anyone thirsty? Come! All who will, come and drink, Drink freely of the Water of Life!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="18"> I give fair warning to all who hear the words of the prophecy of this book: If you add to the words of this prophecy, God will add to your life the disasters written in this book;</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="19"> if you subtract from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will subtract your part from the Tree of Life and the Holy City that are written in this book.</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="20"> He who testifies to all these things says it again: "I'm on my way! I'll be there soon!" Yes! Come, Master Jesus!</VERS>
			<VERS vnumber="21"> The grace of the Master Jesus be with all of you. Oh, Yes!</VERS>
		</CHAPTER>
	</BIBLEBOOK>
</XMLBIBLE>
