34 Bible Verses about Judgments

For my wrath is a flaming fire, burning to the deep parts of the underworld, burning up the earth with her increase, and firing the deep roots of the mountains.

And I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, burning up the great houses of Ben-hadad.

And I will send a fire on Teman, burning up the great houses of Bozrah.

I came to send a fire on the earth, and it may even now have been lighted.

The sinners in Zion are full of fear; the haters of God are shaking with wonder. Who among us may keep his place before the burning fire? who among us may see the eternal burnings?

Those who went in flight from the fear are waiting under the shade of Heshbon: for a fire has gone out from Heshbon and a flame from the house of Sihon, burning up the pride of Moab and the crown of the head of the violent ones.

From on high he has sent fire into my bones, and it has overcome them: his net is stretched out for my feet, I am turned back by him; he has made me waste and feeble all the day.

And I will send a fire on Magog, and on those who are living in the sea-lands without fear: and they will be certain that I am the Lord.

Saying with a loud voice, Have fear of God and give him glory; because the hour of his judging is come; and give worship to him who made heaven and earth and the sea and the fountains of water.

For this cause will the strong people give glory to you, the town of the cruel ones will be in fear of you.

These are the words of the Lord: See, I am against you, O Zidon; and I will get glory for myself in you: and they will be certain that I am the Lord, when I send my punishments on her, and I will be seen to be holy in her.

Saying with a loud voice, Have fear of God and give him glory; because the hour of his judging is come; and give worship to him who made heaven and earth and the sea and the fountains of water.

For this cause will the strong people give glory to you, the town of the cruel ones will be in fear of you.

These are the words of the Lord: See, I am against you, O Zidon; and I will get glory for myself in you: and they will be certain that I am the Lord, when I send my punishments on her, and I will be seen to be holy in her.

For in those days and in that time, when I let the fate of Judah and Jerusalem be changed, I will get together all the nations, and make them come down into the valley of Jehoshaphat; and there I will take up with them the cause of my people and of my heritage Israel, whom they have sent wandering among the nations, and of my land which has been parted by them. And they have put the fate of my people to the decision of chance: giving a boy for the price of a loose woman and a girl for a drink of wine. read more.
And further, what are you to me, O Tyre and Zidon and all the circle of Philistia? will you give me back any payment? and if you do, quickly and suddenly I will send it back on your head, For you have taken my silver and my gold, putting in the houses of your gods my beautiful and pleasing things. And the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem you have given for a price to the sons of the Greeks, to send them far away from their land: See, I will have them moved from the place where you have sent them, and will let what you have done come back on your head; I will give your sons and your daughters into the hands of the children of Judah for a price, and they will give them for a price to the men of Sheba, a nation far off: for the Lord has said it. Give this out among the nations; make ready for war: get the strong men awake; let all the men of war come near, let them come up. Get your plough-blades hammered into swords, and your vine-knives into spears: let the feeble say, I am strong. Come quickly, all you nations round about, and get yourselves together there: make your strong ones come down, O Lord. Let the nations be awake, and come to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there I will be seated as judge of all the nations round about. Put in the blade, for the grain is ready: come, get you down, for the wine-crusher is full, the vessels are overflowing; for great is their evil-doing. Masses on masses in the valley of decision! for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon have become dark, and the stars keep back their shining. And the Lord will be thundering from Zion, and his voice will be sounding from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth will be shaking: but the Lord will be a breastplate for his people and a strong place for the children of Israel. And you will be certain that I am the Lord your God, living in Zion, my holy mountain: and Jerusalem will be holy, and no strange person will ever again go through her.

You are not to make use of the name of the Lord your God for an evil purpose; whoever takes the Lord's name on his lips for an evil purpose will be judged a sinner by the Lord

For this reason there is the more need for us to give attention to the things which have come to our ears, for fear that by chance we might be slipping away. Because if the word which came through the angels was fixed, and in the past every evil act against God's orders was given its full punishment; What will come on us, if we do not give our minds to such a great salvation? a salvation of which our fathers first had knowledge through the words of the Lord, and which was made certain to us by those to whom his words came;

See that you give ear to his voice which comes to you. For if those whose ears were shut to the voice which came to them on earth did not go free from punishment, what chance have we of going free if we give no attention to him whose voice comes from heaven?

Having mercy on thousands, overlooking evil and wrongdoing and sin; he will not let wrongdoers go free, but will send punishment on children for the sins of their fathers, and on their children's children to the third and fourth generation.

You snakes, offspring of snakes, how will you be kept from the punishment of hell?

Then Joshua, in great grief, went down on the earth before the ark of the Lord till the evening, and all the chiefs of Israel with him, and they put dust on their heads.

Put haircloth round you and give yourselves to sorrow, you priests; give cries of grief, you servants of the altar: come in, and, clothed in haircloth, let the night go past, you servants of my God: for the meal offering and the drink offering have been kept back from the house of your God.

Then the chiefs of Israel and the king made themselves low and said, The Lord is upright.

I am the man who has seen trouble by the rod of his wrath. By him I have been made to go in the dark where there is no light. Truly against me his hand has been turned again and again all the day. read more.
My flesh and my skin have been used up by him and my bones broken. He has put up a wall against me, shutting me in with bitter sorrow. He has kept me in dark places, like those who have been long dead. He has put a wall round me, so that I am not able to go out; he has made great the weight of my chain. Even when I send up a cry for help, he keeps my prayer shut out. He has put up a wall of cut stones about my ways, he has made my roads twisted. He is like a bear waiting for me, like a lion in secret places. By him my ways have been turned on one side and I have been pulled in bits; he has made me waste. With his bow bent, he has made me the mark for his arrows. He has let loose his arrows into the inmost parts of my body. I have become the sport of all the peoples; I am their song all the day. He has made my life nothing but pain, he has given me the bitter root in full measure. By him my teeth have been broken with crushed stones, and I am bent low in the dust. My soul is sent far away from peace, I have no more memory of good. And I said, My strength is cut off, and my hope from the Lord. Keep in mind my trouble and my wandering, the bitter root and the poison. My soul still keeps the memory of them; and is bent down in me.

And the people of Nineveh had belief in God; and a time was fixed for going without food, and they put on haircloth, from the greatest to the least. And the word came to the king of Nineveh, and he got up from his seat of authority, and took off his robe, and covering himself with haircloth, took his seat in the dust.

But still, you have been in the right in everything which has come on us; you have been true to us, but we have done evil:

And after everything which has come on us because of our evil-doing and our great sin, and seeing that the punishment which you, O God, have given us, is less than the measure of our sins, and that you have kept from death those of us who are here;

And when David saw the angel who was causing the destruction of the people, he said to the Lord, Truly, the sin is mine; I have done wrong: but these are only sheep; what have they done? let your hand be against me and against my family.

And you are to say this word to them, Let my eyes be streaming with water night and day, and let it not be stopped; for the virgin daughter of my people is wounded with a great wound, with a very bitter blow.

Go up against her vines and make waste; let the destruction be complete: take away her branches, for they are not the Lord's.

See, the eyes of the Lord are on the evil kingdom, and I will put an end to it in all the earth; but I will not send complete destruction on Jacob, says the Lord.

See, I will send you a nation from far away, O people of Israel, says the Lord; a strong nation and an old nation, a nation whose language is strange to you, so that you may not get the sense of their words. Their arrows give certain death, they are all men of war. They will take all the produce of your fields, which would have been food for your sons and your daughters: they will take your flocks and your herds: they will take all your vines and your fig-trees: and with the sword they will make waste your walled towns in which you put your faith. read more.
But even in those days, says the Lord, I will not let your destruction be complete.

For this is what the Lord has said: All the land will become a waste; I will make destruction complete.

But they put shame on the servants of God, making sport of his words and laughing at his prophets, till the wrath of God was moved against his people, till there was no help.

Because your ears were shut to my voice; no one gave attention to my out-stretched hand; You were not controlled by my guiding, and would have nothing to do with my sharp words: So in the day of your trouble I will be laughing; I will make sport of your fear; read more.
When your fear comes on you like a storm, and your trouble like a rushing wind; when pain and sorrow come on you. Then I will give no answer to their cries; searching for me early, they will not see me: For they were haters of knowledge, and did not give their hearts to the fear of the Lord: They had no desire for my teaching, and my words of protest were as nothing to them. So the fruit of their way will be their food, and with the designs of their hearts they will be made full.

And I sent all my servants the prophets to you, getting up early and sending them, saying, Do not do this disgusting thing which is hated by me. But they gave no attention, and their ears were not open so that they might be turned from their evil-doing and from burning perfume to other gods. Because of this, my passion and my wrath were let loose, burning in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; and they are waste and unpeopled as at this day.

But he will do right in the cause of the poor, and give wise decisions for those in the land who are in need; and the rod of his mouth will come down on the cruel, and with the breath of his lips he will put an end to the evil-doer.

The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to take away the memory of them from the earth.

Is it not trouble for the sinner, and destruction for the evil-doers?

But sinners will be cut off from the land, and those whose acts are false will be uprooted.

The voice of the Lord is crying out to the town: Give ear, you tribes and the meeting of the town.

See now, I myself am he; there is no other god but me: giver of death and life, wounding and making well: and no one has power to make you free from my hand.

Increasing nations, and sending destruction on them; making wide the lands of peoples, and then giving them up.

If the horn is sounded in the town will the people not be full of fear? will evil come on a town if the Lord has not done it?

Now the people were saying evil against the Lord; and the Lord, hearing it, was angry and sent fire on them, burning the outer parts of the tent-circle.

Then the Lord sent poison-snakes among the people; and their bites were a cause of death to numbers of the people of Israel.

But twenty-four thousand of them had come to their death by the disease.

But while the meat was still between their teeth, before it was tasted, the wrath of the Lord was moved against the people and he sent a great outburst of disease on them. So that place was named Kibroth-hattaavah; because there they put in the earth the bodies of the people who had given way to their desires.

Because all these men, having seen my glory and the signs which I have done in Egypt and in the waste land, still have put me to the test ten times, and have not given ear to my voice; They will not see the land about which I made an oath to their fathers; not one of these by whom I have not been honoured will see it.

If only my head was a stream of waters and my eyes fountains of weeping, so that I might go on weeping day and night for the dead of the daughter of my people!

But if you do not give ear to it, my soul will be weeping in secret for your pride; my eye will be weeping bitterly, streaming with water, because the Lord's flock has been taken away as prisoners.

Rivers of water are running down from my eyes, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

If my people, on whom my name is named, make themselves low and come to me in prayer, searching for me and turning from their evil ways; then I will give ear from heaven, overlooking their sin, and will give life again to their land.

And he said, I myself will go with you and give you rest.

Go up to that land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, for you are a stiff-necked people, for fear that I send destruction on you while you are on the way. Hearing this bad news the people were full of grief, and no one put on his ornaments.

You may not go down on your faces before them or give them worship: for I, the Lord your God, am a God who will not give his honour to another; and I will send punishment on the children for the wrongdoing of their fathers, to the third and fourth generation of my haters;

For the Lord is a lover of righteousness, and takes care of his saints; they will be kept safe for ever; but the seed of the evil-doers will be cut off.

Our fathers were sinners and are dead; and the weight of their evil-doing is on us.

And I will put my glory among the nations, and all the nations will see my punishments which I have put into effect, and my hand which I have put on them.

For this time I will send all my punishments on yourself and on your servants and on your people; so that you may see that there is no other like me in all the earth. For if I had put the full weight of my hand on you and your people, you would have been cut off from the earth: But, for this very reason, I have kept you from destruction, to make clear to you my power, and so that my name may be honoured through all the earth.

So the Lord has been watching over this evil and has made it come on us: for the Lord our God is upright in all his acts which he has done, and we have not given ear to his voice.

And turning my face to the Lord God, I gave myself up to prayer, requesting his grace, going without food, in haircloth and dust.

But Moses made prayer to God, saying, Lord, why is your wrath burning against your people whom you took out of the land of Egypt, with great power and with the strength of your hand? Why let the Egyptians say, He took them out to an evil fate, to put them to death on the mountains, cutting them off from the earth? Let your wrath be turned away from them, and send not this evil on your people. Have in mind Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you gave your oath, saying, I will make your seed like the stars of heaven in number, and all this land will I give to your seed, as I said, to be their heritage for ever.

And the people made an outcry to Moses, and Moses made prayer to the Lord, and the fire was stopped.

But if you do not give ear to me, and do not keep all these my laws; And if you go against my rules and if you have hate in your souls for my decisions and you do not do all my orders, but go against my agreement; This will I do to you: I will put fear in your hearts, even wasting disease and burning pain, drying up the eyes and making the soul feeble, and you will get no profit from your seed, for your haters will take it for food.

But if you are turned away from me, and do not keep my orders and my laws which I have put before you, but go and make yourselves servants to other gods, giving them worship: Then I will have this people uprooted out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have made holy for my name, I will put away from before my eyes, and make it an example and a word of shame among all peoples.

And Joseph took care of his father and his brothers and all his father's people, giving them food for the needs of their families.

To keep their souls from death; and to keep them living in time of need.

They will not be shamed in the evil time, and in the days when all are in need of food they will have enough.

Then, after hearing these words, for some days I gave myself up to weeping and sorrow, seated on the earth; and taking no food I made prayer to the God of heaven,

And in every part of the kingdom, wherever the king's word and his order came, there was great sorrow among the Jews, and weeping and crying and going without food; and numbers of them were stretched on the earth covered with dust and haircloth.

And in that day the Lord, the Lord of armies, was looking for weeping, and cries of sorrow, cutting off of the hair, and putting on the clothing of grief:

But if you do not give ear to the voice of the Lord your God, and take care to do all his orders and his laws which I give you today, then all these curses will come on you and overtake you: You will be cursed in the town and cursed in the field. A curse will be on your basket and on your bread-basin. read more.
A curse will be on the fruit of your body, and on the fruit of your land, on the increase of your cattle, and the young of your flock. You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out. The Lord will send on you cursing and trouble and punishment in everything to which you put your hand, till sudden destruction overtakes you; because of your evil ways in which you have been false to me. The Lord will send disease after disease on you, till you have been cut off by death from the land to which you are going. The Lord will send wasting disease, and burning pain, and flaming heat against you, keeping back the rain till your land is waste and dead; so will it be till your destruction is complete. And the heaven over your heads will be brass, and the earth under you hard as iron. The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust, sending it down on you from heaven till your destruction is complete. The Lord will let you be overcome by your haters: you will go out against them one way, and you will go in flight before them seven ways: you will be the cause of fear among all the kingdoms of the earth. Your bodies will be meat for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth; there will be no one to send them away. The Lord will send on you the disease of Egypt, and other sorts of skin diseases which nothing will make well. He will make your minds diseased, and your eyes blind, and your hearts wasted with fear: You will go feeling your way when the sun is high, like a blind man for whom all is dark, and nothing will go well for you: you will be crushed and made poor for ever, and you will have no saviour. You will take a wife, but another man will have the use of her: the house which your hands have made will never be your resting-place: you will make a vine-garden, and never take the fruit of it. Your ox will be put to death before your eyes, but its flesh will not be your food: your ass will be violently taken away before your face, and will not be given back to you: your sheep will be given to your haters, and there will be no saviour for you. Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people, and your eyes will be wasted away with looking and weeping for them all the day: and you will have no power to do anything. The fruit of your land and all the work of your hands will be food for a nation which is strange to you and to your fathers; you will only be crushed down and kept under for ever: So that the things which your eyes have to see will send you out of your minds. The Lord will send a skin disease, attacking your knees and your legs, bursting out from your feet to the top of your head, so that nothing will make you well. And you, and the king whom you have put over you, will the Lord take away to a nation strange to you and to your fathers; there you will be servants to other gods of wood and stone. And you will become a wonder and a name of shame among all the nations where the Lord will take you. You will take much seed out into the field, and get little in; for the locust will get it. You will put in vines and take care of them, but you will get no wine or grapes from them; for they will be food for worms. Your land will be full of olive-trees, but there will be no oil for the comfort of your body; for your olive-tree will give no fruit. You will have sons and daughters, but they will not be yours; for they will go away prisoners into a strange land. All your trees and the fruit of your land will be the locust's. The man from a strange land who is living among you will be lifted up higher and higher over you, while you go down lower and lower. He will let you have his wealth at interest, and will have no need of yours: he will be the head and you the tail. And all these curses will come after you and overtake you, till your destruction is complete; because you did not give ear to the voice of the Lord your God, or keep his laws and his orders which he gave you: These things will come on you and on your seed, to be a sign and a wonder for ever; Because you did not give honour to the Lord your God, worshipping him gladly, with joy in your hearts on account of all your wealth of good things; For this cause you will become servants to those whom the Lord your God will send against you, without food and drink and clothing, and in need of all things: and he will put a yoke of iron on your neck till he has put an end to you. The Lord will send a nation against you from the farthest ends of the earth, coming with the flight of an eagle; a nation whose language is strange to you; A hard-faced nation, who will have no respect for the old or mercy for the young: He will take the fruit of your cattle and of your land till death puts an end to you: he will let you have nothing of your grain or wine or oil or any of the increase of your cattle or the young of your flock, till he has made your destruction complete. Your towns will be shut in by his armies, till your high walls, in which you put your faith, have come down: his armies will be round your towns, through all your land which the Lord your God has given you. And your food will be the fruit of your body, the flesh of the sons and daughters which the Lord your God has given you; because of your bitter need and the cruel grip of your haters. That man among you who is soft and used to comfort will be hard and cruel to his brother, and to his dear wife, and to of those his children who are still living; And will not give to any of them the flesh of his children which will be his food because he has no other; in the cruel grip of your haters on all your towns. The most soft and delicate of your women, who would not so much as put her foot on the earth, so delicate is she, will be hard-hearted to her husband and to her son and to her daughter; And to her baby newly come to birth, and to the children of her body; for having no other food, she will make a meal of them secretly, because of her bitter need and the cruel grip of your haters on all your towns. If you will not take care to do all the words of this law, recorded in this book, honouring that name of glory and of fear, THE LORD YOUR GOD; Then the Lord your God will make your punishment, and the punishment of your seed, a thing to be wondered at; great punishments and cruel diseases stretching on through long years. He will send on you again all the diseases of Egypt, which were a cause of fear to you, and they will take you in their grip. And all the diseases and the pains not recorded in the book of this law will the Lord send on you till your destruction is complete. And you will become a very small band, though your numbers were like the stars of heaven; because you did not give ear to the voice of the Lord your God. And as the Lord took delight in doing you good and increasing you, so the Lord will take pleasure in cutting you off and causing your destruction, and you will be uprooted from the land which you are about to take as your heritage. And the Lord will send you wandering among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other: there you will be servants to other gods, of wood and stone, gods of which you and your fathers had no knowledge. And even among these nations there will be no peace for you, and no rest for your feet: but the Lord will give you there a shaking heart and wasting eyes and weariness of soul: Your very life will be hanging in doubt before you, and day and night will be dark with fears, and nothing in life will be certain: In the morning you will say, If only it was evening! And at evening you will say, If only morning would come! Because of the fear in your hearts and the things which your eyes will see. And the Lord will take you back to Egypt again in ships, by the way of which I said to you, You will never see it again: there you will be offering yourselves as men-servants and women-servants to your haters for a price, and no man will take you.

But if you do not give ear to me, and do not keep all these my laws; And if you go against my rules and if you have hate in your souls for my decisions and you do not do all my orders, but go against my agreement; This will I do to you: I will put fear in your hearts, even wasting disease and burning pain, drying up the eyes and making the soul feeble, and you will get no profit from your seed, for your haters will take it for food. read more.
And my face will be turned from you, and you will be broken before those who are against you, and your haters will become your rulers, and you will go in flight when no man comes after you. And if, even after these things, you will not give ear to me, then I will send you punishment seven times more for your sins. And the pride of your strength will be broken, and I will make your heaven as iron and your earth as brass; And your strength will be used up without profit; for your land will not give her increase and the trees of the field will not give their fruit. And if you still go against me and will not give ear to me, I will put seven times more punishments on you because of your sins. I will let loose the beasts of the field among you, and they will take away your children and send destruction on your cattle, so that your numbers will become small and your roads become waste. And if by these things you will not be turned to me, but still go against me; Then I will go against you, and I will give you punishment, I myself, seven times for all your sins. And I will send a sword on you to give effect to the punishment of my agreement; and when you come together into your towns I will send disease among you and you will be given up into the hands of your haters. When I take away your bread of life, ten women will be cooking bread in one oven, and your bread will be measured out by weight; you will have food but never enough. And if, after all this, you do not give ear to me, but go against me still, Then my wrath will be burning against you, and I will give you punishment, I myself, seven times for your sins. Then you will take the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters for food; And I will send destruction on your high places, overturning your perfume altars, and will put your dead bodies on your broken images, and my soul will be turned from you in disgust. And I will make your towns waste and send destruction on your holy places; I will take no pleasure in the smell of your sweet perfumes; And I will make your land a waste, a wonder to your haters living in it. And I will send you out in all directions among the nations, and my sword will be uncovered against you, and your land will be without any living thing, and your towns will be made waste. Then will the land take pleasure in its Sabbaths while it is waste and you are living in the land of your haters; then will the land have rest. All the days while it is waste will the land have rest, such rest as it never had in your Sabbaths, when you were living in it. And as for the rest of you, I will make their hearts feeble in the land of their haters, and the sound of a leaf moved by the wind will send them in flight, and they will go in flight as from the sword, falling down when no one comes after them; Falling on one another, as before the sword, when no one comes after them; you will give way before your haters. And death will overtake you among strange nations, and the land of your haters will be your destruction. And those of you who are still living will be wasting away in their sins in the land of your haters; in the sins of their fathers they will be wasting away.

And the Lord saw with disgust the evil-doing of his sons and daughters. And he said, My face will be veiled from them, I will see what their end will be: for they are an uncontrolled generation, children in whom is no faith. They have given my honour to that which is not God, moving me to wrath with their false worship: I will give their honour to those who are not a people, moving them to wrath by a foolish nation, read more.
For my wrath is a flaming fire, burning to the deep parts of the underworld, burning up the earth with her increase, and firing the deep roots of the mountains. I will send a rain of troubles on them, my arrows will be showered on them. They will be wasted from need of food, and overcome by burning heat and bitter destruction; and the teeth of beasts I will send on them, with the poison of the worms of the dust. Outside they will be cut off by the sword, and in the inner rooms by fear; death will take the young man and the virgin, the baby at the breast and the grey-haired man. I said I would send them wandering far away, I would make all memory of them go from the minds of men: But for the fear that their haters, uplifted in their pride, might say, Our hand is strong, the Lord has not done all this. For they are a nation without wisdom; there is no sense in them. If only they were wise, if only this was clear to them, and they would give thought to their future! How would it be possible for one to overcome a thousand, and two to send ten thousand in flight, if their rock had not let them go, if the Lord had not given them up? For their rock is not like our Rock, even our haters themselves being judges. For their vine is the vine of Sodom, from the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are the grapes of evil, and the berries are bitter: Their wine is the poison of dragons, the cruel poison of snakes. Is not this among my secrets, kept safe in my store-house? Punishment is mine and reward, at the time of the slipping of their feet: for the day of their downfall is near, sudden will be their fate. For the Lord will be judge of his people, he will have pity for his servants; when he sees that their power is gone, there is no one, shut up or free. And he will say, Where are their gods, the rock in which they put their faith? Who took the fat of their offerings, and the wine of their drink offering? Let them now come to your help, let them be your salvation. See now, I myself am he; there is no other god but me: giver of death and life, wounding and making well: and no one has power to make you free from my hand. For lifting up my hand to heaven I say, By my unending life, If I make sharp my shining sword, and my hand is outstretched for judging, I will give punishment to those who are against me, and their right reward to my haters. I will make my arrows red with blood, my sword will be feasting on flesh, with the blood of the dead and the prisoners, of the long-haired heads of my haters. Be glad, O you his people, over the nations; for he will take payment for the blood of his servants, and will give punishment to his haters, and take away the sin of his land, for his people.

And David said to Joab and the captains of the people, Now let all Israel, from Beer-sheba to Dan, be numbered; and give me word so that I may be certain of their number.

Three years when there will not be enough food; or three months of war, when you will go in flight before your haters, being in great danger of the sword; or three days of the sword of the Lord, disease in the land, and the angel of the Lord taking destruction through all the land of Israel. Now give thought to the answer I am to take back to him who sent me.

If, at my word, heaven is shut up, so that there is no rain, or if I send locusts on the land for its destruction, or if I send disease on my people; If my people, on whom my name is named, make themselves low and come to me in prayer, searching for me and turning from their evil ways; then I will give ear from heaven, overlooking their sin, and will give life again to their land.

And when the children of Israel made prayer to the Lord, he gave them a saviour, Othniel, the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother. And the spirit of the Lord came on him and he became judge of Israel, and went out to war, and the Lord gave up Cushan-rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia, into his hands and he overcame him. Then for forty years the land had peace, till the death of Othniel, the son of Kenaz.

The Lord will have no mercy on him, but the wrath of the Lord will be burning against that man, and all the curses recorded in this book will be waiting for him, and the Lord will take away his name completely from the earth.

And as for the prophet and the priest and the people who say, A word of weight from the Lord! I will send punishment on that man and on his house.

All these were numbered by Moses and Eleazar the priest when the children of Israel were numbered in the lowlands of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho. But among all these was not one of those numbered by Moses and Aaron the priest when the children of Israel were numbered in the waste land of Sinai. For the Lord had said of them, Death will certainly overtake them in the waste land. And of them all, only Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, the son of Nun, were still living.

Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, How long am I to put up with this evil people and their outcries against me? The words which they say against me have come to my ears. Say to them, By my life, says the Lord, as certainly as your words have come to my ears, so certainly will I do this to you: read more.
Your dead bodies will be stretched out in this waste land; and of all your number, all those of twenty years old and over who have been crying out against me, Not one will come into the land which I gave my word you would have for your resting-place, but only Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, the son of Nun. And your little ones, whom you said would come into strange hands, I will take in, and they will see the land which you would not have. But as for you, your dead bodies will be stretched in this waste land. And your children will be wanderers in the waste land for forty years, undergoing punishment for your false ways, till your bodies become dust in the waste land. And as you went through the land viewing it for forty days, so for forty years, a year for every day, you will undergo punishment for your wrongdoing, and you will see that I am against you. I the Lord have said it, and this I will certainly do to all this evil people who have come together against me: in this waste land destruction will come on them, and death will be their fate. And the men whom Moses sent to see the land, and who, by the bad account they gave of the land, were the cause of the outcry the people made against Moses, Those same men who said evil of the land, came to their death by disease before the Lord. But Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, of those who went to see the land, were not touched by disease. And when Moses put these words before the children of Israel, the people were full of grief.

Thirty-eight years had gone by from the time when we came away from Kadesh-barnea till we went over the stream Zered; by that time all the generation of the men of war among us were dead, as the Lord had said. For the hand of the Lord was against them, working their destruction, till all were dead. So when death had overtaken all the men of war among the people, read more.
The word of the Lord came to me, saying,

And it will be clear to the nations that the children of Israel were taken away prisoners for their evil-doing; because they did wrong against me, and my face was covered from them: so I gave them up into the hands of their attackers, and they all came to their end by the sword.

You will have sons and daughters, but they will not be yours; for they will go away prisoners into a strange land.

You will take much seed out into the field, and get little in; for the locust will get it. You will put in vines and take care of them, but you will get no wine or grapes from them; for they will be food for worms. Your land will be full of olive-trees, but there will be no oil for the comfort of your body; for your olive-tree will give no fruit.

And I have kept back the rain from you, when it was still three months before the grain-cutting: I sent rain on one town and kept it back from another: one part was rained on, and the part where there was no rain became a waste. So two or three towns went wandering to one town looking for water, and did not get enough: and still you have not come back to me, says the Lord. I have sent destruction on your fields by burning and disease: the increase of your gardens and your vine-gardens, your fig-trees and your olive-trees, has been food for worms: and still you have not come back to me, says the Lord.

But I will be the judge of that nation whose servants they are, and they will come out from among them with great wealth.

You are my fighting axe and my instrument of war: with you the nations will be broken; with you kingdoms will be broken; With you the horse and the horseman will be broken; with you the war-carriage and he who goes in it will be broken;

For the Lord is coming out of his place to send punishment on the people of the earth for their evil-doing: the earth will let the blood drained out on her be seen, and will keep her dead covered no longer.

As for your unclean purpose: because I have been attempting to make you clean, but you have not been made clean from it, you will not be made clean till I have let loose my passion on you in full measure. I the Lord have said the word and I will do it; I will not go back or have mercy, and my purpose will not be changed; in the measure of your ways and of your evil doings you will be judged, says the Lord.

And I will give them the reward of their evil-doing and their sin twice over; because they have made my land unclean, and have made my heritage full of the bodies of their unholy and disgusting things.

Because they have given me up, burning offerings to other gods and moving me to wrath by all the work of their hands; so my wrath will be on fire against this place, and will not be put out.

And a man of God came to Eli and said to him, The Lord says, Did I let myself be seen by your father's people when they were in Egypt, servants in Pharaoh's house? Did I take him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest and to go up to my altar to make the smoke of the offerings go up and to take up the ephod? Did I give to your father's family all the offerings made by fire by the children of Israel? Why then are you looking with envy on my offerings of meat and of meal which were ordered by my word, honouring your sons before me, and making yourselves fat with all the best of the offerings of Israel, my people? read more.
For this reason the Lord God of Israel has said, Truly I did say that your family and your father's people would have their place before me for ever: but now the Lord says, Let it not be so; I will give honour to those by whom I am honoured, and those who have no respect for me will be of small value in my eyes. See, the days are coming when your arm and the arm of your father's people will be cut off; And never again will there be an old man in your family. But one man of your family will not be cut off by my hand, and his eyes will be made dark, and grief will be in his heart: and all the offspring of your family will come to their end by the sword of men. And this will be the sign to you, which will come on Hophni and Phinehas, your sons; death will overtake them on the same day. And I will make a true priest for myself, one who will do what is in my heart and in my mind: and I will make for him a family which will not come to an end; and his place will be before my holy one for ever. Then it will be that the rest of your family, anyone who has not been cut off, will go down on his knees to him for a bit of silver or a bit of bread, and say, Be pleased to put me into one of the priest's places so that I may have a little food.

So the Philistines went to the fight, and Israel was overcome, and every man went in flight to his tent: and great was the destruction, for thirty thousand footmen of Israel were put to the sword. And the ark of God was taken; and Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli, were put to the sword. And a man of Benjamin went running from the fight and came to Shiloh the same day with his clothing out of order and earth on his head. read more.
And when he came, Eli was seated by the wayside watching: and in his heart was fear for the ark of God. And when the man came into the town and gave the news, there was a great outcry. And Eli, hearing the noise and the cries, said, What is the reason of this outcry? And the man came quickly and gave the news to Eli. Now Eli was ninety-eight years old, and his eyes were fixed so that he was not able to see. And the man said to Eli, I have come from the army and have come in flight today from the fight. And he said, How did it go, my son? And the man said, Israel went in flight from the Philistines, and there has been great destruction among the people, and your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God has been taken. And at these words about the ark of God, Eli, falling back off his seat by the side of the doorway into the town, came down on the earth so that his neck was broken and death overtook him, for he was an old man and of great weight. He had been judging Israel for forty years. And his daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was with child and near the time when she would give birth; and when she had the news that the ark of God had been taken and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, her pains came on her suddenly and she gave birth. And when she was very near death the women who were with her said, Have no fear, for you have given birth to a son. But she made no answer and gave no attention to it. And she gave the child the name of Ichabod, saying, The glory has gone from Israel: because the ark of God was taken and because of her father-in-law and her husband. And she said, The glory is gone from Israel, for the ark of God has been taken.

The sinner will be full of trouble; but mercy will be round the man who has faith in the Lord.

For all this they went on sinning even more, and had no faith in his great wonders. So their days were wasted like a breath, and their years in trouble.

And in the heat of my wrath I will put you to death with the sword, so that your wives will be widows and your children without fathers.

I will make the purpose of Judah and Jerusalem come to nothing in this place; I will have them put to the sword by their haters, and by the hands of those who have designs on their life; and their dead bodies I will give to be food for the birds of heaven and the beasts of the earth.

Then the Lord sent poison-snakes among the people; and their bites were a cause of death to numbers of the people of Israel.

Your dead bodies will be stretched out in this waste land; and of all your number, all those of twenty years old and over who have been crying out against me,

For on that night I will go through the land of Egypt, sending death on every first male child, of man and of beast, and judging all the gods of Egypt: I am the Lord.

While the Egyptians were placing in the earth the bodies of their sons on whom the Lord had sent destruction: and their gods had been judged by him.

And the Lord said to Noah, Take all your family and go into the ark, for you only in this generation have I seen to be upright.

Male and female of all flesh went in, as God had said, and the ark was shut by the Lord.

And the Lord said, I will take away man, whom I have made, from the face of the earth, even man and beast and that which goes on the earth and every bird of the air; for I have sorrow for having made them.

For truly, I will send a great flow of waters over the earth, for the destruction from under the heaven of all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything on the earth will come to an end.

For a rod, or for a curse, or for mercy, causing it to come on the mark.

For I am with you, says the Lord, to be your saviour: for I will put an end to all the nations where I have sent you wandering, but I will not put an end to you completely: though with wise purpose I will put right your errors, and will not let you go quite without punishment.

Egypt will be a waste and Edom a land of destruction, because of the evil done to the children of Judah, because they have let blood be drained out in their land without cause.

Then they will be certain that I am the Lord, when I have made the land a waste and a cause of wonder, because of all the disgusting things which they have done,

And the land itself has become unclean; so that I have sent on it the reward of its wrongdoing, and the land itself puts out those who are living in it.

When the people of the land where you are going have been cut off before you by the Lord your God, and you have taken their land and are living in it; After their destruction take care that you do not go in their ways, and that you do not give thought to their gods, saying, How did these nations give worship to their gods? I will do as they did. Do not so to the Lord your God: for everything which is disgusting to the Lord and hated by him they have done in honour of their gods: even burning their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. read more.
You are to keep with care all the words I give you, making no addition to them and taking nothing from them.

God will give thought to me; he who from early times is strong will send pain and trouble on them. (Selah.) Because they are unchanged, they have no fear of God.

He has said in his heart, I will not be moved: through all generations I will never be in trouble.

The Lord will send disease after disease on you, till you have been cut off by death from the land to which you are going. The Lord will send wasting disease, and burning pain, and flaming heat against you, keeping back the rain till your land is waste and dead; so will it be till your destruction is complete.

I say to you, It is not so: but if your hearts are not changed, you will all come to the same end.

I say to you, It is not so: but if your hearts are not changed, you will all come to an end in the same way.

Let the priests, the servants of the Lord, be weeping between the covered way and the altar, and let them say, Have mercy on your people, O Lord, do not give up your heritage to shame, so that the nations become their rulers: why let them say among the peoples, Where is their God?

And it will be, that when you say all these words to the people, then they will say to you, Why has the Lord done all this evil against us? what is our wrongdoing and what is our sin which we have done against the Lord our God?

Now when all these things have come on you, the blessing and the curse which I have put before you, if the thought of them comes back to your minds, when you are living among the nations where the Lord your God has sent you, And your hearts are turned again to the Lord your God, and you give ear to his word which I give you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul: Then the Lord will have pity on you, changing your fate, and taking you back again from among all the nations where you have been forced to go.

He is the Lord our God: he is judge of all the earth.

Be glad, O you his people, over the nations; for he will take payment for the blood of his servants, and will give punishment to his haters, and take away the sin of his land, for his people.

The Lord will have no mercy on him, but the wrath of the Lord will be burning against that man, and all the curses recorded in this book will be waiting for him, and the Lord will take away his name completely from the earth.

If evil comes on us, the sword, or punishment, or disease, or need of food, we will come to this house and to you, (for your name is in this house,) crying to you in our trouble, and you will give us salvation in answer to our cry.

And Elisha went back to Gilgal, now there was very little food in the land; and the sons of the prophets were seated before him. And he said to his servant, Put the great pot on the fire, and make soup for the sons of the prophets. And one went out into the field to get green plants and saw a vine of the field, and pulling off the fruit of it till the fold of his robe was full, he came back and put the fruit, cut up small, into the pot of soup, having no idea what it was. Then they gave the men soup from the pot. And while they were drinking the soup, they gave a cry, and said, O man of God, there is death in the pot; and they were not able to take any more food. read more.
But he said, Get some meal. And he put it into the pot, and said, Now give it to the people so that they may have food. And there was nothing bad in the pot.

And now you are cursed from the earth, whose mouth is open to take your brother's blood from your hand; No longer will the earth give you her fruit as the reward of your work; you will be a wanderer in flight over the earth.

Whenever I say anything about uprooting a nation or a kingdom, and smashing it and sending destruction on it; If, in that very minute, that nation of which I was talking is turned away from its evil, my purpose of doing evil to them will be changed.

For to go against his orders is like the sin of those who make use of secret arts, and pride is like giving worship to images. Because you have put away from you the word of the Lord, he has put you from your place as king.

So Gad came to David, and gave him word of this and said to him, Are there to be three years when there is not enough food in your land? or will you go in flight from your haters for three months, while they go after you? or will you have three days of violent disease in your land? take thought and say what answer I am to give to him who sent me.

For this cause, all those who take you for their food will themselves become your food; and all your attackers, every one of them, will be taken prisoners; and those who send destruction on you will come to destruction; and all those who take away your goods by force will undergo the same themselves.

And God sent another trouble-maker, Rezon, the son of Eliada, who had gone in flight from his lord, Hadadezer, king of Zobah:

And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had twice come to him in a vision; And had given him orders about this very thing, that he was not to go after other gods; but he did not keep the orders of the Lord. So the Lord said to Solomon, Because you have done this, and have not kept my agreement and my laws, which I gave you, I will take the kingdom away from you by force and will give it to your servant. read more.
I will not do it in your life-time, because of your father David, but I will take it from your son. Still I will not take all the kingdom from him; but I will give one tribe to your son, because of my servant David, and because of Jerusalem, the town of my selection. So the Lord sent Hadad the Edomite to make trouble for Solomon: he was of the king's seed in Edom.

Now Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had given back to life, Go now, with all the people of your house, and get a living-place for yourselves wherever you are able; for by the word of the Lord, there will be great need of food in the land; and this will go on for seven years. So the woman got up and did as the man of God said; and she and the people of her house were living in the land of the Philistines for seven years.

And this will be the sign to you, which will come on Hophni and Phinehas, your sons; death will overtake them on the same day.

And the war-carriage was washed by the pool of Samaria, which was the bathing-place of the loose women, and the dogs were drinking his blood there, as the Lord had said.

Your dead bodies will be stretched out in this waste land; and of all your number, all those of twenty years old and over who have been crying out against me,

But the Lord sent destruction on seventy men of the people of Beth-shemesh for looking into the ark of the Lord; and great was the sorrow of the people for the destruction which the Lord had sent on them.

Then the Lord sent fire and flaming smoke raining down from heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah.

Go now and put Amalek to the sword, putting to the curse all they have, without mercy: put to death every man and woman, every child and baby at the breast, every ox and sheep, camel and ass.

Up! go now to Zarephath, in Zidon, and make your living-place there; I have given orders to a widow woman there to see that you have food.

God sent me before you to keep you and yours living on earth so that you might become a great nation.

Then the king, hearing the man of God crying out against the altar at Beth-el, put out his hand from the altar, saying, Take him prisoner. And his hand, stretched out against him, became dead, and he had no power of pulling it back.

And they went out to put her body into the earth, but nothing of her was to be seen, only the bones of her head, and her feet, and parts of her hands.

Because of what you have done, the disease of Naaman the leper will take you in its grip, and your seed after you, for ever. And he went out from before him a leper as white as snow.

Cursed be Canaan; let him be a servant of servants to his brothers.

And the wrath of the Lord, burning against Uzzah, sent destruction on him because he had put his hand on the ark, and death came to him there by the ark of God.

But the hand of the Lord was hard on the people of Ashdod and he sent disease on them through all the country of Ashdod.

And more than this, all the great men of Judah and the priests and the people made their sin great, turning to all the disgusting ways of the nations; and they made unclean the house of the Lord which he had made holy in Jerusalem. And the Lord, the God of their fathers, sent word to them by his servants, sending early and frequently, because he had pity on his people and on his living-place; But they put shame on the servants of God, making sport of his words and laughing at his prophets, till the wrath of God was moved against his people, till there was no help. read more.
So he sent against them the king of the Chaldaeans, who put their young men to death with the sword in the house of their holy place, and had no pity for any, young man or virgin, old man or white-haired: God gave them all into his hands. And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the stored wealth of the Lord's house and the wealth of the king and his chiefs, he took away to Babylon. And the house of God was burned and the wall of Jerusalem broken down; all its great houses were burned with fire and all its beautiful vessels given up to destruction. And all who had not come to death by the sword he took away prisoners to Babylon; and they became servants to him and to his sons till the kingdom of Persia came to power: So that the words of the Lord, which he said by the mouth of Jeremiah, might come true, till the land had had pleasure in her Sabbaths; for as long as she was waste the land kept the Sabbath, till seventy years were complete.

Then the prophet Jeremiah said to Hananiah the prophet, Give ear, now, Hananiah; the Lord has not sent you; but you are making this people put their faith in what is false. For this reason the Lord has said, See, I will send you away from off the face of the earth: this year death will overtake you, because you have said words against the Lord. So death came to Hananiah the prophet the same year, in the seventh month.

Say to him, The Lord says, Have you put a man to death and taken his heritage? Then say to him, The Lord says, In the place where dogs have been drinking the blood of Naboth, there will your blood become the drink of dogs. And Ahab said to Elijah, Have you come face to face with me, O my hater? And he said, I have come to you because you have given yourself up to do evil in the eyes of the Lord. See, I will send evil on you and put an end to you completely, cutting off from Ahab every male child, him who is shut up and him who goes free in Israel; read more.
And I will make your family like the family of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and like the family of Baasha, the son of Ahijah, because you have made me angry, and have made Israel do evil. And of Jezebel the Lord said, Jezebel will become food for dogs in the heritage of Jezreel. Any man of the family of Ahab who comes to his death in the town will become food for the dogs; and he who comes to his death in the open country will be food for the birds of the air.

And that night the angel of the Lord went out and put to death in the army of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand men; and when the people got up early in the morning, there was nothing to be seen but dead bodies. So Sennacherib, king of Assyria, went back to his place at Nineveh. And it came about, when he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer put him to death with the sword; and they went in flight into the land of Ararat. And Esar-haddon his son became king in his place.

And when Zimri saw that the town was taken, he went into the inner room of the king's house, and burning the house over his head, came to his end, Because of his sin in doing evil in the eyes of the Lord, in going in the way of Jeroboam and in his sin which he made Israel do.

While the word was still in the king's mouth, a voice came down from heaven, saying, O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is said: The kingdom has gone from you:

That very night Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldaeans, was put to death.

And Joshua said, Why have you been a cause of trouble to us? Today the Lord will send trouble on you. And all Israel took part in stoning him; they had him stoned to death and then burned with fire.

For this time I will send all my punishments on yourself and on your servants and on your people; so that you may see that there is no other like me in all the earth.

If you will not give ear and take it to heart, to give glory to my name, says the Lord of armies, then I will send the curse on you and will put a curse on your blessing: truly, even now I have put a curse on it, because you do not take it to heart.

In the night the desire of my soul has been for you; early will my spirit be searching for you; for when your punishments come on the earth, the people of the world will get the knowledge of righteousness.

Then a man of God came from Judah by the order of the Lord to Beth-el, where Jeroboam was by the altar, burning offerings. And by the order of the Lord he made an outcry against the altar, saying, O altar, altar, the Lord has said, From the seed of David will come a child, named Josiah, and on you he will put to death the priests of the high places, who are burning offerings on you, and men's bones will be burned on you. The same day he gave them a sign, saying, This is the sign which the Lord has given: See, the altar will be broken and the burned waste on it overturned. read more.
Then the king, hearing the man of God crying out against the altar at Beth-el, put out his hand from the altar, saying, Take him prisoner. And his hand, stretched out against him, became dead, and he had no power of pulling it back. And the altar was broken and the burned waste on it overturned; this was the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the Lord. Then the king made answer and said to the man of God, Make a prayer now for the grace of the Lord your God, and for me, that my hand may be made well. And in answer to the prayer of the man of God, the king's hand was made well again, as it was before. And the king said to the man of God, Come with me to my house for food and rest, and I will give you a reward. But the man of God said to the king, Even if you gave me half of all you have, I would not go in with you, and I would not take food or a drink of water in this place; For so I was ordered by the word of the Lord, who said, You are not to take food or a drink of water, and you are not to go back the way you came. So he went another way, and not by the way he came to Beth-el. Now there was an old prophet living in Beth-el; and one of his sons came and gave him word of all the man of God had done that day in Beth-el, and they gave their father an account of the words he had said to the king. Then their father said to them, Which way did he go? Now his sons had seen which way the man of God who came from Judah had gone. So the prophet said to his sons, Make ready an ass for me. So they made an ass ready, and he got on it, And went after the man of God, and came up with him while he was seated under an oak-tree. And he said to him, Are you the man of God who came from Judah? And he said, I am. Then he said to him, Come back to the house with me and have a meal. But he said, I may not go back with you or go into your house; and I will not take food or a drink of water with you in this place; For the Lord said to me, You are not to take food or water there, or go back again by the way you came. Then he said to him, I am a prophet like you; and an angel said to me by the word of the Lord, Take him back with you and give him food and water. But he said false words to him. So he went back with him, and had a meal in his house and a drink of water. But while they were seated at the table, the word of the Lord came to the prophet who had taken him back; And crying out to the man of God who came from Judah, he said, The Lord says, Because you have gone against the voice of the Lord, and have not done as you were ordered by the Lord, But have come back, and have taken food and water in this place where he said you were to take no food or water; your dead body will not be put to rest with your fathers. Now after the meal he made ready the ass for him, for the prophet whom he had taken back. And he went on his way; but on the road a lion came rushing at him and put him to death; and his dead body was stretched in the road with the ass by its side, and the lion was there by the body.

In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria, and took Israel away to Assyria, placing them in Halah and in Habor on the river Gozan, and in the towns of the Medes. And the wrath of the Lord came on Israel because they had done evil against the Lord their God, who took them out of the land of Egypt from under the yoke of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and had become worshippers of other gods, Living by the rules of the nations whom the Lord had sent out from before the children of Israel. read more.
And the children of Israel did secretly against the Lord their God things which were not right, building high places for themselves in all their towns, from the tower of the watchmen to the walled town. They put up pillars of stone and wood on every high hill and under every green tree: Burning their offerings in all the high places, as those nations did whom the Lord sent away from before them; they did evil things, moving the Lord to wrath; And they made themselves servants of disgusting things, though the Lord had said, You are not to do this. And he gave witness to Israel and Judah, by every prophet and seer, saying, Come back from your evil ways, and do my orders and keep my rules, and be guided by the law which I gave to your fathers and sent to you by my servants the prophets. And they did not give ear, but became stiff-necked, like their fathers who had no faith in the Lord their God. And they went against his rules, and the agreement which he made with their fathers, and his laws which he gave them; they gave themselves up to things without sense or value, and became foolish like the nations round them, of whom the Lord had said, Do not as they do. And turning their backs on all the orders which the Lord had given them, they made for themselves images of metal, and the image of Asherah, worshipping all the stars of heaven and becoming servants to Baal. And they made their sons and their daughters go through the fire, and they made use of secret arts and unnatural powers, and gave themselves up to doing evil in the eyes of the Lord, till he was moved to wrath. So the Lord was very angry with Israel, and his face was turned away from them: only the tribe of Judah kept its place. (But even Judah did not keep the orders of the Lord their God, but were guided by the rules which Israel had made. So the Lord would have nothing to do with all the offspring of Israel, and sent trouble on them, and gave them up into the hands of their attackers, till he had sent them away from before his face.) For Israel was broken off from the family of David, and they made Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, king, who, driving them away from the laws of the Lord, made them do a great sin. And the children of Israel went on with all the sins which Jeroboam did; they did not keep themselves from them; Till the Lord put Israel away from before his face, as he had said by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was taken away from their land to Assyria, to this day. Then the king of Assyria took men from Babylon and from Cuthah and Avva and Hamath and Sepharvaim, and put them in the towns of Samaria in place of the children of Israel; so they got Samaria for their heritage, living in its towns. Now when first they were living there they did not give worship to the Lord. So the Lord sent lions among them, causing the death of some of them. So they said to the king of Assyria, The nations whom you have taken as prisoners and put in the towns of Samaria, have no knowledge of the way of the god of the land: so he has sent lions among them, causing their death, because they have no knowledge of his way. Then the king of Assyria gave orders, saying, Send there one of the priests whom you took away, and let him be living there and teaching the people the way of the god of the land. So one of the priests whom they had taken away as a prisoner from Samaria came back, and, living in Beth-el, became their teacher in the worship of the Lord. And every nation made gods for themselves, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in the towns where they were living. The men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima, The Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites gave their children to be burned in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. So they went on worshipping the Lord, and made for themselves, from among all the people, priests for the high places, to make offerings for them in the houses of the high places. They gave worship to the Lord, but they gave honour to their gods like the nations did from whom they had been taken as prisoners. So to this day they go on in their old ways, not worshipping the Lord or keeping his orders or his ways or the law and the rule which the Lord gave to the children of Jacob, to whom he gave the name Israel; And the Lord made an agreement with them and gave them orders, saying, You are to have no other gods; you are not to give worship to them or be their servants or make them offerings: But the Lord, who took you out of the land of Egypt with his great power and his outstretched arm, he is your God, to whom you are to give worship and make offerings: And the rules and the orders and the law which he put in writing for you, you are to keep and do for ever; you are to have no other gods. And you are to keep in memory the agreement which I have made with you; and you are to have no other gods. And you are to give worship to the Lord your God; for it is he who will give you salvation from the hands of all who are against you. But they gave no attention, but went on in their old way. So these nations, worshipping the Lord, still were servants to the images they had made; their children and their children's children did the same; as their fathers did, so do they, to this day.

He will keep you safe from six troubles, and in seven no evil will come near you. When there is need of food he will keep you from death, and in war from the power of the sword.

The sun was up when Lot came to Zoar. Then the Lord sent fire and flaming smoke raining down from heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah. And he sent destruction on those towns, with all the lowland and all the people of those towns and every green thing in the land.

Go, say to Jeroboam, These are the words of the Lord, the God of Israel: Though I took you from among the people, lifting you up to be a ruler over my people Israel, And took the kingdom away by force from the seed of David and gave it to you, you have not been like my servant David, who kept my orders, and was true to me with all his heart, doing only what was right in my eyes. But you have done evil more than any before you, and have made for yourself other gods, and images of metal, moving me to wrath, and turning your back on me. read more.
So I will send evil on the line of Jeroboam, cutting off from his family every male child, those who are shut up and those who go free in Israel; the family of Jeroboam will be brushed away like a man brushing away waste till it is all gone. Those of the family of Jeroboam who come to death in the town, will become food for the dogs; and those on whom death comes in the open country, will be food for the birds of the air; for the Lord has said it. Up, then! go back to your house; and in the hour when your feet go into the town, the death of the child will take place. And all Israel will put his body to rest, weeping over him, because he only of the family of Jeroboam will be put into his resting-place in the earth; for of all the family of Jeroboam, in him only has the Lord, the God of Israel, seen some good. And the Lord will put up a king over Israel who will send destruction on the family of Jeroboam in that day; And even now the hand of the Lord has come down on Israel, shaking it like a river-grass in the water; and, uprooting Israel from this good land, which he gave to their fathers, he will send them this way and that on the other side of the River; because they have made for themselves images, moving the Lord to wrath.

And now, see, the hand of the Lord is on you, and you will be blind and not able to see the sun for a time. And straight away a dark mist came down on him; and he went about looking for a guide.

And straight away the angel of the Lord sent a disease on him, because he did not give the glory to God: and his flesh was wasted away by worms, and so he came to his end.

Ephraim is joined to false gods; let him be.

And the Lord God said to the snake, Because you have done this you are cursed more than all cattle and every beast of the field; you will go flat on the earth, and dust will be your food all the days of your life: And there will be war between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed: by him will your head be crushed and by you his foot will be wounded.

And Abimelech came to the tower and made an attack on it, and got near to the door of the tower for the purpose of firing it. But a certain woman sent a great stone, such as is used for crushing grain, on to the head of Abimelech, cracking the bone. Then quickly crying out to his body-servant, he said to him, Take out your sword and put an end to me straight away, so that men may not say of me, His death was the work of a woman. So the young man put his sword through him, causing his death. read more.
And when the men of Israel saw that Abimelech was dead, they went away, every man to his place. In this way Abimelech was rewarded by God for the evil he had done to his father in putting his seventy brothers to death; And God sent back on to the heads of the men of Shechem all the evil they had done, and the curse of Jotham, the son of Jerubbaal, came on them.

Now by the purpose of God, Ahaziah's journey to see Jehoram was the cause of his downfall: for when he came there, he went out with Jehoram against Jehu, the son of Nimshi, who had been marked out by the Lord for the destruction of the family of Ahab. Now when Jehu was effecting the punishment of the family of Ahab, he came to the princes of Judah and the sons of Ahaziah's brothers, the servants of Ahaziah, and put them to death. And he went in search of Ahaziah; and when they came where he was, (for he was in a secret place in Samaria,) they took him to Jehu and put him to death; then they put his body to rest in the earth, for they said, He is the son of Jehoshaphat, whose heart was true to the Lord. So the family of Ahaziah had no power to keep the kingdom.

Now Miriam and Aaron said evil against Moses, because of the Cushite woman to whom he was married, for he had taken a Cushite woman as his wife. And they said, Have the words of the Lord been given to Moses only? have they not come to us? And the Lord took note of it. Now the man Moses was more gentle than any other man on earth. read more.
And suddenly the Lord said to Moses and Aaron and Miriam, Come out, you three, to the Tent of meeting. And the three of them went out. And the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud, taking his place at the door of the Tent, and made Aaron and Miriam come before him. And he said, Now give ear to my words: if there is a prophet among you I will give him knowledge of myself in a vision and will let my words come to him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so; he is true to me in all my house: With him I will have talk mouth to mouth, openly and not in dark sayings; and with his eyes he will see the form of the Lord: why then had you no fear of saying evil against my servant Moses? And burning with wrath against them, the Lord went away. And the cloud was moved from over the Tent; and straight away Miriam became a leper, as white as snow: and Aaron, looking at Miriam, saw that she was a leper. Then Aaron said to Moses, O my lord, let not our sin be on our heads, for we have done foolishly and are sinners. Let her not be as one dead, whose flesh is half wasted when he comes out from the body of his mother. And Moses, crying to the Lord, said, Let my prayer come before you, O God, and make her well. And the Lord said to Moses, If her father had put a mark of shame on her, would she not be shamed for seven days? Let her be shut up outside the tent-circle for seven days, and after that she may come in again. So Miriam was shut up outside the tent-circle for seven days: and the people did not go forward on their journey till Miriam had come in again.

And to Adam he said, Because you gave ear to the voice of your wife and took of the fruit of the tree which I said you were not to take, the earth is cursed on your account; in pain you will get your food from it all your life. Thorns and waste plants will come up, and the plants of the field will be your food; With the hard work of your hands you will get your bread till you go back to the earth from which you were taken: for dust you are and to the dust you will go back.

And now you are cursed from the earth, whose mouth is open to take your brother's blood from your hand; No longer will the earth give you her fruit as the reward of your work; you will be a wanderer in flight over the earth. And Cain said, My punishment is greater than my strength. read more.
You have sent me out this day from the face of the earth and from before your face; I will be a wanderer in flight over the earth, and whoever sees me will put me to death. And the Lord said, Truly, if Cain is put to death, seven lives will be taken for his. And the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one might put him to death.

Say then to the children of Israel, I am Yahweh, and I will take you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians, and make you safe from their power, and will make you free by the strength of my arm after great punishments.

See, the days are coming, says the Lord God, when I will send times of great need on the land, not need of food or desire for water, but for hearing the words of the Lord.

And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their vessels and put fire in them and perfume, burning strange fire before the Lord, which he had not given them orders to do. And fire came out from before the Lord, burning them up and causing their destruction before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, This is what the Lord said, I will be holy in the eyes of all those who come near to me, and I will be honoured before all the people. And Aaron said nothing.

So the Lord sent against them the captains of the army of Assyria, who made Manasseh a prisoner and took him away in chains to Babylon.

Because of what you have done, the disease of Naaman the leper will take you in its grip, and your seed after you, for ever. And he went out from before him a leper as white as snow.

And the Lord sent punishment on the people because they gave worship to the ox which Aaron made.

And I will send men to Babylon to make her clean and get her land cleared: for in the day of trouble they will put up their tents against her on every side.

And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, Pharaoh's heart is unchanged; he will not let the people go.

And the wrath of the Lord, burning against Uzzah, sent destruction on him because he had put his hand on the ark, and death came to him there by the ark of God.

To the woman he said, Great will be your pain in childbirth; in sorrow will your children come to birth; still your desire will be for your husband, but he will be your master.

And the Lord said, I will take away man, whom I have made, from the face of the earth, even man and beast and that which goes on the earth and every bird of the air; for I have sorrow for having made them.