Just as many were astonished and appalled at you, My people,
So His appearance was marred more than any man
And His form [marred] more than the sons of men.

I will not let you hear insults from the nations anymore, nor will you bear disgrace from the peoples any longer, nor will you cause your nation to stumble [through idolatry] any longer,” says the Lord God.’”

Why should you be stricken and punished again [since no change results from it]?
You [only] continue to rebel.
The whole head is sick
And the whole heart is faint and sick.

He may have him beaten forty times, but no more. He is not to be beaten with more stripes than these and he is not to be degraded [that is, treated like an animal] in your sight.

It will no longer be said of you [Judah], “Azubah (Abandoned),”
Nor will it any longer be said of your land, “Shemamah (Desolate)”;
But you will be called, “Hephzibah (My Delight is in Her),”
And your land, “Married”;
For the Lord delights in you,
And to Him your land will be married [owned and protected by the Lord].

“But where are your gods
Which you made for yourself?
Let them get up, if they can save you
In the time of your trouble!
For [as many as] the number of your cities
Are your gods, O Judah. [Why do not your many man-made idols run to help you?]

“Therefore, behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when it will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of Ben-hinnom, but the Valley of the Slaughter, for [in bloody warfare] they will bury [the dead] in Topheth until there is no more room.

Many, O Lord my God, are the wonderful works which You have done,
And Your thoughts toward us;
There is none to compare with You.
If I would declare and speak of your wonders,
They would be too many to count.

My tent is destroyed,
And all my [tent] cords are broken;
My children have been taken from me [as captives] and are no more.
There is no one to stretch out my tent again
And to set up my [tent] curtains.

For [as many as] the number of your cities are your gods, O Judah; and [as many as] the number of the streets of Jerusalem are the altars you have set up to the shameful thing, altars to burn incense to Baal.

“Behold (listen carefully), I will send for many fishermen,” says the Lord, “and they will fish for them; and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and out of the clefts of the rocks.

My enemies have trampled upon me all day long,
For they are many who fight proudly against me.

And each man will no longer teach his neighbor and his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me [through personal experience], from the least of them to the greatest,” says the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness, and I will no longer remember their sin.”

Those who hate me without cause are more than the hairs of my head;
Those who would destroy me are powerful, being my enemies wrongfully;
I am forced to restore what I did not steal.

But as for me, I will wait and hope continually,
And will praise You yet more and more.

And the hand of the sons of Israel pressed down heavier and heavier on Jabin king of Canaan, until they had destroyed him.

And I said, “This is my grief,
That the right hand of the Most High has changed [and His lovingkindness is withheld].”

And she has rebelled against My ordinances more wickedly than the [pagan] nations and against My statutes more than the countries that are around her; for Israel has rejected My ordinances and has not walked in My statutes.’

Therefore, thus says the Lord God, ‘Because you have more turmoil than the nations which surround you and have not walked in My statutes, nor kept My ordinances, nor observed the ordinances of the nations which surround you,’

so that the house of Israel may no longer drift away from Me and no longer defile themselves with all their transgressions, but they will be My people, and I will be their God,”’ says the Lord God.”

Then the Philistine commanders (princes) came out to battle, and it happened as often as they did, that David acted more wisely and had more success than all Saul’s servants. So his name was highly esteemed.

They will burn down your houses with fire and execute judgments on you in the sight of many women (Gentile nations). Then I will make you cease your prostitution, and you will no longer hire your lovers.

Also bear your disgrace [as punishment], having made judgment favorable for your sisters, for [you virtually absolved them] because of your sins in which you behaved more repulsively than they; they are more in the right than you. Yes, be ashamed and bear your disgrace, for you made your [pagan] sisters seem righteous.

“Now her sister Oholibah saw this, yet she was more corrupt in her lust than she, and her acts of prostitution were more [wanton] than the immoralities of her sister.

More than the sounds of many waters,
More than the mighty breakers of the sea,
The Lord on high is mighty.

So Joab blew the trumpet; and all the people halted and no longer pursued Israel, nor did they fight anymore.

I will appoint a place for My people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in a place of their own and not be disturbed again. The wicked will not afflict them again, as formerly,

“I will also destroy all its cattle from beside its great waters;
And the foot of man will not muddy them anymore
Nor will the hoofs of the animals muddy them.

therefore you will no longer devour people, and no longer bereave your nation of children,’ says the Lord God.

After many days you will be summoned [for service]; in the latter years you shall come into the land that is restored from [the ravages of] the sword, where people have been gathered out of many nations to the mountains of Israel, which had been a continual wasteland; but its people were brought out of the nations, and they are living securely, all of them.

Then he (the angel) said to me, “The north chambers and the south chambers, which are opposite the separate area, are the holy chambers where the priests who are close to the Lord shall eat the most holy offerings. There they shall place the most holy things—the grain offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering—for the place is holy.

Then the men of Israel answered the men of Judah, “We have ten [tribes’] shares in the king, and we have more claim on David than you. Why then did you treat us with contempt and ignore us [by rushing ahead]? Were we not the first to speak of bringing back our king?” But the words of the men of Judah were harsher than those of the men of Israel.

He will speak words against the Most High [God] and wear down the saints of the Most High, and he will intend to change the times and the law; and they will be given into his hand for a time, [two] times, and half a time [three and one-half years].

May the Lord give you [great] increase,
You and your children.

They who are wise and have spiritual insight among the people will instruct many and help them understand; yet for many days some [of them and their followers] will fall by the sword and by flame, by captivity and by plunder.

The more they multiplied [in numbers and increased in power], the more they sinned against Me;
I will change their glory into shame.

The more they [the prophets] called them [to repentance and obedience],
The more they went away from them;
They kept sacrificing to the Baals
And burning incense to the carved images.

And now they sin more and more,
And make for themselves molten images,
Idols skillfully made from their silver [as it pleased them],
All of them the work of the craftsmen.
They say of these [very works of their hands], “Let those who sacrifice kiss and show respect to the calves [as if they were living gods]!”

Therefore I love Your commandments more than gold,
Yes, more than refined gold.

My soul waits for the Lord
More than the watchmen for the morning;
More than the watchmen for the morning.

Then they said to him, “What should we do to you, so that the sea will become calm for us?”—for the sea was becoming more and more violent.

Nevertheless, the men rowed hard [breaking through the waves] to return to land, but they could not, because the sea became even more violent [surging higher] against them.

Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 [innocent] persons, who do not know the difference between their right and left hand [and are not yet accountable for sin], as well as many [blameless] animals?”

And He will judge between many peoples
And render decisions for strong and distant nations.
Then they shall hammer their swords into plowshares
And their spears into pruning hooks [so that the implements of war may become the tools of agriculture];
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
Nor shall they ever again train for war.

This is what the Lord says,

“Though they are at full strength and many in number,
Even so, they will be cut off and pass away.
Though I have afflicted you and caused you grief [O Jerusalem],
I will afflict you no longer.

But the path of the just (righteous) is like the light of dawn,
That shines brighter and brighter until [it reaches its full strength and glory in] the perfect day.

‘Through your messengers you have taunted and defied the Lord,
And have said [boastfully], “With my many chariots
I came up to the heights of the mountains,
To the remotest parts of Lebanon;
I cut down its tall cedar trees and its choicest cypress trees.
I entered its most distant lodging, its densest forest.

There is the one who [generously] scatters [abroad], and yet increases all the more;
And there is the one who withholds what is justly due, but it results only in want and poverty.

Then David took more wives at Jerusalem, and he became the father of more sons and daughters.

I will appoint a place for My people Israel, and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place and not be moved again [nor tremble with fear]; and the wicked will not waste (persecute) them anymore, as formerly,

The sons of Amram: Aaron and Moses. Aaron was set apart to consecrate him as most holy, he and his sons forever, to burn incense before the Lord, attend to His service, and to bless [worshipers] in His name forever.

If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, however many they may be, but his soul is not satisfied with good things and he is not respected and is not given a proper burial [he is not laid to rest in the sepulcher of his fathers], then I say, “Better the miscarriage than he,

Yes, if a man should live many years, let him rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many. All that is to come will be futility.

Further, he did not humble himself before the Lord as his father Manasseh [finally] had done, but Amon multiplied his guilt and his sin.

But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ households, the old men who had seen the first house (temple), wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, while many shouted aloud for joy,

(The Chorus)
“What is your beloved more than another beloved,
O most beautiful among women?
What is your beloved more than another beloved,
That you should so command us to take an oath?”

And He will judge between the nations,
And will mediate [disputes] for many peoples;
And they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not lift up the sword against nation,
And never again will they learn war.

I put my brother Hanani, with Hananiah the commander of the fortress, in charge of Jerusalem, for Hananiah was a more faithful and God-fearing man than many [of the others].

“Yet You were patient with them for many years,
And admonished them and warned them by Your Spirit through Your prophets;
Still they would not listen.
Therefore You gave them into the hand (power) of the peoples of the lands.

“As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols,
Whose carved images were greater and more feared than those of Jerusalem and Samaria,

Now the king loved Esther more than all the other women, and she found favor and kindness with him more than all the [other] virgins, so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen in the place of Vashti.

For Mordecai was great and respected in the king’s palace, and his fame spread throughout all the provinces; for the man Mordecai became greater and greater.

‘Can [mortal] man be just before God or be more righteous than He?
Can a man be pure before his Maker or be more cleansed than He?

Therefore a strong people will honor You;
Cities of terrible and violent nations will fear You.

“He will not return again to his house,
Nor will his place know about him anymore.

“The eye which saw him sees him no longer,
Neither does his [accustomed] place behold him any longer.

“Through your servants you have taunted and defied the Lord,
And you have said, ‘With my many chariots I have gone up to the heights of the mountains,
To the remotest parts of Lebanon.
I cut down its tallest cedars and its choicest cypress trees;
And I will go to its remotest height, its most luxuriant and thickest forest.

As a result of the anguish of His soul,
He shall see it and be satisfied;
By His knowledge [of what He has accomplished] the Righteous One,
My Servant, shall justify the many [making them righteous—upright before God, in right standing with Him],
For He shall bear [the responsibility for] their sins.

When the Lord your God blesses you as He has promised you, then you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow; and you will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you.

And the man [Isaac] became great and gained more and more until he became very wealthy and extremely distinguished;

But the more the Egyptians oppressed them, the more they multiplied and expanded, so that the Egyptians dreaded and were exasperated by the Israelites.

Now therefore, I pray you, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways so that I may know You [becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with You, recognizing and understanding Your ways more clearly] and that I may find grace and favor in Your sight. And consider also, that this nation is Your people.”

This shall be yours of the most holy things, [reserved] from the fire: every offering of the people, every grain offering and sin offering and guilt offering, which they shall render (give) to Me, shall be most holy for you and for your sons.

Then Balak again sent leaders, more numerous and [men who were] more distinguished than the first ones.