Then the king was delighted and gave an order to haul Daniel up from the den. So Daniel was hauled up out of the den. He had no injury of any kind, because he had trusted in his God.

The king gave another order, and those men who had maliciously accused Daniel were brought and thrown into the lions' den -- they, their children, and their wives. They did not even reach the bottom of the den before the lions overpowered them and crushed all their bones.

In the first year of King Belshazzar of Babylon, Daniel had a dream filled with visions while he was lying on his bed. Then he wrote down the dream in summary fashion.

"After these things, as I was watching, another beast like a leopard appeared, with four bird-like wings on its back. This beast had four heads, and ruling authority was given to it.

"After these things, as I was watching in the night visions a fourth beast appeared -- one dreadful, terrible, and very strong. It had two large rows of iron teeth. It devoured and crushed, and anything that was left it trampled with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that came before it, and it had ten horns.

"As I was contemplating the horns, another horn -- a small one -- came up between them, and three of the former horns were torn out by the roots to make room for it. This horn had eyes resembling human eyes and a mouth speaking arrogant things.

As for the rest of the beasts, their ruling authority had already been removed, though they were permitted to go on living for a time and a season.

I also wanted to know the meaning of the ten horns on its head, and of that other horn which came up and before which three others fell. This was the horn that had eyes and a mouth speaking arrogant things, whose appearance was more formidable than the others.

In the third year of King Belshazzar's reign, a vision appeared to me, Daniel, after the one that had appeared to me previously.

While I was contemplating all this, a male goat was coming from the west over the surface of all the land without touching the ground. This goat had a conspicuous horn between its eyes.

It came to the two-horned ram that I had seen standing beside the canal and rushed against it with raging strength.

I saw it approaching the ram. It went into a fit of rage against the ram and struck it and broke off its two horns. The ram had no ability to resist it. The goat hurled the ram to the ground and trampled it. No one could deliver the ram from its power.

The male goat acted even more arrogantly. But no sooner had the large horn become strong than it was broken, and there arose four conspicuous horns in its place, extending toward the four winds of the sky.

In the first year of Darius son of Ahasuerus, who was of Median descent and who had been appointed king over the Babylonian empire --

yes, while I was still praying, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen previously in a vision, was approaching me in my state of extreme weariness, around the time of the evening offering.

His body resembled yellow jasper, and his face had an appearance like lightning. His eyes were like blazing torches; his arms and feet had the gleam of polished bronze. His voice thundered forth like the sound of a large crowd.

When she had weaned 'No Pity' (Lo-Ruhamah) she conceived again and gave birth to another son.

Therefore, I will take back my grain during the harvest time and my new wine when it ripens; I will take away my wool and my flax which I had provided in order to clothe her.

Yet it was I who led Ephraim, I took them by the arm; but they did not acknowledge that I had healed them.

How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I surrender you, O Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? I have had a change of heart! All my tender compassions are aroused!

Then the Lord became zealous for his land; he had compassion on his people.

I will avenge their blood which I had not previously acquitted. It is the Lord who dwells in Zion!

"I sent against you a plague like one of the Egyptian plagues. I killed your young men with the sword, along with the horses you had captured. I made the stench from the corpses rise up into your nostrils. Still you did not come back to me." The Lord is speaking!

When they had completely consumed the earth's vegetation, I said, "Sovereign Lord, forgive Israel! How can Jacob survive? He is too weak!"

I will turn your festivals into funerals, and all your songs into funeral dirges. I will make everyone wear funeral clothes and cause every head to be shaved bald. I will make you mourn as if you had lost your only son; when it ends it will indeed have been a bitter day.

For just as you have drunk on my holy mountain, so all the nations will drink continually. They will drink, and they will gulp down; they will be as though they had never been.

But on Mount Zion there will be a remnant of those who escape, and it will be a holy place once again. The descendants of Jacob will conquer those who had conquered them.

The sailors were so afraid that each cried out to his own god and they flung the ship's cargo overboard to make the ship lighter. Jonah, meanwhile, had gone down into the hold below deck, had lain down, and was sound asleep.

Hearing this, the men became even more afraid and said to him, "What have you done?" (The men said this because they knew that he was trying to escape from the Lord, because he had previously told them.)

I thought I had been banished from your sight, that I would never again see your holy temple!

So Jonah went immediately to Nineveh, as the Lord had said. (Now Nineveh was an enormous city -- it required three days to walk through it!)

When God saw their actions -- they turned from their evil way of living! -- God relented concerning the judgment he had threatened them with and he did not destroy them.

Cush and Egypt had limitless strength; Put and the Libyans were among her allies.

I thought, 'Certainly you will respect me! Now you will accept correction!' If she had done so, her home would not be destroyed by all the punishments I have threatened. But they eagerly sinned in everything they did.

Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and the high priest Joshua son of Jehozadak, along with the whole remnant of the people, obeyed the Lord their God. They responded favorably to the message of the prophet Haggai, who spoke just as the Lord their God had instructed him, and the people began to respect the Lord.

The angelic messenger who had been speaking with me then returned and woke me, as a person is wakened from sleep.

After this the angelic messenger who had been speaking to me went out and said, "Look, see what is leaving."

Then I looked again and saw two women going forth with the wind in their wings (they had wings like those of a stork) and they lifted up the basket between the earth and the sky.

All these strong ones are scattering; they have sought permission to go and walk about over the earth." The Lord had said, "Go! Walk about over the earth!" So they are doing so.

Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-Melech and their companions to seek the Lord's favor

Indeed, they made their heart as hard as diamond, so that they could not obey the Torah and the other words the Lord who rules over all had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore, the Lord who rules over all had poured out great wrath.

"'It then came about that just as I cried out, but they would not obey, so they will cry out, but I will not listen,' the Lord Lord who rules over all had said.

Rather, I will sweep them away in a storm into all the nations they are not familiar with.' Thus the land had become desolate because of them, with no one crossing through or returning, for they had made the fruitful land a waste."

Before that time there was no compensation for man or animal, nor was there any relief from adversity for those who came and went, because I had pitted everybody -- each one -- against everyone else.

"For the Lord who rules over all says, 'As I had planned to hurt you when your fathers made me angry,' says the Lord who rules over all, 'and I was not sorry,

"I (says the Lord) will strengthen the kingdom of Judah and deliver the people of Joseph and will bring them back because of my compassion for them. They will be as though I had never rejected them, for I am the Lord their God and therefore I will hear them.

The Ephraimites will be like warriors and will rejoice as if they had drunk wine. Their children will see it and rejoice; they will celebrate in the things of the Lord.

Then I took my staff "Pleasantness" and cut it in two to annul my covenant that I had made with all the people.

When he had contemplated this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

Then Herod privately summoned the wise men and determined from them when the star had appeared.

After they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to look for the child to kill him."

When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he became enraged. He sent men to kill all the children in Bethlehem and throughout the surrounding region from the age of two and under, according to the time he had learned from the wise men.

After Herod had died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt

He came to a town called Nazareth and lived there. Then what had been spoken by the prophets was fulfilled, that Jesus would be called a Nazarene.

For he is the one about whom Isaiah the prophet had spoken: "The voice of one shouting in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make his paths straight.'"

Then the devil took him to the holy city, had him stand on the highest point of the temple,

Now when Jesus heard that John had been imprisoned, he went into Galilee.

So a report about him spread throughout Syria. People brought to him all who suffered with various illnesses and afflictions, those who had seizures, paralytics, and those possessed by demons, and he healed them.

The rain fell, the flood came, and the winds beat against that house, but it did not collapse because it had been founded on rock.

because he taught them like one who had authority, not like their experts in the law.

The herdsmen ran off, went into the town, and told everything that had happened to the demon-possessed men.

When the crowd saw this, they were afraid and honored God who had given such authority to men.

But a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak.

But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and gently took her by the hand, and the girl got up.

After the demon was cast out, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowds were amazed and said, "Never has anything like this been seen in Israel!"

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were bewildered and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

When Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in their towns.

Now when John heard in prison about the deeds Christ had done, he sent his disciples to ask a question:

The one who has ears had better listen!

Then Jesus began to criticize openly the cities in which he had done many of his miracles, because they did not repent.

"Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will be thrown down to Hades! For if the miracles done among you had been done in Sodom, it would have continued to this day.

If you had known what this means: 'I want mercy and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent.

A man was there who had a withered hand. And they asked Jesus, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?" so that they could accuse him.

He said to them, "Would not any one of you, if he had one sheep that fell into a pit on the Sabbath, take hold of it and lift it out?

To the one who had said this, Jesus replied, "Who is my mother and who are my brothers?"

The one who has ears had better listen!"

He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of flour until all the dough had risen."

Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. The one who has ears had better listen!

"The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure, hidden in a field, that a person found and hid. Then because of joy he went and sold all that he had and bought that field.

When he found a pearl of great value, he went out and sold everything he had and bought it.

For Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife,

because John had repeatedly told him, "It is not lawful for you to have her."

So he sent and had John beheaded in the prison.

As he got out he saw the large crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

After they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret.

Then they understood that he had not told them to be on guard against the yeast in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

He called a child, had him stand among them,

The lord had compassion on that slave and released him, and forgave him the debt.

When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were very upset and went and told their lord everything that had taken place.

So the disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them.

"What do you think? A man had two sons. He went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work in the vineyard today.'

The boy answered, 'I will not.' But later he had a change of heart and went.

He sent his slaves to summon those who had been invited to the banquet, but they would not come.

Then he said to his slaves, 'The wedding is ready, but the ones who had been invited were not worthy.

And he said to him, 'Friend, how did you get in here without wedding clothes?' But he had nothing to say.

Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children he left his wife to his brother.

In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had married her."

Now when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they assembled together.

And you say, 'If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have participated with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.'