"Indeed, if you diligently obey the LORD your God to carry out all his commands that I'm giving you today, then the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

"The LORD your God will make you the head and not the tail placing you above and not beneath if you obey the commands of the LORD your God that I'm giving you today to keep and observe.

Do not deviate from any of his commands that I'm giving you today neither to the right nor the left to follow and serve other gods."

"But if you don't obey the LORD your God and faithfully carry out all his commands and statutes that I'm giving you today, then all these curses will come upon you and overwhelm you:

Now, I'm not making this covenant and oath with you alone,

because when such a person hears the words of this oath, he will bless himself and say: "I will have a peaceful life, even though I'm determined to be stubborn.' By doing this he will be sweeping away both watered and parched ground alike.'

and when you you and your descendants, that is will have returned to him and obeyed all the commands that I'm giving you today with all your heart and soul,

"So now, return and obey the LORD your God and observe all his commands that I'm giving you today,

Indeed, these commands that I'm giving you today are neither confusing nor unattainable for you.

That's why I'm commanding you today to love the LORD your God by walking in his ways and by observing his commands, statutes, and ordinances, so that you may live long, increase, and so that the LORD your God may bless you in the land that you are about to enter to possess.

I'm declaring to you today that you will surely be destroyed. You won't live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan River to enter and possess.

because indeed I know your rebellion and stubbornness. Note that even while I'm still alive, you've been rebelling against the LORD how much more so after my death!

"I solemnly swear to heaven I say "As certainly as I'm alive and living forever,

"Ascend this Abarim mountain range toward Mount Nebo in the land of Moab across from Jericho, and look out over the land of Canaan that I'm about to give to the Israelis as a possession.

"My servant Moses is dead. Now get ready to cross the Jordan River you and all the people to the land that I'm giving the Israelis.

I'm giving you every place where the sole of your foot falls, just as I promised Moses.

"I'm really convinced that the LORD has given you the land," she said, "because we're overwhelmed with fear of you. All the other inhabitants of the land are demoralized at your presence,

Achan answered Joshua, "It's true. I'm the one who sinned against the LORD God of Israel.

"Look how the LORD has let me survive, as you can see, these 45 years since the time when the LORD said this through Moses, while Israel was wandering through the wilderness. And look! I'm here today my eighty-fifth birthday!

David thought to himself, "One of these days I'm going to be swept away by the hand of Saul! There is nothing better for me than to escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will despair of searching for me through all the territory of Israel and I will escape from his hand."

He asked me, 'Who are you?' I told him, 'I'm an Amalekite.'

David strapped on his sword over his fighting attire and tried to walk around, but he was not used to them. David said to Saul, "I can't walk in these things, for I'm not used to them." So David removed them.

So Saul's servants spoke these words privately to David. David replied, "Is becoming the king's son-in-law something insignificant to you? I'm just a poor and lightly-esteemed man!"

Lamech told his wives, "Adah and Zillah, listen to what I have to say: You wives of Lamech, hear what I'm announcing! I've killed a man for wounding me, a young man for bruising me.

So the LORD said, "I will annihilate these human beings whom I've created from the earth, including people, animals, crawling things, and flying creatures, because I'm grieving that I made them."

So God announced to Noah, "I've decided to destroy every living thing on earth, because it has become filled with violence due to them. Look! I'm about to annihilate them, along with the earth.

"For my part, I'm about to flood the earth with water and destroy every living thing that breathes. Everything on earth will die.

The woman conceived and then sent word to David saying, "I'm pregnant."

He asked Amnon, "Why are you, the king's son, so depressed every morning? Can't you tell me?" So Amnon said to him, "I'm in love with Tamar the sister of my brother Absalom."

She said to her father, "Don't let my lord be angry that I can't rise up before you; for I'm having my period." He searched, but didn't find the teraphim.

"Look here: today I'm going down the path that everyone on earth takes, and you know with all your hearts and souls that not a single word of all of the good things that the LORD your God spoke about you has failed to happen. Everything has been fulfilled about you not one of them has failed.

Therefore I'm now saying, "I won't expel them before you. Instead, they'll remain at your side, and their gods will ensnare you.'"

I'm also going to stop expelling any of the nations that remained after Joshua died.

"If you'll go with me, I'll go," Barak replied. "But if you won't go with me, then I'm not going."

He asked her, "Please give me some water to drink, because I'm thirsty." Instead, she opened a leather container of milk, gave him a drink, and then covered him up.

The man said to Eli, “I’m the one who came from the battle. I fled from there today.”

“What happened, my son?” Eli asked.

"Right"," Gideon responded. "Sir, how will I deliver Israel? Look my family is the weakest in Manasseh, and I'm the youngest in my father's household."

When he approached her, the woman asked, "Are you Joab?" He replied, "I am." She said to him, "Listen to the words of your servant." He said, "Go ahead. I'm listening."

then take a look at this wool fleece that I'm placing on the threshing floor. If dew appears only on the fleece and it's dry on the ground all around it then I'll know that you'll deliver Israel by my efforts like you've said."

Then the LORD told Gideon, "I'm going to deliver you with the 300 soldiers who lapped by giving the Midianites into your control. Send everyone else back to their own homes."

He told the men of Succoth, "Please give loaves of bread to the soldiers who are following behind me. They're tired, and I'm pursuing Zebah and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian."

So Gideon responded, "Okay then, but when the LORD has turned over Zebah and Zalmunna into my control, I'm going to whip you with thorns and briers from the desert!"

So he responded the same way to the men of Penuel, "When I come back safely, I'm going to tear down this tower."

Water flooded over my head,
and I thought: I’m going to die!

"Pay attention! I'm establishing my covenant with you and with your descendants after you,

God also said, "Here's the symbol that represents the covenant that I'm making between me and you and every living being with you, for all future generations:

The LORD told Abram, "You are to leave your land, your relatives, and your father's house and go to the land that I'm going to show you.

When he was about to enter Egypt, he told his wife Sarai, "Look, I'm aware that you're a beautiful woman.

because I'm going to give you and your descendants all of the land that you see forever!

Get up! Walk throughout the length and breadth of the land, because I'm going to give it to you."

Then shall he burn up the garment whether it be m the warp or the weft in wool or in flax, or any utensil of skin, wherein shall be the plague-spot, - for, a fretting leprosy, it is, in fire, shall it be burnt up.

Now an archer shot an arrow at random, and it struck the king of Israel between the plates of his armor. The king ordered his charioteer, "Turn around and take me from the battle line, because I'm wounded."

She said to her husband, "Look, I'm sure that the man who regularly passes through here is a very special prophet.

Elisha said to Gehazi, "Tell her, 'Look, you have treated us with such great respect. What can I do for you? Can I put in a good word for you with the king or the commander of the army?'" She replied, "I'm quite secure."

"Ask all the "lords" of Shechem, "What's better for you? That 70 men, each of them Jerubbaal's sons, rule over you? Or that one man rule over you?' Keep in mind that I'm like your own close relative."

Now you can see that the king is leading you. As for me, I’m old and gray, and my sons are here with you. I have led you from my youth until today.

She said, "As certainly as the Lord your God lives, I have no food, except for a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug. Right now I am gathering a couple of sticks for a fire. Then I'm going home to make one final meal for my son and myself. After we have eaten that, we will die of starvation."

His armor-bearer responded, “Do what is in your heart. You choose. I’m right here with you whatever you decide.”

while he went a day's journey into the desert. He went and sat down under a shrub and asked the Lord to take his life: "I've had enough! Now, O Lord, take my life. After all, I'm no better than my ancestors."

A while later during the wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife, bringing along a young goat, and told his father-in-law, "I'm going into my wife's room." But her father wouldn't give permission for him to go.

Samson replied to them, "Because you did this, I'm not going to stop until I get my revenge against you!"

Aferward, he became thirsty, called out to the LORD, and told him, "So, you provided this great deliverance at the hands of your servant, but now I'm to die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?"

Samson replied, "If I'm tied up with seven green cords that have never been dried out, then I'll become weak and just like any other human being."

Then Joab said, "I'm not going to wait like this with you." He took three darts in his hand, and thrust them through the heart of Absalom, while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak.

He told her, "If I'm tied up securely with new ropes that have never been used, then I'll become weak and just like any other human being."

So David told him, “Look, tomorrow is the New Moon, and I’m supposed to sit down and eat with the king. Instead, let me go, and I’ll hide in the field until the third night.

I will shoot three arrows beside it as if I’m aiming at a target.

He said to the young man, “Run and find the arrows I’m shooting.” As the young man ran, Jonathan shot an arrow beyond him.

David answered Ahimelech the priest, “The king gave me a mission, but he told me, ‘Don’t let anyone know anything about the mission I’m sending you on or what I have ordered you to do.’ I have stationed my young men at a certain place.

would you wait for them until they were grown? Would you refrain from marriage for them? No, my daughters! I'm more deeply grieved than you, because the LORD is working against me!"

Then Saul said, “Listen, son of Ahitub!”

“I’m at your service, my lord,” he said.

That very day the LORD made this covenant with Abram: "I'm giving this land to your descendants, from the river of Egypt to the great Euphrates River

When Abram was 99 years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and announced, "I am God Almighty. Live in constant awareness that I'm always with you, and be blameless.

I'm going to cause you to have many descendants, and I'll bring nations from you. Kings will come from you.

I'm establishing my covenant between me and you, and with your descendants who come after you, generation after generation, as an eternal covenant, to be your God and your descendants' God after you.

That's why Sarah laughed to herself, thinking, "After I'm so old and my husband is old, too, am I going to have sex?"

The LORD asked Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh and think, "Am I really going to bear a child, since I'm so old?'

"Should I hide from Abraham what I'm about to do," the LORD asked,

I'm going down to see whether they've acted according to the protests that have reached me. If not, I wish to know."

"Your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have shown me your gracious love in how you have dealt with me by keeping me alive. I cannot escape to the hills, because I'm afraid the disaster will overtake me, and I'll die.

Isaac addressed his father Abraham: "My father!" "I'm here, my son," Abraham replied. Isaac asked, "The fire and the wood are here, but where's the lamb for the burnt offering?"

At this she fell prostrate, bowing low to the ground, and asked him, "Why is it that you're showing me kindness by noticing me, since I'm a foreigner?"

He asked her, "Who are you?" She answered, "I'm only Ruth, your servant. Spread the edge of your garment over your servant, because you are my related redeemer."

It's true that I'm your related redeemer, but there is another related redeemer even closer than I.

"No, sir!" Hannah replied. "I'm a deeply troubled woman. I've drunk neither wine nor beer. I've been pouring out my soul in the LORD's presence.

Don't consider your maid servant a worthless woman. Rather, all this time I've been speaking because I'm very anxious and distressed."

Hannah said, "Sir, as surely as you are alive, I'm the woman who stood before you here praying to the LORD.

Now I'm dedicating him to the LORD, and as long as he lives, he will be dedicated to the LORD." Then they worshipped the LORD there.

"Why are you doing these things that I'm hearing about?" he asked his sons, "These reports about your evil deeds are coming from all these people!

No, my sons, I'm not hearing good news being circulated by the LORD's people.

"Look," the LORD told Samuel. "I'm about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears it tingle.

I've told him that I'm about to judge his family forever because of the iniquity that he knew about. His sons committed blasphemy and he did not rebuke them.

“Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?” Samuel asked Saul.

“I’m in serious trouble,” replied Saul. “The Philistines are fighting against me and God has turned away from me. He doesn’t answer me anymore, either through the prophets or in dreams. So I’ve called on you to tell me what I should do.”

Achish answered David, “I’m convinced that you are as reliable as the Angel of God. But the Philistine commanders have said, ‘He must not go into battle with us.’

Then David said to him, “Who do you belong to? Where are you from?”

“I’m an Egyptian, the slave of an Amalekite man,” he said. “My master abandoned me when I got sick three days ago.

When he turned around and saw me, he called out to me, so I answered: I’m at your service.

Samuel answered Saul: "I'm the seer. Go up ahead of me to the high place, and eat with me today. In the morning I'll send you away and tell you everything that is on your mind.

Saul told Jonathan, "Tell me what you've done." So Jonathan spoke to him: "I did taste a little honey from the end of the staff that was in my hand. Here I am; I'm ready to die!"

and then addressed Ephron so all the people of the land could hear him: "Please listen to me! I'm willing to pay the price of the field. Accept it from me, so I may bury my dead there."

as a promise to the LORD, the God of heaven and earth, that you won't acquire a wife for my son from the Canaanite women among whom I'm living.