So Joab sent someone to Tekoa to bring a clever woman from there. He told her, “Pretend to be in mourning: dress in mourning clothes and don’t put on any oil. Act like a woman who has been mourning for the dead for a long time.

Go to the king and speak these words to him.” Then Joab told her exactly what to say.

The king told the woman, “Go home. I will issue a command on your behalf.”

The king asked, “Did Joab put you up to all this?”

The woman answered. “As you live, my lord the king, no one can turn to the right or left from all my lord the king says. Yes, your servant Joab is the one who gave orders to me; he told your servant exactly what to say.

Joab went to the king and told him. So David summoned Absalom, who came to the king and bowed down with his face to the ground before him. Then the king kissed Absalom.

The king replied, “Sons of Zeruiah, do we agree on anything? He curses me this way because the Lord told him, ‘Curse David!’ Therefore, who can say, ‘Why did you do that?’”

Then David said to Abishai and all his servants, “Look, my own son, my own flesh and blood, intends to take my life—how much more now this Benjaminite! Leave him alone and let him curse me; the Lord has told him to.

So Hushai came to Absalom, and Absalom told him: “Ahithophel offered this proposal. Should we carry out his proposal? If not, what do you say?”

Hushai then told the priests Zadok and Abiathar, “This is what Ahithophel advised Absalom and the elders of Israel, and this is what I advised.

After they had gone, Ahimaaz and Jonathan climbed out of the well and went and informed King David. They told him, “Get up and immediately ford the river, for Ahithophel has given this advice against you.”

He called out and told the king.

The king said, “If he’s alone, he bears good news.”

As the first runner came closer,

So the king got up and sat in the gate, and all the people were told: “Look, the king is sitting in the gate.” Then they all came into the king’s presence.

Meanwhile, each Israelite had fled to his tent.

So Gad went to David, told him the choices, and asked him, “Do you want three years of famine to come on your land, to flee from your foes three months while they pursue you, or to have a plague in your land three days? Now, think it over and decide what answer I should take back to the One who sent me.”

It was reported to King Solomon: “Joab has fled to the Lord’s tabernacle and is now beside the altar.” Then Solomon sent Benaiah son of Jehoiada and told him, “Go and strike him down!”

But I didn’t believe the reports until I came and saw with my own eyes. Indeed, I was not even told half. Your wisdom and prosperity far exceed the report I heard.

from the nations that the Lord had told the Israelites about, “Do not intermarry with them, and they must not intermarry with you, because they will turn you away from Me to their gods.” Solomon was deeply attached to these women and loved them.

Then the young men who had grown up with him told him, “This is what you should say to these people who said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you, make it lighter on us!’ This is what you should tell them: ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins!

‘This is what the Lord says: You are not to march up and fight against your brothers, the Israelites. Each of you must return home, for I have done this.’”

So they listened to what the Lord said and went back as He had told them.

Now a certain old prophet was living in Bethel. His son came and told him all the deeds that the man of God had done that day in Bethel. His sons also told their father the words that he had spoken to the king.

Jeroboam said to his wife, “Go disguise yourself, so they won’t know that you’re Jeroboam’s wife, and go to Shiloh. Ahijah the prophet is there; it was he who told about me becoming king over this people.

Ahab told Jezebel everything that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.

Then he lay down and slept under the broom tree.

Suddenly, an angel touched him. The angel told him, “Get up and eat.”

He told him, “Because you did not listen to the voice of the Lord, mark my words: When you leave me, a lion will kill you.” When he left him, a lion attacked and killed him.

So Ahab went to his palace resentful and angry because of what Naboth the Jezreelite had told him. He had said, “I will not give you my fathers’ inheritance.” He lay down on his bed, turned his face away, and didn’t eat any food.

“Because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite,” he replied. “I told him: Give me your vineyard for silver, or if you wish, I will give you a vineyard in its place. But he said, ‘I won’t give you my vineyard!’”

So he went to the king, and the king asked him, “Micaiah, should we go to Ramoth-gilead for war, or should we refrain?”

Micaiah told him, “March up and succeed. Yahweh will hand it over to the king.”

She went and told the man of God, and he said, “Go sell the oil and pay your debt; you and your sons can live on the rest.”

Suddenly he complained to his father, “My head! My head!”

His father told his servant, “Carry him to his mother.”

When she came up to the man of God at the mountain, she clung to his feet. Gehazi came to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone—she is in severe anguish, and the Lord has hidden it from me. He hasn’t told me.”

Gehazi went ahead of them and placed the staff on the boy’s face, but there was no sound or sign of life, so he went back to meet Elisha and told him, “The boy didn’t wake up.”

So Naaman went and told his master what the girl from the land of Israel had said.

But his servants approached and said to him, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more should you do it when he tells you, ‘Wash and be clean’?”

Consequently, the king of Israel sent word to the place the man of God had told him about. The man of God repeatedly warned the king, so the king would be on his guard.

So the king said, “Go and see where he is, so I can send men to capture him.”

When he was told, “Elisha is in Dothan,”

The diseased men went and called to the city’s gatekeepers and told them, “We went to the Aramean camp and no one was there—no human sounds. There was nothing but tethered horses and donkeys, and the tents were intact.”

So they followed them as far as the Jordan. They saw that the whole way was littered with clothes and equipment the Arameans had thrown off in their haste. The messengers returned and told the king.

When the king asked the woman, she told him the story. So the king appointed a court official for her, saying, “Restore all that was hers, along with all the income from the field from the day she left the country until now.”

Elisha came to Damascus while Ben-hadad king of Aram was sick, and the king was told, “The man of God has come here.”

Elisha told him, “Go say to him, ‘You are sure to recover.’ But the Lord has shown me that he is sure to die.”

Hazael left Elisha and went to his master, who asked him, “What did Elisha say to you?”

He responded, “He told me you are sure to recover.”

So they went back and told him, and he said, “This fulfills the Lord’s word that He spoke through His servant Elijah the Tishbite: ‘In the plot of land at Jezreel, the dogs will eat Jezebel’s flesh.

When the messenger came and told him, “They have brought the heads of the king’s sons,” the king said, “Pile them in two heaps at the entrance of the gate until morning.”

They served idols, although the Lord had told them, “You must not do this.”

Hilkiah the high priest told Shaphan the court secretary, “I have found the book of the law in the Lord’s temple,” and he gave the book to Shaphan, who read it.

Then Shaphan the court secretary told the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book,” and Shaphan read it in the presence of the king.

Then he said, “What is this monument I see?”

The men of the city told him, “It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things that you have done to the altar at Bethel.”

Issachar’s sons: Tola, Puah, Jashub, and Shimron—four.

Tola’s sons: Uzzi, Rephaiah, Jeriel, Jahmai, Ibsam, and Shemuel, the heads of their ancestral houses. During David’s reign, 22,600 descendants of Tola were recorded as warriors in their genealogies.

Then David told the leaders of the Levites to appoint their relatives as singers and to have them raise their voices with joy accompanied by musical instruments—harps, lyres, and cymbals.

So Nathan told David, “Do all that is on your heart, for God is with you.”

But I didn’t believe their reports until I came and saw with my own eyes. Indeed, I was not even told half of your great wisdom! You far exceed the report I heard.

Then the young men who had grown up with him told him, “This is what you should say to the people who said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you, make it lighter on us!’ This is what you should say to them: ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins.

He told the people of Judah to seek the Lord God of their ancestors and to carry out the instruction and the commands.

People came and told Jehoshaphat, “A vast number from beyond the Dead Sea and from Edom has come to fight against you; they are already in Hazazon-tamar” (that is, En-gedi).

They brought seven bulls, seven rams, seven lambs, and seven male goats as a sin offering for the kingdom, for the sanctuary, and for Judah. Then he told the descendants of Aaron, the priests, to offer them on the altar of the Lord.

Then King Hezekiah and the officials told the Levites to sing praise to the Lord in the words of David and of Asaph the seer. So they sang praises with rejoicing and bowed down and worshiped.

He told the people who lived in Jerusalem to give a contribution for the priests and Levites so that they could devote their energy to the law of the Lord.

Hezekiah told them to prepare chambers in the Lord’s temple, and they prepared them.

He built the altar of the Lord and offered fellowship and thank offerings on it. Then he told Judah to serve Yahweh, the God of Israel.

Consequently, Hilkiah told Shaphan the court secretary, “I have found the book of the law in the Lord’s temple,” and he gave the book to Shaphan.

Then Shaphan the court secretary told the king, “Hilkiah the priest gave me a book,” and Shaphan read from it in the presence of the king.

But Neco sent messengers to him, saying, “What is the issue between you and me, king of Judah? I have not come against you today but I am fighting another dynasty. God told me to hurry. Stop opposing God who is with me; don’t make Him destroy you!”

Cyrus told him, “Take these articles, put them in the temple in Jerusalem, and let the house of God be rebuilt on its original site.”

I did this because I was ashamed to ask the king for infantry and cavalry to protect us from enemies during the journey, since we had told him, “The hand of our God is gracious to all who seek Him, but His great anger is against all who abandon Him.”

The officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing, for I had not yet told the Jews, priests, nobles, officials, or the rest of those who would be doing the work.

I told them how the gracious hand of my God had been on me, and what the king had said to me.

They said, “Let’s start rebuilding,” and they were encouraged to do this good work.

You provided bread from heaven for their hunger;
You brought them water from the rock for their thirst.
You told them to go in and possess the land
You had sworn to give them.

You multiplied their descendants
like the stars of heaven
and brought them to the land
You told their ancestors to go in and take possession of it.

When Mordecai learned of the plot, he reported it to Queen Esther, and she told the king on Mordecai’s behalf.

When they had warned him day after day and he still would not listen to them, they told Haman to see if Mordecai’s actions would be tolerated, since he had told them he was a Jew.

Then the king told Haman, “The money and people are given to you to do with as you see fit.”

Mordecai told him everything that had happened as well as the exact amount of money Haman had promised to pay the royal treasury for the slaughter of the Jews.

Mordecai told the messenger to reply to Esther, “Don’t think that you will escape the fate of all the Jews because you are in the king’s palace.

Then Haman described for them his glorious wealth and his many sons. He told them all how the king had honored him and promoted him in rank over the other officials and the royal staff.

His wife Zeresh and all his friends told him, “Have them build a gallows 75 feet high. Ask the king in the morning to hang Mordecai on it. Then go to the banquet with the king and enjoy yourself.” The advice pleased Haman, so he had the gallows constructed.

Haman told the king, “For the man the king wants to honor:

The king told Haman, “Hurry, and do just as you proposed. Take a garment and a horse for Mordecai the Jew, who is sitting at the King’s Gate. Do not leave out anything you have suggested.”

Haman told his wife Zeresh and all his friends everything that had happened. His advisers and his wife Zeresh said to him, “Since Mordecai is Jewish, and you have begun to fall before him, you won’t overcome him, because your downfall is certain.”

“Very well,” the Lord told Satan, “everything he owns is in your power. However, you must not lay a hand on Job himself.” So Satan left the Lord’s presence.

“Very well,” the Lord told Satan, “he is in your power; only spare his life.”

“You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” he told her. “Should we accept only good from God and not adversity?” Throughout all this Job did not sin in what he said.

Should He be told that I want to speak?
Can a man speak when he is confused?

Then Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite went and did as the Lord had told them, and the Lord accepted Job’s prayer.

Their descendants will serve Him;
the next generation will be told about the Lord.

Lord my God, You have done many things—
Your wonderful works and Your plans for us;
none can compare with You.
If I were to report and speak of them,
they are more than can be told.

For the choir director. A Maskil of the sons of Korah.God, we have heard with our ears—
our ancestors have told us—
the work You accomplished in their days,
in days long ago:

I told You about my life,
and You listened to me;
teach me Your statutes.

Who told about this from the beginning,
so that we might know,
and from times past,
so that we might say: He is right?
No one announced it,
no one told it,
no one heard your words.

Do not be startled or afraid.
Have I not told you and declared it long ago?
You are my witnesses!
Is there any God but Me?
There is no other Rock; I do not know any.

so He will sprinkle many nations.
Kings will shut their mouths because of Him,
For they will see what had not been told them,
and they will understand what they had not heard.

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Then the Lord reached out His hand, touched my mouth, and told me:

I have now filled your mouth with My words.

But if you say, ‘The burden of the Lord,’ then this is what the Lord says: Because you have said, ‘The burden of the Lord,’ and I specifically told you not to say, ‘The burden of the Lord,’

Then the officials and all the people told the priests and prophets, “This man doesn’t deserve the death sentence, for he has spoken to us in the name of Yahweh our God!”

For I have told you today, but you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord your God in everything He has sent me to tell you.

Jeremiah told Seraiah, “When you get to Babylon, see that you read all these words aloud.

Then the Spirit of the Lord came on me, and He told me, “You are to say: This is what the Lord says: That is what you are thinking, house of Israel; and I know the thoughts that arise in your mind.

The altar was made of wood, 5¼ feet high and 3½ feet long. It had corners, and its length and sides were of wood. The man told me, “This is the table that stands before the Lord.”

Then Daniel went to his house and told his friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah about the matter,

You saw a stone break off from the mountain without a hand touching it, and it crushed the iron, bronze, fired clay, silver, and gold. The great God has told the king what will happen in the future. The dream is true, and its interpretation certain.”

When the diviner-priests, mediums, Chaldeans, and astrologers came in, I told them the dream, but they could not make its interpretation known to me.