So David went out to Baal-perazim and defeated the Philistines there. David observed, "Like an overwhelming flood, God has overwhelmed my enemies, using me to do it." That's why that place is called Baal-perazim.

"""Furthermore, I have remained with you everywhere you have gone, annihilating all your enemies right in front of you. I will make your reputation great, like the reputation of the great ones who have lived on earth.

"LORD, there is no one like you, and we have heard from no god other than you.

What other one nation on the earth is like your people Israel, God, which you have redeemed from slavery to become your own people, making a great name for yourself when you redeemed your people from Egypt. You did awesome miraculous deeds, driving out nations that stood in their way.

But Ornan replied to David, "Take it! Let your majesty the king do whatever seems like a good idea to him. Look here! I'm giving the oxen for burnt offerings, the threshing machinery for the wood, and the wheat for a grain offering. I'm giving all of it."

For we are aliens and vagrants in your presence, as were all of our ancestors. Our days on the earth pass away like shadows, and we have no hope.

It was a handbreadth thick, with its brim fashioned like the brim of a cup. Similar in shape to a lily blossom, it could hold 3,000 baths.

"LORD God of Israel, there is no one like you, God of heaven and earth, who watches over his covenant, showing gracious love to your servants who live their lives in your presence with all their hearts. It is you, LORD God, who has kept your promise to my father, your servant David, that you made to him. Indeed, you made a commitment to my father David and then personally fulfilled what you had promised today.

Now as for you, if you commune with me like your father did, doing everything that I have commanded you, including obeying my statutes and my legal decisions,

The king used the algum wood to have steps made for the LORD's Temple and for the royal palace, as well as lyres and harps for the choir, and nothing like that wood had been seen before in the territory of Judah.

Haven't you already driven away the LORD's priests, the descendants of Aaron and the descendants of Levi? Haven't you established your own priests like the people of other lands?

"Let's make a treaty between you and me," he said, "just like the one between my father and your father. Notice that I've sent you silver and gold to break your treaty with King Baasha of Israel, so he'll retreat from his attack on me."

"There is still one man left by whom we could ask the LORD what to do," the king of Israel replied to Jehoshaphat, "but I hate him because he won't prophesy anything good about me. Instead, he always prophesies evil. He is Imla's son Micaiah." But Jehoshaphat rebuked Ahab, "Kings should never talk like that."

All the other prophets were saying similar things, like "Go up to Ramoth-gilead and you will be successful, because the LORD will hand it over to the king!"

And so Micaiah replied: "I saw all of Israel scattered on the mountains like sheep without a shepherd. And the LORD told me, "These have no master, so let them each return to his own home in peace.'"

He lived like the kings of Israel, following the example of Ahab's dynasty, since he had married Ahab's daughter, and he practiced what the LORD considered to be evil.

"This is what the LORD God of your ancestor David says: "You haven't lived like your father Jehoshaphat and like King Asa of Judah. Instead, you have lived like the kings of Israel by causing Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit cultic sexual immorality just like Ahab's dynasty did! And you've killed your brothers who were better than you your own father's dynasty!

So he practiced what the LORD considered to be evil, just like Ahab's dynasty had done, because after his father died, he was given advice that resulted in his destruction.

Instead, he lived like the kings of Israel did. He cast metal images of Baal,

"Listen, you descendants of Israel! Come back to the LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, so he may come back to those of you who have escaped and survived from domination by the kings of Assyria. Don't be like your ancestors and your relatives, who weren't faithful to the LORD God of their ancestors, who, as a result, made them a desolate horror, as you well know.

So don't be stiff-necked like your ancestors were. Instead, submit to the LORD, enter his sanctuary that he has sanctified forever, and serve the LORD your God so that he'll stop being angry with you.

Even though a large crowd of people from as far away as Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun had not completed consecrating themselves, they still ate the Passover in a manner not proscribed by the Law, because Hezekiah had prayed like this for them: "May the good LORD extend a pardon on behalf of

There was great joy throughout Jerusalem, because nothing had happened like this in Jerusalem since the days of David's son Solomon, king of Israel.

Now therefore, don't let Hezekiah lie to you or mislead you like this. Don't believe him, because no god of any nation has been able to deliver his people from my control or from the control of my predecessors. So how much less will your God deliver you from me?'"

Sennacherib also wrote letters like this that insulted and slandered the LORD God of Israel: "Just as the gods of the nations in other lands haven't delivered their people from my control, so also the god of Hezekiah won't deliver his people from me!"

In doing so, they spoke about the God of Jerusalem as if he were like the gods of the nations of the earth that are made by the hands of human beings.

except that he never humbled himself to the LORD like his father Manasseh had done. In fact, Amon multiplied his own guilt

There had not been a Passover celebration like it in Israel since Samuel the prophet was alive, nor had any of the kings of Israel celebrated a Passover like Josiah did at that time with the priests, the descendants of Levi, everyone from Judah and Israel who were present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of the families with this message: "Let's build along with you, because, like you, we seek your God, as do you, and we've been making sacrifices to him since the reign of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, who brought us here."

The letter sent to him was written like this: To: King Darius: Greetings!

Now our bodies are no different than the bodies of our relatives, and our children are like their children. Nevertheless, we're about to force our sons and daughters into slavery, and some of our daughters are already in bondage. It's beyond our power to do anything about it, because our fields and vineyards belong to others."

So I called the priests and made them take an oath to fulfill this promise. I also shook my robes, and said, "May God shake out every man from his house and his possessions who does not keep this promise. May he be emptied out and shaken just like this." All the assembly said, "Amen!" and praised the LORD. And the people kept their promise.

But I asked him, "Should a man like me run? Should someone like me run into the Temple to save his life? I won't go there!"

"You multiplied their descendants like the stars in heaven and brought them to the land about which you told their ancestors to enter and possess.

Didn't Solomon, king of Israel, sin by doing these things, even though among many nations there was no king like him who was loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel? Even so, foreign women caused him to sin.

This seemed like a good idea to the king and his officials, so the king did what Memucan suggested.

Indeed, if you are silent at this time, relief and deliverance will come to the Jewish people from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. Who knows but that you were brought to the kingdom for a time like this?"

Then the LORD asked Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on earth. The man is blameless as well as upright. He fears God and keeps away from evil."

The LORD asked Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on earth. The man is blameless as well as upright. He fears God and keeps away from evil. He remains firm in his integrity, even though you have been urging me to overwhelm him without cause."

But he replied to her, "You're talking like foolish women do. Are we to accept what is good from God but not tragedy?" Throughout all of this, Job did not sin by what he said.

"Or why was I not buried like a stillborn child, like babies who never saw the light?

"As far as I'm concerned, my food comes to me in the form of sighs, and my cries of anguish pour out like water.

"Will you get offended if somebody tries to talk to you? Who can keep from speaking at a time like this?

how much less confidence does he have in those who dwell in houses of clay; who were formed from a foundation in dust and can perish like a moth?

You'll know that you'll have many children; and that your offspring will be like the grass of the earth.

You'll go to your grave at a ripe old age; like a stack of grain that's harvested at just the right time.

I cannot bring myself to touch them; food like this makes me sick."

But my brothers have acted treacherously like a cascading river, like torrential rivers that overflow.

"And now you're all just like them, aren't you? You see my terror and are terrified.

"Men have harsh servitude on earth, do they not? His days are like those of a hired laborer, are they not?

I'm like a servant who longs for the shade, like a hired laborer who is looking for his wages.

"How long will you keep talking like this? How long will you keep talking like a wind storm?

They pass by like a ship made of reeds, like an eagle swooping down on its prey.

He's not a man like me, so that I can answer him, or that we can enter into litigation with one another.

Otherwise, I would speak without being terrified of him, because I'm not like that inside myself."

""Please remember that you've made me like clay and you'll return me to dust.

Didn't you pour me out like milk and let me congeal like cheese?

But if I do lift up my head, you will hunt me like a lion! You will perform miracles in order to fight against me.

It's a gloomy land, like deepest darkness; where there's no order, and where even the brightness is like darkness.'"

You'll forget your suffering; you'll remember it like water that has evaporated.

Your life will be brighter than noonday. Even its darkness will be like dawn.

Like you, I also have understanding. I'm not inferior to you; who doesn't know things like this?"

They grope in the dark without light; he causes them to stagger around like a drunkard."

So I'm a man who wears out like something rotten, like a garment that has become moth-eaten."

He springs up like a flower and then withers. Like a shadow, he disappears and doesn't last.

Indeed, have you opened your eyes on one like this to bring me into a legal fight with you?

Look away from him and leave him alone, so he can enjoy his time, like a hired worker."

the presence of water will make it to bud so that it sprouts new branches like a young plant.

Water wears away stones; floods wash away topsoil from the land but you destroy the hope of human beings just like that!

that you turn your anger against God and speak words like this?

then how much less is one who is abhorred and corrupted, such as a man who drinks injustice like water?"

Distress and pressure terrify him; they overwhelm him, like a king poised for attack.

"He is like a vine that drops its unripe grapes; like an olive tree that loses its blossoms.

"I've heard many things like this. What miserable comforters you all are!

Will windy words like yours never end? What is upsetting you that you keep on arguing?

"I could also talk like you if only you were in my place! Then I would put together an argument against you. I would shake my head at you

Attack follows attack as he breaks through my defenses! He runs over me like a mighty warrior.

Why do you think we're like dumb animals? Do you think we're stupid?

Indeed, the residences of the wicked are like this; and so are the homes of those who don't know God."

He is breaking me down on every side, and now it's too late for me; he has uprooted my hopes like a tree.

Those who live in my house and my maidservants, too! treat me like a stranger; they think I'm a foreigner.

he'll perish forever, like his own excrement; those who saw him will ask, "Where is he?'

He'll vanish like a dream, and no one will find him; he will be chased away like a night vision."

They release their children to play like sheep; their young ones dance about,

May they become like a straw, blown away before the wind; like a chaff that's swept off by a storm.

Because he knows the road on which I travel, when he had tested me, I'll come out like gold.

"Look! Like wild donkeys in the wilderness, they work diligently as they seek wild game in the desert, food for them and their young ones.

The murderer rises at dawn to kill the poor and needy; at night, he is like a thief.

The womb will forget them. Maggots will find them to be a delicacy! They won't be remembered anymore, their iniquity will be cut to pieces like firewood.

They're exalted momentarily, but then they are gone; they are humbled, just like all the others. They are cut down like heads of corn.

"May my enemy be like the wicked; my adversary like the unjust.

"Though he hoards silver like dust, and stores away garments like clay,

"He has built his house like a moth's cocoon, like a temporary sunshade that a watchman makes.

Terror will overtake him like a flood, at night, a tornado will sweep him away.

like when I was in my prime and God trusted me with his secrets!

I put on righteousness like clothing; my just decisions were like a robe and a turban.

I set an example of the way to live, as a leader would; I lived like a king among his army; like one who comforts mourners."

They bray like donkeys among the bushes and huddle together under the desert weeds.

They come like those who breach through a wall; as everything crashes around me they'll roll on and on!

My greatest fears have overcome me; my honor is assaulted as though by a wind storm; my prosperity evaporates like a morning cloud."