When you cultivate the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength [it will resist producing good crops] for you; you shall be a fugitive and a vagabond [roaming aimlessly] on the earth [in perpetual exile without a home, a degraded outcast].”

Adah gave birth to Jabal; he became the father of those [nomadic herdsmen] who live in tents and have cattle and raise livestock.

So Abimelech said, “Behold, my land is before you; settle wherever you please.”

and said, “Whose daughter are you? Please tell me, is there room in your father’s house for us to lodge?”

My master made me swear [an oath], saying, ‘You must not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land I live;

So now, my son, listen and do what I say; go, escape to my brother Laban in Haran!

Demand of me a very large bridal payment and gift [as compensation for giving up your daughter and sister], and I will give you whatever you tell me; only give me the girl to be my wife.”

Then the Hebrew foremen came to Pharaoh and cried, “Why do you deal like this with your servants?

If you make an altar of stone for Me, you shall not build it of cut stones, for if you use a chisel on it, you will profane it.

then the priest shall look, and if the bright spots on the skin of their bodies is a dull white, it is [only] a rash that has broken out on the skin; he is clean.

“Then you shall say to them, ‘Any man from the house of Israel or any of the strangers living temporarily among you, who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice

‘Any man from the house of Israel, or any stranger living temporarily among you, who eats any blood, against that person I shall set My face and I will cut him off from his people [excluding him from the atonement made for them].

but he is to be with you as a hired man, as if he were a temporary resident; he shall serve with you until the Year of Jubilee,

I will make the land desolate, and your enemies who settle in it will be appalled at it.

You shall send away both male and female; you shall send them outside the camp so that they will not defile their camp where I dwell in their midst.”

So if this is the way You are going to deal with me, please kill me at once, if I have found favor in your sight, and do not let me see my wretchedness.”

See what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many,

But the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified (walled) and very large; moreover, we saw there the descendants of Anak [people of great stature and courage].

Except for Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun, not one of you shall enter the land in which I swore [an oath] to settle you.

For I will give you a very great honor and I will do whatever you tell me; so please come, curse these people [of Israel] for me.’”

God came to Balaam at night and said to him, “If the men have come to call you, get up and go with them, but you shall still do only what I tell you.”

The Angel of the Lord said to Balaam, “Go with the men, but you shall speak only what I tell you.” So Balaam went along with the leaders of Balak.

But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those you let remain of them will be like pricks in your eyes and like thorns in your sides, and they will attack you in the land in which you live.

You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I live, for I, the Lord, live among the people of Israel.’”

just as He did for the sons of Esau, who live in Seir, when He destroyed the Horites from before them; and the sons of Esau (the Edomites) dispossessed them and settled in their place [and remain there] even to this day.

just as the sons of Esau, who live in Seir, and the Moabites, who live in Ar, did for me, until I cross the Jordan into the land which the Lord our God is giving us.’

But this is how you shall deal with them: you shall tear down their altars and smash to pieces their sacred pillars, and cut down their Asherim (symbols of the goddess Asherah), and burn their carved or sculpted images in the fire.

When you cross the Jordan and live in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and He gives you rest from all your enemies around you so that you live in security,

“So all these curses will come on you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He has commanded you.

But if you tell [anyone] this business of ours, we shall be blameless and free from the oath which you made us swear.”

But Joshua commanded the people, “You shall not shout [the battle cry] nor let your voice be heard nor let a word come out of your mouth, until the day I tell you to shout. Then you shall shout!”

Joshua called the [Hivite] men and said, “Why did you deceive us, saying, ‘We live very far away from you,’ when [in fact] you live among us?

So the men of Gibeon sent word to Joshua at the camp in Gilgal, saying, “Do not abandon your servants; come up to us quickly and save us and help us, for all [five of] the kings of the Amorites who live in the hill country have assembled against us.”

The sons of Joseph said, “The hill country is not enough for us, and all the Canaanites who live in the valley have iron chariots, both those who are in Beth-shean and its towns and those in the Valley of Jezreel.”

I gave you a land for which you did not labor, and cities which you did not build, and you live in them; you eat from vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.’

If it is unacceptable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

and I said to you, “I am the Lord your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live.” But you have not listened to and obeyed My voice.’”

So Samson’s wife wept before him and said, “You only hate me, you do not love me; you have asked my countrymen a riddle, and have not told [the answer] to me.” And he said to her, “Listen, I have not told my father or my mother [either], so [why] should I tell you?”

And David went from there to Mizpah of Moab; and he said to the king of Moab, “Please let my father and my mother come [out of Judah] and stay with you until I know what God will do for me.”

Will the men of Keilah hand me over to him? Will Saul come down just as Your servant has heard? O Lord, God of Israel, I pray, tell Your servant.” And the Lord said, “He will come down.”

the king said to Nathan the prophet, “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells within tent curtains.”

Then it happened on the seventh day that the child died. David’s servants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, “While the child was still alive, we spoke to him and he would not listen to our voices. How then can we tell him the child is dead, since he might harm himself [or us]?”

Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have [of value] in the house?” She said, “Your maidservant has nothing in the house except a [small] jar of [olive] oil.”

Now he said to Gehazi, “Say to her now, ‘You have gone to all this trouble for us; what can I do for you? Would you like to be mentioned to the king or to the captain of the army?’” She answered, “I live among my own people [in peace and security and need no special favors].”

Then she saddled the donkey and said to her servant, “Drive [the animal] fast; do not slow down the pace for me unless I tell you.”

But if you tell me, ‘We trust in and rely on the Lord our God,’ is it not He whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, and has said to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship [only] before this altar in Jerusalem’?

As David sat in his house (palace), he said to Nathan the prophet, “Behold, I live in a house of cedars, while the ark of the covenant of the Lord is under tent curtains.”

Whenever any dispute comes to you from your brothers (relatives) who live in their cities, between blood and blood, between law and commandment, or between statutes and judgments, you are to warn [and instruct] them so that they may not be guilty before the Lord; otherwise [God’s] wrath will come on you and your brothers. Do this and you will not be guilty.

Then the king sent an answer to Rehum the [Persian] commander, to Shimshai the scribe, and to the rest of their colleagues who live in Samaria and in the rest of the provinces west of the River: “Peace (Greetings). And now,

Therefore the Jews of the villages, who live in the rural [unwalled] towns, make the fourteenth day of the month of Adar a holiday for rejoicing and feasting and sending choice portions of food to one another.

‘How much more [will He blame and charge] those who dwell in houses (bodies) of clay,
Whose foundations are in the dust,
Who are crushed like a moth.

Now therefore, take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, and go to My servant Job, and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves, and My servant Job will pray for you. For I will accept him [and his prayer] so that I may not deal with you according to your folly, because you have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as My servant Job has.”

But You are holy,
O You who are enthroned in [the holy place where] the praises of Israel [are offered].

The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness of it,
The world, and those who dwell in it.

Trust [rely on and have confidence] in the Lord and do good;
Dwell in the land and feed [securely] on His faithfulness.

No, in your heart you devise wrongdoing;
On earth you deal out the violence of your hands.

So they who dwell at the ends of the earth stand in awe of Your signs [the evidence of Your presence].
You make the dawn and the sunset shout for joy.

The nomads of the desert will bow before him,
And his enemies will lick the dust.

Blessed and greatly favored are those who dwell in Your house and Your presence;
They will be singing Your praises all the day long. Selah.

For all our days pass away in Your wrath;
We have finished our years like a whispered sigh.

Let the sea thunder and roar, and all the things it contains,
The world and those who dwell in it.

A productive land into a [barren] salt waste,
Because of the wickedness of those who dwell in it.

But You, O God, the Lord, show kindness to me, for Your name’s sake;
Because Your lovingkindness (faithfulness, compassion) is good, O rescue me;

Woe to me, for I sojourn in Meshech,
and I live among the tents of Kedar [among hostile people]!

“This is My resting place forever” [says the Lord];
“Here will I dwell, for I have desired it.

I pour out my complaint before Him;
I declare my trouble before Him.

Lying lips are extremely disgusting to the Lord,
But those who deal faithfully are His delight.

Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your fleeting life which He has given you under the sun—all the days of vanity and futility. For this is your reward in life and in your work in which you have labored under the sun.

“I command that you take an oath, O daughters of Jerusalem,
If you find my beloved,
As to what you tell him—
[Say that] I am sick from love [sick from being without him].”

(The Bridegroom)
“O you who sit in the gardens,
My companions are listening for your voice—
Let me hear it.”

Ah, sinful nation,
A people loaded down with wickedness [with sin, with injustice, with wrongdoing],
Offspring of evildoers,
Sons who behave corruptly!
They have abandoned (rejected) the Lord,
They have despised the Holy One of Israel [provoking Him to anger],
They have turned away from Him.

Then I said,

“Woe is me! For I am ruined,
Because I am a man of [ceremonially] unclean lips,
And I live among a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”

Therefore, the Lord God of hosts says this, “O My people who dwell in Zion, do not be afraid of the Assyrian who strikes you with a rod and lifts up his staff against you, as [the king of] Egypt did.

All you inhabitants of the world, you who dwell on the earth,
When a banner is raised on the mountains, you will see it!
When a trumpet is blown, you will hear it!

But her commercial gain and her prostitute’s wages will be dedicated to the Lord; it will not be treasured or stored up, but her commercial gain will become sufficient food and stately clothing for those who dwell (minister) in the presence of the Lord.

Therefore, a curse devours the earth, and those who live on it suffer the punishment of their guilt. Therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are burned [under the curse of God’s wrath], and few people are left.

Your dead will live;
Their dead bodies will rise.
You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy!
For your dew is a dew of [celestial] light [heavenly, supernatural],
And the earth will give birth to the spirits of the dead.

O people in Zion, inhabitant in Jerusalem, you will weep no longer. He will most certainly be gracious to you at the sound of your cry for help; when He hears it, He will answer you.

Woe (judgment is coming) to you, O destroyer,
You who were not destroyed,
And he who is treacherous, while others did not deal treacherously with him.
As soon as you finish destroying, you will be destroyed;
As soon as you stop dealing treacherously, others will deal treacherously with you.

And no inhabitant [of Zion] will say, “I am sick”;
The people who dwell there will be forgiven their wickedness [their sin, their injustice, their wrongdoing].

“Indeed, the former things have come to pass,
Now I declare new things;
Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you.”

“Now, then, hear this, you who live a luxuriant life,
You who dwell safely and securely,
Who say in your heart (mind),
‘I am [the queen], and there is no one besides me.
I shall not sit as a widow,
Nor know the loss of children.’

For the high and exalted One
He who inhabits eternity, Whose name is Holy says this,
“I dwell on the high and holy place,
But also with the contrite and humble in spirit
In order to revive the spirit of the humble
And to revive the heart of the contrite [overcome with sorrow for sin].

The snorting of [Nebuchadnezzar’s] horses is heard from Dan [on Palestine’s northern border].
At the sound of the neighing of his strong stallions
The whole land quakes;
For they come and devour the land and all that is in it,
The city and those who live in it.

Behold, [hear the sound of] the cry of the daughter of my people from the distant land [of Babylon]:
“Is not the Lord in Zion? Is not her King within her?”
[But the Lord answers] “Why have they provoked Me to anger with their carved images and with foreign idols?”

Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts,

“Behold, I will refine them [through suffering] and test them;
For how else should I deal with the daughter of My people?

Gather up your bundle [of goods] from the ground,
You who live under siege.

You, O Lord are [uncompromisingly] righteous and consistently just when I plead my case with You;
Yet let me discuss issues of justice with You:
Why has the way of the wicked prospered?
Why are those who deal in treachery (deceit) at ease and thriving?

How long must the land mourn
And the grass of the countryside wither?
Because of the wickedness and hypocrisy of those who live in it,
The beasts and the birds are consumed and are swept away [by the drought],
Because men [mocking me] have said, “He will not [live long enough to] see [what happens at] our final end.”

“Now when you tell these people all these words and they ask you, ‘Why has the Lord decreed all this great tragedy against us? And what is our iniquity, what is the sin which we have committed against the Lord our God?’

Yet You, O Lord, know
All their deadly plotting against me;
Do not forgive their wickedness
Or blot out their sin from Your sight.
But let them be overthrown before You;
Deal with them in the time of Your anger.

And you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house will go into captivity; you will go to Babylon, and there you will die and be buried, you and all your friends to whom you have falsely prophesied.’”

‘And as for the bad figs, which are so rotten that they cannot be eaten,’ surely thus says the Lord, ‘so I will abandon Zedekiah king of Judah and his princes, and the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land and those who live in the land of Egypt.

all the kings of Arabia and all the kings of the foreign population who live in the desert;

thus says the Lord concerning the king who sits on the throne of David, and concerning all the people who live in this city, your brothers (fellow people of Judah) who did not go with you into captivity—

Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “If I tell you, will you not certainly put me to death? Even if I do give you advice, you will not listen to me.”

Therefore hear the word of the Lord, all [you people of] Judah who are living in the land of Egypt, ‘Behold, I have sworn [an oath] by My great Name,’ says the Lord, ‘that My Name shall never again be invoked by the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, saying, “As the Lord God lives.”

“O you daughter who dwells in Egypt and you who dwell with her,
Prepare yourselves [with all you will need] to go into exile,
For Memphis will become desolate;
It will even be burned down and without inhabitant.

Thus says the Lord:

“Behold, waters are going to rise out of the north (Babylonia)
And become an overflowing stream
And overflow the land and all that is in it,
The city and those who live in it.
Then the people will cry out,
And all the inhabitants of the land [of Philistia] will wail.

“As for Your terror,
The pride and arrogance of your heart have deceived you,
O you who live in the clefts of the rock (Sela also called Petra),
Who hold and occupy the height of the hill.
Though you make your nest as high as the eagle’s,
I will bring you down from there,” says the Lord.