He wrote in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed it with the king's signet ring. He sent the letters by couriers on horseback, riding steeds especially bred for the king.

Therefore the Jewish people in the rural areas who live in unwalled towns make the fourteenth day of the month Adar a holiday for joy and feasting, and people send presents to one another.

Mordecai wrote these instructions and sent letters to all the Jewish people in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far,

as the days on which the Jewish people enjoyed relief from their enemies. It was a month when things turned around for them, from sorrow to joy and from mourning to a holiday. They were to celebrate these days as days of feasting and joy, and they were to send presents to one another and gifts to the poor.

Letters containing wishes for peace and stability were sent to all the Jewish people, to the 127 provinces of Ahasuerus' kingdom,

When their time of feasting had concluded, Job would rise early in the morning to send for them and consecrate them to God. He would offer a burnt offering for each one, because Job thought, "Perhaps my children sinned by cursing God in their hearts." Job did this time and again.

It would weigh more than the sand on the seashore! Here's why I've talked so rashly:

"With God are strength and sound wisdom; both the deceived and those who deceive are responsible to him.

You overpower him once and for all, and then he departs; you change his appearance and then send him away.

singing with tambourines and lyres as they rejoice to the sound of flutes.

You sent away widows empty-handed, and broke the outstretched arms of orphans.

"I used to say: "I will die in my home. I'm going to live as many days as there are grains of sand on the shore.

Listen carefully to his thundering voice; to the sound that rumbles from his mouth.

Like clay is molded by a signet ring, the earth's hills and valleys then stand out like the colors of a garment.

She abandons her eggs on the ground and lets them be warmed in the sand,

Leaping in his excitement, he takes in the ground; he cannot stand still when the trumpets sound!

Do you have strength like God? Can you create thunder with a sound like he can?"

buried them in the dust together, and sent them bound to that secret place,

Are your eyes looking to capture him, or to pierce his snout with a bridle?"

Can you attach a bridle to his snout, or pierce his jaw with a hook?

Get away from me, all of you who practice evil, for the LORD has heard the sound of my weeping.

May he send you help from the sanctuary, and may he sustain you from Zion.

Hear the sound of my supplications when I cry to you for help, as I lift up my hands toward your most holy sanctuary.

Blessed be the LORD! For he has heard the sound of my supplications.

Send forth your gracious love to those who know you, and your righteousness to those who are upright in heart.

Send forth your light and your truth so they may guide me. Let them bring me to your holy mountain and to your dwelling places.

He will send help from heaven to deliver me from those who harass and despise me. Interlude God will send his gracious love and truth.

A person will say, "Certainly, the righteous are rewarded; certainly there is a God who judges the earth." To the Director: A special Davidic psalm to the tune of "Do Not Destroy," when Saul sent men to watch the house in order to kill him.

Bless our God, people, and let the sound of his praise be heard.

At the sound of your battle cry, God of Jacob, both horse and chariot rider fell into deep sleep.

Your thunderous sound was in a whirlwind; your lightning lights up the world; the earth becomes agitated and quakes.

so that manna rained down on them for food and he sent them the grain of heaven.

Mortal men ate the food of angels; he sent provision to them in abundance.

He caused meat to rain on them like dust and winged birds as the sand of the sea.

He sent swarms of insects to bite them and frogs to destroy them.

Then he sent his might into captivity and his glory into the control of the adversary.

accompanied by a ten-stringed instrument and a lyre, and the contemplative sound of a harp.

More than the sound of surging waters the majestic waves of the sea the LORD on high is majestic.

With trumpets and the sound of a ram's horn shout in the presence of the LORD, the king!

Because of the sound of my sighing, my bones cling to my skin.

Bless the LORD, you angels who belong to him, you mighty warriors who carry out his commands, who are obedient to the sound of his words.

They flee at your rebuke; they rush away at the sound of your thunders.

When you send your spirit, they are created, and you replenish the surface of the earth.

He sent a man before them Joseph, who had been sold as a slave.

He sent a king who released him, a ruler of people who set him free.

He sent his servant Moses, along with Aaron, whom he had chosen.

He sent darkness, and it became dark. Did they not rebel against his words?

He sent hail instead of rain, and lightning throughout their land.

God granted them their request, but sent leanness into their lives.

He sent deliverance to his people; he ordained his covenant to last forever; his name is holy and awesome.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; sound understanding belongs to those who practice it. Praise of God endures forever.

He sent signs and wonders among you, Egypt, before Pharaoh and all his servants.

Were I to count them, they would number more than the sand. When I awake, I will be with you.

Send forth lightning and scatter the enemy, shoot your arrows and confuse them.

He stores up sound wisdom for the upright and is a shield to those who walk in integrity

My son, do not let wisdom leave your sight. Carefully observe sound judgment and discernment,

I give you sound teaching, so do not abandon my instruction.

Counsel belongs to me, along with sound judgment. I am understanding. Power belongs to me.

She has sent out her young women, while calling out from the heights of the city,

As vinegar is to the mouth and smoke to the eyes, so is the lazy person to those who send him.

Like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful woman without discretion.

A rebellious person seeks evil; a cruel emissary will be sent to oppose him.

Whoever isolates himself pursues selfish ends; he resists all sound advice.

to teach you true and reliable advice, so you can give truthful answers to those who sent you?

Like cold snow during harvest time is a faithful messenger to those who send him; he refreshes his masters.

Rocks are heavy, and sand is weighty, but a fool's provocation outweighs them both.

The doors to the street will be shut when the sound of grinding decreases, when one wakes up at the song of a bird, and all of the singing women are silenced.

While the king was sitting at his table, my perfume sent forth its fragrance.

Your lips drip honey, my bride; milk and honey are under your tongue. The scent of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon.

I was asleep, but my heart was awake. There's a sound! My beloved is knocking. "Open up for me, my sister, my darling, my dove, my perfect one. For my head is drenched with dew, my hair with the dampness of the night."

signet rings, nose rings,

The foundations of the thresholds quaked at the sound of those who kept calling out, and the Temple was filled with smoke.

Then I heard the voice of the LORD as he was asking, "Whom will I send? Who will go for us?" "Here I am!" I replied. "Send me."

"The LORD has sent a plague against Jacob, and it will fall on Israel;

Therefore, the Lord GOD of the Heavenly Armies will send a wasting disease among Assyria's sturdy warriors, and under its glory a conflagration will be kindled, like a blazing bonfire.

For even if your people of Israel number as many as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Overwhelming, righteous destruction is decreed,

"Send a lamb to the ruler of the land, from Selah, by way of the desert, to the mountain of the Daughter of Zion.

"How terrible it will be for many nations, who rage like the roaring sea! Oh, how the uproar of nations is like the sound of rushing, mighty water How they roar!

It will be a sign and a witness to the LORD of the Heavenly Armies in the land of Egypt; when they cry out to the LORD because of their oppressors, he will send them a savior, and he will come down and rescue them.

In the year that the supreme commander, sent by Sargon the king of Assyria, came to Ashdod, attacked it, and captured it

Whoever flees at the sound of terror will fall into a pit, and whoever climbs out of the pit will be caught in a snare. For the windows of judgment from above are opened, and the foundations of the earth are shaken.

This insight also comes from the LORD of the Heavenly Armies, who is distinguished in practical advice and magnificent in sound wisdom."

Indeed, you people who live in Zion and in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious the LORD will be to you at the sound of your cry! As soon as he hears it, he will answer you.

And every stroke of his punishing rod that the LORD brings down on them will be to the sound of tambourines and harps, as he fights against her in battle with a brandished arm.

The hearts of reckless people will understand sound judgment, and the tongues of those who stammer will be ready to speak clearly.

Then the king of Assyria sent his field commander, along with a very large army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. When the field commander stopped at the aqueduct at the Upper Pool on the road to Laundryman's Field,

But the field commander asked, "Was it only to all of you and to your master that my master sent me to speak these things? Wasn't it also to the men sitting on the wall who, like you, will have to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine?"

Then he sent Eliakim, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, all wearing sackcloth, to Amoz's son, the prophet Isaiah.

Perhaps the LORD your God will hear the words of the field commander, whom his master, the king of Assyria, sent to mock the living God, and perhaps he will rebuke the words that the LORD your God has heard. So lift up a prayer for the remnant that still survives in this city."

When he heard it, he returned and sent messengers to Hezekiah: "Say this to Hezekiah king of Judah: "Don't let your God on whom you depend deceive you when he says, "Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria."

Extend your ear, LORD, and listen! Open your eyes, LORD, and look! Listen to all the words Sennacherib has sent to mock the living God.

Then Amoz's son Isaiah sent this message to Hezekiah: "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says, to whom you prayed concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria.

At that time Merodach-baladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah, when he heard he had been sick and had survived.

First, to Zion: "There is slumber." And to Jerusalem: "I'll send a messenger with good news."

But this is a people who have been robbed and plundered, all of them trapped in pits or hidden away in prisons. They have become prey, with no one to rescue them; they have been made loot, with no one to say, "Send them back!'

This is what the LORD says, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: "For your sake I will send to Babylon, and bring them all down as fugitives. Now as for the Babylonians, their ringing cry will become lamentation.

Draw near to me, and listen to this: "From the beginning I haven't spoken in secret; at the time it happened, I was there.' And now the LORD God, and his Spirit, has sent me.

Your descendants would've been like the sand, and your offspring like its numberless grains. Their name wouldn't have been cut off or annihilated out of my reach.

This is what the LORD says: "Where is your mother's certificate of divorce with which I sent her away? Or to which of my creditors did I sell you? Look! It's because of your sins that you were sold, and because of your transgressions that your mother was sent away.

For the LORD will have compassion on Zion, have compassion on all her ruins. He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her deserts like the garden of the LORD. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving, and the sound of singing. Sorrow and sighing will flee away.