Thematic Bible: Delivered


Thematic Bible



And to Moses he said, "Go up to Yahweh--you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy from the elders of Israel--and you will worship at a distance. And Moses {alone} will come near to Yahweh, and they will not come near, and the people will not go up with him." And Moses came, and he told the people all the words of Yahweh and all the regulations. And all the people answered with one voice, and they said, "All the words that Yahweh has spoken we will do." read more.
And Moses wrote all the words of Yahweh, and he rose early in the morning, and he built an altar at the base of the mountain and [set up] twelve memorial stones for the twelve tribes of Israel.

The men of Ephraim said to him, "What [is] this thing you have done to us, not calling us when you went to fight against the Midianites?" And they quarreled with him severely. And he said to them, "What I have done now in comparison with you? Are not the gleanings of Ephraim better than the grape harvest of Abiezer? God has given into your hand the commanders of Midian, Oreb, and Zeeb. What have I been able to do in comparison with you?" And their {anger} against him subsided when {he said that}. read more.
Then Gideon came to the Jordan, crossing it with the three hundred men who [were] with him, weary and pursuing. He said to the men of Succoth, "Please give loaves of bread to the people who [are] {following me}, for they [are] weary, and I am pursuing Zebah and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian." The officials of Succoth said, "Is the hand of Zebah and Zalmunna in your hand now, that we should give bread to your army?" Gideon said, "Well then, when Yahweh gives Zebah and Zalmunna into my hand, I will trample your flesh with the thorns and briers of the wilderness." He went from there [to] Penuel, and he spoke similarly to them; and the men of Penuel answered him just as the men of Succoth answered. And he said also to the men of Penuel, saying, "When I return {safely}, I will tear down this tower." Now Zebah and Zalmunna [were] in Karkor, and their armies with them, about fifteen thousand men remained from the entire army of the people of [the] east; those that fell [in battle were] one hundred and twenty thousand {swordsmen}. And Gideon went up the route of those who dwell in tents on the east of Nobah and Jogbehah, and he attacked the army when it was off its guard. And Zebah and Zalmunna fled, and he pursued them and captured the two kings of Midian, Zebah and Zalmunna, and he routed the entire army. Then Gideon son of Jehoash returned from the battle {by way of} the ascent of Heres. He captured a young man {from Succoth} and questioned him. [The young man] listed for him the commanders of Succoth and its elders, seventy-seven men. He came to the men of Succoth, and he said, "Here [is] Zebah and Zalmunna, about whom you taunted me, saying, '[Is] the palm of Zebah and Zalmunna in your hand now, that we should give food to your weary men?'" He took the elders of the city and [the] thorn bushes and briers of the wilderness, and {he trampled} the men of Succoth with them. He broke down the tower of Penuel, and he killed the men of the city. And he said to Zebah and Zalmunna, "What type [were] the men whom you killed at Tabor?" And they said, "{They were like you}; each [one of them] had the appearance of the sons of the king." He said, "They [were] my brothers, the sons of my mother. As Yahweh lives, if you had kept them alive I would not kill you." And he said to Jether, his firstborn, "Get up, kill them." But the boy did not draw his sword, for he was afraid because he [was] still a boy. Zebah and Zalmunna said, "Get up yourself, and strike us, for as [is] the man, so [is] his power." So Gideon got up and killed Zebah and Zalmunna, and he took the crescent ornaments that were on the necks of their camels. The men of Israel said to Gideon, "Rule over us, both you and your sons, and your sons' son, for you have delivered us from the hand of Midian. But Gideon said to them, "I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; Yahweh will rule over you." And Gideon said to them, "{Let me make a request of you}, that each of you give to me an ornamental ring from his plunder." (They [had] ornamental rings of gold, because they [were] Ishmaelites.) They said, "We will gladly give [them]," and they spread out a garment, and everyone threw there an ornamental ring of his plunder. The weight of the ornamental rings of gold that he requested [was] one thousand seven hundred [shekels of] gold, apart from the crescents, pendants, and purple garments that [were] on the kings of Midian, and apart from the pendants that [were] on the necks of their camels. Gideon made an ephod [out of] it, and he put it in his town in Ophrah, and all Israel prostituted [themselves] to it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his family. And Midian was subdued before the {Israelites}, and they did not again lift up their head, and the land rested for forty years in the days of Gideon.

All the leaders of the priests and the people likewise increased in unfaithfulness according to all the detestable things of the nations. And they polluted the house of Yahweh that he had consecrated in Jerusalem. And Yahweh, the God of their ancestors, had repeatedly and persistently sent to them by the hand of his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. But they were mocking the messengers of God and despising his words and scoffing at his prophets until the wrath of Yahweh rose against his people until there was no remedy. read more.
Therefore he brought against them the king of the Chaldeans, and he killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary. He showed no mercy on a young man, a virgin, [the] elderly, or decrepit. He delivered all into his hand. And all the vessels of the house of God, the great and the small, the storehouses of the house of Yahweh, and the storehouses of the king and his princes, these all he brought to Babylon. And they burned the house of God. And they shattered the walls of Jerusalem and burned its citadels with fire and destroyed all the vessels of its treasuries. And he took {those who escaped the sword} to Babylon. And they became servants to him and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land has enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days of desolation it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.

In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported Israel to Assyria. He placed them in Halah, in Habor, [in] the river [regions] of Gozan, and [in] the cities of the Medes. Now [this] happened because the {Israelites} had sinned against Yahweh their God when he brought them up from the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh the king of Egypt and they feared other gods. They walked in the statutes of the nations whom Yahweh had driven out from before the {Israelites}, which the kings of Israel had introduced. read more.
The {Israelites} secretly did things which [were] not right, against Yahweh their God; they built high places for themselves in all their towns, from the watchtower up to the fortified city. They set up for themselves stone pillars and poles of Asherah worship on every high hill and under every green tree. They burned incense there on all the high places, like the nations which Yahweh deported before them, and they did evil things to provoke Yahweh. They served idols which Yahweh had said to them, "You shall not do this thing!" Yahweh warned Israel and Judah by the hand of his every prophet, [with] every seer saying, "Turn from all of your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my ordinances, according to all the law which I commanded your ancestors, which I sent to you by the hand of my servants the prophets." But they did not listen and they stiffened their necks, like the necks of their ancestors who did not believe in Yahweh their God. They rejected his statutes, his covenant which he {made} with their ancestors, and his warnings which he gave to them; and they went after the idols, became vain, and [went] after all the nations which [were] all around them, which Yahweh had commanded them not to do as they [did]. They abandoned all the commands of Yahweh their God and made for themselves two molten calf-shaped idols; they made a pole of Asherah worship and bowed down to the army of the heavens and served Baal. They made their sons and their daughters pass through the fire, they practiced divination and read omens, and they sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of Yahweh to provoke him. So Yahweh was very angry with Israel and he removed them from his presence; none remained except the tribe of Judah alone. Even Judah did not keep the commands of Yahweh their God, and they walked in the customs of Israel which they introduced, so Yahweh rejected all the offspring of Israel and punished them, and he gave them into the hand of the plunderers until he banished them from his presence. For he had torn Israel from the house of David, and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king, but Jeroboam detached Israel from following Yahweh, and he made them sin a great sin. The {Israelites} walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he committed, and they did not depart from it, until Yahweh removed Israel from his presence as he had foretold by the hand of all his servants, the prophets. And so he deported Israel from upon his land to Assyria until this day. The king of Assyria brought from Babylonia, from Cush, from Arva, from Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and he settled [them] in the cities of Samaria in place of the {Israelites}, so they took possession of Samaria and lived in her cities. It happened that when they began living there, they did not fear Yahweh, so Yahweh sent lions among them, and they were killing them. So they said to the king of Assyria, "The nations whom you deported and settled in the cities of Samaria do not know the customs of the God of the land, so he sent lions among them, and now they are killing them because they do not know the customs of the God of the land." Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, "Release one of the priests whom you deported from there, and let him go and settle there. Let him teach them the customs of the God of the land." So one of the priests went, whom they had deported from Samaria, and he settled in Bethel and was teaching them how they should fear Yahweh. Yet every nation was making their gods, and they put them in the shrine of the high places that the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities in which they [were] living. The men of Babylonia made Succoth Benoth; the men of Cush made Nergal; the men of Hamath made Ashima. The Arvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; the Sepharvites were burning their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech the gods of Sepharvaim. Those who were fearing Yahweh made priests of the high places {from among themselves}, and they were sacrificing for them in the shrines of the high places. Yahweh they were fearing, but their gods they were serving, according to the customs of the nations from which they were deported. Until this day they [are] doing according to their former customs; none of them [are] fearing Yahweh, and none of them [are] doing according to their statutes, to their decisions, to the law, or to the commands that Yahweh commanded the descendants of Jacob [to] which he had given the name Israel. Yahweh had {made} a covenant with them and commanded them, "You shall not fear other gods, nor shall you bow down to them, nor shall you serve them, nor shall you sacrifice to them. Rather, Yahweh, who brought you out from the land of Egypt with great strength and with an outstretched arm--him you shall fear, and to him you shall bow down, and to him you shall sacrifice. The statutes, the decisions, the law, and the commands that he wrote to you, you shall observe to do always, and you shall not fear other gods. The covenant that I have {made} with you, you shall not forget, and you shall not fear other gods. But Yahweh your God you shall fear, and he will deliver you from the hand of all of your enemies." They did not listen but kept on doing according to their former customs. So these nations were fearing Yahweh, but they were serving their idols, as were their children and their children's children; as their ancestors did, they [are] doing until this day.