Thematic Bible: False friends


Thematic Bible



For it was not an enemy who insulted me, then I could have endured it. Neither was it he who hated me who raised himself up against me, then I would have hidden myself from him. But it was you, a man like me, my companion, and my familiar friend. We took sweet fellowship together. We walked in God's house with company.


You have taken my friends from me. You have made me an abomination to them. I am confined, and I can't escape.

You have put lover and friend far from me, and my friends into darkness. A contemplation by Ethan, the Ezrahite.

Unrighteous witnesses rise up. They ask me about things that I don't know about. They reward me evil for good, to the bereaving of my soul. But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth. I afflicted my soul with fasting. My prayer returned into my own bosom. read more.
I behaved myself as though it had been my friend or my brother. I bowed down mourning, as one who mourns his mother. But in my adversity, they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together. The attackers gathered themselves together against me, and I didn't know it. They tore at me, and didn't cease. Like the profane mockers in feasts, they gnashed their teeth at me.

He raises his hands against his friends. He has violated his covenant. His mouth was smooth as butter, but his heart was war. His words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords.



But Peter followed him from a distance, to the court of the high priest, and entered in and sat with the officers, to see the end.


Now he who betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, "Whoever I kiss, he is the one. Seize him." Immediately he came to Jesus, and said, "Hail, Rabbi!" and kissed him.


Samson went to Gaza, and saw there a prostitute, and went in to her. [It was told] the Gazites, saying, "Samson is here!" They surrounded him, and laid wait for him all night in the gate of the city, and were quiet all the night, saying, [Let be] until morning light, then we will kill him. Samson lay until midnight, and arose at midnight, and laid hold of the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and plucked them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the mountain that is before Hebron. read more.
It came to pass afterward, that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. The lords of the Philistines came up to her, and said to her, "Entice him, and see in which his great strength lies, and by what means we may prevail against him, that we may bind him to afflict him; and we will each give you eleven hundred [pieces] of silver." Delilah said to Samson, "Please tell me where your great strength lies, and what you might be bound to afflict you." Samson said to her, "If they bind me with seven green cords that were never dried, then shall I become weak, and be as another man." Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven green cords which had not been dried, and she bound him with them. Now she had an ambush waiting in the inner room. She said to him, "The Philistines are on you, Samson!" He broke the cords, as a string of tow is broken when it touches the fire. So his strength was not known. Delilah said to Samson, "Behold, you have mocked me, and told me lies: now please tell me with which you might be bound." He said to her, "If they only bind me with new ropes with which no work has been done, then shall I become weak, and be as another man." So Delilah took new ropes, and bound him therewith, and said to him, "The Philistines are on you, Samson!" The ambush was waiting in the inner room. He broke them off his arms like a thread. Delilah said to Samson, "Until now, you have mocked me and told me lies. Tell me with what you might be bound." He said to her, "If you weave the seven locks of my head with the web." She fastened it with the pin, and said to him, "The Philistines are on you, Samson!" He awakened out of his sleep, and plucked away the pin of the beam, and the web. She said to him, "How can you say, 'I love you,' when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and have not told me where your great strength lies." It happened, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, that his soul was troubled to death. He told her all his heart, and said to her, "No razor has ever come on my head; for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother's womb. If I am shaved, then my strength will go from me, and I will become weak, and be like any other man." When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, "Come up this once, for he has told me all his heart." Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her, and brought the money in their hand. She made him sleep on her knees; and she called for a man, and shaved off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him. She said, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson!" He awoke out of his sleep, and said, "I will go out as at other times, and shake myself free." But he didn't know that Yahweh had departed from him.


Absalom sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, David's counselor, from his city, even from Giloh, while he was offering the sacrifices. The conspiracy was strong; for the people increased continually with Absalom.


"Moreover you know also what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me, even what he did to the two captains of the armies of Israel, to Abner the son of Ner, and to Amasa the son of Jether, whom he killed, and shed the blood of war in peace, and put the blood of war on his sash that was about his waist, and in his shoes that were on his feet. Do therefore according to your wisdom, and don't let his gray head go down to Sheol in peace.


It happened in those days, when there was no king in Israel, that there was a certain Levite living on the farther side of the hill country of Ephraim, who took to him a concubine out of Bethlehem Judah. His concubine played the prostitute against him, and went away from him to her father's house to Bethlehem Judah, and was there the space of four months.


Yet the chief cupbearer didn't remember Joseph, but forgot him.