'Former' in the Bible

Be ye not as your fathers, unto whom the former prophets have cried, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Turn ye now from your evil ways, and from your evil doings: but they did not hear, nor hearken unto me, saith the LORD.

And look, I will shake my fist over them, and they will become plunder for their former slaves. And you will know that the LORD of the Heavenly Armies sent me."'"

Should ye not hear the words which the LORD hath cried by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and the cities thereof round about her, when men inhabited the south and the plain?

Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the LORD of hosts hath sent in his spirit by the former prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the LORD of hosts.

But now I will not be unto the residue of this people as in the former days, saith the LORD of hosts.

Return to the stronghold [of security and prosperity], O prisoners who have the hope;Even today I am declaring that I will restore double [your former prosperity] to you [as firstborn among nations].

And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.

All the land will be transformed into a desert plateau from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem. But it will rise up high and it will stay in its place from the Gate of Benjamin to the place of [the] former gate, up to the Corner Gate and from the Tower of Hananel to the king's winepresses.