'Nation' in the Bible

And I will make of you a great nation, blessing you and making your name great; and you will be a blessing:

But I will be the judge of that nation whose servants they are, and they will come out from among them with great wealth.

As for Ishmael, I have given ear to your prayer: truly I have given him my blessing and I will make him fertile and give him great increase; he will be the father of twelve chiefs, and I will make him a great nation.

Seeing that Abraham will certainly become a great and strong nation, and his name will be used by all the nations of the earth as a blessing?

Now Abimelech had not come near her; and he said, Lord, will you put to death an upright nation?

And I will make a nation of the son of your servant-woman, because he is your seed.

Come, take your child in your arms, for I will make of him a great nation.

And God said to him, I am God, the Ruler of all: be fertile, and have increase; a nation, truly a group of nations, will come from you, and kings will be your offspring;

God sent me before you to keep you and yours living on earth so that you might become a great nation.

And he said, I am God, the God of your father: go down to Egypt without fear, for I will make a great nation of you there:

The angel who has been my saviour from all evil, send his blessing on these children: and let my name and the name of my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, be given to them; and let them become a great nation in the earth.

But his father would not, saying, I am doing it on purpose, my son; he will certainly become a nation and a great one; but his younger brother will be greater than he, and his seed will become a great family of nations.

So there was an ice-storm with fire running through it, coming down with great force, such as never was in all the land of Egypt from the time when it became a nation.

And you will be a kingdom of priests to me, and a holy nation. These are the words which you are to say to the children of Israel.

Now do not get in my way, for my wrath is burning against them; I will send destruction on them, but of you I will make a great nation.

If then I have grace in your eyes, let me see your ways, so that I may have knowledge of you and be certain of your grace; and my prayer is that you will keep in mind that this nation is your people.

And the Lord said, See, this is what I will undertake: before the eyes of your people I will do wonders, such as have not been done in all the earth or in any nation: and all your people will see the work of the Lord, for what I am about to do for you is greatly to be feared.

And anyone who takes as food anything which has come to a natural end, or anything which has been put to death by beasts, if he is one of you by birth, or of another nation, will have to have his clothing washed and his body bathed in water and be unclean till evening, and then he will be clean.

Say to Aaron and to his sons and to all the children of Israel, If any man of the children of Israel, or of another nation living in Israel, makes an offering, given because of an oath or freely given to the Lord for a burned offering;

And he who says evil against the name of the Lord will certainly be put to death; he will be stoned by all the people; the man who is not of your nation and one who is an Israelite by birth, whoever says evil against the holy Name is to be put to death.

You are to have the same law for a man of another nation living among you as for an Israelite; for I am the Lord your God.

And if one from another nation living among you gets wealth, and your countryman, at his side, becomes poor and gives himself for money to the man from another nation or to one of his family;

And if a man from another country is among you and has a desire to keep the Passover to the Lord, let him do as is ordered in the law of the Passover: there is to be the same rule for the man from another nation and for him who had his birth in the land.

I will send disease on them for their destruction, and take away their heritage, and I will make of you a nation greater and stronger than they.

But the person who does wrong in the pride of his heart, if he is one of you or of another nation by birth, is acting without respect for the Lord, and will be cut off from his people.

And at that time I gave orders to your judges, saying, Let all questions between your brothers come before you for hearing, and give decisions uprightly between a man and his brother or one from another nation who is with him.

So keep these laws and do them; for so will your wisdom and good sense be clear in the eyes of the peoples, who hearing all these laws will say, Truly, this great nation is a wise and far-seeing people.

For what great nation has a god so near to them as the Lord our God is, whenever we are turned to him in prayer?

And what great nation has laws and decisions so right as all this law which I put before you today?

Has God ever before taken a nation for himself from out of another nation, by punishments and signs and wonders, by war and by a strong hand and a stretched-out arm and great acts of wonder and fear, as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes?

Let me send destruction on them till their very name is cut off; and I will make of you a nation greater and stronger than they.

You may not have as food anything which has come to a natural death; the man from another country who is living with you may take it for food, or you may get a price for it from one of another nation; for you are a holy people to the Lord your God. The young goat is not to be cooked in its mother's milk.

A man of another nation may be forced to make payment of his debt, but if your brother has anything of yours, let it go;

Then see that you take as your king the man named by the Lord your God: let your king be one of your countrymen, not a man of another nation who is not one of yourselves.

Do not be hard on a servant who is poor and in need, if he is one of your countrymen or a man from another nation living with you in your land.

And these are the words which you will say before the Lord your God: My father was a wandering Aramaean, and he went down with a small number of people into Egypt; there he became a great and strong nation:

The fruit of your land and all the work of your hands will be food for a nation which is strange to you and to your fathers; you will only be crushed down and kept under for ever:

And you, and the king whom you have put over you, will the Lord take away to a nation strange to you and to your fathers; there you will be servants to other gods of wood and stone.

The Lord will send a nation against you from the farthest ends of the earth, coming with the flight of an eagle; a nation whose language is strange to you;

A hard-faced nation, who will have no respect for the old or mercy for the young:

They have given my honour to that which is not God, moving me to wrath with their false worship: I will give their honour to those who are not a people, moving them to wrath by a foolish nation,

For they are a nation without wisdom; there is no sense in them.

And the priests who took up the ark of the agreement of the Lord kept their places, with their feet on dry land in the middle of Jordan, while all Israel went over on dry land, till all the nation had gone over Jordan.

Now when all the nation had come to the other side of Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua,

For the children of Israel were wandering in the waste land for forty years, till all the nation, that is, all the fighting-men, who had come out of Egypt, were dead, because they did not give ear to the voice of the Lord: to whom the Lord said, with an oath, that he would not let them see the land which the Lord had given his word to their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.

So when all the nation had undergone circumcision, they kept in their tents till they were well again.

And the sun was at rest and the moon kept its place till the nation had given punishment to their attackers. (Is it not recorded in the book of Jashar?) So the sun kept its place in the middle of the heavens, and was waiting, and did not go down, for the space of a day.

And the wrath of the Lord was burning against Israel, and he said, Because this nation has not been true to my agreement which I made with their fathers, and has not given ear to my voice;

And what other nation in the earth, like your people Israel, did a god go out to take for himself, to be his people, and to make a name for himself, and to do great and strange things for them, driving out a nation and its gods from before his people?

People came from every nation to give ear to the wisdom of Solomon, from all the kings of the earth who had word of his wisdom.

By the life of the Lord your God, there is not a nation or kingdom where my lord has not sent in search of you; and when they said, He is not here; he made them take an oath that they had not seen you.

And every nation made gods for themselves, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in the towns where they were living.

When they went about from one nation to another, and from one kingdom to another people;

And what other nation in the earth, like your people Israel, did a god go out to take for himself, to be his people, making his name great and to be feared, driving out the nations from before your people whom you made free and took out of Egypt?

And they were broken by divisions, nation against nation and town against town, because God sent all sorts of trouble on them.

So do not be tricked by Hezekiah or let him get you to do this, and do not put any faith in what he says: for no god of any nation or kingdom has been able to keep his people safe from my hands, or the hands of my fathers: how much less will your God keep you safe from my hands!

And Haman said to King Ahasuerus, There is a certain nation living here and there in small groups among the people in all the divisions of your kingdom; their laws are different from those of any other nation, and they do not keep the king's laws: for this reason it is not right for the king to let them be.

For how is it possible for me to see the evil which is to overtake my nation? how may I see the destruction of my people?

Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people whom he has taken for his heritage.

Be my judge, O God, supporting my cause against a nation without religion; O keep me from the false and evil man.

When they went about from one nation to another, and from one kingdom to another people.

So that I may see the well-being of the people of your selection, and have a part in the joy of your nation, and take pride in your heritage.

He has not done these things for any other nation: and as for his laws, they have no knowledge of them. Let the Lord be praised.

By righteousness a nation is lifted up, but sin is a cause of shame to the peoples.

O nation full of sin, a people weighted down with crime, a generation of evil-doers, false-hearted children: they have gone away from the Lord, they have no respect for the Holy One of Israel, their hearts are turned back from him.

And he will let a flag be lifted up as a sign to a far-off nation, whistling to them from the ends of the earth: and they will come quickly and suddenly.

I will send him against a nation of wrongdoers, and against the people of my wrath I will give him orders, to take their wealth in war, crushing them down like the dust in the streets.

What answer, then, will my people give to the representatives of the nation? That the Lord is the builder of Zion, and she will be a safe place for the poor of his people.

Which sends its representatives by the sea, even in ships of papyrus on the waters. Go back quickly, O representatives, to a nation tall and smooth, to a people causing fear through all their history; a strong nation, crushing down its haters, whose land is cut through by rivers.

In that time an offering will be made to the Lord of armies from a people tall and smooth, causing fear through all their history; a strong nation, crushing down its haters, whose land is cut through by rivers, an offering taken to the place of the name of the Lord of armies, even Mount Zion.

Let the doors be open, so that the upright nation which keeps faith may come in.

You have made the nation great, O Lord, you have made it great; glory is yours: you have made wide the limits of the land.

Give attention to me, O my people; and give ear to me, O my nation; for teaching will go out from me, and the knowledge of the true God will be a light to the peoples.

See, you will send for a nation of which you had no knowledge, and those who had no knowledge of you will come running to you, because of the Lord your God, and because of the Holy One of Israel, for he has given you glory.

Though they make prayer to me every day, and take pleasure in the knowledge of my ways: like a nation which has done righteousness, and has not given up the rules of their God, they make requests to me for the right orders, it is their delight to come near to God.

For the nation or kingdom which will not be your servant will come to destruction; such nations will be completely waste.

The smallest of their families will become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I, the Lord, will make it come quickly in its time.

I have been ready to give an answer to those who did not make prayer to me; I have been offering myself to those who were not searching for me; I said, Here am I, here am I, to a nation which gave no respect to my name.

When has such a story come to men's ears? who has seen such things? will a land come to birth in one day? will a nation be given birth in a minute? For when Zion's pains came on her, she gave birth to her children straight away.

Has any nation ever made a change in their gods, though they are no gods? but my people have given up their glory in exchange for what is of no profit.

Am I not to give punishment for these things? says the Lord: will not my soul take payment from such a nation as this?

See, I will send you a nation from far away, O people of Israel, says the Lord; a strong nation and an old nation, a nation whose language is strange to you, so that you may not get the sense of their words.

Am I not to give punishment for these things? says the Lord: will not my soul take payment from such a nation as this?

The Lord has said, See, a people is coming from the north country, a great nation will be put in motion from the inmost parts of the earth.

And you are to say to them, This is the nation which has not given ear to the voice of their God, or taken his teaching to heart: good faith is dead and is cut off from their mouths.

Am I not to send punishment for these things? says the Lord: will not my soul take payment from such a nation as this?

But if they will not give ear, then I will have that nation uprooted, and given to destruction, says the Lord.

Whenever I say anything about uprooting a nation or a kingdom, and smashing it and sending destruction on it;

If, in that very minute, that nation of which I was talking is turned away from its evil, my purpose of doing evil to them will be changed.

And whenever I say anything about building up a nation or a kingdom, and planting it;

And it will come about, after seventy years are ended, that I will send punishment on the king of Babylon, and on that nation, says the Lord, for their evil-doing, and on the land of the Chaldaeans; and I will make it a waste for ever.

This is what the Lord of armies has said: See, evil is going out from nation to nation, and a great storm will come up from the inmost parts of the earth.

And it will come about, that if any nation does not become a servant to this same Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and does not put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, then I will send punishment on that nation, says the Lord, by the sword and need of food and by disease, till I have given them into his hands.

But as for that nation which puts its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and becomes his servant, I will let that nation keep on in its land, farming it and living in it, says the Lord.

Why are you desiring death, you and your people, by the sword, and because food is gone, and by disease, as the Lord has said of the nation which does not become the servant of the king of Babylon?

If the order of these things before me is ever broken, says the Lord, then will the seed of Israel come to an end as a nation before me for ever.

Have you taken note of what these people have said, The two families, which the Lord took for himself, he has given up? This they say, looking down on my people as being, in their eyes, no longer a nation.

The praise of Moab has come to an end; as for Heshbon, evil has been designed against her; come, let us put an end to her as a nation. But your mouth will be shut, O Madmen; the sword will go after you.

Up! go against a nation which is living in comfort and without fear of danger, says the Lord, without doors or locks, living by themselves.

And I will send on Elam four winds from the four quarters of heaven, driving them out to all those winds; there will be no nation into which the wanderers from Elam do not come.