'One' in the Bible

Even if they raise their children, I will take away every last one of them. Woe to them! For I will turn away from them.

I cannot carry out my fierce anger! I cannot totally destroy Ephraim! Because I am God, and not man -- the Holy One among you -- I will not come in wrath!

Ephraim has surrounded me with lies; the house of Israel has surrounded me with deceit. But Judah still roams about with God; he remains faithful to the Holy One.

Ephraim boasts, "I am very rich! I have become wealthy! In all that I have done to gain my wealth, no one can accuse me of any offense that is actually sinful."

No one brings grain offerings or drink offerings to the temple of the Lord anymore. So the priests, those who serve the Lord, are in mourning.

Get dressed and lament, you priests! Wail, you who minister at the altar! Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you servants of my God, because no one brings grain offerings or drink offerings to the temple of your God anymore.

They charge like warriors; they scale walls like soldiers. Each one proceeds on his course; they do not alter their path.

They do not jostle one another; each of them marches straight ahead. They burst through the city defenses and do not break ranks.

I will remove the one from the north far from you. I will drive him out to a dry and desolate place. Those in front will be driven eastward into the Dead Sea, and those in back westward into the Mediterranean Sea. His stench will rise up as a foul smell." Indeed, the Lord has accomplished great things.

But Judah will reside securely forever, and Jerusalem will be secure from one generation to the next.

The following is a record of what Amos prophesied. He was one of the herdsmen from Tekoa. These prophecies about Israel were revealed to him during the time of King Uzziah of Judah and King Jeroboam son of Joash of Israel, two years before the earthquake.

I will break the bar on the gate of Damascus. I will remove the ruler from Wicked Valley, the one who holds the royal scepter from Beth Eden. The people of Aram will be deported to Kir." The Lord has spoken!

I will remove the ruler from Ashdod, the one who holds the royal scepter from Ashkelon. I will strike Ekron with my hand; the rest of the Philistines will also die." The sovereign Lord has spoken!

The sovereign Lord confirms this oath by his own holy character: "Certainly the time is approaching when you will be carried away in baskets, every last one of you in fishermen's pots.

"I withheld rain from you three months before the harvest. I gave rain to one city, but not to another. One field would get rain, but the field that received no rain dried up.

People from two or three cities staggered into one city to get water, but remained thirsty. Still you did not come back to me." The Lord is speaking!

"I sent against you a plague like one of the Egyptian plagues. I killed your young men with the sword, along with the horses you had captured. I made the stench from the corpses rise up into your nostrils. Still you did not come back to me." The Lord is speaking!

"The virgin Israel has fallen down and will not get up again. She is abandoned on her own land with no one to help her get up."

Seek the Lord so you can live! Otherwise he will break out like fire against Joseph's family; the fire will consume and no one will be able to quench it and save Bethel.

(But there is one who made the constellations Pleiades and Orion; he can turn the darkness into morning and daylight into night. He summons the water of the seas and pours it out on the earth's surface. The Lord is his name!

Because of Israel's sins this is what the Lord, the God who commands armies, the sovereign One, says: "In all the squares there will be wailing, in all the streets they will mourn the dead. They will tell the field workers to lament and the professional mourners to wail.

If ten men are left in one house, they too will die.

Can horses run on rocky cliffs? Can one plow the sea with oxen? Yet you have turned justice into a poisonous plant, and the fruit of righteous actions into a bitter plant.

He showed me this: I saw the sovereign One standing by a tin wall holding tin in his hand.

The Lord said to me, "What do you see, Amos?" I said, "Tin." The sovereign One then said, "Look, I am about to place tin among my people Israel. I will no longer overlook their sin.

These are the ones who now take oaths in the name of the sinful idol goddess of Samaria. They vow, 'As surely as your god lives, O Dan,' or 'As surely as your beloved one lives, O Beer Sheba!' But they will fall down and not get up again."

I saw the sovereign One standing by the altar and he said, "Strike the tops of the support pillars, so the thresholds shake! Knock them down on the heads of all the people, and I will kill the survivors with the sword. No one will be able to run away; no one will be able to escape.

"Be sure of this, the time is coming," says the Lord, "when the plowman will catch up to the reaper and the one who stomps the grapes will overtake the planter. Juice will run down the slopes, it will flow down all the hillsides.

Your presumptuous heart has deceived you -- you who reside in the safety of the rocky cliffs, whose home is high in the mountains. You think to yourself, 'No one can bring me down to the ground!'

The sailors said to one another, "Come on, let's cast lots to find out whose fault it is that this disaster has overtaken us." So they cast lots, and Jonah was singled out.

When Jonah began to enter the city one day's walk, he announced, "At the end of forty days, Nineveh will be overthrown!"

He prayed to the Lord and said, "Oh, Lord, this is just what I thought would happen when I was in my own country. This is what I tried to prevent by attempting to escape to Tarshish! -- because I knew that you are gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in mercy, and one who relents concerning threatened judgment.

Should I not be even more concerned about Nineveh, this enormous city? There are more than one hundred twenty thousand people in it who do not know right from wrong, as well as many animals!"

Therefore no one will assign you land in the Lord's community.

The one who can break through barriers will lead them out they will break out, pass through the gate, and leave. Their king will advance before them, The Lord himself will lead them.

As for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, seemingly insignificant among the clans of Judah -- from you a king will emerge who will rule over Israel on my behalf, one whose origins are in the distant past.

Those survivors from Jacob will live among the nations, in the midst of many peoples. They will be like a lion among the animals of the forest, like a young lion among the flocks of sheep, which attacks when it passes through; it rips its prey and there is no one to stop it.

Do not rely on a friend; do not trust a companion! Don't even share secrets with the one who lies in your arms!

Shepherd your people with your shepherd's rod, the flock that belongs to you, the one that lives alone in a thicket, in the midst of a pastureland. Allow them to graze in Bashan and Gilead, as they did in the old days.

No one can withstand his indignation! No one can resist his fierce anger! His wrath is poured out like volcanic fire, boulders are broken up as he approaches.

From you, O Nineveh, one has marched forth who plots evil against the Lord, a wicked military strategist.

Nineveh was like a pool of water throughout her days, but now her people are running away; she cries out: "Stop! Stop!" -- but no one turns back.

Where now is the den of the lions, the feeding place of the young lions, where the lion, lioness, and lion cub once prowled and no one disturbed them?

Everyone who sees you will turn away from you in disgust; they will say, 'Nineveh has been devastated! Who will lament for her?' There will be no one to comfort you!"

Your courtiers are like locusts, your officials are like a swarm of locusts! They encamp in the walls on a cold day, yet when the sun rises, they fly away; and no one knows where they are.

Your shepherds are sleeping, O king of Assyria! Your officers are slumbering! Your people are scattered like sheep on the mountains and there is no one to regather them!

Your destruction is like an incurable wound; your demise is like a fatal injury! All who hear what has happened to you will clap their hands for joy, for no one ever escaped your endless cruelty!

Why do you force me to witness injustice? Why do you put up with wrongdoing? Destruction and violence confront me; conflict is present and one must endure strife.

All of them intend to do violence; every face is determined. They take prisoners as easily as one scoops up sand.

They sweep by like the wind and pass on. But the one who considers himself a god will be held guilty."

The Lord responded: "Write down this message! Record it legibly on tablets, so the one who announces it may read it easily.

Look, the one whose desires are not upright will faint from exhaustion, but the person of integrity will live because of his faithfulness.

"But all these nations will someday taunt him and ridicule him with proverbial sayings: 'The one who accumulates what does not belong to him is as good as dead (How long will this go on?) -- he who gets rich by extortion!'

The one who builds his house by unjust gain is as good as dead. He does this so he can build his nest way up high and escape the clutches of disaster.

The one who builds a city by bloodshed is as good as dead -- he who starts a town by unjust deeds.

The one who says to wood, 'Wake up!' is as good as dead -- he who says to speechless stone, 'Awake!' Can it give reliable guidance? It is overlaid with gold and silver; it has no life's breath inside it.

God comes from Teman, the sovereign one from Mount Paran. Selah. His splendor covers the skies, his glory fills the earth.

This is how the once-proud city will end up -- the city that was so secure. She thought to herself, "I am unique! No one can compare to me!" What a heap of ruins she has become, a place where wild animals live! Everyone who passes by her taunts her and shakes his fist.

"I destroyed nations; their walled cities are in ruins. I turned their streets into ruins; no one passes through them. Their cities are desolate; no one lives there.

The Israelites who remain will not act deceitfully. They will not lie, and a deceitful tongue will not be found in their mouth. Indeed, they will graze peacefully like sheep and lie down; no one will terrify them."

Then Haggai asked, "If a person who is ritually unclean because of touching a dead body comes in contact with one of these items, will it become unclean?" The priests answered, "It will be unclean."

Now therefore reflect carefully on the recent past, before one stone was laid on another in the Lord's temple.

From that time when one came expecting a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten; when one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty measures from it, there were only twenty.

I will overthrow royal thrones and shatter the might of earthly kingdoms. I will overthrow chariots and those who ride them, and horses and their riders will fall as people kill one another.

Then I asked one nearby, "What are these, sir?" The angelic messenger who replied to me said, "I will show you what these are."

I asked, "What are these going to do?" He answered, "These horns are the ones that have scattered Judah so that there is no one to be seen. But the blacksmiths have come to terrify Judah's enemies and cut off the horns of the nations that have thrust themselves against the land of Judah in order to scatter its people."

As for the stone I have set before Joshua -- on the one stone there are seven eyes. I am about to engrave an inscription on it,' says the Lord who rules over all, 'to the effect that I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day.

There are also two olive trees beside it, one on the right of the receptacle and the other on the left."

Rather, I will sweep them away in a storm into all the nations they are not familiar with.' Thus the land had become desolate because of them, with no one crossing through or returning, for they had made the fruitful land a waste."

Moreover, the Lord who rules over all says, 'Old men and women will once more live in the plazas of Jerusalem, each one leaning on a cane because of advanced age.

Before that time there was no compensation for man or animal, nor was there any relief from adversity for those who came and went, because I had pitted everybody -- each one -- against everyone else.

These are the things you must do: Speak the truth, each of you, to one another. Practice true and righteous judgment in your courts.

Do not plan evil in your hearts against one another. Do not favor a false oath -- these are all things that I hate,' says the Lord."

The inhabitants of one will go to another and say, "Let's go up at once to ask the favor of the Lord, to seek the Lord who rules over all. Indeed, I'll go with you."'

The Lord who rules over all says, 'In those days ten people from all languages and nations will grasp hold of -- indeed, grab -- the robe of one Jew and say, "Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you."'"

Then I will surround my temple to protect it like a guard from anyone crossing back and forth; so no one will cross over against them anymore as an oppressor, for now I myself have seen it.

So I began to shepherd the flock destined for slaughter, the most afflicted of all the flock. Then I took two staffs, calling one "Pleasantness" and the other "Binders," and I tended the flock.

Next I eradicated the three shepherds in one month, for I ran out of patience with them and, indeed, they detested me as well.

Indeed, I am about to raise up a shepherd in the land who will not take heed to the sheep headed to slaughter, will not seek the scattered, and will not heal the injured. Moreover, he will not nourish the one that is healthy but instead will eat the meat of the fat sheep and tear off their hooves.

"I will pour out on the kingship of David and the population of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication so that they will look to me, the one they have pierced. They will lament for him as one laments for an only son, and there will be a bitter cry for him like the bitter cry for a firstborn.

It will happen in one day (a day known to the Lord); not in the day or the night, but in the evening there will be light.

The Lord will then be king over all the earth. In that day the Lord will be seen as one with a single name.

On that day there will be great confusion from the Lord among them; they will seize each other and attack one another violently.

"I wish that one of you would close the temple doors, so that you no longer would light useless fires on my altar. I am not pleased with you," says the Lord who rules over all, "and I will no longer accept an offering from you.

Do we not all have one father? Did not one God create us? Why do we betray one another, in this way making light of the covenant of our ancestors?

No one who has even a small portion of the Spirit in him does this. What did our ancestor do when seeking a child from God? Be attentive, then, to your own spirit, for one should not be disloyal to the wife he took in his youth.

"I hate divorce," says the Lord God of Israel, "and the one who is guilty of violence," says the Lord who rules over all. "Pay attention to your conscience, and do not be unfaithful."

Then those who respected the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord took notice. A scroll was prepared before him in which were recorded the names of those who respected the Lord and honored his name.

Then once more you will see that I make a distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between the one who serves God and the one who does not.

saying, "Where is the one who is born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him."

For he is the one about whom Isaiah the prophet had spoken: "The voice of one shouting in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make his paths straight.'"

"I baptize you with water, for repentance, but the one coming after me is more powerful than I am -- I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

And a voice from heaven said, "This is my one dear Son; in him I take great delight."

So anyone who breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever obeys them and teaches others to do so will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away! It is better to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into hell.

If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away! It is better to lose one of your members than to have your whole body go into hell.

Do not take an oath by your head, because you are not able to make one hair white or black.

Let your word be 'Yes, yes' or 'No, no.' More than this is from the evil one.

And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two.

Give to the one who asks you, and do not reject the one who wants to borrow from you.