2 Kings 19:3

He called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because the children of Israel quarreled, and because they tested Yahweh, saying, “Is Yahweh among us, or not?”

For Yahweh will not forsake his people for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased Yahweh to make you a people for himself.

though I am decaying like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth-eaten.

It’s burned with fire. It’s cut down. They perish at your rebuke.

They will be dismayed. Pangs and sorrows will seize them. They will be in pain like a woman in labor. They will look in amazement one at another. Their faces will be faces of flame.

No weapon that is formed against you will prevail; and you will condemn every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of Yahweh’s servants, and their righteousness is of me,” says Yahweh.

These are the waters of Meribah; because the children of Israel strove with Yahweh, and he was sanctified in them.

You shall not tempt Yahweh your God, as you tempted him in Massah.

That night, Yahweh’s angel went out, and struck one hundred eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. When men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.

from men by your hand, Yahweh, from men of the world, whose portion is in this life. You fill the belly of your cherished ones. Your sons have plenty, and they store up wealth for their children.

Surely men of low degree are just a breath, and men of high degree are a lie. In the balances they will go up. They are together lighter than a breath.

I will send him against a profane nation, and against the people who anger me I will give him a command to take the plunder and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

Behold, the Lord Yahweh will help me! Who is he who will condemn me? Behold, they will all grow old like a garment. The moths will eat them up.

Ask now, and see whether a man travails with child. Why do I see every man with his hands on his waist, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned pale?

For I am with you, says Yahweh, to save you; for I will make a full end of all the nations where I have scattered you, but I will not make a full end of you; but I will correct you in measure, and will in no way leave you unpunished.”

Don’t be afraid, O Jacob my servant,” says Yahweh; “for I am with you; for I will make a full end of all the nations where I have driven you; but I will not make a full end of you, but I will correct you in measure, and will in no way leave you unpunished.”

But I have made Esau bare, I have uncovered his secret places, and he will not be able to hide himself. His offspring is destroyed, with his brothers and his neighbors; and he is no more.

Her adversaries have become the head. Her enemies prosper; for Yahweh has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions. Her young children have gone into captivity before the adversary.

The best of them is like a brier. The most upright is worse than a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen, even your visitation, has come; now is the time of their confusion.

That day is a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness,

Therefore the people quarreled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test Yahweh?”

For Yahweh will judge his people, and have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their power is gone; that there is no one remaining, shut up or left at large.

Why then do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? When he had worked wonderfully among them, didn’t they let the people go, and they departed?

Now therefore don’t let Hezekiah deceive you, nor persuade you in this way. Don’t believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of my hand, and out of the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God deliver you out of my hand?”

For we are bondservants; yet our God has not forsaken us in our bondage, but has extended loving kindness to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to revive us, to set up the house of our God, and to repair its ruins, and to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem.

Now when the turn of Esther, the daughter of Abihail the uncle of Mordecai, who had taken her for his daughter, came to go in to the king, she required nothing but what Hegai the king’s eunuch, the keeper of the women, advised. Esther obtained favor in the sight of all those who looked at her.

The king loved Esther more than all the women, and she obtained favor and kindness in his sight more than all the virgins; so that he set the royal crown on her head, and made her queen instead of Vashti.

Trembling took hold of them there, pain, as of a woman in travail.

They are appointed as a flock for Sheol. Death shall be their shepherd. The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning. Their beauty shall decay in Sheol, far from their mansion.

For we are consumed in your anger. We are troubled in your wrath.

A prudent man sees danger and hides himself; but the simple pass on, and suffer for it.

He has swallowed up death forever! The Lord Yahweh will wipe away tears from off all faces. He will take the reproach of his people away from off all the earth, for Yahweh has spoken it.

Just as a woman with child, who draws near the time of her delivery, is in pain and cries out in her pangs, so we have been before you, Yahweh.

Woe to you who destroy, but you weren’t destroyed, and who betray, but nobody betrayed you! When you have finished destroying, you will be destroyed; and when you have finished betrayal, you will be betrayed.

Yahweh, be gracious to us. We have waited for you. Be our strength every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble.

Haven’t you known? Haven’t you heard? The everlasting God, Yahweh, the Creator of the ends of the earth, doesn’t faint. He isn’t weary. His understanding is unsearchable.

The Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob without pity. He has thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah. He has brought them down to the ground. He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.

The children are impudent and stiff-hearted. I am sending you to them, and you shall tell them, ‘This is what the Lord Yahweh says.’

Your doom has come to you, inhabitant of the land! The time has come! The day is near, a day of tumult, and not of joyful shouting, on the mountains.

Be in pain, and labor to give birth, daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail; for now you will go out of the city, and will dwell in the field, and will come even to Babylon. There you will be rescued. There Yahweh will redeem you from the hand of your enemies.

But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath, revelation, and of the righteous judgment of God;

For when they are saying, “Peace and safety,” then sudden destruction will come on them, like birth pains on a pregnant woman. Then they will in no way escape.

But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart, and didn’t listen to them, as Yahweh had spoken.

Yahweh said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? and how long will they not believe in me, for all the signs which I have worked among them?

“How long shall I bear with this evil congregation that complain against me? I have heard the complaints of the children of Israel, which they complain against me.

The king says, ‘Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you; for he will not be able to deliver you out of his hand.

I said, “Should a man like me flee? Who is there that, being such as I, would go into the temple to save his life? I will not go in.”

He brought up Hadassah, that is, Esther, his uncle’s daughter; for she had neither father nor mother. The maiden was fair and beautiful; and when her father and mother were dead, Mordecai took her for his own daughter.

For if you remain silent now, then relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Who knows if you haven’t come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

How much more, those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth!

This is the portion of a wicked man from God, the heritage appointed to him by God.”

My skin grows black and peels from me. My bones are burned with heat.

When you rebuke and correct man for iniquity, you consume his wealth like a moth. Surely every man is but a breath.”

Don’t harden your heart, as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the wilderness,

for Yahweh will plead their case, and plunder the life of those who plunder them.

Blessed is the man who always fears; but one who hardens his heart falls into trouble.

This also is a grievous evil, that in all points as he came, so shall he go. And what profit does he have who labors for the wind?

My heart cries out for Moab! Her nobles flee to Zoar, to Eglath Shelishiyah; for they go up by the ascent of Luhith with weeping; for on the way to Horonaim, they raise up a cry of destruction.

At evening, behold, terror! Before the morning, they are no more. This is the portion of those who plunder us, and the lot of those who rob us.

The watchman said, “The morning comes, and also the night. If you will inquire, inquire. Come back again.”

For it is a day of confusion, and of treading down, and of perplexity, from the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, in the valley of vision, a breaking down of the walls, and a crying to the mountains.”

We have been with child. We have been in pain. We gave birth, it seems, only to wind. We have not worked any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.

Has he struck them as he struck those who struck them? Or are they killed like those who killed them were killed?

then I will distress Ariel, and there will be mourning and lamentation. She shall be to me as an altar hearth.

The multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all who fight against her and her stronghold, and who distress her, will be like a dream, a vision of the night.

Your heart will meditate on the terror. Where is he who counted? Where is he who weighed? Where is he who counted the towers?

He has cast the lot for them, and his hand has divided it to them with a measuring line. They shall possess it forever. From generation to generation they will dwell in it.

They said to him, “Hezekiah says, ‘Today is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of rejection; for the children have come to the birth, and there is no strength to give birth.

“Therefore Yahweh says concerning the king of Assyria, ‘He will not come to this city, nor shoot an arrow there, neither will he come before it with shield, nor cast up a mound against it.

You will seek them, and won’t find them, even those who contend with you. Those who war against you will be as nothing, as a non-existent thing.

“I have trodden the wine press alone. Of the peoples, no one was with me. Yes, I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath. Their lifeblood is sprinkled on my garments, and I have stained all my clothing.

Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to be delivered?” says Yahweh. “Shall I who cause to give birth shut the womb?” says your God.

Israel was holiness to Yahweh, the first fruits of his increase. All who devour him will be held guilty. Evil will come on them,” ’ says Yahweh.”

This is your lot, the portion measured to you from me,” says Yahweh, “because you have forgotten me, and trusted in falsehood.”

They will dwell in it securely. Yes, they will build houses, plant vineyards, and will dwell securely, when I have executed judgments on all those who scorn them all around. Then they will know that I am Yahweh their God.” ’ ”

Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel, and cast him into the den of lions. The king spoke and said to Daniel, “Your God whom you serve continually, he will deliver you.”

Therefore I am to Ephraim like a moth, and to the house of Judah like rottenness.

The sorrows of a travailing woman will come on him. He is an unwise son; for when it is time, he doesn’t come to the opening of the womb.

Yahweh says: “Though they be in full strength, and likewise many, even so they will be cut down, and he shall pass away. Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more.

Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of lies and robbery. The prey doesn’t depart.

He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it has not been so.

Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was done by him; and he was very perplexed, because it was said by some that John had risen from the dead,

But when some were hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of the Way before the multitude, he departed from them, and separated the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus.

are to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will kill with the breath of his mouth, and destroy by the manifestation of his coming;

for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and chastises every son whom he receives.”

As many as I love, I reprove and chasten. Be zealous therefore, and repent.