Jeremiah 52

¹⁸Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah.

²⁹Then Joshua and all Israel with him moved on from Makkedah to Libnah and fought against Libnah.

¹¹Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years.

⁴²Libnah, Ether, Ashan,

²²So to this day Edom has been in rebellion against the hand of Judah. Likewise, Libnah rebelled at the same time.

²²And Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord, and by the sins they committed they provoked Him to jealous anger more than all their fathers had done.

²⁵And you, O profane and wicked prince of Israel, the day has come for your final punishment.’

¹⁶‘As surely as I live,’ declares the Lord God, ‘he will die in Babylon, in the land of the king who enthroned him, whose oath he despised and whose covenant he broke.

¹⁷Pharaoh with his mighty army and vast horde will not help him in battle, when ramps are built and siege walls constructed to destroy many lives.

²⁹You are to proclaim concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah that this is what the Lord says: You have burned the scroll and said, ‘Why have you written on it that the king of Babylon would surely come and destroy this land and deprive it of man and beast?’

³⁰Therefore this is what the Lord says about Jehoiakim king of Judah: He will have no one to sit on David’s throne, and his body will be thrown out and exposed to heat by day and frost by night.

²¹King Jehoiakim and all his mighty men and officials heard his words, and the king sought to put him to death. But when Uriah found out about it, he fled in fear and went to Egypt.

²²Then King Jehoiakim sent men to Egypt: Elnathan son of Achbor along with some other men.

¹⁹And Zedekiah did evil in the sight of the Lord, just as Jehoiakim had done.

²⁰For because of the anger of the Lord, all this happened in Jerusalem and Judah, until He finally banished them from His presence. And Zedekiah also rebelled against the king of Babylon.

¹³He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God. But Zedekiah stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the Lord, the God of Israel.

⁴“I will make mere lads their leaders, and children will rule over them.”

⁵The people will oppress one another, man against man, neighbor against neighbor; the young will rise up against the old, and the base against the honorable.

¹For behold, the Lord God of Hosts is about to remove from Jerusalem and Judah both supply and support: the whole supply of food and water,

²A land in rebellion has many rulers, but a man of understanding and knowledge maintains order.

⁴I will deliver the Egyptians into the hands of a harsh master, and a fierce king will rule over them,” declares the Lord God of Hosts.

¹⁶Woe to you, O land whose king is a youth, and whose princes feast in the morning.

¹In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his entire army and laid siege to the city.

¹⁹“This is what the Lord of Hosts says: The fasts of the fourth, the fifth, the seventh, and the tenth months will become times of joy and gladness, cheerful feasts for the house of Judah. Therefore you are to love both truth and peace.”

¹In the ninth year, on the tenth day of the tenth month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²“Son of man, write down today’s date, for on this very day the king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem.

⁷Then the city was breached; and though the Chaldeans had surrounded the city, all the men of war fled the city by night by way of the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden. They headed toward the Arabah,

²⁴See how the siege ramps are mounted against the city to capture it. And by sword and famine and plague, the city has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans who are fighting against it. What You have spoken has happened, as You now see!

¹“Now you, son of man, take a brick, place it before you, and draw on it the city of Jerusalem.

²Then lay siege against it: Construct a siege wall, build a ramp to it, set up camps against it, and place battering rams around it on all sides.

¹For behold, the Lord God of Hosts is about to remove from Jerusalem and Judah both supply and support: the whole supply of food and water,

²And on the ninth day of the fourth month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year, the city was breached.

⁹“My lord the king, these men have acted wickedly in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet. They have dropped him into the cistern, where he will starve to death, for there is no more bread in the city.”

³By the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine in the city was so severe that the people of the land had no food.

⁹But take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt; put them in a single container and make them into bread for yourself. This is what you are to eat during the 390 days you lie on your side.

¹⁰You are to weigh out twenty shekels of food to eat each day, and you are to eat it at set times.

²¹For this is what the Lord God says: ‘How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem My four dire judgments—sword, famine, wild beasts, and plague—in order to cut off from it both man and beast?

³²The fords have been seized, the marshes set on fire, and the soldiers are terrified.”

⁴Then the city was breached; and though the Chaldeans had surrounded the city, all the men of war fled by night by way of the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden. They headed toward the Arabah,

⁴When Zedekiah king of Judah and all the soldiers saw them, they fled. They left the city at night by way of the king’s garden, through the gate between the two walls, and they went out along the route to the Arabah.

⁵But the army of the Chaldeans pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. They seized him and brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he pronounced judgment on him.

²⁵The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will march out against them in one direction but flee from them in seven. You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

¹⁷And I will set My face against you, so that you will be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when no one pursues you.

²⁶For her young men will fall in the streets, and all her warriors will be silenced in that day,” declares the Lord of Hosts.

²¹And I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah and his officials into the hands of their enemies who seek their lives, to the army of the king of Babylon that had withdrawn from you.

²³All your wives and children will be brought out to the Chaldeans. And you yourself will not escape their grasp, for you will be seized by the king of Babylon, and this city will be burned down.”

⁷‘After that,’ declares the Lord, ‘I will hand over Zedekiah king of Judah, his officers, and the people in this city who survive the plague and sword and famine, to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and to their enemies who seek their lives. He will put them to the sword; he will not spare them or show pity or compassion.’

⁴Zedekiah king of Judah will not escape from the hands of the Chaldeans, but he will surely be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, and will speak with him face to face and see him eye to eye.

¹⁹Those who chased us were swifter than the eagles in the sky; they pursued us over the mountains and ambushed us in the wilderness.

²⁰The Lord’s anointed, the breath of our life, was captured in their pits. We had said of him, “Under his shadow we will live among the nations.”

¹²And at dusk the prince among them will lift his bags to his shoulder and go out. They will dig through the wall to bring him out. He will cover his face so he cannot see the land.

¹³But I will spread My net over him, and he will be caught in My snare. I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans; yet he will not see it, and there he will die.

²¹So they went up and spied out the land from the Wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, toward Lebo-hamath.

⁵But the army of the Chaldeans pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. They seized him and brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he pronounced judgment on him.

⁶The Chaldeans seized the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, where they pronounced judgment on him.

⁵the land of the Gebalites; and all Lebanon to the east, from Baal-gad below Mount Hermon to Lebo-hamath.

¹¹then go down from Shepham to Riblah on the east side of Ain and continue along the slopes east of the Sea of Chinnereth.

⁶⁵So at that time Solomon and all Israel with him—a great assembly of people from Lebo-hamath to the Brook of Egypt—kept the feast before the Lord our God for seven days and seven more days—fourteen days in all.

³⁰This is what the Lord says: “Enroll this man as childless, a man who will not prosper in his lifetime. None of his descendants will prosper to sit on the throne of David or to rule again in Judah.”

⁷And they slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. Then they put out his eyes, bound him with bronze shackles, and took him to Babylon.

²⁴The captain of the guard also took away Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest of second rank, and the three doorkeepers.

²⁵Of those still in the city, he took a court official who had been appointed over the men of war, as well as seven trusted royal advisers. He also took the scribe of the captain of the army, who had enlisted the people of the land, and sixty men who were found in the city.

¹⁸The captain of the guard also took away Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest of second rank, and the three doorkeepers.

¹⁹Of those still in the city, he took a court official who had been appointed over the men of war, as well as five royal advisors. He also took the scribe of the captain of the army, who had enlisted the people of the land, and sixty men who were found in the city.

³⁴You will be driven mad by the sights you see.

¹⁶Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she said, “I cannot bear to watch the boy die!” And as she sat nearby, she lifted up her voice and wept.

¹³But I will spread My net over him, and he will be caught in My snare. I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans; yet he will not see it, and there he will die.

³And you yourself will not escape his grasp, but will surely be captured and delivered into his hand. You will see the king of Babylon eye to eye and speak with him face to face; and you will go to Babylon.

⁴Yet hear the word of the Lord, O Zedekiah king of Judah. This is what the Lord says concerning you: You will not die by the sword;

⁸On the seventh day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign over Babylon, Nebuzaradan captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, entered Jerusalem.

¹⁹“This is what the Lord of Hosts says: The fasts of the fourth, the fifth, the seventh, and the tenth months will become times of joy and gladness, cheerful feasts for the house of Judah. Therefore you are to love both truth and peace.”

²⁹in Nebuchadnezzar’s eighteenth year, 832 people from Jerusalem;

⁹Then Nebuzaradan captain of the guard carried away to Babylon the remnant of the people who had remained in the city, along with the deserters who had defected to him.

¹²Jehoiachin king of Judah, his mother, his servants, his commanders, and his officials all surrendered to the king of Babylon. So in the eighth year of his reign, the king of Babylon took him captive.

³⁶Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh and captain of the guard.

¹A Psalm of Asaph. The nations, O God, have invaded Your inheritance; they have defiled Your holy temple and reduced Jerusalem to rubble.

¹²Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, and the temple mount a wooded ridge.

¹⁹Then the Chaldeans set fire to the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem. They burned down all the palaces and destroyed every article of value.

⁹He burned down the house of the Lord, the royal palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem—every significant building.

⁶and smashing all the carvings with hatchets and picks.

⁷They have burned Your sanctuary to the ground; they have defiled the dwelling place of Your Name.

⁷The Lord has rejected His altar; He has abandoned His sanctuary; He has delivered the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have raised a shout in the house of the Lord as on the day of an appointed feast.

³And they told me, “The remnant who survived the exile are there in the province, in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.”

¹⁰And the whole army of the Chaldeans under the captain of the guard broke down the walls around Jerusalem.

¹Then the Lord said to me: “Even if Moses and Samuel should stand before Me, My heart would not go out to this people. Send them from My presence, and let them go!

²If they ask you, ‘Where shall we go?’ you are to tell them that this is what the Lord says: ‘Those destined for death, to death; those destined for the sword, to the sword; those destined for famine, to famine; and those destined for captivity, to captivity.’

²For I will gather all the nations for battle against Jerusalem, and the city will be captured, the houses looted, and the women ravished. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be removed from the city.

⁹Then Nebuzaradan captain of the guard carried away to Babylon the remnant of the people who had remained in the city, along with the deserters who had defected to him.

¹⁰But Nebuzaradan left behind in the land of Judah some of the poor people who had no property, and at that time he gave them vineyards and fields.

¹²But the captain of the guard left behind some of the poorest of the land to tend the vineyards and fields.

⁵But before Jeremiah turned to go, Nebuzaradan added, “Return to Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon has appointed over the cities of Judah, and stay with him among the people, or go anywhere else that seems right.” Then the captain of the guard gave him a ration and a gift and released him.

⁶So Jeremiah went to Gedaliah son of Ahikam at Mizpah and stayed with him among the people who were left in the land.

²⁴“Son of man, those living in the ruins in the land of Israel are saying, ‘Abraham was only one man, yet he possessed the land. But we are many; surely the land has been given to us as a possession.’

¹⁹For this is what the Lord of Hosts says about the pillars, the sea, the bases, and the rest of the articles that remain in this city,

²⁰which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon did not take when he carried Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, along with all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem.

¹²the two pillars; the two bowl-shaped capitals atop the pillars; the two sets of network covering both bowls of the capitals atop the pillars;

¹³the four hundred pomegranates for the two sets of network (two rows of pomegranates for each network covering both the bowl-shaped capitals atop the pillars);

²¹Each pillar was eighteen cubits tall and twelve cubits in circumference; each was hollow, four fingers thick.

²²The bronze capital atop one pillar was five cubits high, with a network of bronze pomegranates all around. The second pillar, with its pomegranates, was similar.

¹⁵He cast two pillars of bronze, each eighteen cubits high and twelve cubits in circumference.

¹⁶He also made two capitals of cast bronze to set on top of the pillars, each capital five cubits high.

¹⁰The adversary has seized all her treasures. For she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary—those You had forbidden to enter Your assembly.

¹⁸who carried off everything to Babylon—all the articles of the house of God, both large and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord and of the king and his officials.

¹⁴and place on it all the vessels used to serve there: the firepans, meat forks, shovels, and sprinkling bowls—all the equipment of the altar. They are to spread over it a covering of fine leather and insert the poles.

³Make all its utensils of bronze—its pots for removing ashes, its shovels, its sprinkling bowls, its meat forks, and its firepans.

⁴⁵and the pots, shovels, and sprinkling bowls. All the articles that Huram made for King Solomon in the house of the Lord were made of burnished bronze.

⁴⁰Additionally, Huram made the pots, shovels, and sprinkling bowls. So Huram finished all the work that he had undertaken for King Solomon in the house of the Lord:

¹⁶and the pots, shovels, meat forks, and all the other articles. All these objects that Huram-abi made for King Solomon for the house of the Lord were of polished bronze.

¹⁷the weight of the pure gold for the forks, sprinkling bowls, and pitchers; the weight of each gold dish; the weight of each silver bowl;

⁴⁹the lampstands of pure gold in front of the inner sanctuary, five on the right side and five on the left; the gold flowers, lamps, and tongs;

⁵⁰the pure gold basins, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, ladles, and censers; and the gold hinges for the doors of the inner temple (that is, the Most Holy Place) as well as for the doors of the main hall of the temple.

¹²I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be My people.

¹⁵The captain of the guard also took away the censers and sprinkling bowls—anything made of pure gold or fine silver.

³Then another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, along with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne.

⁴And the smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, rose up before God from the hand of the angel.

⁴⁶Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer, place fire from the altar in it, and add incense. Go quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them, because wrath has come out from the Lord; the plague has begun.”

⁶He also made ten basins for washing and placed five on the south side and five on the north. The parts of the burnt offering were rinsed in them, but the priests used the Sea for washing.

⁷He made ten gold lampstands according to their specifications and placed them in the temple, five on the south side and five on the north.

⁴⁷Solomon left all these articles unweighed, because there were so many. The weight of the bronze could not be determined.

¹⁶As for the two pillars, the Sea, and the movable stands that Solomon had made for the house of the Lord, the weight of the bronze from all these articles was beyond measure.

¹⁸Solomon made all these articles in such great abundance that the weight of the bronze could not be determined.

¹⁴Now behold, I have taken great pains to provide for the house of the Lord—100,000 talents of gold, 1,000,000 talents of silver, and bronze and iron too great to be weighed. I have also provided timber and stone, and you may add to them.

¹⁷Each pillar was eighteen cubits tall. The bronze capital atop one pillar was three cubits high, with a network of bronze pomegranates all around. The second pillar, with its network, was similar.

¹⁵In front of the temple he made two pillars, which together were thirty-five cubits high, each with a capital on top measuring five cubits.

¹⁶He made interwoven chains and put them on top of the pillars. He made a hundred pomegranates and fastened them into the chainwork.

¹⁵He cast two pillars of bronze, each eighteen cubits high and twelve cubits in circumference.

¹⁶He also made two capitals of cast bronze to set on top of the pillars, each capital five cubits high.

¹⁶He also made two capitals of cast bronze to set on top of the pillars, each capital five cubits high.

¹⁷For the capitals on top of the pillars he made a network of lattice, with wreaths of chainwork, seven for each capital.

¹²the two pillars; the two bowl-shaped capitals atop the pillars; the two sets of network covering both bowls of the capitals atop the pillars;

¹³the four hundred pomegranates for the two sets of network (two rows of pomegranates for each network covering both the bowl-shaped capitals atop the pillars);

¹⁵In front of the temple he made two pillars, which together were thirty-five cubits high, each with a capital on top measuring five cubits.

¹⁷Each pillar was eighteen cubits tall. The bronze capital atop one pillar was three cubits high, with a network of bronze pomegranates all around. The second pillar, with its network, was similar.

¹⁴and two chains of pure gold, made of braided cord work; and attach these chains to the settings.

¹⁵You are also to make a breastpiece of judgment with the same workmanship as the ephod. Construct it with gold, with blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, and with finely spun linen.

²⁵and fasten the other ends of the two chains to the two filigree settings, attaching them to the shoulder pieces of the ephod at the front.

²⁰On the capitals of both pillars, just above the rounded projection next to the network, were the two hundred pomegranates in rows encircling each capital.

¹⁸The captain of the guard also took away Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest of second rank, and the three doorkeepers.

¹⁴Azariah was the father of Seraiah, and Seraiah was the father of Jehozadak.

¹This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur son of Malchijah and the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah. They said,

²⁵this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “In your own name you have sent out letters to all the people of Jerusalem, to the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah, and to all the priests. You said to Zephaniah:

³Yet King Zedekiah sent Jehucal son of Shelemiah and Zephaniah the priest, the son of Maaseiah, to Jeremiah the prophet with the message, “Please pray to the Lord our God for us!”

⁴and I brought them into the house of the Lord, to a chamber occupied by the sons of Hanan son of Igdaliah, a man of God. This room was near the chamber of the officials, which was above the chamber of Maaseiah son of Shallum the doorkeeper.

¹⁹Of those still in the city, he took a court official who had been appointed over the men of war, as well as five royal advisors. He also took the scribe of the captain of the army, who had enlisted the people of the land, and sixty men who were found in the city.

¹⁴His closest advisors were Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena, and Memucan, the seven princes of Persia and Media who had personal access to the king and ranked highest in the kingdom.

¹⁰See that you do not look down on any of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of My Father in heaven.

²⁸I will make the land a desolate waste, and the pride of her strength will come to an end. The mountains of Israel will become desolate, so that no one will pass through.

¹¹Then I asked: “How long, O Lord?” And He replied: “Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left unoccupied and the land is desolate and ravaged,

¹²until the Lord has driven men far away and the land is utterly forsaken.

¹⁰Writhe in agony, O Daughter of Zion, like a woman in labor. For now you will leave the city and camp in the open fields. You will go to Babylon; there you will be rescued; there the Lord will redeem you from the hand of your enemies!

¹³and for the land of my people, overgrown with thorns and briers—even for every house of merriment in this city of revelry.

¹⁴For the palace will be forsaken, the busy city abandoned. The hill and the watchtower will become caves forever—the delight of wild donkeys and a pasture for flocks—

⁹behold, I will summon all the families of the north, declares the Lord, and I will send for My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, whom I will bring against this land, against its residents, and against all the surrounding nations. So I will devote them to destruction and make them an object of horror and contempt, an everlasting desolation.

¹⁰Moreover, I will banish from them the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of the bride and bridegroom, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the lamp.

¹⁰For the fortified city lies deserted—a homestead abandoned, a wilderness forsaken. There the calves graze, and there they lie down; they strip its branches bare.

¹²Jehoiachin king of Judah, his mother, his servants, his commanders, and his officials all surrendered to the king of Babylon. So in the eighth year of his reign, the king of Babylon took him captive.

¹³As the Lord had declared, Nebuchadnezzar also carried off all the treasures from the house of the Lord and the royal palace, and he cut into pieces all the gold articles that Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the Lord.

¹In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.

²And the Lord delivered into his hand Jehoiakim king of Judah, along with some of the articles from the house of God. He carried these off to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, where he put them in the treasury of his god.

²And the Lord sent Chaldean, Aramean, Moabite, and Ammonite raiders against Jehoiakim in order to destroy Judah, according to the word that the Lord had spoken through His servants the prophets.

³Surely this happened to Judah at the Lord’s command, to remove them from His presence because of the sins of Manasseh and all that he had done,

²⁰Those who escaped the sword were carried by Nebuchadnezzar into exile in Babylon, and they became servants to him and his sons until the kingdom of Persia came to power.

¹²On the tenth day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign over Babylon, Nebuzaradan captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, entered Jerusalem.

⁵And Abram took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all the possessions and people they had acquired in Haran, and set out for the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan,

⁵The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all, including Joseph, who was already in Egypt.

²⁰Those who escaped the sword were carried by Nebuchadnezzar into exile in Babylon, and they became servants to him and his sons until the kingdom of Persia came to power.

¹¹Then Nebuzaradan captain of the guard carried into exile the people who remained in the city, along with the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon and the rest of the population.

⁹Then Nebuzaradan captain of the guard carried away to Babylon the remnant of the people who had remained in the city, along with the deserters who had defected to him.

⁹This is what the Lord of Hosts says: “Glean the remnant of Israel as thoroughly as a vine. Pass your hand once more like a grape gatherer over the branches.”

¹⁵Then Nebuzaradan captain of the guard carried into exile some of the poorest people and those who remained in the city, along with the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon and the rest of the craftsmen.

²⁷On the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month of the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Judah’s King Jehoiachin, in the year Evil-merodach became king of Babylon, he released King Jehoiachin of Judah from prison.

²⁸And he spoke kindly to Jehoiachin and set his throne above the thrones of the other kings who were with him in Babylon.

³But You, O Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, and the One who lifts my head.

¹³Within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore your position. You will put Pharaoh’s cup in his hand, just as you did when you were his cupbearer.

¹The king’s heart is a waterway in the hand of the Lord; He directs it where He pleases.

⁶Then my head will be held high above my enemies around me. At His tabernacle I will offer sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the Lord.

²⁰On the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, he held a feast for all his officials, and in their presence he lifted up the heads of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker.

²⁵Anxiety weighs down the heart of a man, but a good word cheers it up.

³⁷You, O king, are the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given sovereignty, power, strength, and glory.

¹⁸As for you, O king, the Most High God gave your father Nebuchadnezzar sovereignty and greatness, glory and honor.

¹⁹Because of the greatness that He bestowed on him, the people of every nation and language trembled in fear before him. He killed whom he wished and kept alive whom he wished; he exalted whom he wished and humbled whom he wished.

⁶So now I have placed all these lands under the authority of My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. I have even made the beasts of the field subject to him.

⁷All nations will serve him and his son and grandson, until the time of his own land comes; then many nations and great kings will enslave him.

⁷“Do not be afraid,” said David, “for surely I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan. I will restore to you all the land of your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat at my table.”

¹³So Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, because he always ate at the king’s table, and he was lame in both feet.

¹⁴So Pharaoh sent for Joseph, who was quickly brought out of the dungeon. After he had shaved and changed his clothes, he went in before Pharaoh.

⁷But show loving devotion to the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite, and let them be among those who eat at your table, because they stood by me when I fled from your brother Absalom.

⁴²Then Pharaoh removed the signet ring from his finger, put it on Joseph’s finger, clothed him in garments of fine linen, and placed a gold chain around his neck.

¹The Spirit of the Lord God is on Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners,

²to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of our God’s vengeance, to comfort all who mourn,

¹⁰You and your sons and servants are to work the ground for him and bring in the harvest, so that your master’s grandson may have food to eat. But Mephibosheth, your master’s grandson, is always to eat at my table.” Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.

¹¹Give us this day our daily bread.

³Give us each day our daily bread.