Judith 3:9View Full Chapter

⁹ Then Holofernes approached Esdraelon near Dothan, which is opposite the great ridge of Judea,

Judith 4:1View Full Chapter

The Israelites prepare for war

4 The Israelites living in Judea heard about everything that Holofernes the general of King Nebuchadnezzar, of the Assyrians, had done to all the other nations and how he had looted and destroyed all of their temples.

Judith 4:3View Full Chapter

³ They had just recently returned from captivity in exile. All the people of Judea had only just gathered together again, and the temple together with its altar and equipment had been newly dedicated to God after being polluted.

Judith 4:7View Full Chapter

⁷ telling them to guard the mountain passes because they were the entrance to Judea. It would be easy to stop anyone trying to enter through them, because the passages were narrow and allowed for only two men at the most to pass through.

Judith 4:13View Full Chapter

¹³ The Lord heard their cries and looked kindly on their troubles, for the people fasted many days throughout all Judea and in Jerusalem in front of the sanctuary of the Lord Almighty.

Judith 8:21View Full Chapter

²¹ If we are captured, so also will the rest of Judea be captured. Then our sanctuary will be plundered, and God will hold us responsible for its ruin with our own blood.

Judith 11:19View Full Chapter

¹⁹ Then I will lead you through Judea to Jerusalem, and I will set your throne in her midst. You will drive them out like sheep without a shepherd, and not even a dog will growl at you. This was predicted to me and announced to me, and I was sent to tell you.”

Greek Esther 1:1View Full Chapter

Addition A

Mordecai’s dream

A In the second year of the rule of Artaxerxes the Great, on the first day of Nisan, Mordecai had a dream. He was Jair’s son, Shimei’s grandson, and Kish’s great-grandson, from the tribe of Benjamin. ² He was a Jew living in the city of Susa, an important man serving in the royal court. ³ He was one of the prisoners of war whom King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had brought from Jerusalem along with Judea’s King Jeconiah.

⁴ This was his dream:

Look! Noise and confusion, thunder and earthquake, and chaos on the earth.

⁵ Look! Two mighty dragons came forward, both ready to fight, and they roared loudly. ⁶ At their roar every nation got ready for battle, to make war on the righteous nation.

⁷ Look! A day of darkness and gloom, misery and suffering, distress and chaos on the earth. ⁸ The entire righteous nation was thrown into a state of panic, dreading the evil that was coming against them. They expected to die. ⁹ So they cried out to God. Their cry was small at first, like a little spring, but soon it became loud as a mighty river, an abundance of water. ¹⁰ Then the sun with its light shone, the lowly were raised up high, and it devoured those who were held in honor. ¹¹ Then Mordecai, who had this dream and saw what God had planned to do, woke up and kept it secret. He wished to examine it in every detail before nightfall.

¹² Mordecai was relaxing in the courtyard with Gabatha and Tharra, two castrated men, attendants of King Artaxerxes who were guarding the courtyard. ¹³ He overheard their plans and investigated their intentions. He learned that they were preparing to attack King Artaxerxes, so he informed the king about them. ¹⁴ The king questioned the two eunuchs. Once they had confessed, they were taken away to be executed. ¹⁵ The king wrote these matters down so they would be remembered, and Mordecai also wrote about them. ¹⁶ The king appointed Mordecai to serve in the court and gave him gifts for his service. ¹⁷ But Haman, Hammedatha’s son, a Bougaean who was greatly respected by the king, sought to injure Mordecai and his people for the sake of the king’s two eunuchs.

Queen Vashti

1 After these events, this is what happened back during the rule of Artaxerxes, the very one who ruled as far as India, one hundred twenty-seven provinces in all.

Greek Esther 6:13View Full Chapter

¹³ Haman told his wife Zeresh and his friends about everything that had happened to him.

Both his friends and his wife said to him, “You’ve begun to lose face to Mordecai. If Mordecai belongs to the Judean people, and you’ve been humiliated before him, you will indeed fall. You will never be able to hold your own against him, because the living God is with him.”

1 Maccabees 1:29View Full Chapter

Occupation of Jerusalem

²⁹ Two years later, to collect tribute from the Judean cities, King Antiochus sent his chief officer, who came to Jerusalem with a large army.

JudeView Full Chapter

Greeting

¹ Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ and brother of James.

To those who are called, loved by God the Father and kept safe by Jesus Christ.

² May you have more and more mercy, peace, and love.

Certain judgment of the false teachers

³ Dear friends, I wanted very much to write to you concerning the salvation we share. Instead, I must write to urge you to fight for the faith delivered once and for all to God’s holy people. ⁴ Godless people have slipped in among you. They turn the grace of our God into unrestrained immorality and deny our only master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Judgment was passed against them a long time ago.

⁵ I want to remind you of something you already know very well. The Lord, who once saved a people out of Egypt, later destroyed those who didn’t maintain their faith. ⁶ I remind you too of the angels who didn’t keep their position of authority but deserted their own home. The Lord has kept them in eternal chains in the underworld until the judgment of the great day. ⁷ In the same way, Sodom and Gomorrah and neighboring towns practiced immoral sexual relations and pursued other sexual urges. By undergoing the punishment of eternal fire, they serve as a warning.

⁸ Yet, even knowing this, these dreamers in the same way pollute themselves, reject authority, and slander the angels. ⁹ The archangel Michael, when he argued with the devil about Moses’ body, did not dare charge him with slander. Instead, he said, “The Lord rebuke you!” ¹⁰ But these people slander whatever they don’t understand. They are destroyed by what they know instinctively, as though they were irrational animals.

Prophecies about the false teachers

¹¹ They are damned, for they follow in the footsteps of Cain. For profit they give themselves over to Balaam’s error. They are destroyed in the uprising of Korah. ¹² These people are like jagged rocks just below the surface of the water waiting to snag you when they join your love feasts. They feast with you without reverence. They care only for themselves. They are waterless clouds carried along by the winds; fruitless autumn trees, twice dead, uprooted; ¹³ wild waves of the sea foaming up their own shame; wandering stars for whom the darkness of the underworld is reserved forever.

¹⁴ Enoch, who lived seven generations after Adam, prophesied about these people when he said, “See, the Lord comes with his countless holy ones, ¹⁵ to execute judgment on everyone and to convict everyone about every ungodly deed they have committed in their ungodliness as well as all the harsh things that sinful ungodly people have said against him.” ¹⁶ These are faultfinding grumblers, living according to their own desires. They speak arrogant words and they show partiality to people when they want a favor in return.

¹⁷ But you, dear friends, remember the words spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ They said to you, “In the end time scoffers will come living according to their own ungodly desires.” ¹⁹ These people create divisions. Since they don’t have the Spirit, they are worldly.

A strategy for the faithful

²⁰ But you, dear friends: build each other up on the foundation of your most holy faith, pray in the Holy Spirit, ²¹ keep each other in the love of God, wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will give you eternal life. ²² Have mercy on those who doubt. ²³ Save some by snatching them from the fire. Fearing God, have mercy on some, hating even the clothing contaminated by their sinful urges.

Blessing