Then they said to each other, ‘Obviously, we are being punished for what we did to our brother. We saw his deep distress when he pleaded with us, but we would not listen. That is why this trouble has come to us.’
Saul told David, ‘Here is my eldest daughter Merab. I’ll give her to you as a wife if you will be a warrior for me and fight the Lord’s battles.’ But Saul was thinking, ‘I don’t need to raise a hand against him; let the hand of the Philistines be against him.’
cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, and frankincense; wine, olive oil, fine flour, and grain; cattle and sheep; horses and carriages; and slaves #– #human lives.
for the sexually immoral and males who have sex with males, for slave traders, liars, perjurers, and for whatever else is contrary to the sound teaching
and said, ‘We have done our best to buy back our Jewish countrymen who were sold to foreigners, but now you sell your own countrymen, and we have to buy them back.’ They remained silent and could not say a word.
Why then have you despised the Lord’s command by doing what I consider evil? You struck down Uriah the Hethite with the sword and took his wife as your own wife #– #you murdered him with the Ammonite’s sword.
Reuben also said to them, ‘Don’t shed blood. Throw him into this pit in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him’ #– #intending to rescue him from them and return him to his father.
We and our children are just like our countrymen and their children, yet we are subjecting our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters are already enslaved, but we are powerless because our fields and vineyards belong to others.’