Then they said, “Now let's build a city for ourselves with a tower whose top reaches the heavens. That way we'll gain a great reputation and we won't end up being scattered all over the world.”
There were many tar pits in the Valley of Siddim, and as the defeated kings of Sodom and Gomorrah ran away, some of their men fell into them while the rest ran to the hills.
David took the inhabitants and forced them to work with saws, iron picks, and axes, and he also made them work making bricks. He did the same in all the Ammonite towns. Then David and the whole Israelite army returned to Jerusalem.
making their lives a misery. They made them do hard labor, building with mortar and brick, and all kinds of heavy work in the fields. In all of this hard labor they treated them brutally.
But when she couldn't hide him anymore, she got a papyrus basket and covered it with tar and pitch. Then she put her baby in the basket and placed it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.
So then I thought to myself, “Alright, let me examine pleasure and see how good that is.” But this too turned out to be something temporary that passes.
So let me tell you what I'm going to do to my vineyard. I'll remove its hedge, and it will be destroyed. I'll tear down its wall, and it will be trampled underfoot.
These people are always making me angry, because they present sacrifices to idols in their sacred gardens, and offer incense on pagan altars made of brick.
“The brick buildings have collapsed, but we will rebuild them with dressed stone; the sycamore fig trees have been cut down, but we will replace them with cedars.”