Jesus Heals a Sick Man

John 5 Later, Jesus went to Jerusalem for another Jewish festival. ²In the city near the sheep gate was a pool with five porches, and its name in Hebrew was Bethzatha.
^3-4Many sick, blind, lame, and crippled people were lying close to the pool.
⁵Beside the pool was a man who had been sick for thirty-eight years. ⁶When Jesus saw the man and realized that he had been crippled for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to be healed?"
⁷The man answered, "Lord, I don't have anyone to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up. I try to get in, but someone else always gets there first."
⁸Jesus told him, "Pick up your mat and walk!" ⁹Right then the man was healed. He picked up his mat and started walking around. The day on which this happened was a Sabbath.
¹⁰When the Jewish leaders saw the man carrying his mat, they said to him, "This is the Sabbath! No one is allowed to carry a mat on the Sabbath."
¹¹But he replied, "The man who healed me told me to pick up my mat and walk."
¹²They asked him, "Who is this man that told you to pick up your mat and walk?" ¹³But he did not know who Jesus was, and Jesus had left because of the crowd.
¹⁴Later, Jesus met the man in the temple and told him, "You are now well. But don't sin anymore or something worse might happen to you." ¹⁵The man left and told the leaders that Jesus was the one who had healed him. ¹⁶They started making a lot of trouble for Jesus because he did things like this on the Sabbath.
¹⁷But Jesus said, "My Father has never stopped working, and that is why I keep on working." ¹⁸Now the leaders wanted to kill Jesus for two reasons. First, he had broken the law of the Sabbath. But even worse, he had said that God was his Father, which made him equal with God.

A List of David's Victories in War
(2 Samuel 8.1-14)

1 Chronicles 18 Later, David attacked and defeated the Philistines. He captured their town of Gath and the nearby villages.
²David also defeated the Moabites, and so they had to accept him as their ruler and pay taxes to him.
³While King Hadadezer of Zobah was trying to gain control of the territory near the Euphrates River, David met him in battle at Hamath and defeated him. ⁴David captured one thousand chariots, seven thousand chariot drivers, and twenty thousand soldiers. And he crippled all but one hundred of the horses.
⁵When troops from the Syrian kingdom of Damascus came to help Hadadezer, David killed twenty-two thousand of them. ⁶Then David stationed some of his troops in Damascus, and the people there had to accept David as their ruler and pay taxes to him.
Everywhere David went, the LORD helped him win battles.
⁷Hadadezer's officers had carried gold shields, but David took these shields and brought them back to Jerusalem. ⁸He also took a lot of bronze from the cities of Tibhath and Cun, which had belonged to Hadadezer. Later, Solomon used this bronze to make the large bowl called the Sea, and to make the pillars and other furnishings for the temple.
^9-10King Tou of Hamath and King Hadadezer had been enemies. So when Tou heard that David had defeated Hadadezer's whole army, he sent his son Hadoram to congratulate David on his victory. Hadoram also brought him gifts made of gold, silver, and bronze. ¹¹David gave these gifts to the LORD, just as he had done with the silver and gold he had captured from Edom, Moab, Ammon, Philistia, and Amalek.
¹²Abishai the son of Zeruiah defeated the Edomite army in Salt Valley and killed eighteen thousand of their troops. ¹³Then he stationed troops in Edom, and the people there had to accept David as their ruler.
Everywhere David went, the LORD gave him victory in war.

A List of David's Officials
(2 Samuel 8.15-18)

¹⁴David ruled all Israel with fairness and justice.
¹⁵Joab the son of Zeruiah was the commander in chief of the army.
Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud kept the government records.
¹⁶Zadok the son of Ahitub and Ahimelech the son of Abiathar were the priests.
Shavsha was the secretary.
¹⁷Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was the commander of David's bodyguard.
David's sons were his highest-ranking officials.

Israel Fights Ammon and Syria
(2 Samuel 10.1-19)

1 Chronicles 19 Some time later, King Nahash of Ammon died, and his son Hanun became king. ²David said, "Nahash was kind to me, so I will be kind to his son." He sent some officials to Ammon to tell Hanun how sorry he was that his father had died.
But when David's officials arrived at Ammon, ³the Ammonite leaders said to Hanun, "Do you really believe King David is honoring your father by sending these men to comfort you? He probably sent them to spy on our country, so he can come and destroy it."
⁴Hanun arrested David's officials and had their beards shaved off and their robes cut off just below the waist, and then he sent them away. ⁵They were terribly ashamed.
When David found out what had happened to his officials, he sent a message that told them, "Stay in Jericho until your beards grow back. Then you can come home."
⁶The Ammonites realized they had made David furious. So they paid over thirty tons of silver to hire chariot troops from Mesopotamia and from the Syrian kingdoms of Maacah and Zobah. ⁷Thirty-two thousand troops, as well as the king of Maacah and his army, came and camped near Medeba. The Ammonite troops also left their towns and came to prepare for battle.
⁸David heard what was happening, and he sent out Joab with his army. ⁹The Ammonite troops marched to the entrance of the city and prepared for battle, while the Syrian troops took their positions in the open fields.
¹⁰Joab saw that the enemy troops were lined up on both sides of him. So he picked some of the best Israelite soldiers to fight the Syrians. ¹¹Then he put his brother Abishai in command of the rest of the army and told them to fight against the Ammonites. ¹²Joab told his brother, "If the Syrians are too much for me to handle, come and help me. And if the Ammonites are too strong for you, I'll come and help you. ¹³Be brave and fight hard to protect our people and the towns of our LORD God. I pray he will do whatever pleases him."
¹⁴Joab and his soldiers attacked the Syrians, and the Syrians ran from them. ¹⁵When the Ammonite troops saw that the Syrians had run away, they ran from Abishai's soldiers and went back into their own city. Joab then returned to Jerusalem.
¹⁶As soon as the Syrians realized they had been defeated, they sent for their troops that were stationed on the other side of the Euphrates River. Shophach, the commander of Hadadezer's army, led these troops to Ammon.
¹⁷David found out what the Syrians were doing, and he brought Israel's entire army together. They crossed the Jordan River, and he commanded them to take their positions facing the Syrian troops.
Soon after the fighting began, ¹⁸the Syrians ran from Israel. David killed seven thousand chariot troops and forty thousand regular soldiers. He also killed Shophach, their commander.
¹⁹When the kings who had been under Hadadezer's rule saw that Israel had defeated them, they made peace with David and accepted him as their new ruler. The Syrians never helped the Ammonites again.

A Question about Going without Eating

Zechariah 7 On the fourth day of Chislev, the ninth month of the fourth year that Darius was king of Persia, the LORD again spoke to me. ^2-3It happened after the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer with Regem-Melech and his men to ask the priests in the LORD's temple and the prophets to pray for them. So they prayed, "Should we mourn and go without eating during the fifth month, as we have done for many years?"
^4-5It was then that the LORD All-Powerful told me to say to everyone in the country, including the priests:

For seventy years you have gone without eating during the fifth and seventh months of the year. But did you really do it for me? ⁶And when you eat and drink, isn't it for your own enjoyment? ⁷My message today is the same one I commanded the earlier prophets to speak to Jerusalem and its villages when they were prosperous, and when all of Judah, including the Southern Desert and the hill country, was filled with people.

^8-9So once again, I, the LORD All-Powerful, tell you, "See that justice is done and be kind and merciful to one another! ¹⁰Don't mistreat widows or orphans or foreigners or anyone who is poor, and stop making plans to hurt each other."

^11-12But everyone who heard those prophets, stubbornly refused to obey. Instead, they turned their backs on everything my Spirit had commanded the earlier prophets to preach. So I, the LORD, became angry ¹³and said, "You people paid no attention when I called out to you, and now I'll pay no attention when you call out to me."

¹⁴That's why I came with a whirlwind and scattered them among foreign nations, leaving their lovely country empty of people and in ruins.