^43 (A)The sojourner who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower.

¹³ And the Lord will make you ^(A)the head and not the tail, and you shall only go up and not down, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, being careful to do them,

¹⁵ They cried out, ^(A)“Away with him, away with him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.”

³¹ Pilate said to them, ^(A)“Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.” The Jews said to him, “It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death.”

^14 (A)He carried away all Jerusalem and all the officials and all the mighty men of valor, ^(B)10,000 captives, ^(C)and all the craftsmen and the smiths. None remained, ^(D)except the poorest people of the land. ^15 (E)And he carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon. The king's mother, the king's wives, his officials, and the chief men of the land he took into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon. ¹⁶ And the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon all the men of valor, ^(F)7,000, and the craftsmen and the metal workers, 1,000, all of them strong and fit for war.

²³ until the Lord removed Israel out of his sight, ^(A)as he had spoken by all his servants the prophets. ^(B)So Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria until this day.

²⁰ And the Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel and afflicted them ^(A)and gave them into the hand of plunderers, until he had cast them out of his sight.

^19 (A)Now there was no blacksmith to be found throughout all the land of Israel, for the Philistines said, “Lest the Hebrews make themselves swords or spears.” ²⁰ But every one of the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen his plowshare, his mattock, his axe, or his sickle,^{[a] 21} and the charge was two-thirds of a shekel^[b] for the plowshares and for the mattocks, and a third of a shekel^[c] for sharpening the axes and for setting the goads.^{[d] 22} So on the day of the battle ^(B)there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people with Saul and Jonathan, but Saul and Jonathan his son had them. ²³ And ^(C)the garrison of the Philistines went out to the ^(D)pass of ^(E)Michmash.

³ Jonathan defeated ^(A)the garrison of the Philistines that was ^(B)at Geba, and the Philistines heard of it. And Saul ^(C)blew the trumpet throughout all the land, saying, “Let the Hebrews hear.” ⁴ And all Israel heard it said that Saul had defeated the garrison of the Philistines, and also that Israel had become a stench to the Philistines. And the people were called out to join Saul at Gilgal.

⁵ And the Philistines mustered to fight with Israel, thirty thousand chariots and six thousand horsemen and troops ^(D)like the sand on the seashore in multitude. They came up and encamped in Michmash, to the east of ^(E)Beth-aven. ⁶ When the men of Israel saw that they were in trouble (for the people were hard pressed), the people hid themselves ^(F)in caves and in holes and in rocks and in tombs and in cisterns, ⁷ and some Hebrews crossed the fords of the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. Saul was still at Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling.