¹⁴ When the king of Ai saw this, he and all his people, the inhabitants of the city, hurried out early in the morning to the meeting place facing the Arabah to meet Israel in battle, but he did not know that there was an ambush against him behind the city.^(A)

³⁹ and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so, too, will be the coming of the Son of Man.

³ And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation, pronounced against them long ago, has not been idle, and their destruction is not asleep.^(A)

5 Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you.^{(A) 2} For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.^{(B) 3} When they say, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape!^(C)

⁵⁰ the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour that he does not know.

³¹ While the words were still in the king’s mouth, a voice came down from heaven: “O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is declared: The kingdom is taken from you!^(A)

¹² For no one can anticipate one’s time. Like fish taken in a cruel net or like birds caught in a snare, so mortals are snared at a time of calamity, when it suddenly falls upon them.^(A)

³⁴ There came against Gibeah ten thousand picked men out of all Israel, and the battle was fierce. But the Benjaminites did not realize that disaster was close upon them.^(A)

³⁵ The Lord defeated Benjamin before Israel, and the Israelites struck down twenty-five thousand one hundred men of Benjamin that day, all of them armed.

³⁶ Then the Benjaminites saw that they were defeated.

The Israelites gave ground to Benjamin because they relied on the troops in ambush that they had stationed against Gibeah.^(B)