⁹ By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.^(A)

⁷ “It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples.^(A)

³⁰ Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble on me by making me odious to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites; my numbers are few, and if they gather themselves against me and attack me, I shall be destroyed, both I and my household.”^(A)

⁴ “I am a stranger and an alien residing among you; give me property among you for a burying place, so that I may bury my dead out of my sight.”^(A)

⁵ you shall make this response before the Lord your God: ‘A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.^(A)

¹² Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”^(A)

⁵ He did not give him any of it as a heritage, not even a foot’s length, but promised to give it to him as his possession and to his descendants after him, even though he had no child.^(A)

²⁴ Mortal, the inhabitants of these waste places in the land of Israel keep saying, “Abraham was only one man, yet he got possession of the land, but we are many; the land is surely given us to possess.”^{(A) 25} Therefore say to them: Thus says the Lord God: You eat flesh with the blood and lift up your eyes to your idols and shed blood; shall you then possess the land?^{(B) 26} You depend on your swords, you commit abominations, and each of you defiles his neighbor’s wife; shall you then possess the land?^{(C) 27} Say this to them: Thus says the Lord God: As I live, surely those who are in the waste places shall fall by the sword, and those who are in the open field I will give to the wild animals to be devoured, and those who are in strongholds and in caves shall die by pestilence.^{(D) 28} I will make the land a desolation and a waste, and its proud might shall come to an end, and the mountains of Israel shall be so desolate that no one will pass through.^{(E) 29} Then they shall know that I am the Lord, when I have made the land a desolation and a waste because of all their abominations that they have committed.^(F)

³⁰ As for you, mortal, your people who talk together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses say to one another, each to a neighbor, “Come and hear what the word is that comes from the Lord.” ³¹ They come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but they will not obey them. For flattery is on their lips, but their heart is set on their gain.^{[a](G) 32} To them you are like a singer of love songs,^[b] one who has a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument; they hear what you say, but they will not do it. ³³ When this comes—and come it will!—then they shall know that a prophet has been among them.^(H)