⁶ Blessed shall you be ^(A)when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.

³¹ Then we departed from the river Ahava ^(A)on the twelfth day of the first month, to go to Jerusalem. ^(B)The hand of our God was on us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambushes by the way.

² In times past, when Saul was king over us, ^(A)it was you who led out and brought in Israel. And the Lord said to you, ^(B)‘You shall be shepherd of my people Israel, and you shall be prince^[a] over Israel.’”

Fasting and Prayer for Protection

^21 (A)Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river ^(B)Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, ^(C)to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods.

Boasting About Tomorrow

¹³ Come now, you who say, ^(A)“Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— ¹⁴ yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For ^(B)you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. ¹⁵ Instead you ought to say, ^(C)“If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶ As it is, you boast in your arrogance. ^(D)All such boasting is evil.