⁶ “Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.

The Return to Jerusalem

³¹ Then we left the River Ahava on the twelfth day of the first month to go to Jerusalem; the hand of our God was upon us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambushes along the way.^(A)

² For some time, while Saul was king over us, it was you who led out Israel and brought it in. The Lord said to you, ‘It is you who shall be shepherd of my people Israel, you who shall be ruler over Israel.’ ”^(A)

Fasting and Prayer for Protection

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

Boasting about Tomorrow

¹³ Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.”^{(A) 14} Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.^{(B) 15} Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.”^{(C) 16} As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.