When they told him, “Joseph is still alive—in fact, it is he who is governing all the land of Egypt,” he was unmoved, for he did not believe them.

Chapter 4

“But,” objected Moses, “suppose they do not believe me or listen to me? For they may say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you.’”

That is so they will believe that the Lord, the God of their ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, did appear to you.

If they do not believe you or pay attention to the message of the first sign, they should believe the message of the second sign.

And if they do not believe even these two signs and do not listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry land. The water you take from the Nile will become blood on the dry land.

The people believed, and when they heard that the Lord had observed the Israelites and had seen their affliction, they knelt and bowed down.

and saw the great power that the Lord had shown against Egypt, the people feared the Lord. They believed in the Lord and in Moses his servant.

And when the Lord sent you up from Kadesh-barnea saying, Go up and take possession of the land I have given you, you rebelled against this command of the Lord, your God, and would not believe him or listen to his voice.

“I did not believe the report until I came and saw with my own eyes that not even the half had been told me. Your wisdom and prosperity surpass the report I heard.

But they did not listen. They grew as stiff-necked as their ancestors, who had not believed in the Lord, their God.

“I did not believe the report until I came and saw with my own eyes that not even the half of your great wisdom had been told me. You have surpassed the report I heard.

Let not Hezekiah mislead you further and deceive you in any such way. Do not believe him! Since no other god of any other nation or kingdom has been able to rescue his people from my hand or the hands of my fathers, how much the less shall your god rescue you from my hand!”

But she said to me, “It was given to me as a bonus over and above my wages.” Yet I would not believe her and told her to give it back to its owners. I flushed with anger at her over this. So she retorted: “Where are your charitable deeds now? Where are your righteous acts? Look! All that has happened to you is well known!”

But she retorted, “You be still, and do not try to deceive me! My son has perished!” She would rush out and keep watch every day at the road her son had taken. She ate nothing. After the sun had set, she would go back home to wail and cry the whole night through, getting no sleep at all. Departure from Ecbatana. Now when the fourteen days of the wedding celebration, which Raguel had sworn to hold for his daughter, had come to an end, Tobiah went to him and said: “Send me off, now, since I know that my father and mother do not believe they will ever see me again. So I beg you, father, let me depart and go back to my own father. I have already told you how I left him.”

and flee into Media, for I believe God’s word that Nahum spoke against Nineveh. It will all happen and will overtake Assyria and Nineveh; indeed all that was said by Israel’s prophets whom God sent will come to pass. Not one of all their words will remain unfulfilled, but everything will take place in the time appointed for it. So it will be safer in Media than in Assyria or Babylon. For I know and believe that whatever God has said will be accomplished. It will happen, and not a single word of the prophecies will fail. As for our kindred who dwell in the land of Israel, they will all be scattered and taken into captivity from the good land. All the land of Israel will become a wilderness; even Samaria and Jerusalem will be a wilderness! For a time, the house of God will be desolate and will be burned.

Now Achior, seeing all that the God of Israel had done, believed firmly in God. He circumcised the flesh of his foreskin and he has been united with the house of Israel to the present day.

He spoke to them deceitfully in peaceful terms, and they believed him. Then he attacked the city suddenly, in a great onslaught, and destroyed many of the people in Israel.

When Jonathan and the people heard these words, they neither believed nor accepted them, for they remembered the great evil that Demetrius had done in Israel, and the great tribulation he had brought upon them.

If I appealed to him and he answered me, I could not believe that he would listen to me;

When I smiled on them they could not believe it; they would not let the light of my face be dimmed.

I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living.

For they did not believe in God, did not trust in his saving power.

In spite of all this they went on sinning, they did not believe in his wonders.

Then they believed his words and sang his praise.

V

Next they despised the beautiful land; they did not believe the promise.