⁹ And Jehoash, king of Israel, sent to Amaziah, king of Judah, saying, The thorn-tree in Lebanon sent to the cedar in Lebanon, saying, Give your daughter to my son for a wife: and a beast from the woodland in Lebanon went by, crushing the thorn under his feet.

⁸ One day the trees went out to make a king for themselves; and they said to the olive-tree, Be king over us.

⁹ But the olive-tree said to them, Am I to give up my wealth of oil, by which men give honour to God, and go waving over the trees?

¹⁰ Then the trees said to the fig-tree, You come and be king over us.

¹¹ But the fig-tree said to them, Am I to give up my sweet taste and my good fruit and go waving over the trees?

¹² Then the trees said to the vine, You come and be king over us.

¹³ But the vine said to them, Am I to give up my wine, which makes glad God and men, to go waving over the trees?

¹⁴ Then all the trees said to the thorn, You come and be king over us.

¹⁵ And the thorn said to the trees, If it is truly your desire to make me your king, then come and put your faith in my shade; and if not, may fire come out of the thorn, burning up the cedars of Lebanon.

⁶ For see, they are going away into Assyria; Egypt will get them together, Memphis will be their last resting-place; their fair silver vessels will be covered over with field plants, and thorns will come up in their tents.

⁴⁹ Then I said, Ah, Lord! they say of me, Is he not a maker of stories?

¹³ And thorns will come up in her fair houses, and waste plants in her strong towers: and foxes will make their holes there, and it will be a meeting-place for ostriches.

² As the lily-flower among the thorns of the waste, so is my love among the daughters.

⁹ Like a thorn which goes up into the hand of a man overcome by drink, so is a wise saying in the mouth of a foolish man.

¹⁸ (For I was cared for by God as by a father from my earliest days; he was my guide from the body of my mother;)

¹¹ So the Lord sent against them the captains of the army of Assyria, who made Manasseh a prisoner and took him away in chains to Babylon.

¹⁸ And Joash, king of Israel, sent to Amaziah, king of Judah, saying, The thorn-tree in Lebanon sent to the cedar in Lebanon, saying, Give your daughter to my son for a wife: and a beast from the woodland in Lebanon went by, crushing the thorn under his feet.

¹⁰ So Amaziah, separating the armed band which had come to him from Ephraim, sent them back again; which made them very angry with Judah, and they went back burning with wrath.

¹¹ Then Amaziah took heart, and went out at the head of his people and came to the Valley of Salt, where he put to death ten thousand of the children of Seir;

¹² And ten thousand more the children of Israel took living, and made them go up to the top of the rock, pushing them down from the top of the rock so that their bodies were broken by the fall.

¹³ But the men of the band which Amaziah sent back and did not take with him to the fight, made attacks on the towns of Judah from Samaria to Beth-horon, putting to death three thousand of their people and taking away a great store of their goods.

³³ He made sayings about all plants, from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop hanging on the wall; and about all beasts and birds and fishes and the small things of the earth.

¹ And the Lord sent Nathan to David. And Nathan came to him and said, There were two men in the same town: one a man of great wealth, and the other a poor man.

² The man of wealth had great numbers of flocks and herds;

³ But the poor man had only one little she-lamb, which he had got and taken care of: from its birth it had been with him like one of his children; his meat was its food, and from his cup it took its drink, resting in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him.

⁴ Now a traveller came to the house of the man of wealth, but he would not take anything from his flock or his herd to make a meal for the traveller who had come to him, but he took the poor man's lamb and made it ready for the man who had come.

⁶ When the men of Israel saw the danger they were in, (for the people were troubled,) they took cover in cracks in the hillsides and in the woods and in rocks and holes and hollows.