Israel

He answered, "I have been very zealous for ADONAI the God of armies, because the people of Isra'el have abandoned your covenant, broken down your altars and killed your prophets with the sword. Now I'm the only one left, and they're coming after me to kill me too."

He answered, "I have been very zealous for ADONAI the God of armies; because the people of Isra'el have abandoned your covenant, broken down your altars and killed your prophets with the sword. Now I'm the only one left, and they're after me to kill me too."

He counted the district governors' young men; there were 232. After that, he counted all the people, all the people of Isra'el; there were 7,000.

The army of Isra'el, already mobilized and supplied, went to meet them; but the army of Isra'el, encamped opposite them, looked like two herds of goats; while Aram filled the land.

They remained in camp opposite each other for seven days. On the seventh day, the battle began; and the people of Isra'el killed 100,000 soldiers of Aram in a single day.

His behavior in following idols was grossly abominable; he did everything the Emori had done, whom ADONAI expelled ahead of the people of Isra'el.

Haza'el asked, "Why is my lord crying?" He answered, "Because I know the disasters you will bring on the people of Isra'el - you will set their fortresses on fire, you will kill their young men with the sword, you will dash their little ones to pieces and rip their pregnant women apart."

So ADONAI gave Isra'el a savior who freed them from the grip of Aram, so that the people of Isra'el could live in their tents, as they had before.

but ADONAI was gracious, took pity on them and looked on them with favor, because of his covenant with Avraham, Yitz'chak and Ya'akov. He was not willing to destroy them, and to this day he has not banished them from his presence.

Rather, he lived in the manner of the kings of Isra'el; he even made his son pass through fire [as a sacrifice], in keeping with the abominable practices of the pagans, whom ADONAI had thrown out ahead of the people of Isra'el.

This came about because the people of Isra'el had sinned against ADONAI their God, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, out from under the domination of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They feared other gods

and lived by the customs of the nations that ADONAI had expelled ahead of the people of Isra'el and by those of the kings of Isra'el.

The people of Isra'el secretly did things that were not right, according to ADONAI their God. They built high places for themselves wherever they lived, from the watchtower to the fortified city.

The people of Isra'el followed the example of all the sins that Yarov'am had committed and did not turn away from them,

The king of Ashur brought people from Bavel, Kutah, 'Ava, Hamat and S'farvayim and settled them in the cities of Shomron in place of the people of Isra'el; they took possession of Shomron and lived in its cities.

To this day they continue to follow their former [pagan] customs. They do not fear ADONAI. They do not follow the regulations, rulings, Torah or mitzvah which ADONAI ordered the descendants of Ya'akov, to whom he gave the name Isra'el,

He removed the high places, smashed the standing-stones, cut down the asherah and broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moshe had made; because in those days the people of Isra'el were making offerings to it, calling it N'chushtan.

He did what was evil from ADONAI's perspective, following the disgusting practices of the nations whom ADONAI had expelled ahead of the people of Isra'el.

But they did not take heed; and M'nasheh misled them into doing even worse things than the nations ADONAI had destroyed ahead of the people of Isra'el.

Following are the kings who ruled in the land of Edom before any king ruled over the people of Isra'el: Bela the son of B'or; the name of his city was Dinhavah.

So the people of Isra'el gave the L'vi'im these cities with the surrounding open land.

You descendants of Isra'el his servant, you offspring of Ya'akov, his chosen ones:

and established as a law for Ya'akov, for Isra'el as an everlasting covenant:

The people of Isra'el, registered according to their clan leaders, were drafted for army duty under captains of thousands and of hundreds, and officers serving the king, in divisions of 24,000 each, for month-long terms of duty covering all the months of the year.

Shlomo assembled all the leaders of Isra'el and all the heads of the tribes and the chiefs of the paternal clans of the people of Isra'el, to Yerushalayim, to bring the ark for the covenant of ADONAI out of the City of David, also known as Tziyon.