Brothers and sisters: Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

One day Elisha came to Shunem, where there was a woman of influence, who urged him to dine with her.

The Lord has consumed without pity/ all the dwellings of Jacob;/ He has torn down in his anger/ the fortresses of daughter Judah;/ He has brought to the ground in ­dishonor/ her king and her princes.

In the tenth month of the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, on the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and his whole army advanced against Jerusalem, encamped around it, and built siege walls on every side.

Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem.

In those days, Paul said: “God raised up David as king; of him God testified, I have found David, son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will carry out my every wish.

Hear me, O coastlands,/ listen, O distant peoples./ The Lord called me from birth,/ from my mother’s womb he gave me my name./ He made of me a sharp-edged sword/ and concealed me in the shadow of his arm./ He made me a polished arrow,/ in his quiver he hid me./ You are my servant, he said to me,/ Israel, through whom I show my glory.

Sennacherib, king of Assyria, sent envoys to Hezekiah with this message: “Thus shall you say to Hezekiah, king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God on whom you rely deceive you by saying that Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.

Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, occupied the whole land and attacked Samaria, which he besieged for three years.

Brothers and sisters: Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all men, inasmuch as all sinned—for up to the time of the law, sin was in the world, though sin is not accounted when there is no law.