We know many of you visiting our site have a favorite translation of the Bible—one that you are familiar with, have memorized, and internalized in your heart. We love that, and we want you to feel free to experience our stories using the translation of your choice.
To maintain a consistent voice throughout our resources, we would love to introduce you to a relatively new English translation: the Berean Standard Bible (BSB). Its name comes from Acts 17:11: "Now the Bereans were more noble-minded than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if these teachings were true."
Every Scripture passage featured in Significant Stories is from the BSB translation. We appreciate its clear, straightforward text that is equally helpful for public reading, deep study, and sharing with others.
For centuries, monks painstakingly crafted illuminated manuscripts — surrounding each page of scripture with gold leaf, cross-references, and scholarly glosses, transforming the text into something both beautiful and deeply understood. The word illuminated meant both made beautiful and made clear.
Illuminated Word Study carries that same intention into the digital age. We have carefully aligned centuries of scholarly work — lexicons, concordances, dictionaries, cross-references, and semantic analyses — so that every resource is always turned to the right page, presenting their intersection right inside each verse. Click any verse, and the text opens to reveal its deepest layers.
What's Inside
Illuminated Word Study brings together three study dimensions, all accessible from a single click on any verse:
Interlinear — Word-by-word alignment of the English translation with the original Greek and Hebrew, with multiple translation sources and manuscript tradition notes.
Word Study — Click any word to explore a vertical chain of progressive study stations: identity and pronunciation, scholarly definitions, grammatical parsing, an interactive distribution sparkline showing every occurrence across the Bible, etymological roots, and Septuagint bridge connections. The study header stays pinned below the scripture controls as you scroll.
Verse Study — Compare how the verse reads across four centuries of English translation, explore cross-references with a visual arc diagram spanning Genesis to Revelation, read dictionary articles about the people, places, and concepts mentioned, and see geographic locations on a parchment-styled map.
How to Use
Click any verse to open its Illuminated Word Study view.
Word order — Text boxes default to English word order. Click Greek (NT) or Hebrew (OT) to switch to the original language order.
Hover a word — Highlights the corresponding word in both columns.
Click a word — Opens detailed word study and keeps matching words highlighted in both columns.
Translation Sources
Each column has its own selector to switch between translation sources independently.
English column — Choose between BSB (Berean Standard Bible) and KJV (King James Version). BSB provides curated word-level alignment; KJV words are linked via Strong's numbers.
Original language column — Choose between BSB interlinear data and the independent source texts: Nestle 1904 (Greek NT) or OSHB (Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible, OT).
BSB + BSB — The only combination with a word-order sort toggle, since BSB has curated English-to-original word pairings.
Red letter — Words of Jesus appear in red in both BSB and KJV.
Word Study
Click any word to open its study panel — a vertical chain of six progressive stations that build from identity to context:
Identity — The word as it appears in the manuscript (inflected form), with transliteration, root form (shown with an arrow when different from the inflected form), Strong's number pill, and pronunciation guide.
Meaning — Brief definition (Dodson for Greek, Strong's for Hebrew), with expandable full scholarly entries from Abbott-Smith (Greek) or Brown-Driver-Briggs (Hebrew). Greek words also show Louw-Nida semantic domain categories.
Form — Parsing code with human-readable expansion, decoded morphology for Hebrew verb stems (OT) and Greek grammatical forms (NT), and manuscript variant indicators when editions disagree about a word's inclusion.
Across Scripture — An interactive sparkline showing every occurrence of the word across all 66 books of the Bible. Click any book bar to expand chapter-level detail, then click a chapter to see individual verse references with context from the BSB text. Verse references open the preview modal.
Roots — The etymological origin of the word, shown as inline mini study cards with their own identity, definition, and interactive sparkline. Root derivations work across testaments — a Greek word can trace back to a Hebrew origin.
Septuagint Bridge — For Hebrew words, shows the Greek translation chosen by the Septuagint translators, rendered as a mini study card with the Greek word's identity, definition, and NT distribution sparkline. This bridge connects the testaments — the same Greek word used in the Septuagint often reappears in the New Testament.
Additional notes:
Multiple Strong's — Some KJV words map to multiple original-language words. Each appears as an expandable section (first auto-expanded) with its own full study chain.
Manuscripts — 934 New Testament words are annotated with manuscript tradition data, indicating which critical editions include or omit the word.
Manuscript Traditions
The New Testament was hand-copied for centuries before the printing press. Scholars compare thousands of surviving manuscripts to reconstruct the original text. Different editorial teams weigh the manuscript evidence differently, producing distinct critical editions. When a word shows a manuscript marker, it means these editions disagree about whether that word belongs in the text.
TR — Textus Receptus. The "received text" compiled in the 16th century, based on late Byzantine manuscripts. The basis for the King James Bible and other Reformation-era translations.
BYZ — Byzantine Majority Text. Represents the reading found in the majority of surviving Greek manuscripts, which are predominantly from the Byzantine tradition.
RP — Robinson-Pierpont. A modern Byzantine majority text that follows the consensus reading of the Byzantine manuscript family.
WH — Westcott-Hort. A pioneering 19th-century critical text that prioritized the earliest Alexandrian manuscripts, shifting scholarship away from the Textus Receptus.
NE — Nestle. An early critical text that became the foundation for the Nestle-Aland editions. Based on comparing multiple 19th-century critical texts.
NA — Nestle-Aland. The standard modern critical text (currently in its 28th edition). Used by most Bible translators and scholars worldwide. Published by the German Bible Society.
SBL — SBL Greek New Testament. A critical text published by the Society of Biblical Literature, offering an alternative to the NA text with a transparent editorial methodology.
ECM — Editio Critica Maior. The most comprehensive critical apparatus available, cataloging variants from virtually all known manuscripts. An ongoing project by the Institute for New Testament Textual Research.
Definitions
Each word's definition draws from multiple scholarly lexicons, layered from brief to detailed.
Brief definition — A concise gloss of the word's meaning. Greek words use the Dodson lexicon; Hebrew words use Strong's definitions.
Full Definition — Expand to see a comprehensive scholarly entry. Greek words draw from Abbott-Smith's Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), with grammatical analysis, sense distinctions, and scripture references. Hebrew words draw from Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB, 1906), the standard reference Hebrew lexicon, with etymological and contextual detail.
Pronunciation — A phonetic guide to how the original word sounds.
Semantic Domains
Additional linguistic context appears below the definition depending on whether the word is Greek or Hebrew.
Greek words — Louw-Nida domains — Shows which conceptual category the word belongs to in the Louw-Nida Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains. Unlike traditional alphabetical lexicons, Louw-Nida organizes words by meaning — so words for "speak," "write," and "proclaim" all appear together under "Communication." This helps you find related words and understand a word's place in the broader semantic landscape. There are 93 top-level domains covering all NT vocabulary.
Hebrew words — LXX equivalents — Shows how the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint, abbreviated LXX) rendered this Hebrew word. For example, the Hebrew אֱלֹהִים (Elohim, "God") was translated as θεός (theos) in the LXX. Click the Greek Strong's number to see its full occurrence data. The LXX translation choices are significant because New Testament authors, writing in Greek, often drew their Old Testament quotations from the Septuagint rather than translating directly from Hebrew.
Lexicon Sources
The definition and enrichment data draws from these scholarly sources:
Dodson — The Dodson Greek Lexicon. Brief, accessible definitions for 5,400+ Greek Strong's numbers. Provides the concise gloss shown for every Greek word.
Strong's — Strong's Exhaustive Concordance. James Strong's numbering system (1890) assigns a unique number to every Hebrew and Greek root word in the Bible. The Hebrew definitions from Strong's provide brief glosses for 8,600+ words.
Abbott-Smith — A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (G. Abbott-Smith, 1922). A scholarly one-volume lexicon with detailed sense analysis, grammatical notes, and extensive cross-references to classical and Septuagint usage. Covers 5,300+ Greek entries.
BDB — A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Brown, Driver, Briggs, 1906). The standard reference lexicon for Biblical Hebrew for over a century. Entries include etymology, cognate languages, and detailed analysis of how each word is used across the Old Testament. Matched to 5,600+ Strong's numbers.
Louw-Nida — Greek-English Lexicon Based on Semantic Domains (Louw & Nida, 1988). Rather than alphabetical, this lexicon groups 5,300+ Greek words by meaning into 93 conceptual domains. Semantic domain data is sourced from the MACULA Greek linguistic annotations of the Nestle 1904 text.
LXX — Septuagint Greek equivalents. For 4,100+ Hebrew words, shows which Greek word the Septuagint translators chose, with occurrence counts. Sourced from the MACULA Hebrew linguistic annotations, which align the Masoretic Hebrew text with the Septuagint Greek.
Verse Study
Below the interlinear columns, tabs provide additional study resources for the selected verse.
Compare Translations
Click "Compare Translations" below the interlinear columns to see how the verse reads across four centuries of English translation.
Phrase alignment — A five-column grid aligning corresponding phrases from KJV (1611), ERV (1885), ASV (1901), WEB (2000), and BSB (2020) row by row, with yellow highlighting for phrases that differ from KJV.
Word-level differences — Expand the collapsible section to see each translation with word-level difference highlighting. Green highlights words that differ from KJV. Blue highlights words new to a later translation that weren't in its predecessor.
Word sync — Clicking a word in the interlinear columns outlines the same word across the compare panel, so you can trace it through all five translations.
Cross References
Click "Cross References" to see other passages related to this verse, shown in two views:
Arc diagram — A Bible-span visualization showing the verse's position across all 66 books. Arcs above the axis represent outgoing references (this verse points to), arcs below represent incoming references (other verses that point here). Arc color indicates which testament the other end is in — blue for Old Testament, red for New Testament. Section labels (Law, History, Poetry, etc.) mark groups along the axis. Hover any arc to see the reference; click to preview the passage.
Word-aware filtering — When you select a word in the interlinear, the arc diagram and reference lists automatically highlight cross-referenced passages where that same original-language word (Strong's number) appears. Bright arcs lead to chapters containing the word you're studying; dimmed arcs lead elsewhere. This reveals which cross-references share vocabulary with your selected word — connecting lexical study to cross-reference exploration. The filter clears when you deselect the word.
Most Referenced — The top 5 cross-references ranked by community votes (outgoing and incoming merged), representing the strongest connections recognized by scholars and readers.
Related Passages — Additional voted references beyond the top 5, collapsed by default.
Extended References — Unvoted references from the source data, for exhaustive study. Each tier shows direction labels ("Outgoing" / "Incoming") when both exist.
Click any reference — Opens a verse preview showing the passage text, with an option to navigate to the full chapter.
Dictionary
Click "Dictionary" to see encyclopedia entries for people, places, and concepts mentioned in the verse.
First-sentence previews — Each entry shows a brief preview of its opening sentence, so you can quickly scan what a term refers to before expanding.
Collapsible entries — Click a term to expand its full article. Entries range from brief definitions to multi-paragraph treatments with historical context.
Scripture links — References within dictionary articles are clickable, opening a verse preview of the cited passage.
Map
When a verse mentions identifiable places, click "Map" to see them on a parchment-styled map with terrain shading.
Place markers — Gold dots for settlements, blue for water features, triangles for mountains. Click a marker to highlight the corresponding place card.
Place cards — Each card shows the ancient name, modern identification, place type, and how many times the location appears across scripture. Click a card to fly to that marker on the map.
Data source — Geographic data from OpenBible Geocoding (CC-BY 4.0), covering 1,300+ ancient places with coordinates based on modern archaeological identifications.
Timeless Reflections
Below the study tabs, a collapsible "Timeless Reflections" section provides commentary from two public domain works spanning three centuries of biblical scholarship, presented as collapsible accordion sections.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown Commentary (1871) — Scholarly and critical verse-by-verse analysis with grammatical observations and cross-references. Includes section introductions (Pentateuch, Poetical, Prophetical books), chronological reference tables (Parables, Miracles, Paul's Life), book introductions with author attribution (Jamieson, Fausset, or Brown), and section heading labels.
Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary (1706) — Full unabridged devotional and pastoral reflections with hierarchical sections: volume preface, Bible/Testament/section introductions, book introduction, chapter introduction, and verse commentary.
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary (1706) — Condensed edition with book introduction, chapter outline, and verse commentary.
Verse Study Sources
TSK — Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. Originally compiled by R.A. Torrey (1834–1928), the TSK is one of the most extensive cross-reference systems ever produced, with 344,000+ verse-to-verse connections across both testaments. References are ranked by community votes from the OpenBible.info project.
Easton's — Easton's Bible Dictionary (M.G. Easton, 1897). A classic reference with 3,900+ entries covering biblical names, places, customs, and theological concepts. Articles include extensive scripture citations linking entries to relevant passages throughout the Bible. Indexed to 22,000+ verse references for contextual lookup.
Translations
The comparison spans five translations that represent the major milestones in English Bible translation. Each built upon its predecessors while incorporating advances in manuscript scholarship.
KJV (1611) — King James Version. Commissioned by King James I and produced by 47 scholars. Translated from the Textus Receptus (Greek NT) and the Masoretic Text (Hebrew OT). Its language shaped English literature for centuries and remains the most widely printed Bible in history.
ERV (1885) — English Revised Version. The first major scholarly revision of the KJV, undertaken by a committee of British scholars over 14 years. Incorporated readings from older manuscripts discovered since 1611, including Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, which predated the Byzantine manuscripts used for the KJV by several centuries.
ASV (1901) — American Standard Version. The American counterpart to the ERV, produced by the American revision committee. Known for consistently rendering the divine name as "Jehovah" and for more literal renderings than the ERV. Valued for study due to its word-for-word translation philosophy.
WEB (2000) — World English Bible. A public domain modern English translation based on the ASV, updated for contemporary readability while maintaining the ASV's literal translation philosophy. Replaces "Jehovah" with "Yahweh" for the divine name and uses modern pronouns throughout. An ongoing community-driven project freely available without copyright restrictions.
BSB (2020) — Berean Standard Bible. A modern translation based on the Nestle-Aland/UBS critical text (Greek NT) and the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (Hebrew OT). Balances literal accuracy with readability, incorporating over a century of additional manuscript discoveries and textual scholarship since the ASV.
The original-language source texts used in the interlinear view:
Nestle 1904 — Novum Testamentum Graece. Eberhard Nestle's Greek New Testament, a critical text that became the foundation for all subsequent Nestle-Aland editions. Now in the public domain, making it freely available for digital scholarship.
OSHB — Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible. A digital edition of the Westminster Leningrad Codex, the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible (dated 1008 CE). Includes full morphological parsing and lemma data for each word.
Data Completeness
The study data is comprehensive but not exhaustive. Here is a summary of coverage and known gaps.
Interlinear words — 441,000+ BSB words with original-language alignment covering all 31,086 verses. 382,000 KJV words, 138,000 Nestle 1904 Greek words, and 304,000 OSHB Hebrew words are linked via Strong's numbers.
Brief definitions — Available for all 14,196 Strong's numbers in the lexicon (5,500+ Greek via Dodson, 8,600+ Hebrew via Strong's).
Full definitions (Greek) — Abbott-Smith covers 5,300+ of 5,500 Greek entries (97%). A small number of rare or variant forms lack deep entries.
Full definitions (Hebrew) — BDB covers 5,600 of 8,600+ Hebrew entries (65%). The gap is primarily proper nouns and rare forms where BDB entries could not be matched to Strong's numbers. Coverage was improved using the OpenScriptures Lexical Index for direct BDB-to-Strong's mapping.
Louw-Nida domains — Available for 5,300+ Greek Strong's numbers (97%). Sourced from MACULA Greek annotations of the Nestle 1904 text.
LXX equivalents — Available for 4,100 of 8,600+ Hebrew Strong's numbers (47%). Not all Hebrew words appear in passages that have Septuagint parallels, and some particles and grammatical words lack meaningful Greek equivalents.
Cross-references — 344,000+ verse-to-verse connections. Most verses have at least one cross-reference, though some less-referenced passages may have none.
Dictionary — 3,900+ Easton's entries indexed to 22,000+ verse references. Coverage focuses on named persons, places, and key concepts. Many verses (especially those without named entities) will not have dictionary entries.
Manuscript variants — 934 New Testament words are annotated with manuscript tradition data. This covers the most significant textual variants but is not a complete critical apparatus.
KJV Morphology — Decoded morphology descriptions for all KJV words that have morphology codes. 136 Tyndale House codes covering Hebrew and Aramaic verb stems (OT), plus Robinson codes for Greek grammatical forms including declension suffixes (NT).
Commentaries — Two public domain commentaries spanning three centuries of biblical scholarship. Out of 31,086 total verses:
JFB (1871) — ~19,800 entries: verse commentary covering 30,637 verses (98.6%), 7 section introductions (4 prose essays + 3 chronological reference tables with scope-based retrieval), 49 book introductions with author attribution, and ~1,750 section heading labels extracted from the source text. Authored by Robert Jamieson (Genesis–Esther), A.R. Fausset (Job–Malachi, 1 Corinthians–Revelation), and David Brown (Matthew–Romans).
MH Complete (1706) — ~5,600 entries (4,300 verse-range + 66 volume prefaces + 7 scoped intro levels + 66 book introductions + 1,170 chapter summaries) covering 31,086 verses (100%). Complete coverage of all verses. Every book shows hierarchical intro levels: Holy Bible preface, Testament introduction, and section introduction (for Pentateuch, Historical, Minor Prophets, and Gospels).
MH Concise (1706) — ~5,200 entries (4,049 verse-range + 66 book introductions + 1,054 chapter outlines) covering 31,022 verses (99.8%) across 66 books. Remaining 64 uncovered verses are confirmed absent from the source text.
Map — 1,300+ ancient places geocoded to 8,700+ verse references. The Map tab appears only for verses that mention identifiable geographic locations. Coverage depends on OpenBible's identification database; some place names in poetic or metaphorical contexts may not be geocoded.
Red letter — Words of Jesus are marked in both BSB and KJV across the four Gospels, Acts, and Revelation. Coverage relies on the source data's attribution of direct speech.
Open Data & Attributions
All study data is sourced from open, freely available scholarly projects. The following attributions are provided in accordance with the Creative Commons licenses under which these works are shared. All licensed data has been parsed, reformatted, and integrated into our study database; no source data is redistributed in its original form.
Berean Standard Bible — Produced by Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee. Dedicated to the public domain. berean.bible
1In the seventh year, on the tenth day of the fifth month, some of the elders of Israel came to inquire of the LORD, and they sat down before me.2Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,3“Son of man, speak to the elders of Israel and tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: Have you come to inquire of Me? As surely as I live, I will not be consulted by you, declares the Lord GOD.4Will you judge them, will you judge them, son of man? Confront them with the abominations of their fathers5and tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: On the day I chose Israel, I swore an oath to the descendants of the house of Jacob and made Myself known to them in the land of Egypt. With an uplifted hand I said to them, ‘I am the LORD your God.’6On that day I swore to bring them out of the land of Egypt into a land that I had searched out for them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the glory of all lands.7And I said to them: ‘Each of you must throw away the abominations before his eyes, and you must not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.’8But they rebelled against Me and refused to listen. None of them cast away the abominations before their eyes, and they did not forsake the idols of Egypt. So I resolved to pour out My wrath upon them and vent My anger against them in the land of Egypt.9But I acted for the sake of My name, that it should not be profaned in the eyes of the nations among whom they were living, in whose sight I had revealed Myself to Israel by bringing them out of the land of Egypt.
Israel’s Rebellion in the Wilderness
10So I brought them out of the land of Egypt and led them into the wilderness.11And I gave them My statutes and made known to them My ordinances—for the man who does these things will live by them.112I also gave them My Sabbaths as a sign between us, so that they would know that I am the LORD who sanctifies them.13Yet the house of Israel rebelled against Me in the wilderness. They did not follow My statutes and they rejected My ordinances—though the man who does these things will live by them—and they utterly profaned My Sabbaths. Then I resolved to pour out My wrath upon them and put an end to them in the wilderness.14But I acted for the sake of My name, so that it would not be profaned in the eyes of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out.15Moreover, with an uplifted hand I swore to them in the wilderness that I would not bring them into the land that I had given them—a land flowing with milk and honey, the glory of all lands—16because they kept rejecting My ordinances, refusing to walk in My statutes, and profaning My Sabbaths; for their hearts continually went after their idols.17Yet I looked on them with pity and did not destroy them or bring them to an end in the wilderness.18In the wilderness I said to their children: ‘Do not walk in the statutes of your fathers or keep their ordinances or defile yourselves with their idols.19I am the LORD your God; walk in My statutes, keep My ordinances, and practice them.20Keep My Sabbaths holy, that they may be a sign between us, so that you may know that I am the LORD your God.’21But the children rebelled against Me. They did not walk in My statutes or carefully observe My ordinances—though the man who does these things will live by them—and they profaned My Sabbaths. So I resolved to pour out My wrath upon them and vent My anger against them in the wilderness.22But I withheld My hand and acted for the sake of My name, so that it would not be profaned in the eyes of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out.23However, with an uplifted hand I swore to them in the wilderness that I would scatter them among the nations and disperse them throughout the lands.24For they did not practice My ordinances, but they rejected My statutes and profaned My Sabbaths, fixing their eyes on the idols of their fathers.25I also gave them over to statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live.26And I pronounced them unclean through their gifts—the sacrifice of every firstborn in the fire—so that I might devastate them, in order that they would know that I am the LORD.
Israel’s Rebellion in the Land
27Therefore, son of man, speak to the house of Israel, and tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: In this way also your fathers blasphemed Me by their unfaithfulness against Me.28When I brought them into the land that I swore to give them and they saw any high hill or leafy tree, there they offered their sacrifices, presented offerings that provoked Me, sent up their fragrant incense, and poured out their drink offerings.29So I asked them: ‘What is this high place to which you go?’
(And to this day it is called Bamah.1)30Therefore tell the house of Israel that this is what the Lord GOD says: Will you defile yourselves the way your fathers did, prostituting yourselves with their abominations?31When you offer your gifts, sacrificing your sons in the fire,1 you continue to defile yourselves with all your idols to this day. So should I be consulted by you, O house of Israel? As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I will not be consulted by you!32When you say, ‘Let us be like the nations, like the peoples of the lands, serving wood and stone,’ what you have in mind will never come to pass.
Judgment and Restoration
33As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, with a strong hand, an outstretched arm, and outpoured wrath I will rule over you.34With a strong hand, an outstretched arm, and outpoured wrath I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you 1 from the lands to which you have been scattered.35And I will bring you into the wilderness of the nations, where I will enter into judgment with you face to face.36Just as I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt,1 so I will enter into judgment with you, declares the Lord GOD.37I will make you pass under the rod and will bring you into the bond of the covenant.38And I will purge you of those who rebel and transgress against Me. I will bring them out of the land in which they dwell, but they will not enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the LORD.39And as for you, O house of Israel, this is what the Lord GOD says: Go and serve your idols, every one of you. But afterward, you will surely listen to Me, and you will no longer defile My holy name with your gifts and idols.40For on My holy mountain, the high mountain of Israel, declares the Lord GOD, there the whole house of Israel, all of them, will serve Me in the land. There I will accept them and will require your offerings and choice gifts, along with all your holy sacrifices.41When I bring you from the peoples and gather you from the lands to which you have been scattered, I will accept you as a pleasing aroma. And I will show My holiness through you in the sight of the nations.42Then you will know that I am the LORD, when I bring you into the land of Israel, the land that I swore to give your fathers.43There you will remember your ways and all the deeds with which you have defiled yourselves, and you will loathe yourselves for all the evils you have done.44Then you will know, O house of Israel, that I am the LORD, when I have dealt with you for the sake of My name and not according to your wicked ways and corrupt acts, declares the Lord GOD.”
A Prophecy against the South
45Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying,46“Son of man, set your face toward the south,1 preach against it, and prophesy against the forest of the Negev.47Say to the forest of the Negev: Hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Lord GOD says: I am about to ignite in you a fire, and it will devour all your trees, both green and dry. The blazing flame will not be quenched, and by it every face from south to north will be scorched.48Then all people will see that I, the LORD, have kindled it; it will not be quenched.”49Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD, they are saying of me, ‘Is he not just telling parables?’”