Chris Brooks: (applause) Oh, come on and give Him praise. . . all over this room! C’mon and make noise for Jesus! How many know He is worthy of it, amen? You can be seated in the presence of the Lord.

By now I’m sure you know that you have been blessed to be at the best conference of the entire year! How many know that to be true? (cheers and applause)

This year I brought with me my beautiful bride. I came home last year and said to her, “Honey, being with Nancy, with Robert, with the team, was absolutely amazing!” And I said these words to her: “It is the best conference I have ever attended or been a part of.” I’ve been a part of many, but this is the best, and we need to praise God for that, amen?

I have had so many highlights this weekend, and I hope you have. How many of you have been just taking note of God’s grace throughout this weekend? How many have had special moments, encounters with the Lord? How many enjoyed the worship? Praise God for the worship! How many have enjoyed the speakers? Every single one has been amazing!

But I will say, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the highlight of my time so far at this True Woman ’22 conference was the hour I got to spend with the group of praying men. We gathered together in the room . . . Nancy has shared with you that there are men who are praying for you. It’s one thing to hear that; it’s another thing to experience it.

Ladies, I just want you to know that these men are praying over your prayer requests. They are crying out to Heaven on your behalf. They are weeping with tears over the heartache and brokenness that many of you have experienced.

They’re believing in faith and declaring the Word of God over your life. I just want to take a moment to thank God for these praying men. (applause) I’m grateful for their faithfulness, amen?

I’m grateful, again, that my wife is with me. When I was here last year, she certainly was on the forefront of my mind and heart. I received permission to share with you our story—a story of the greatest night of darkness in our lives, when our precious son Christopher had died and went on to be with the Lord.

I shared the details of that, the heartache, but also I shared with you the hope that we were grounded in by God in the aftermath of that devastating moment. You know, this is one of the things that I love about the True Woman conference. One of the things I love about Revive Our Hearts is there’s no sugar coating here. 

Only in this conference will you hear the truth of the matter, the full gospel of the fact that life is hard. How many know that to be true, that life is hard? There’s no sugar coating that, but yet God is good, Heaven rules, Jesus is alive, the devil is defeated, and He [Jesus] is worthy of the praise! (applause) 

And so last year I got a chance to share with you, but one aspect of the story that I did not get to share with you is that in the weeks after our son, Chris, passed away and we had his homegoing, there was a surprise discovery that we had not anticipated.

I discovered a few weeks after while we were away on vacation, my wife said to me, “Surprise, surprise! I’m pregnant! I’m expecting!” And so I get a chance to give you a little bit of highlight of how God has blessed us. This is a little photo of Miss Christianna Joy. (ladies: “Awww!)

Christianna is full of personality, as you can see! We named her Christianna Joy because we believe the Word of God. Psalm 30 and verse 5 says: “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” (NKJV)

How many have seen some nights of weeping, but how many have also seen some mornings of joy? How many thank God for His faithfulness, that He is good!? (applause) And so I thank God. Thank you for those of you who have been praying for us, as we have been praying for you.

Tonight, I want to help us to understand why we can be confident in God, why we can be confident in this statement that Heaven rules—a statement that reflects not only His greatness, His power, but His goodness, His love and kindness towards us. I want to do it with the backdrop of a recent trip that we took.

My wife and I, along with the missions directors at our local church, recently took a trip to the Middle East to meet with pastors from twenty persecuted countries. These are pastors many of whom have been imprisoned for their faith; pastors who have been beaten for their faith; pastors who have been excommunicated from their families because of their proclamation that Jesus is Lord.

I got a chance to meet one older gentleman. He was soft spoken; he was humble. Over the life of his ministry, God had used him to plant over five hundred churches. The host of our meeting asked him if he could remember how many times he had been imprisoned in his country, where it is illegal to evangelize.

He simply said, “I’ve stopped counting after forty-five times in jail.” You think he would be prideful or braggadocious, but yet this man was humble to tell us the stories of those who are suffering for their faith daily.

I got a chance to walk along a mountainside down what can roughly be called a trail as we went to go visit an underground house church. As we got to this house church that seemed to pop up out of nowhere in the middle of the bush, to my surprise and joy, about twenty believers came walking out.

They didn’t have air conditioned rooms to sit in. There were no cushioned seats. We sat on the ground, we prayed, we worshiped the Lord with great joy. I asked these believers, these brothers and sisters in Christ, “How can I pray for you?”

“When I go back to America and I tell my brothers and sisters there who love you, who hold you in their hearts, how to pray for you, what do you want us to pray?” And again, to my surprise, they did not ask for us to pray that the persecution would stop. They simply asked us to pray that they would be fearless, that they would not fear the persecution to come.

They also asked us to pray that the joy of Jesus would be so evident and radiant in their lives that their neighbors, family, friends and loved ones would be drawn to Jesus as they see the love of Jesus in their lives.

I’ve got to be honest with you, I was humbled by this. I was overwhelmed by this, and it sparked my curiosity.

I asked them, “How is it in a nation in which . . .” At that time, you could be in prison for four years for sharing your faith if you were caught. “How is it that you are able to bear up under that?” And one pastor said to me, “It’s because we never lose sight of who our God is!” 

Heaven rules is contingent upon us having a high view of God. Heaven rules is contingent upon us understanding that God is bigger! 

I was thinking about the words that we find in Daniel chapter 7. In Daniel chapter 7 we see the story of the Ancient of Days, the Son of Man presenting Himself before the Ancient of Days. The passage says in Daniel chapter 7, verse 9, “As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat.”

So often when I’m reading the Word of God, my imagination is sparked. As I read Daniel and I think about what it must have been like for him to get a glimpse of the throne room of Heaven, I ask myself, “What must that have been like?”

One of the questions that has been at the forefront of my mind in the months leading up to this very moment is the question of, has there ever been a time in your life where you saw something for the first time, and you said in your heart, “I will never be the same after seeing this!” That’s happened to me a number of times in my life, three I can think of readily.

One was the first time I saw an ocean, the Pacific ocean. It was me going to California with my wife. I was a Michigan boy, Detroit born. A missions trip was going over the border to Canada to Windsor. We didn’t travel much, but I married this woman who spent a lot of her life in California.

So we went out and I stood there. For the first time this Great Lakes boy saw an ocean. And that is massive! How many have ever seen an ocean before? It is massive! You stand on the shore and you can’t help but to feel small. But there is something special about seeing an ocean if you allow yourself to simply close your eyes and listen to the waves.

You’ll get this dual sense that while it is massive and big and “I am so small,” there is something peaceful about it. I remember seeing that ocean for the first time and saying, “I need to get back here again!” And for twenty-two years, just about every time we get a chance to go and visit that ocean, we do. We’ve taken our family again and again and again.

The second time this happened to me was when I first saw my wife. We were at a youth ministry meeting when we met; it was at our church as a teenager. A friend had invited her. He had told me a little bit about her, but his stories about her did not do her justice.

I was at a youth ministry that used to close in prayer, and we were in prayer circles at the end of the night. We’d be in groups of about five or six, and there’d be about five or six groups. We spread out around the room.

She was in one group and I was another when prayer started, but when it was over . . . the Spirit of God had led me to a different group! (laughter) She opened her eyes looking for Jesus, and she saw me. For me it was love at first sight! Now, it took her a little time to obey the leading of the Spirit in her life. (laughter)

But I knew when I saw her, “I want this woman in my life for the rest of my life!” And praise God, this year we celebrated twenty-five years of marriage. (applause) 

And then, the third time this happened to me is the first time I held my baby girl Zoe in my arms.

Now, parents have been taught to lie and say that all their children are the same. And let me just tell you the truth: that’s a lie. I love my boys, but I absolutely love my girls. The first time I held my little Zoe in my arms—she was a small little peanut, 5 pounds, 5 ounces—I looked into her eyes, and there was a lion that rose up on the inside of me!

I knew that I had to protect her. I knew that I had to demonstrate to her that she was deeply loved. I had to demonstrate the Father’s heart to her. I have pledged my life to doing that, and for sixteen years I’ve been trying my best to communicate to my baby girl how much she is loved by her dad. 

All of these moments are moments that, after I saw what I saw, I knew I would never be the same again! Back to the text. Daniel tells us that he got a glimpse of the Ancient of Days. Imagine that! Imagine getting a glimpse of God!

I’ve been searching the Scriptures to see examples of that, and I just want to show you one of them. I just want to step out of Daniel for just a moment and into Isaiah. While Daniel describes the throne room that he saw, I love that in Isaiah chapter 6, he gives us a detailed vision, a record, of what God looks like in that throne room.

I love that Isaiah uses such poetic words, but I’m astounded at his efficiency, the economy of words. Had I seen what Isaiah saw, I could not have filled enough notebooks! But as the Spirit led him, he recorded these words. (You might be familiar with this passage.) Isaiah chapter 6, verse number 1.

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: 

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!” 

And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. . . .

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” And he said, “Go, and say to this people . . .” [And he gives him these instructions.] (Isa. 6: 1–4, 8–9)

Now, I want to just pause and go back for a moment because there is so much here to unpack. In each verse there is activity and movement, but before us is a portrait of God! And ladies, there are so many things in this culture for you to fix your eyes on, to fix your gaze on. Today, I want you to see the glory of God!

Today, I want you to see:

• That your God is bigger, that your God is greater, that He loves you! 
• That He is greater than anything the enemy will send against you. 
• That He is greater than the pain and the brokenness that you are experiencing.
• That He is the lover of your soul. 
• That He’s the fixer of what is broken.
• That He is forever faithful. 

What Isaiah gives us is a portrait of God and a portrait of us. Notice first, in verse number 1, when God appears to Isaiah: “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord . . .” There’s so much that can be said about this, this year that King Uzziah died.

A little bit about this King Uzziah: King Uzziah was one of the longest reigning kings of Israel. History and Scripture record that he reigned for fifty-two years. He was more than just a passing politician; he was an institution. Over much of his reign, Israel prospered. They knew social peace; they knew military power. 

They knew what it was to have an expanding economy. Things were going well. And as you would expect, people put their trust in him. As long as King Uzziah was on the throne, they had confidence. 

If you’ve ever had a politician that you thought of favorably, you get a sense of how the people of Israel felt about King Uzziah. If you’ve ever had a politician of whom you’ve said, “As long as he or she is in office, I know they’re fighting for us. As long as he is elected, I know that things are going to be okay.” You can imagine for just a moment how Israel felt.

But as I said earlier, his reign was mostly prosperous, but it wasn’t all roses and rainbows. The fact of the matter is, sadly, Uzziah did not finish well. Verse number 1 tells us the story. It’s a powerful story about finishing well.

I would, for a moment, want you to keep your finger there and journey with me back to 2 Chronicles chapter 26. In verse number 16 what we read is about the end of Uzziah’s life. The end of his life reads this way:

But when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction. For he was unfaithful to the LORD his God and entered the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense.

You see, God is a keeper of His Word. When Israel’s kings would honor Him, God promised that He would prosper the people. But sadly, most of Israel’s kings did not finish well. There’s a sad reality that has unfolded before our eyes in recent years of so many men and women who have lived the sad tale of living life to be admired, amassing respect, living the life that most of us would applaud, only to get to the end of it and to see it all unfold. 

Ladies, over this weekend, what you have been presented with are testimonies of women who are finishing well! I want to encourage you today, if you find yourself in the last lap of your life, if you find yourself in the fourth quarter season, double down on your faithfulness to the Lord. Commit tonight that you’re going to finish well. Leave a legacy and a testimony of faithfulness to His Word and worship of Jesus.

May the generations declare of you that “she finished well.” The sad reality is that we are seeing men and women not finish well, in every sector—in sports and entertainment and government and, sadly, even in ministry.

What happened to Uzziah?He simply grew proud. He forgot that Heaven ruled. He thought that he ruled. He forgot that it is God who gives us power. All power, as we learned earlier from Mary, is derived power. It is given to us. All grace, “every good and perfect gift, comes from above” (James 1:17). If you remember that God is the source, you will never be without supply. 

Don’t ever get to the place where you say, “It was my hands that got me here! It was my strength, my wisdom, my wit!” How many in here know you’re not strong enough, you’re not smart enough. But if God be for you, He is greater than anything the world can throw against you? How many know today that it is God who is faithful!? (applause)

I’ve got an announcement to make, that some of you are here because you want Jesus. Well, I’ve graduated beyond that point. I’m not here because I want Jesus. I’m here because I need Jesus!“I need Thee, O I need Thee; [every day] and every hour I need Thee!” We need to grow in greater dependence upon God!

The difference between growth and natural age in the world and growth spiritually is that as you grow in natural age in the world, you grow more independent. But as you grow spiritually, you grow more dependent—the desire for God, that God was the one that was in control.

The nation began to fragment. It began to break and unravel. Imagine the devastation they all must have felt when Uzziah died. “Our king is dead! He is no longer alive!” That gives me a second truth, and that is this: kings come and go, politicians come and go, but there is a king who lives and reigns forever.

Let me remind you that the Bible calls us not to be either apolitical or to make politics an idol, and that is a delicate walk that we must walk. We can only do it in the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. 

On the one hand we should not be indifferent to public life. On the other hand, we would be wise to heed the words of the late Chuck Colson that salvation doesn't fly in on the wings of Air Force One. What we know is that political victories are short-lived at best. 

One president is elected, then his successor comes after him and undoes his legacy in a mere moment. We win a victory this year, and then next year another ballot might be passed. Don’t put your hope in or hang your hat on the politics of this world. Hang your hat on the politics of Heaven. 

How many thank God that we have a God who is unelectable, unimpeachable? His reign is irrevocable! He is the King of kings, the Lord of lords, and worthy of our praise! When you and I wake up on Wednesday, November 9, God will still be in Heaven. Jesus will still be Lord!

He is worthy of our praise, and His plan will still be intact because Heaven rules! (applause) Heaven rules today. Heaven rules tomorrow. Heaven rules before elections, and Heaven rules after elections.

Then we get to the meat of the passage, verses 2 and 3, oh so much activity happening in these verses. The Lord is on the move! But first we see that Isaiah wants us to know something about the Lord in verse 1 that would be good for us not to forget, and that is that He is seated upon a throne. He’s not pacing Heaven.

Have you ever noticed that Heaven is never anxious? Have you ever noticed that God is never pacing the floor saying, “Oh, my goodness, I didn’t see that one coming!” Have you ever noticed that God’s position in Heaven is that He is seated, because He is in control and He knows His sovereignty. He knows His plan. 

He knows that though men run to and fro and make idols of themselves, ultimately His will shall come to pass. “Many are the plans of a man, but the Lord’s will shall prevail.” (see Prov. 19:21) I love this next part. 

Isaiah says that God is high and lifted up and the train of His robe filled the temple. “The train of his robe filled the temple,” might be lost on most men, but I hope, ladies, you can understand what this is. This is a picture of a train.

My wife, when we got married, she had a train on her dress, that wedding dress. And her wedding dress train was so big that she had a special attendant to walk with us, to straighten out that train every time we took a picture. And I thought, Man! I wish I had that support! But that train was reflective of her glory. 

Well, the glory of God doesn’t just fill the temple, but His glory (as we will see in a moment ladies) fills the entire earth. God is in control. Heaven rules. And then in verse 2, “Above him stood the seraphim, [each having] six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.”

What manner of God is this that causes angels to cover their face? To say that we are not worthy to look upon Him? What manner of God is this that causes angels to cover their feet, that causes angels to feel inadequate in His presence? This is the God of glory that you and I serve!

Can you see Him? Can you see what Isaiah saw? Can you see what these angels saw as they covered their face, as they covered their feet, and with the other two feet as they flew laps around His throne?

With each passing lap, what did they say? They said these words: “And one called to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!’” Now that “holy, holy, holy” is repetitive, but it is not redundant. This is not an example of Isaiah’s senility; he is not forgetful when he writes this.

It is not as if he forgot he wrote the first “holy.” No, he writes each “holy” for emphatic purposes. The word holy means “to cut” in the Hebrew, “to separate, to set apart.” What each of these angel's passing of the throne—and the image of God—reveals is that God is set apart. 

To put it another way, in the modern vernacular: God is in a class, in a category, all by Himself! He’s not just holy: He’s holy, holy. He’s not just holy, holy: He’s holy, holy, holy. This triad of “holies” is to help us to understand how great our God is.

When you say, “This food is not just good, it’s good, good!” You know what I’m talking about! (laughter) Have you ever seen somebody who’s rich and you say, “They’re not just rich, they’re rich, rich!”

Well, these angels fly around the throne and they say, “He’s not just holy: He’s holy, holy. He’s not just holy, holy: He is holy, holy, holy.” There’s nobody like Him. There is no second place. It’s God, and there is no other. There is no other God like our God. There is no other resurrected Savior like our resurrected Savior! (applause and cries of praise)

There is no one as wise as Him, no one all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving, all-beautiful. He is in a category all by Himself! And this is the God that rules Heaven and earth! This is the God who rules in His sovereignty, meticulously, looking over the affairs of humanity while at the same time keeping an eye on your life, knowing the very number of hairs on your head! (Or in my case, the lack thereof.) He is holy, holy, holy.

I want you to see what Isaiah saw. Can you imagine standing at the doorpost, opening the door to God’s throne room? Can you imagine how radiant God must have looked. Isaiah fiercely and scarcely could look at Him, covering his eyes, barely looking over his arm, seeing the radiant beauty of God!

When you get a glimpse of that, ladies, you won’t fear what gossipers have to say. When you get a glimpse of that, you won’t fear whether or not God won’t keep His promise concerning your children. When you get a glimpse of that, you won’t fear what a doctor’s report might say.

Because what you know is that your God is bigger! I want you to get a portrait of this God. I want to get a portrait of this God who is great and good, who is all-powerful and all-loving, who cares for you deeply, who knows you fully, who has said of the coming of Christ, “And he shall be called Emmanuel” (see Matt. 1:23) being translated, meaning, “God is with us.”

God is with you. He is with you in the waiting room. He is with you in the tears. He is with you in the brokenness, and He is whispering in your ear, “Keep your eyes on Me, because I am bigger!”

Have you ever noticed that in the sideview mirrors of your car, you’ll often see that little note across the bottom that says, “Objects may appear different in this mirror than they really are.” They may appear further away, they may appear closer. You’ve got to be careful looking into that mirror. This is how life is. There are times when things may appear to be bigger than what they are. But I want to remind you today that God is bigger than anything that the enemy has sent against you tonight. (applause)

I want you to be reminded that He is greater, that God is bigger, and that He cares for you. The foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of Him who called. (see v. 4) The foundations of the house shook at the declaration of who God is! The foundation of the house shook at the glory of the Lord.

And so, it is that the foundations of our lives should shake at the declaration of the glory of the Lord. Now, you may say, “Chris, of course the foundations of the threshold shook, because Isaiah got to see this amazing vision that I could never see.”

But the fact of the matter is that He has given us His Word. And ladies, I want you to know that every time you open the Word of God you are taking a glimpse of His glory. If you want to see His glory and in full expanse, just bury your heart in the Word of God.

Whenever you are starting to feel small and Satan is starting to feel big, whenever the problems of life seem to be gigantic in your heart and your vision, whenever what is going on in the world around you seems bigger than Jesus, just open up your Bible and you will be reminded of the glory of God and see how big He really is!

How did this glory impact Isaiah? Well, what we see here is that this glory is on the move. Isaiah tells us in verse 3 that “the whole earth is full of His glory.” The whole earth is full of the glory. The glory of God does not sit still. The glory of God moves, and do you know how the glory of God moves?

It moves in this season, in this dispensation, through you and through me. A careful reading of John chapter 17, the prayer of Jesus reveals Jesus saying, “The glory that you have given me I have given to them” (v. 22). We now are bearers of the glory as we go forth and declare to the world the salvation that is found in Christ alone. As we celebrate the resurrected Lord and the risen Lamb, as we stand before a watching world and declare that Jesus is Lord and that He is faithful, we are declaring the glory of Jesus, and it is spreading!

When you leave this place, you’re carrying the glory with you! When you deposit the Word of God in your life, you are depositing the glory of God in your heart. When you share it, it is spreading. I want you to not only see the glory, ladies, I want you to show the glory!

I want you to go back to your home and show the glory. I want you to go to your job and show the glory of God. I want you to go to the nations and show the glory of God as this promise of God is fulfilled right before our eyes.

Isaiah is present with a question, and I believe it’s the question of the night. It’s the question each one of us certainly needs to grapple with. Here’s the question: verse number 8, “And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’” 

“Who will go for us?” This is the question of Heaven. If Heaven rules, will you go? If Heaven rules, will you take His Word and His glory, His promises, back home with you? If Heaven rules, will you stand on His truth in spite of the crushing pressure of a culture that is anti-Jesus. Will you declare that His Word is true?

If Heaven rules, will you go back to your job, as if Heaven rules? Will you say “yes” to going to the nations to spread the Word and the glory of God? If Heaven rules, the question of the evening is, “Who will go for us?”

I love Isaiah’s quick and prompt response. “Then I said. . .” I didn’t wait. I didn’t collaborate. I didn’t phone a friend. I didn’t have to text, didn’t have to seek external advice. I knew this: that if God is who He says He is, there is only one answer to the offer of salvation. If God is who He says He is, there is only one response to His request for our obedience.

• If He is King of all, then the only proper response of the human heart is to bow in His presence. 
• If He is Lord of all, the only proper response is for us to pledge our allegiance. 
• If He is the Savior who came to die for the sins of the world, the only proper response is for us to say, “Lord, save me and cleanse me!”

And maybe you’re here tonight and you’ve been debating in your heart whether you should follow this Jesus. Let me just explain to you that this Jesus commands our allegiance, that the Lord of glory requires our obedience. We would be foolish to chase after anything else. If Jesus is resurrected from the dead, then everything else in life is a footnote!

You obey God and let Him handle everything else. You trust that Heaven rules, and you watch Him put His glory on display in your life. Let tonight be the night of demarcation. Let tonight, this evening, be the night where you declare as Isaiah declared with boldness and assurance, “Here am I, send me!”

Do I have anybody in this room tonight that will say with a glad heart, “Here am I, Lord, send me. Here am I, Lord, I will go for You. I am here to be faithful to You! I am Your servant, ready to gladly do Your will!” (applause)

And Isaiah went. If we had time, we could read the rest of the story, and we would know that God gave him a hard assignment. What was the hard assignment? It was to declare truth to a hard-hearted nation that didn’t want to hear it. This is what it means for you and I to be on mission for Jesus. Every one of us is a missionary.

I used to think that a missionary was one of those slightly weird people who would rather live overseas than in the comforts of home, where there’s a McDonald’s around the corner. That’s what I used to think. (laughter) But now I realize that every single one of us are missionaries. All of us are called to a person, a people, a generation. 

Ladies, this is your moment! And if you don’t know it, the enemy sure does! What he has tried his best to do is to distract you and discourage you, to get you off mission. What Isaiah discovers when he experiences the glory of God is his mission in life!

What you will discover when you gaze upon the glory of God is your mission in life. What the enemy wants to do is rob you of that purpose and rob you of that mission! But may this be the weekend where you are reminded, and you make the declaration, “Here am I Lord, send me! I’m not turning back. I’m not backing down. But if Heaven rules, my God is with me. And if God is for me, He is greater than the world against me.” How many believe it to be so? (applause) How many are willing to go for Him? Amen? Let me pray for us, ladies.

Father, I pray that tonight through Your sovereignty and grace, goodness and mercy, that You will save. Save our daughters who are wandering away; bring them back to Yourself. Send Your Word, O God, and bring people to Yourself. Send Your Word and mark us by Your power and by Your grace.

May tonight be the night of salvation and may tonight be the night of resolution. May tonight be the night where an army of women say before their God and before a watching world that, “Because of Your glory, here I am, Lord, send me!” We ask it in the mighty, matchless, and magnificent name of Jesus!”

And all God’s ladies said, “Amen!” 

All Scripture is taken from the ESV unless otherwise noted.