The Lord ¹  took him outside and said, “Gaze into the sky and count the stars – if you are able to count them!” Then he said to him, “So will your descendants be.”

and had a dream. ¹  He saw ²  a stairway ³  erected on the earth with its top reaching to the heavens. The angels of God were going up and coming down it

¹ Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Take handfuls of soot ²  from a furnace, and have Moses throw it ³  into the air while Pharaoh is watching. ⁴ 

So they took soot from a furnace and stood before Pharaoh, Moses threw it into the air, and it caused festering boils to break out on both people and animals.

It is not in heaven, as though one must say, “Who will go up to heaven to get it for us and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?”

As the flame went up from the altar toward the sky, the Lord’s messenger went up in it ¹  while Manoah and his wife watched. They fell facedown ²  to the ground.

But when the signal, a pillar of smoke, began to rise up from the city, the Benjaminites turned around and saw the whole city going up in a cloud of smoke that rose high into the sky. ¹ 

But when they gazed intently ¹  from a distance but did not recognize ²  him, they began to weep loudly. Each of them tore his robes, and they threw dust into the air over their heads. ³ 

When you look up ¹  to the sky ²  and see the sun, moon, and stars – the whole heavenly creation ³  – you must not be seduced to worship and serve them, ⁴  for the Lord your God has assigned ⁵  them to all the people ⁶  of the world. ⁷ 

When the men of Ai turned around, they saw ¹  the smoke from the city ascending into the sky and were so shocked they were unable to flee in any direction. ²  In the meantime the men who were retreating to the desert turned against their pursuers.

Solomon had made a bronze platform and had placed it in the middle of the enclosure. It was seven and one-half feet ¹  long, seven and one-half feet ²  wide, and four and one-half feet ³  high. He stood on it and then got down on his knees in front of the entire assembly of Israel. He spread out his hands toward the sky,