21 And Jehovah began to smell a restful* odor,+ and so Jehovah said in his heart:+ “Never again shall I call down evil upon the ground+ on man’s account, because the inclination+ of the heart of man is bad from his youth up;+ and never again shall I deal every living thing a blow just as I have done.+

43 And he kept walking in all the way of Aʹsa his father. He did not turn aside from it, by doing what was right in the eyes of Jehovah.+ Only the high places themselves did not disappear.* The people were still sacrificing and making sacrificial smoke on the high places.+

4 And I myself returned that I might see all the acts of oppression+ that are being done under the sun, and, look! the tears of those being oppressed,+ but they had no comforter;+ and on the side of their oppressors there was power, so that they had no comforter.

44 “And in the days of those kings*+ the God of heaven+ will set up a kingdom*+ that will never be brought to ruin.+ And the kingdom* itself will not be passed on to any other people.+ It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms,+ and it itself will stand to times indefinite;+

20 For the creation was subjected to futility,+ not by its own will but through him that subjected it, on the basis of hope+