Esther A Dangerous Beauty Novel Book 1

When an ambitious tyrant threatens genocide against the Jews, an inexperienced young queen must take a stand for her people. When Xerxes, king of Persia, issues a call for beautiful young women, Hadassah, a Jewish orphan living in Susa, is forcibly taken to the palace of the pagan ruler. After months of preparation, the girl known to the Persians as Esther wins the king's heart and a queen's crown. But because her situation is uncertain, she keeps her ethnic identity a secret until she learns that an evil and ambitious man has won the king's permission to exterminate all Jews--young and old, powerful and helpless. Purposely violating an ancient Persian law, she risks her life in order to save her people...and bind her husband's heart.

When an ambitious tyrant threatens genocide against the Jews, an inexperienced young queen must take a stand for her people. When Xerxes, king of Persia, issues a call for beautiful young women, Hadassah, a Jewish orphan living in Susa, is forcibly taken to the palace of the pagan ruler. After months of preparation, the girl known to the Persians as Esther wins the king's heart and a queen's crown. But because her situation is uncertain, she keeps her ethnic identity a secret until she learns that an evil and ambitious man has won the king's permission to exterminate all Jews--young and old, powerful and helpless. Purposely violating an ancient Persian law, she risks her life in order to save her people...and bind her husband's heart.

A Complex and Compelling Glimpse at One of the Bible's Baddest Girls Life is not easy in Philistia, especially not for a woman and child alone. When beautiful, wounded Delilah finds herself begging for food to survive, she resolves that she will find a way to defeat all the men who have taken advantage of her. She will overcome the roadblocks life has set before her, and she will find riches and victory for herself. When she meets a legendary man called Samson, she senses that in him lies the means for her victory. By winning, seducing, and betraying the hero of the Hebrews, she will attain a position of national prominence. After all, she is beautiful, she is charming, and she is smart. No man, not even a supernaturally gifted strongman, can best her in a war of wits.

"The study of the reciprocal relationship between the Bible and popular culture has blossomed in the past few decades, and the time seems ripe for a broadly-conceived work that assesses the current state of the field, offers examples of work in that field, and suggests directions for further study. This Handbook includes a wide range of topics organized under several broad themes, including biblical characters and themes in popular culture; the Bible in popular cultural genres; "lived" examples; and a concluding section in which we take stock of methodologies like Reception History and the impact of the field on teaching and publishing. These topics are all addressed by focusing on specific examples from film, television, comics, music, literature, video games, science fiction, material culture, museums, and theme parks, to name a few. This book represents a major contribution to the field by some of its leading practitioners, and will be a key resource for the future development of the study of Bible and American popular culture"--

A Vivid and Moving Portrait of a Reluctant Queen After sending his army to besiege another king's capital, King David forces himself on Bathsheba, a loyal soldier's wife. When her resulting pregnancy forces the king to murder her husband and add her to his harem, Bathsheba struggles to protect her son while dealing with the effects of a dark prophecy and deadly curse on the king's household. Combining historical facts with detailed fiction, Angela Hunt paints a realistic portrait of the beautiful woman who struggled to survive the dire results of divine judgment on a king with a divided heart.

Miriam Hastings has her future plans in place... But Trygve Knutson is intent on changing them. Just a few short weeks into her year-long training at the Blessing Hospital, Miriam Hastings is called home to Chicago, where her mother is gravely ill. With siblings to care for, Miriam pleads to be allowed to finish her training in Chicago. Her nursing supervisor grants her a brief reprieve but extracts a promise that Miriam will return to Blessing and fulfill her one-year commitment. While in Chicago, Miriam has tried to get Trygve Knutson and Blessing out of her mind, but his letters make that impossible. Trygve is busy building a house, hoping he can convince Miriam to return to North Dakota and marry him. Torn between Trygve's love and her family's needs, she doesn't know what to do. When Miriam finally returns to Blessing, she buries herself in her work. But no matter how hard she tries to put it off, she has some life-changing decisions to make about her future, her family... and the man who is never far from her thoughts. What will it take to convince her to stay?

Seeking peace and safety after a hard childhood, Leah marries Judah, a strong and gentle man, and for the first time in her life Leah believes she can rest easily. But the land is ruled by Antiochus IV, descended from one of Alexander the Great's generals, and when he issues a decree that all Jews are to conform to Syrian laws upon pain of death, devout Jews risk everything to follow the law of Moses. Judah's father resists the decree, igniting a war that will cost him his life. But before dying, he commands his son to pick up his sword and continue the fight--or bear responsibility for the obliteration of the land of Judah. Leah, who wants nothing but peace, struggles with her husband's decision--what kind of God would destroy the peace she has sought for so long? The miraculous story of the courageous Maccabees is told through the eyes of Judah's wife, who learns that love requires courage . . . and sacrifice.

Serious Study Comes to Life The visually engaging NLT Student Life Application Study Bible brings learning to life for those who want to get serious about their study of Scripture. It invites readers into an ever-deeper knowledge of God and his work in the world. This Bible uses the clear and accurate New Living Translation to help you connect what the Bible says to the way we live today.

Serious Study Comes to Life The visually engaging NLT Student Life Application Study Bible brings learning to life for those who want to get serious about their study of Scripture. It invites readers into an ever-deeper knowledge of God and his work in the world. This Bible uses the clear and accurate New Living Translation to help you connect what the Bible says to the way we live today. This study Bible is equipped with the Filament Bible app, enabling you to go further in your study. Scan any page number with your mobile phone or tablet to connect to a vast library of related content.

The first three New Beginnings in one boxed set! Book 1: Knocking A disgraced spouse. A devastated daughter. Can one woman's faith in the Almighty's plan right a string of wrongs? Tonya Mendell has really tried her best. Desperate to be a model pastor's wife and mother, she's shocked when her thirteen-year-old daughter pranks the reclusive woman next door. And when Tonya discovers her husband is having an affair, her heart sinks when her only child flees the house in response. Knowing the scandal could rock the town and cost her husband his job, the faithful woman clings to the remnants of her tattered marriage. But seeing her relationship with her daughter and her own dignity at stake, Tonya's only hope is to put her trust in God to make things right. Can this tortured soul follow the path the Lord intends and discover the healing she needs? Knocking is the heartfelt first book in the New Beginnings Christian Fiction series. If you like relatable women, strong believers, and tales of redemption, then you'll love Robin Merrill's uplifting story. Book 2: Kicking Esther is her granddaughter's last chance. Esther hasn't seen Zoe in years and hardly knows her. But she's not going to turn her away. Zoe is family, and she's a child. A wild child. How will Esther keep her from self-destructing? Rachel. Zoe wants nothing to do with the crazy-hat lady from her grandmother's creepy old church. But as Rachel starts to share herself with young Zoe, Esther sees a change. Will it be enough? Book 3: Searching Nora hasn't seen her son in three days, and no one seems to care. His friends say they haven't seen him, but Nora thinks they're lying. The police say he's just run off, but Nora knows this isn't true. He might be a troublemaker, but he wouldn't do this to her. She will not rest until she finds him, but she's in it alone. Then one day, crippled by fatigue and fear, Nora finds her way to a weird little church. And suddenly, she's not alone anymore.

In this BST volume, David Firth explores the paradoxically important book of Esther and its implications for our own context, where the reality of God's presence is experienced against a backdrop of God's relative anonymity and seeming absence. It calls us to courageously engage society and be at the forefront of standing for justice while trusting in the God that is always at work.

The proceedings of a symposium entitled Esther 2000 held in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska in April 2000, the book contains a collection of essays that engages all aspects of the biblical book of Esther. From questions of textual criticism to the history of rabbinic interpretation to speculation on the modern form of commentary, this collection is sure to contain something for everyone interested in the book of Esther. Contributors include such well-known Esther scholars as Michael Fox, David Clines, and Carey Moore.

Dress, Adornment, and the Body in the Hebrew Bible is the first monograph to treat dress and adornment in biblical literature in the English language. It moves beyond a description of these aspects of ancient life to encompass notions of interpersonal relationships and personhood that underpin practices of dress and adornment. Laura Quick explores the ramifications of body adornment in the biblical world, informed by a methodologically plural approach incorporating material culture alongside philology, textual exegesis, comparative evidence, and sociological models. Drawing upon and synthesizing insights from material culture and texts from across the eastern Mediterranean, the volume reconstructs the social meanings attached to the dressed body in biblical texts. It shows how body adornment can deepen understanding of attitudes towards the self in the ancient world. In Quick's reconstruction of ancient performances of the self, the body serves as the observed centre in which complex ideologies of identity, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and social status are articulated. The adornment of the body is thus an effective means of non-verbal communication, but one which at the same time is controlled by and dictated through normative social values. Exploring dress, adornment, and the body can therefore open up hitherto unexplored perspectives on these social values in the ancient world, an essential missing piece in understanding the social and cultural world which shaped the Hebrew Bible.

An Amish Romance boxed set of all five books in The Amish Millers Get Married series. Each of the 5 books is a full-length novel. Clean and wholesome, happy, feel-good, Amish Christian romance. Book 1: The Way Home. When Noah Hostetler while on rumspringa loses control of a borrowed car on an icy road and drives into a buggy, the Miller sisters are hurt. Injured and with unforgivingness in her heart, Hannah Miller vows she will never again feel for Noah what she once did—a deep and loyal love. Both Hannah and Noah believe that with God's grace anything is possible, but healing from a painful past is no easy task. Can Hannah rediscover what once she felt for Noah before his terrible mistake, or will her heart remain closed to him forever? Book 2: The Way Forward. Everyone thinks the handsome Amos Troyer is perfect for Esther Miller—everyone, that is, except Esther herself. So when her mother's meddling gets too much, Esther hatches a scheme of her own. She asks her friend Jacob Hostetler to pretend to be her boyfriend. Yet does Jacob have motives of his own? How will Esther's secret change her life in a way she never thought possible? Book 3: The Narrow Way. The Millers' third daughter, Martha, went on her rumspringa, determined to sample the ways of the non-Amish and to start a chocolate making business. Martha has left the Amish well behind her, and is dating the handsome and successful Gary Wright. When she is arrested for something she didn't do, she calls on the only person she can trust to keep her secret, the Amish man Moses, who has loved her for years. The Narrow Way is a happy, feel-good Amish Christian romance. Book 4: The Only Way. Rebecca has started work at a B&B which has opened next door to the Millers. Sarah Beachy, an Amish girl from another community, has moved in with the Miller family. Rebecca is determined not to be the fourth Miller girl to marry the fourth Hostetler brother, so why is she so upset when Sarah spends all her free time with Elijah Hostetler? And will the arrival of the mysterious Amish man, Benjamin Shelter, change their lives in any way? Book 5: Finding the Way. It's one shock after another for Sarah Beachy. Firstly, her strict father has sent Benjamin Shetler to Lancaster Country to force Sarah to come back home, and secondly, she finds out she is closely related to the Millers. Does Benjamin have reasons of his own for arriving in the community? Will the handsome but wicked Nash Grayson ruin Sarah's happiness? Or does he have enough troubles of his own with Jessie Yoder?

The first three Amish Romances in this Select All Star Book awarded Box Set from USA Today Bestselling author Ruth Hartzler. 1. The Way Home Can love conquer all? When Noah Hostetler while on rumspringa loses control of a borrowed car on an icy road and drives into a buggy, the Miller sisters are hurt. Injured and with unforgivingness in her heart, Hannah Miller vows she will never again feel for Noah what she once did... a deep and loyal love. Both Hannah and Noah believe that with God’s grace anything is possible, but healing from a painful past is no easy task. Can Hannah rediscover what once she felt for Noah before his terrible mistake, or will her heart remain closed to him forever? 2. The Way Forward Esther Miller's matchmaking mother wants Esther to marry soon, the sooner the better. Any man from the community will do, any man except one of the Hostetler boys. Mrs. Miller has Amos Troyer in mind, and everybody agrees he is perfect for Esther . . . everybody, that is, except Esther herself. So when her mother's meddling gets too much, Esther hatches a scheme of her own. She asks her handsome friend, Jacob Hostetler, to pretend to be her boyfriend. Jacob agrees, but does he have motives of his own? Yet when this small white lie is eclipsed by the motives of another, Esther's world could soon come crashing down around her. How will Esther's secret change her life in a way she never thought possible? 3. The Narrow Way Will Martha choose an exciting new life as an Englischer if it means losing her best friend, the handsome Moses Hostetler? The Millers' third daughter, Martha, went on her rumspringa, determined to sample the ways of the non-Amish and to start a chocolate making business. Martha has left the Amish well behind her, and is dating the handsome and successful Gary Wright. When she is arrested for something she didn't do, she calls on the only person she can trust to keep her secret, the Amish man Moses, who has loved her for years.

The Blackaby Study Bible gives you the results of the Blackaby family's approach to Bible study and encourages you to be available for an encounter with God in His Word. Unique notes and articles throughout the Bible give you guidance for experiencing dramatic, life-changing "God encounters" on a daily basis. This is the crowning work of Dr. Henry Blackaby, co-author of the bestseller Experiencing God, and his four sons, Drs. Richard, Thomas, Melvin, and Norman Blackaby. Now you can learn how to develop a regular habit of Bible reading and study, expecting great things to happen as God engages you in His Word. See how God has encountered people in many times and places, using ordinary men and women in extraordinary ways to do His will.