The Living Bible (233 page)
Authors: Inc. Tyndale House Publishers
Tags: #BIBLES / Other Translations / Text
The Lord asks, Did I sell you to my creditors? Is that why you aren’t here? Is your mother gone because I divorced her and sent her away? No, you went away as captives because of your sins. And your mother, too, was taken in payment for your sins.
2
Was I too weak to save you? Is that why the house is silent and empty when I come home? Have I no longer power to deliver? No, that is not the reason! For I can rebuke the sea and make it dry! I can turn the rivers into deserts, covered with dying fish.
3
I am the one who sends the darkness out across the skies.
4
The Lord God has given me his words of wisdom so that I may know what I should say to all these weary ones. Morning by morning he wakens me and opens my understanding to his will.
5
The Lord God has spoken to me, and I have listened; I do not rebel nor turn away.
6
I give my back to the whip, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard. I do not hide from shame—they spit in my face.
7
Because the Lord God helps me, I will not be dismayed; therefore, I have set my face like flint to do his will, and I know that I will triumph.
8
He who gives me justice is near. Who will dare to fight against me now? Where are my enemies? Let them appear!
9
See, the Lord God is for me! Who shall declare me guilty? All my enemies shall be destroyed like old clothes eaten up by moths!
10
Who among you fears the Lord and obeys his Servant? If such men walk in darkness, without one ray of light, let them trust the Lord, let them rely upon their God.
11
But see here, you who live in your own light and warm yourselves from your own fires and not from God’s; you will live among sorrows.
Listen to me, all who hope for deliverance, who seek the Lord! Consider the quarry from which you were mined, the rock from which you were cut! Yes, think about your ancestors Abraham and Sarah, from whom you came. You worry at being so small and few, but Abraham was only
one
when I called him. But when I blessed him, he became a great nation.
3
And the Lord will bless Israel again, and make her deserts blossom; her barren wilderness will become as beautiful as the Garden of Eden. Joy and gladness will be found there, thanksgiving and lovely songs.
4
Listen to me, my people; listen, O Israel, for I will see that right prevails.
5
My mercy and justice are coming soon; your salvation is on the way. I will rule the nations; they shall wait for me and long for me to come.
6
Look high in the skies and watch the earth beneath, for the skies shall disappear like smoke, the earth shall wear out like a garment, and the people of the earth shall die like flies. But my salvation lasts forever; my righteous rule will never die nor end.
7
Listen to me, you who know the right from wrong and cherish my laws in your hearts: don’t be afraid of people’s scorn or their slanderous talk.
8
For the moth shall destroy them like garments; the worm shall eat them like wool; but my justice and mercy shall last forever, and my salvation from generation to generation.
9
Awake, O Lord! Rise up and robe yourself with strength. Rouse yourself as in the days of old when you slew Egypt, the dragon
*
of the Nile.
10
Are you not the same today, the mighty God who dried up the sea, making a path right through it for your ransomed ones?
11
The time will come when God’s redeemed will all come home again. They shall come with singing to Jerusalem, filled with joy and everlasting gladness; sorrow and mourning will all disappear.
12
I, even I, am he who comforts you and gives you all this joy. So what right have you to fear mere mortal men, who wither like the grass and disappear?
13
And yet you have no fear of God, your Maker—you have forgotten him, the one who spread the stars throughout the skies and made the earth. Will you be in constant dread of men’s oppression, and fear their anger all day long?
14
Soon, soon you slaves shall be released; dungeon, starvation, and death are not your fate.
15
For I am the Lord your God, the Lord Almighty, who dried a path for you right through the sea, between the roaring waves.
16
And I have put my words in your mouth and hidden you safe within my hand. I planted the stars in place and molded all the earth. I am the one who says to Israel, “You are mine.”
17
Wake up, wake up, Jerusalem! You have drunk enough from the cup of the fury of the Lord. You have drunk to the dregs the cup of terror and squeezed out the last drops.
18
Not one of her sons is left alive to help or tell her what to do.
19
These two things have been your lot: desolation and destruction. Yes, famine and the sword. And who is left to sympathize? Who is left to comfort you?
20
For your sons have fainted and lie in the streets, helpless as wild goats caught in a net. The Lord has poured out his fury and rebuke upon them.
21
But listen now to this, afflicted ones—full of troubles and in a stupor (but not from being drunk)—
22
this is what the Lord says, the Lord your God who cares for his people: “See, I take from your hands the terrible cup; you shall drink no more of my fury; it is gone at last.
23
But I will put that terrible cup into the hands of those who tormented you and trampled your souls to the dust and walked upon your backs.”
Wake up, wake up, Jerusalem, and clothe yourselves with strength from God.
*
Put on your beautiful clothes, O Zion, Holy City; for sinners—those who turn from God—will no longer enter your gates.
2
Rise from the dust, Jerusalem; take off the slave bands from your neck, O captive daughter of Zion.
3
For the Lord says: When I sold you into exile, I asked no fee from your oppressors; now I can take you back again and owe them not a cent!
4
My people were tyrannized without cause by Egypt and Assyria, and I delivered them.
5
And now, what is this? asks the Lord. Why are my people enslaved again and oppressed without excuse? Those who rule them shout in exultation, and my name is constantly blasphemed day by day.
6
Therefore I will reveal my name to my people, and they shall know the power in that name. Then at last they will recognize that it is I, yes, I, who speaks to them.
7
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those who bring the happy news of peace and salvation, the news that the God of Israel reigns.
8
The watchmen shout and sing with joy, for right before their eyes they see the Lord God bring his people home again.
9
Let the ruins of Jerusalem break into joyous song, for the Lord has comforted his people; he has redeemed Jerusalem.
10
The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations; the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.
11
Go now, leave your bonds and slavery. Put Babylon and all it represents far behind you—it is unclean to you. You are the holy people of the Lord; purify yourselves, all you who carry home the vessels of the Lord.
12
You shall not leave in haste, running for your lives; for the Lord will go ahead of you, and he, the God of Israel, will protect you from behind.
13
See, my Servant
*
shall prosper; he shall be highly exalted.
14-15
Yet many shall be amazed when they see him—yes, even far-off foreign nations and their kings; they shall stand dumbfounded, speechless in his presence. For they shall see and understand what they had not been told before. They shall see my Servant beaten and bloodied, so disfigured one would scarcely know it was a person standing there. So shall he cleanse
*
many nations.
But, oh, how few believe it! Who will listen? To whom will God reveal his saving power?
2
In God’s eyes
*
he was like a tender green shoot, sprouting from a root in dry and sterile ground. But in our eyes there was no attractiveness at all, nothing to make us want him.
3
We despised him and rejected him—a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way when he went by. He was despised, and we didn’t care.
4
Yet it was
our
grief he bore,
our
sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, for his
own
sins!
5
But he was wounded and bruised for
our
sins. He was beaten that we might have peace; he was lashed—and we were healed!
6
We—
every one of us—have strayed away like sheep!
We,
who left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet God laid on
him
the guilt and sins of every one of us!
7
He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he never said a word. He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter; and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he stood silent before the ones condemning him.
8
From prison and trial they led him away to his death. But who among the people of that day realized it was their sins that he was dying for—that he was suffering their punishment?
9
He was buried like a criminal, but in a rich man’s grave; but he had done no wrong and had never spoken an evil word.
10
But it was the Lord’s good plan to bruise him and fill him with grief. However, when his soul has been made an offering for sin, then he shall have a multitude of children, many heirs. He shall live again,
*
and God’s program shall prosper in his hands.
11
And when he sees all that is accomplished by the anguish of his soul, he shall be satisfied; and because of what he has experienced, my righteous Servant shall make many to be counted righteous before God, for he shall bear all their sins.
12
Therefore, I will give him the honors of one who is mighty and great because he has poured out his soul unto death. He was counted as a sinner, and he bore the sins of many, and he pled with God for sinners.