The One Year Bible TLB (191 page)
Read The One Year Bible TLB Online
Authors: Tyndale
Keep away from angry, short-tempered men, lest you learn to be like them and endanger your soul.
September 8These are the messages that came to Isaiah, son of Amoz, in the visions he saw during the reigns of King Uzziah, King Jotham, King Ahaz, and King Hezekiah—all kings of Judah. In these messages God showed him what was going to happen to Judah and Jerusalem in the days ahead.
2
Listen, O heaven and earth, to what the Lord is saying:
The children I raised and cared for so long and tenderly have turned against me.
3
Even the animals—the donkey and the ox—know their owner and appreciate his care for them, but not my people Israel. No matter what I do for them, they still don’t care.
4
Oh, what a sinful nation they are! They walk bent-backed beneath their load of guilt. Their fathers before them were evil too. Born to be bad, they have turned their backs upon the Lord and have despised the Holy One of Israel. They have cut themselves off from his help.
5-6
Oh, my people, haven’t you had enough of punishment? Why will you force me to whip you again and again? Must you forever rebel? From head to foot you are sick and weak and faint, covered with bruises and welts and infected wounds, unanointed and unbound.
7
Your country lies in ruins; your cities are burned; while you watch, foreigners are destroying and plundering everything they see.
8
You stand there helpless and abandoned like a watchman’s shanty in the field when the harvesttime is over—or when the crop is stripped and robbed.
9
If the Lord Almighty had not stepped in to save a few of us, we would have been wiped out as Sodom and Gomorrah were.
10
An apt comparison!
*
Listen, you leaders of Israel, you men of Sodom and Gomorrah, as I call you now. Listen to the Lord. Hear what he is telling you!
11
I am sick of your sacrifices. Don’t bring me any more of them. I don’t want your fat rams; I don’t want to see the blood from your offerings.
12-13
Who wants your sacrifices when you have no sorrow for your sins? The incense you bring me is a stench in my nostrils. Your holy celebrations of the new moon and the Sabbath, and your special days for fasting—even your most pious meetings—all are frauds! I want nothing more to do with them.
14
I hate them all; I can’t stand the sight of them.
15
From now on, when you pray with your hands stretched out to heaven, I won’t look or listen. Even though you make many prayers, I will not hear, for your hands are those of murderers; they are covered with the blood of your innocent victims.
16
Oh, wash yourselves! Be clean! Let me no longer see you doing all these wicked things; quit your evil ways.
17
Learn to do good, to be fair, and to help the poor, the fatherless, and widows.
18
Come, let’s talk this over, says the Lord; no matter how deep the stain of your sins, I can take it out and make you as clean as freshly fallen snow. Even if you are stained as red as crimson, I can make you white as wool!
19
If you will only let me help you, if you will only obey, then I will make you rich!
20
But if you keep on turning your backs and refusing to listen to me, you will be killed by your enemies; I, the Lord, have spoken.
21
Jerusalem, once a faithful wife! And now a prostitute! Running after other gods! Once “The City of Fair Play,” but now a gang of murderers.
22
Once like sterling silver; now mixed with worthless alloy! Once so pure, but now diluted like watered-down wine!
23
Your leaders are rebels, companions of thieves; all of them take bribes and won’t defend the widows and orphans.
24
Therefore the Lord, the Mighty One of Israel, says: I will pour out my anger on you, my enemies!
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I myself will melt you in a smelting pot and skim off your slag.
26
And afterwards I will give you good judges and wise counselors like those you used to have. Then your city shall again be called “The City of Justice” and “The Faithful Town.”
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Those who return to the Lord, who are just and good, shall be redeemed.
28
(But all sinners shall utterly perish, for they refuse to come to me.)
29
Shame will cover you, and you will blush to think of all those times you sacrificed to idols in your groves of “sacred” oaks.
30
You will perish like a withered tree or a garden without water.
31
The strongest among you will disappear like burning straw; your evil deeds are the spark that sets the straw on fire, and no one will be able to put it out.
2:
1
This is another message to Isaiah from the Lord concerning Judah and Jerusalem:
2
In the last days Jerusalem and the Temple of the Lord will become the world’s greatest attraction,
*
and people from many lands will flow there to worship the Lord.
3
“Come,” everyone will say, “let us go up the mountain of the Lord, to the Temple of the God of Israel; there he will teach us his laws, and we will obey them.” For in those days the world will be ruled from Jerusalem.
4
The Lord will settle international disputes; all the nations will convert their weapons of war into implements of peace.
*
Then at the last all wars will stop and all military training will end.
5
O Israel, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord and be obedient to his laws!
*
6
The Lord has rejected you because you welcome foreigners from the East who practice magic and communicate with evil spirits, as the Philistines do.
7
Israel has vast treasures of silver and gold, and great numbers of horses and chariots
8
and idols—the land is full of them! They are man-made, and yet you
worship
them!
9
Small and great, all bow before them; God will not forgive you for this sin.
10
Crawl into the caves in the rocks and hide in terror from his glorious majesty,
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for the day is coming when your proud looks will be brought low; the Lord alone will be exalted.
12
On that day the Lord Almighty will move against the proud and haughty and bring them to the dust.
13
All the tall cedars of Lebanon and all the mighty oaks of Bashan shall bend low,
14
and all the high mountains and hills,
15
and every high tower and wall,
16
and all the proud ocean ships and trim harbor craft
—all
shall be crushed before the Lord that day.
17
All the glory of mankind will bow low; the pride of men will lie in the dust, and the Lord alone will be exalted.
18
And all idols will be utterly abolished and destroyed.
19
When the Lord stands up from his throne to shake up the earth, his enemies will crawl with fear into the holes in the rocks and into the caves because of the glory of his majesty.
20
Then at last they will abandon their gold and silver idols to the moles and bats
21
and crawl into the caverns to hide among the jagged rocks at the tops of the cliffs, to try to get away from the terror of the Lord and the glory of his majesty when he rises to terrify the earth.
22
Puny man! Frail as his breath! Don’t ever put your trust in him!
I plead with you—yes, I, Paul—and I plead gently, as Christ himself would do. Yet some of you are saying, “Paul’s letters are bold enough when he is far away, but when he gets here he will be afraid to raise his voice!”
2
I hope I won’t need to show you when I come how harsh and rough I can be. I don’t want to carry out my present plans against some of you who seem to think my deeds and words are merely those of an ordinary man.
3
It is true that I am an ordinary, weak human being, but I don’t use human plans and methods to win my battles.
4
I use God’s mighty weapons, not those made by men, to knock down the devil’s strongholds.
5
These weapons can break down every proud argument against God and every wall that can be built to keep men from finding him. With these weapons I can capture rebels and bring them back to God and change them into men whose hearts’ desire is obedience to Christ.
6
I will use these weapons against every rebel who remains after I have first used them on you yourselves and you surrender to Christ.
7
The trouble with you is that you look at me and I seem weak and powerless, but you don’t look beneath the surface. Yet if anyone can claim the power and authority of Christ, I certainly can.
8
I may seem to be boasting more than I should about my authority over you—authority to help you, not to hurt you—but I shall make good every claim.
9
I say this so that you will not think I am just blustering when I scold you in my letters.
10
“Don’t bother about his letters,” some say. “He sounds big, but it’s all noise. When he gets here you will see that there is nothing great about him, and you have never heard a worse preacher!”
11
This time my personal presence is going to be just as rough on you as my letters are!
12
Oh, don’t worry, I wouldn’t dare say that I am as wonderful as these other men who tell you how good they are! Their trouble is that they are only comparing themselves with each other and measuring themselves against their own little ideas. What stupidity!
13
But we will not boast of authority we do not have. Our goal is to measure up to God’s plan for us, and this plan includes our working there with you.
14
We are not going too far when we claim authority over you, for we were the first to come to you with the Good News concerning Christ.
15
It is not as though we were trying to claim credit for the work someone else has done among you. Instead, we hope that your faith will grow and that, still within the limits set for us, our work among you will be greatly enlarged.
16
After that, we will be able to preach the Good News to other cities that are far beyond you, where no one else is working; then there will be no question about being in someone else’s field.
17
As the Scriptures say, “If anyone is going to boast, let him boast about what the Lord has done and not about himself.”
18
When someone boasts about himself and how well he has done, it doesn’t count for much. But when the Lord commends him, that’s different!
Written by David to protest against his enemy Doeg (1 Samuel 22), who later slaughtered eighty-five priests and their families.
You call yourself a
hero,
do you? You
boast
about this evil deed of yours against God’s people.
2
You are sharp as a tack in plotting your evil tricks.
3
How you love wickedness—far more than good! And lying more than truth!
4
You love to slander—you love to say anything that will do harm, O man with the lying tongue.
5
But God will strike you down, pull you from your home, and drag you away from the land of the living.
6
The followers of God will see it happen. They will watch in awe. Then they will laugh and say,
7
“See what happens to those who despise God and trust in their wealth, and become ever more bold in their wickedness.”
*
8
But I am like a sheltered olive tree protected by the Lord himself. I trust in the mercy of God forever and ever.
9
O Lord, I will praise you forever and ever for your punishment.
*
And I will wait for your mercies—for everyone knows what a merciful God you are.
Unless you have the extra cash on hand, don’t countersign a note. Why risk everything you own? They’ll even take your bed!
September 9The Lord will cut off Jerusalem’s and Judah’s food and water supplies
2
and kill her leaders; he will destroy her armies, judges, prophets, elders,
3
army officers, businessmen, lawyers, magicians, and politicians.
4
Israel’s kings will be like babies, ruling childishly.
5
And the worst sort of anarchy will prevail—everyone stepping on someone else, neighbors fighting neighbors, youths revolting against authority, criminals sneering at honorable men.
6
In those days a man will say to his brother, “You have some extra clothing, so you be our king and take care of this mess.”
7
“No!” he will reply. “I cannot be of any help! I have no extra food or clothes. Don’t get me involved!”
8
Israel’s civil government will be in utter ruin because the Jews have spoken out against their Lord and will not worship him; they offend his glory.
9
The very look on their faces gives them away and shows their guilt. And they boast that their sin is equal to the sin of Sodom; they are not even ashamed. What a catastrophe! They have doomed themselves.
10
But all is well for the godly man. Tell him, “What a reward you are going to get!”
11
But say to the wicked, “Your doom is sure. You too shall get your just deserts. Your well-earned punishment is on the way.”
12
O my people! Can’t you see what fools your rulers are? Weak as women! Foolish as little children playing king. True leaders? No, misleaders! Leading you down the garden path to destruction.
13
The Lord stands up! He is the great Prosecuting Attorney presenting his case against his people!
14
First to feel his wrath will be the elders and the princes, for they have defrauded the poor. They have filled their barns with grain extorted from the helpless peasants.
15
“How dare you grind my people in the dust like that?” the Lord Almighty will demand of them.
16
Next he will judge the haughty Jewish women, who mince along, noses in the air, tinkling bracelets on their ankles, with wanton eyes that rove among the crowds to catch the glances of the men.
17
The Lord will send a plague of scabs to ornament their heads! He will expose their nakedness for all to see.
18
No longer shall they tinkle with self-assurance as they walk. For the Lord will strip away their artful beauty and their ornaments,
19
their necklaces and bracelets and veils of shimmering gauze.
20
Gone shall be their scarves and ankle chains, headbands, earrings, and perfumes;
21
their rings, jewels,
22
party clothes, negligees, capes, ornate combs, and purses;
23
their mirrors, lovely lingerie, beautiful dresses, and veils.
24
Instead of smelling of sweet perfume, they’ll stink; for sashes they’ll use ropes; their well-set hair will all fall out; they’ll wear sacks instead of robes.
All their beauty will be gone; all that will be left to them is shame and disgrace.
25-26
Their husbands shall die in battle; the women, ravaged, shall sit crying on the ground.
4:
1
At that time so few men will be left alive that seven women will fight over each of them and say, “Let us all marry you! We will furnish our own food and clothing; only let us be called by your name so that we won’t be mocked as old maids.”
2-4
Those whose names are written down to escape the destruction of Jerusalem will be washed and rinsed of all their moral filth by the horrors and the fire. They will be God’s holy people.
*
And the land will produce for them its lushest bounty and its richest fruit.
5
Then the Lord will provide shade on all Jerusalem—over every home and all its public grounds—a canopy of smoke and cloud throughout the day, and clouds of fire at night, covering the Glorious Land,
6
protecting it from daytime heat and from rains and storms.
5:
1
Now I will sing a song about his vineyard to the one I love.
My Beloved has a vineyard on a very fertile hill.
2
He plowed it and took out all the rocks and planted his vineyard with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower and cut a winepress in the rocks. Then he waited for the harvest, but the grapes that grew were wild and sour and not at all the sweet ones he expected.
3
Now, men of Jerusalem and Judah, you have heard the case! You be the judges!
4
What more could I have done? Why did my vineyard give me wild grapes instead of sweet?
5
I will tear down the fences and let my vineyard go to pasture to be trampled by cattle and sheep.
6
I won’t prune it or hoe it, but let it be overgrown with briars and thorns. I will command the clouds not to rain on it anymore.
7
I have given you the story of God’s people. They are the vineyard that I spoke about. Israel and Judah are his pleasant acreage! He expected them to yield a crop of justice, but found bloodshed instead. He expected righteousness, but the cries of deep oppression met his ears.
*
8
You buy up property so others have no place to live. Your homes are built on great estates so you can be alone in the midst of the earth!
9
But the Lord Almighty has sworn your awful fate—with my own ears I heard him say, “Many a beautiful home will lie deserted, their owners killed or gone.
10
An acre of vineyard will not produce a gallon of juice! Ten bushels of seed will yield a one-bushel crop!”
11
Woe to you who get up early in the morning to go on long drinking bouts that last till late at night—woe to you drunken bums.
12
You furnish lovely music at your grand parties; the orchestras are superb! But for the Lord you have no thought or care.
13
Therefore I will send you into exile far away because you neither know nor care that I have done so much for you. Your great and honored men will starve, and the common people will die of thirst.
14
Hell is licking its chops in anticipation of this delicious morsel, Jerusalem. Her great and small shall be swallowed up, and all her drunken throngs.
15
In that day the haughty shall be brought down to the dust; the proud shall be humbled;
16
but the Lord Almighty is exalted above all, for he alone is holy, just, and good.
17
In those days flocks will feed among the ruins. Lambs and calves and kids will pasture there!
18
Woe to those who drag their sins behind them like a bullock on a rope.
*
19
They even mock the Holy One of Israel and dare the Lord to punish them.
*
“Hurry up and punish us, O Lord,” they say. “We want to see what you can do!”
20
They say that what is right is wrong and what is wrong is right; that black is white and white is black; bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter.
21
Woe to those who are wise and shrewd in their own eyes!
22
Woe to those who are “heroes” when it comes to drinking and boast about the liquor they can hold.
23
They take bribes to pervert justice, letting the wicked go free and putting innocent men in jail.
24
Therefore God will deal with them and burn them. They will disappear like straw on fire. Their roots will rot and their flowers wither, for they have thrown away the laws of God and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
25
That is why the anger of the Lord is hot against his people; that is why he has reached out his hand to smash them. The hills will tremble, and the rotting bodies of his people will be thrown as refuse in the streets. But even so, his anger is not ended; his hand is heavy on them still.
26
He will send a signal to the nations far away, whistling to those at the ends of the earth, and they will come racing toward Jerusalem.
27
They never weary, never stumble, never stop; their belts are tight, their bootstraps strong; they run without stopping for rest or for sleep.
28
Their arrows are sharp; their bows are bent; sparks fly from their horses’ hoofs, and the wheels of their chariots spin like the wind.
29
They roar like lions and pounce upon the prey. They seize my people and carry them off into captivity with none to rescue them.
30
They growl over their victims like the roaring of the sea. Over all Israel lies a pall of darkness and sorrow, and the heavens are black.
I hope you will be patient with me as I keep on talking like a fool. Do bear with me and let me say what is on my heart.
2
I am anxious for you with the deep concern of God himself—anxious that your love should be for Christ alone, just as a pure maiden saves her love for one man only, for the one who will be her husband.
3
But I am frightened, fearing that in some way you will be led away from your pure and simple devotion to our Lord, just as Eve was deceived by Satan in the Garden of Eden.
4
You seem so gullible: you believe whatever anyone tells you even if he is preaching about another Jesus than the one we preach, or a different spirit than the Holy Spirit you received, or shows you a different way to be saved. You swallow it all.
5
Yet I don’t feel that these marvelous “messengers from God,” as they call themselves, are any better than I am.
6
If I am a poor speaker, at least I know what I am talking about, as I think you realize by now, for we have proved it again and again.
7
Did I do wrong and cheapen myself and make you look down on me because I preached God’s Good News to you without charging you anything?
8-9
Instead I “robbed” other churches by taking what they sent me and using it up while I was with you so that I could serve you without cost. And when that was gone
*
and I was getting hungry, I still didn’t ask you for anything, for the Christians from Macedonia brought me another gift. I have never yet asked you for one cent, and I never will.
10
I promise this with every ounce of truth I possess—that I will tell everyone in Greece about it!
11
Why? Because I don’t love you? God knows I do.
12
But I will do it to cut out the ground from under the feet of those who boast that they are doing God’s work in just the same way we are.
13
God never sent those men at all; they are “phonies” who have fooled you into thinking they are Christ’s apostles.
14
Yet I am not surprised! Satan can change himself into an angel of light,
15
so it is no wonder his servants can do it too, and seem like godly ministers. In the end they will get every bit of punishment their wicked deeds deserve.
Only a fool would say to himself, “There is no God.” And why does he say it?
*
Because of his wicked heart, his dark and evil deeds. His life is corroded with sin.
2
God looks down from heaven, searching among all mankind to see if there is a single one who does right and really seeks for God.
3
But all have turned their backs on him; they are filthy with sin—corrupt and rotten through and through. Not one is good, not one!
4
How can this be? Can’t they understand anything? For they devour my people like bread and refuse to come to God.
5
But soon unheard-of terror will fall on them. God will scatter the bones of these, your enemies. They are doomed, for God has rejected them.
6
Oh, that God would come from Zion now and save Israel! Only when the Lord himself restores them can they ever be really happy again.
Do not move the ancient boundary marks. That is stealing.
*
29
Do you know a hard-working man? He shall be successful and stand before kings!