Read The One Year Bible TLB Online
Authors: Tyndale
The One Year Bible TLB (203 page)
September 24The Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, says: For your sakes I will send an invading army against Babylon that will walk in, almost unscathed. The boasts of the Babylonians will turn to cries of fear.
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I am the Lord, your Holy One, Israel’s Creator and King.
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I am the Lord, who opened a way through the waters, making a path right through the sea.
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I called forth the mighty army of Egypt with all its chariots and horses, to lie beneath the waves, dead, their lives snuffed out like candlewicks.
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But forget all that—it is nothing compared to what I’m going to do!
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For I’m going to do a brand-new thing. See, I have already begun! Don’t you see it? I will make a road through the wilderness of the world for my people to go home, and create rivers for them in the desert!
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The wild animals in the fields will thank me, the jackals and ostriches too, for giving them water in the wilderness, yes, springs in the desert, so that my people, my chosen ones, can be refreshed.
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I have made Israel for myself, and these my people will some day honor me before the world.
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But O my people, you won’t ask my help; you have grown tired of me!
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You have not brought me the lambs for burnt offerings; you have not honored me with sacrifices. Yet my requests for offerings and incense have been very few! I have not treated you as slaves.
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You have brought me no sweet-smelling incense nor pleased me with the sacrificial fat. No, you have presented me only with sins and wearied me with all your faults.
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I, yes, I alone am he who blots away your sins for my own sake and will never think of them again.
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Oh, remind me of this promise of forgiveness, for we must talk about your sins. Plead your case for my forgiving you.
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From the very first your ancestors sinned against me—all your forebears transgressed my law.
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That is why I have deposed your priests and destroyed Israel, leaving her to shame.
44:
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Listen to me, O my servant Israel, O my chosen ones:
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The Lord who made you, who will help you, says: O servant of mine, don’t be afraid. O Jerusalem, my chosen ones, don’t be afraid.
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For I will give you abundant water for your thirst and for your parched fields. And I will pour out my Spirit and my blessings on your children.
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They shall thrive like watered grass, like willows on a riverbank.
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“I am the Lord’s,” they’ll proudly
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say, or, “I am a Jew,” and tattoo upon their hands the name of God or the honored name of Israel.
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The Lord, the King of Israel, says—yes, it is Israel’s Redeemer, the Lord Almighty, who says it—I am the First and Last; there is no other God.
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Who else can tell you what is going to happen in the days ahead? Let them tell you if they can and prove their power. Let them do as I have done since ancient times.
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Don’t, don’t be afraid. Haven’t I proclaimed from ages past that I would save you
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? You are my witnesses—is there any other God? No! None that I know about! There is no other Rock!
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What fools they are who manufacture idols for their gods. Their hopes remain unanswered. They themselves are witnesses that this is so, for their idols neither see nor know. No wonder those who worship them are so ashamed.
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Who but a fool would make his own god—an idol that can help him not one whit!
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All that worship these will stand before the Lord in shame, along with all these carpenters—mere men—who claim that they have made a god. Together they will stand in terror.
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The metalsmith stands at his forge to make an ax, pounding on it with all his might. He grows hungry and thirsty, weak and faint.
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Then the wood-carver takes the ax and uses it to make an idol. He measures and marks out a block of wood and carves the figure of a man. Now he has a wonderful idol that can’t so much as move from where it is placed.
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He cuts down cedars, he selects the cypress and the oak, he plants the ash in the forest to be nourished by the rain.
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And after his care, he uses part of the wood to make a fire to warm himself and bake his bread, and then—he really does—he takes the rest of it and makes himself a god—a god for men to worship! An idol to fall down before and praise!
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Part of the tree he burns to roast his meat and to keep him warm and fed and well content,
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and with what’s left he makes his god: a carved idol! He falls down before it and worships it and prays to it. “Deliver me,” he says. “You are my god!”
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Such stupidity and ignorance! God has shut their eyes so that they cannot see and closed their minds from understanding.
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The man never stops to think or figure out, “Why, it’s just a block of wood! I’ve burned it for heat and used it to bake my bread and roast my meat. How can the rest of it be a god? Should I fall down before a chunk of wood?”
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The poor, deluded fool feeds on ashes; he is trusting what can never give him any help at all. Yet he cannot bring himself to ask, “Is this thing, this idol that I’m holding in my hand, a lie?”
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Pay attention, Israel, for you are my servant; I made you, and I will not forget to help you.
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I’ve blotted out your sins; they are gone like morning mist at noon! Oh, return to me, for I have paid the price to set you free.
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Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done this wondrous thing. Shout, O earth; break forth into song, O mountains and forests, yes, and every tree; for the Lord redeemed Jacob and is glorified in Israel!
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The Lord, your Redeemer who made you, says: All things were made by me; I alone stretched out the heavens. By myself I made the earth and everything in it.
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I am the one who shows what liars all false prophets are, by causing something else to happen than the things they say. I make wise men give opposite advice to what they should and make them into fools.
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But what my prophets say, I do; when they say Jerusalem will be delivered and the cities of Judah lived in once again—it shall be done!
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When I speak to the rivers and say, “Be dry!” they shall be dry.
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When I say of Cyrus,
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“He is my shepherd,” he will certainly do as I say; and Jerusalem will be rebuilt and the Temple restored, for I have spoken it.
45:
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This is Jehovah’s message to Cyrus, God’s anointed, whom he has chosen to conquer many lands. God shall empower his right hand, and he shall crush the strength of mighty kings. God shall open the gates of Babylon to him; the gates shall not be shut against him anymore.
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I will go before you, Cyrus, and level the mountains and smash down the city gates of brass and iron bars.
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And I will give you treasures hidden in the darkness, secret riches; and you will know that I am doing this—I, the Lord, the God of Israel, the one who calls you by your name.
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And why have I named you for this work? For the sake of Jacob, my servant—Israel, my chosen. I called you by name when you didn’t know me.
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I am Jehovah; there is no other God. I will strengthen you and send you out to victory even though you don’t know me,
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and all the world from east to west will know there is no other God. I am Jehovah and there is no one else. I alone am God.
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I form the light and make the dark. I send good times and bad. I, Jehovah, am he who does these things.
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Open up, O heavens. Let the skies pour out their righteousness. Let salvation and righteousness sprout up together from the earth. I, Jehovah, created them.
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Woe to the man who fights with his Creator. Does the pot argue with its maker? Does the clay dispute with him who forms it, saying, “Stop, you’re doing it wrong!” or the pot exclaim, “How clumsy can you be!”?
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Woe to the baby just being born who squalls to his father and mother, “Why have you produced me? Can’t you do anything right at all?”
I, Paul, the servant of Christ, am here in jail because of you—for preaching that you Gentiles are a part of God’s house.
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No doubt you already know that God has given me this special work of showing God’s favor to you Gentiles, as I briefly mentioned before in one of my letters. God himself showed me this secret plan of his, that the Gentiles, too, are included in his kindness.
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I say this to explain to you how I know about these things.
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In olden times God did not share this plan with his people, but now he has revealed it by the Holy Spirit to his apostles and prophets.
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And this is the secret: that the Gentiles will have their full share with the Jews in all the riches inherited by God’s sons; both are invited to belong to his Church, and all of God’s promises of mighty blessings through Christ apply to them both when they accept the Good News about Christ and what he has done for them.
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God has given me the wonderful privilege of telling everyone about this plan of his; and he has given me his power and special ability to do it well.
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Just think! Though I did nothing to deserve it, and though I am the most useless Christian there is, yet I was the one chosen for this special joy of telling the Gentiles the Glad News of the endless treasures available to them in Christ;
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and to explain to everyone that God is the Savior of the Gentiles too, just as he who made all things had secretly planned from the very beginning.
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And his reason? To show to all the rulers in heaven how perfectly wise he is when all of his family—Jews and Gentiles alike—are seen to be joined together in his Church
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in just the way he had always planned it through Jesus Christ our Lord.
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Now we can come fearlessly right into God’s presence, assured of his glad welcome when we come with Christ and trust in him.
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So please don’t lose heart at what they are doing to me here. It is for you I am suffering, and you should feel honored and encouraged.
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When I think of the wisdom and scope of his plan, I fall down on my knees and pray to the Father of all the great family of God—some of them already in heaven and some down here on earth—
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that out of his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you the mighty inner strengthening of his Holy Spirit.
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And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts, living within you as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love;
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and may you be able to feel and understand, as all God’s children should, how long, how wide, how deep, and how high his love really is; and to experience this love for yourselves, though it is so great that you will never see the end of it or fully know or understand it. And so at last you will be filled up with God himself.
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Now glory be to God, who by his mighty power at work within us is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of—infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, or hopes.
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May he be given glory forever and ever through endless ages because of his master plan of salvation for the Church through Jesus Christ.
Arise, O God, and scatter all your enemies! Chase them away!
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Drive them off like smoke before the wind; melt them like wax in fire! So let the wicked perish at the presence of God.
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But may the godly man exult. May he rejoice and be merry.
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Sing praises to the Lord! Raise your voice in song to him who rides upon the clouds!
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Jehovah is his name—oh, rejoice in his presence.
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He is a father to the fatherless; he gives justice to the widows, for he is holy.
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He gives families to the lonely, and releases prisoners from jail, singing with joy! But for rebels there is famine and distress.
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O God, when you led your people through the wilderness,
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the earth trembled and the heavens shook. Mount Sinai quailed before you—the God of Israel.
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You sent abundant rain upon your land, O God, to refresh it in its weariness! There your people lived, for you gave them this home when they were destitute.
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The Lord speaks. The enemy flees. The women at home
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cry out the happy news: “The armies that came to destroy us have fled!” Now all the women of Israel are dividing the booty. See them sparkle with jewels of silver and gold, covered all over as wings cover doves!
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God scattered their enemies like snowflakes melting in the forests of Zalmon.
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O mighty mountains in Bashan! O splendid many-peaked ranges! Well may you look with envy at Mount Zion, the mount where God has chosen to live forever.
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Surrounded by unnumbered chariots, the Lord moves on from Mount Sinai and comes to his holy Temple high upon Mount Zion.
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He ascends the heights, leading many captives in his train. He receives gifts for men,
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even those who once were rebels. God will live among us here.