The One Year Bible TLB (245 page)
Read The One Year Bible TLB Online
Authors: Tyndale
November 18The power of the Lord was upon me and I was carried away by the Spirit of the Lord to a valley full of old, dry bones that were scattered everywhere across the ground. He led me around among them,
3
and then he said to me:
“Son of dust, can these bones become people again?”
I replied, “Lord, you alone know the answer to that.”
4
Then he told me to speak to the bones and say: “O dry bones, listen to the words of God,
5
for the Lord God says, ‘See! I am going to make you live and breathe again!
6
I will replace the flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you, and you shall live and know I am the Lord.’”
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So I spoke these words from God, just as he told me to; and suddenly there was a rattling noise from all across the valley, and the bones of each body came together and attached to each other as they used to be.
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Then, as I watched, the muscles and flesh formed over the bones, and skin covered them, but the bodies had no breath.
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Then he told me to call to the wind and say: “The Lord God says: Come from the four winds, O Spirit, and breathe upon these slain bodies, that they may live again.”
10
So I spoke to the winds as he commanded me, and the bodies began breathing; they lived and stood up—a very great army.
11
Then he told me what the vision meant: “These bones,” he said, “represent all the people of Israel. They say: ‘We have become a heap of dried-out bones—all hope is gone.’
12
But tell them, ‘The Lord God says: My people, I will open your graves of exile and cause you to rise again and return to the land of Israel.
13
And, then at last, O my people, you will know I am the Lord.
14
I will put my Spirit into you, and you shall live and return home again to your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have done just what I promised you.’”
15
Again a message from the Lord came to me, saying:
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“Take a stick and carve on it these words: ‘This stick represents Judah and her allied tribes.’ Then take another stick and carve these words on it: ‘This stick represents all the other tribes of Israel.’
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Now hold them together in your hand as one stick.
18-20
Tell these people (holding the sticks so they can see what you are doing), the Lord God says: ‘I will take the tribes of Israel and join them to Judah and make them one stick in my hand.’”
21
For the Lord God says: “I am gathering the people of Israel from among the nations and bringing them home from around the world to their own land,
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to unify them into one nation. One king shall be king of them all; no longer shall they be divided into two nations.
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They shall stop polluting themselves with idols and their other sins, for I will save them from all this foulness. Then they shall truly be my people and I their God.
24
“And David, my Servant—the Messiah—shall be their King, their only Shepherd; and they shall obey my laws and all my wishes.
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They shall live in the land of Israel where their fathers lived, the land I gave my servant Jacob. They and their children after them shall live there, and their grandchildren, for all generations. And my Servant David, their Messiah, shall be their Prince forever.
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And I will make a covenant of peace with them, an everlasting pact. I will bless them and multiply them and put my Temple among them forever.
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And I will make my home among them. Yes, I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
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And when my Temple remains among them forever, then the nations will know that I, the Lord, have chosen Israel as my very own.”
38:
1
Here is another message to me from the Lord:
2-3
“Son of dust, face northward
*
toward the land of Magog and prophesy against Gog king of Meshech and Tubal. Tell him that the Lord God says: ‘I am against you, Gog.
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I will put hooks into your jaws and pull you to your doom. I will mobilize your troops and armored cavalry and make you a mighty host, all fully armed.
5
Peras, Cush, Put shall join you too with all their weaponry,
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and so shall Gomer and all his hordes and the armies of Togarmah from the distant north, as well as many others.
7
Be prepared! Stay mobilized. You are their leader, Gog!
8
“‘A long time from now you will be called to action. In distant years you will swoop down onto the land of Israel that will be lying in peace after the return of its people from many lands.
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You and all your allies—a vast and awesome army—will roll down upon them like a storm and cover the land like a cloud.
10
For at that time an evil thought will have come to your mind.
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You will have said, “Israel is an unprotected land of unwalled villages! I will march against her and destroy these people living in such confidence!
12
I will go to those once-desolate cities that are now filled with people again—those who have returned from all the nations—and I will capture vast amounts of loot and many slaves. For the people are rich with cattle now, and the whole earth revolves around them!”’
13
“But Sheba and Dedan
*
and the merchant princes of Tarshish with whom she trades will ask, ‘Who are you to rob them of silver and gold and drive away their cattle and seize their goods and make them poor?’”
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The Lord God says to Gog: “When my people are living in peace in their land, then you will rouse yourself.
15-16
You will come from all over the north with your vast host of cavalry and cover the land like a cloud. This will happen in the distant future—in the latter years of history.
*
I will bring you against my land, and my holiness will be vindicated in your terrible destruction before their eyes, so that all the nations will know that I am God.”
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The Lord God says: “You are the one I spoke of long ago through the prophets of Israel, saying that after many years had passed, I would bring you against my people.
18
But when you come to destroy the land of Israel, my fury will rise!
19
For in my jealousy and blazing wrath, I promise a mighty shaking in the land of Israel on that day.
20
All living things shall quake in terror at my presence; mountains shall be thrown down; cliffs shall tumble; walls shall crumble to the earth.
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I will summon every kind of terror against you,” says the Lord God, “and you will fight against yourselves in mortal combat!
22
I will fight you with sword, disease, torrential floods, great hailstones, fire, and brimstone!
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Thus will I show my greatness and bring honor upon my name, and all the nations of the world will hear what I have done and know that I am God!”
Dear brothers, don’t ever forget that it is best to listen much, speak little, and not become angry;
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for anger doesn’t make us good, as God demands that we must be.
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So get rid of all that is wrong in your life, both inside and outside, and humbly be glad for the wonderful message we have received, for it is able to save our souls as it takes hold of our hearts.
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And remember, it is a message to obey, not just to listen to. So don’t fool yourselves.
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For if a person just listens and doesn’t obey, he is like a man looking at his face in a mirror;
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as soon as he walks away, he can’t see himself anymore or remember what he looks like.
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But if anyone keeps looking steadily into God’s law for free men, he will not only remember it but he will do what it says, and God will greatly bless him in everything he does.
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Anyone who says he is a Christian but doesn’t control his sharp tongue is just fooling himself, and his religion isn’t worth much.
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The Christian who is pure and without fault, from God the Father’s point of view, is the one who takes care of orphans and widows, and who remains true to the Lord—not soiled and dirtied by his contacts with the world.
2:
1
Dear brothers, how can you claim that you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, if you show favoritism to rich people and look down on poor people?
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If a man comes into your church dressed in expensive clothes and with valuable gold rings on his fingers, and at the same moment another man comes in who is poor and dressed in threadbare clothes,
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and you make a lot of fuss over the rich man and give him the best seat in the house and say to the poor man, “You can stand over there if you like or else sit on the floor”—well,
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judging a man by his wealth shows that you are guided by wrong motives.
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Listen to me, dear brothers: God has chosen poor people to be rich in faith, and the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs, for that is the gift God has promised to all those who love him.
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And yet, of the two strangers, you have despised the poor man. Don’t you realize that it is usually the rich men who pick on you and drag you into court?
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And all too often they are the ones who laugh at Jesus Christ, whose noble name you bear.
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Yes indeed, it is good when you truly obey our Lord’s command, “You must love and help your neighbors just as much as you love and take care of yourself.”
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But you are breaking this law of our Lord’s when you favor the rich and fawn over them; it is sin.
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And the person who keeps every law of God but makes one little slip is just as guilty as the person who has broken every law there is.
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For the God who said you must not marry a woman who already has a husband also said you must not murder, so even though you have not broken the marriage laws by committing adultery, but have murdered someone, you have entirely broken God’s laws and stand utterly guilty before him.
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You will be judged on whether or not you are doing what Christ wants you to. So watch what you do and what you think;
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for there will be no mercy to those who have shown no mercy. But if you have been merciful, then God’s mercy toward you will win out over his judgment against you.
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Dear brothers, what’s the use of saying that you have faith and are Christians if you aren’t proving it by helping others? Will
that
kind of faith save anyone?
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If you have a friend who is in need of food and clothing,
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and you say to him, “Well, good-bye and God bless you; stay warm and eat hearty,” and then don’t give him clothes or food, what good does that do?
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So you see, it isn’t enough just to have faith. You must also do good to prove that you have it. Faith that doesn’t show itself by good works is no faith at all—it is dead and useless.
Praise the Lord, all nations everywhere. Praise him, all the peoples of the earth.
2
For he loves us very dearly, and his truth endures. Praise the Lord.
The wicked flee when no one is chasing them! But the godly are bold as lions!
November 19“Son of dust, prophesy this also against Gog. Tell him:
“‘I stand against you, Gog, leader of Meshech and Tubal.
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I will turn you and drive you toward the mountains of Israel, bringing you from the distant north. And I will destroy 85 percent of your army
*
in the mountains.
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I will knock your weapons from your hands and leave you helpless.
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You and all your vast armies will die upon the mountains. I will give you to the vultures and wild animals to devour you.
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You will never reach the cities—you will fall upon the open fields; for I have spoken, the Lord God says.
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And I will rain down fire on Magog and on all your allies who live safely on the coasts, and they shall know I am the Lord.
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“‘Thus I will make known my holy name among my people Israel; I will not let it be mocked at anymore. And the nations, too, shall know I am the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.
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That day of judgment will come; everything will happen just as I have declared it.
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“‘The people of the cities of Israel will go out and pick up your shields and bucklers, bows and arrows, javelins and spears, to use for fuel—enough to last them seven years.
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For seven years they will need nothing else for their fires. They won’t cut wood from the fields or forests, for these weapons will give them all they need. They will use the possessions of those who abused them.
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“‘And I will make a vast graveyard for Gog and his armies in the Valley of the Travelers, east of the Dead Sea. It will block the path of the travelers. There Gog and all his armies will be buried. And they will change the name of the place to “The Valley of Gog’s Army.”
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It will take seven months for the people of Israel to bury the bodies.
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Everyone in Israel will help, for it will be a glorious victory for Israel on that day when I demonstrate my glory, says the Lord.
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At the end of the seven months, they will appoint men to search the land systematically for any skeletons left and bury them, so that the land will be cleansed.
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Whenever anyone sees some bones, he will put up a marker beside them so that the buriers will see them and take them to the Valley of Gog’s Army to bury them. A city named “Multitude” is there! And so the land will finally be cleansed.’
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“And now, son of dust, call all the birds and animals and say to them: ‘Gather together for a mighty sacrificial feast. Come from far and near to the mountains of Israel. Come, eat the flesh and drink the blood!
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Eat the flesh of mighty men and drink the blood of princes—they are the rams, the lambs, the goats, and the fat young bulls of Bashan for my feast!
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Gorge yourselves with flesh until you are glutted, drink blood until you are drunk; this is the sacrificial feast I have prepared for you.
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Feast at my banquet table—feast on horses, riders, and valiant warriors, says the Lord God.’
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“Thus I will demonstrate my glory among the nations; all shall see the punishment of Gog and know that I have done it.
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And from that time onward the people of Israel will know I am the Lord their God.
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And the nations will know why Israel was sent away to exile—it was punishment for sin, for they acted in treachery against their God. Therefore, I turned my face away from them and let their enemies destroy them.
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I turned my face away and punished them in proportion to the vileness of their sins.
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“But now,” the Lord God says, “I will end the captivity of my people and have mercy upon them and restore their fortunes, for I am concerned about my reputation!
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Their time of treachery and shame will all be in the past; they will be home again, in peace and safety in their own land, with no one bothering them or making them afraid.
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I will bring them home from the lands of their enemies—and my glory shall be evident to all the nations when I do it. Through them I will vindicate my holiness before the nations.
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Then my people will know I am the Lord their God—responsible for sending them away to exile, and responsible for bringing them home. I will leave none of them remaining among the nations.
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And I will never hide my face from them again, for I will pour out my Spirit upon them,” says the Lord God.
40:
1
Early in April of the twenty-fifth year of our exile—the fourteenth year after Jerusalem was captured—the hand of the Lord was upon me,
2
and in a vision he took me to the land of Israel and set me down on a high mountain where I saw what appeared to be a city opposite me.
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Going nearer, I saw a man whose face shone like bronze, standing beside the Temple gate,
*
holding in his hand a measuring tape and a measuring stick.
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He said to me: “Son of dust, watch and listen and take to heart everything I show you, for you have been brought here so I can show you many things; and then you are to return to the people of Israel to tell them all you have seen.”
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The man began to measure the wall around the outside of the Temple area with his measuring stick, which was 10
1
/
2
feet long. He told me, “This wall is 10
1
/
2
feet high and 10
1
/
2
feet wide.”
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Then he took me over to the passageway that goes through the eastern wall. We climbed the seven steps into the entrance, and he measured the entry hall of the passage; it was 10
1
/
2
feet wide.
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Walking on through the passageway I saw that there were three guardrooms on each side; each of these rooms was 10
1
/
2
feet square, with a distance of 8
3
/
4
feet along the wall between them. In front of these rooms was a low barrier 18 inches high and 18 inches wide.
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Beyond the guardrooms was a 10
1
/
2
-foot doorway opening into a 14-foot hall with 3
1
/
2
-foot columns. Beyond this hall, at the inner end of the passageway, was a vestibule 22
3
/
4
feet wide and 17
1
/
2
feet long.
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Then he measured the entire outside width of the passageway, measuring across the roof from the outside doors of the guardrooms; this distance was 43
3
/
4
feet.
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Then he estimated the pillars on each side of the porch to be about 100 feet high.
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The full length of the entrance passage was 87
1
/
2
feet from one end to the other.
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There were windows that narrowed inward through the walls along both sides of the passageway and along the guardroom walls. The windows were also in the exit and in the entrance halls. The pillars were decorated with palm tree decorations.
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And so we passed through the passageway to the court inside. A stone pavement ran around the inside of the walls, and thirty rooms were built against the walls, opening onto this pavement.
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This was called “the lower pavement.” It extended out from the walls into the court the same distance as the passageway did.
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Then he measured across to the wall on the other side of this court (which was called “the outer court” of the Temple)
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and found that the distance was 175 feet.
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As I followed, he left the eastern passageway and went over to the passage through the northern wall and measured it.
21
Here, too, there were three guardrooms on each side, and all the measurements were the same as for the east passageway—87
1
/
2
feet long and 43
3
/
4
feet from side to side across the top of the guardrooms.
22
There were windows, an entry hall, and the palm tree decorations just the same as on the east side. And there were seven steps leading up to the doorway to the entry hall inside.
23
Here at the north entry, just as at the east, if one walked through the passageway into the court and straight across it, he came to an inner wall and a passageway through it to an inner court. The distance between the two passageways was 175 feet.
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Then he took me around to the south gate and measured the various sections of its passageway and found they were just the same as in the others.
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It had windows along the walls as the others did, and an entry hall. And like the others, it was 87
1
/
2
feet long and 43
3
/
4
feet wide.
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It, too, had a stairway of seven steps leading up to it, and there were palm tree decorations along the walls.
27
And here again, if one walked through the passageway into the court and straight across it, he came to the inner wall and a passageway through it to the inner court. And the distance between the passageways was 175 feet.
But someone may well argue, “You say the way to God is by faith alone, plus nothing; well, I say that good works are important too, for without good works you can’t prove whether you have faith or not; but anyone can see that I have faith by the way I act.”
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Are there still some among you who hold that “only believing” is enough? Believing in one God? Well, remember that the demons believe this too—so strongly that they tremble in terror!
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Fool! When will you ever learn that “believing” is useless without
doing
what God wants you to? Faith that does not result in good deeds is not real faith.
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Don’t you remember that even our father Abraham was declared good because of what he
did
when he was willing to obey God, even if it meant offering his son Isaac to die on the altar?
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You see, he was trusting God so much that he was willing to do whatever God told him to; his faith was made complete by what he did—by his actions, his good deeds.
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And so it happened just as the Scriptures say, that Abraham trusted God, and the Lord declared him good in God’s sight, and he was even called “the friend of God.”
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So you see, a man is saved by what he does, as well as by what he believes.
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Rahab, the prostitute, is another example of this. She was saved because of what she did when she hid those messengers and sent them safely away by a different road.
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Just as the body is dead when there is no spirit in it, so faith is dead if it is not the kind that results in good deeds.
3:
1-2
Dear brothers, don’t be too eager to tell others their faults,
*
for we all make many mistakes; and when we teachers of religion, who should know better, do wrong, our punishment will be greater than it would be for others.
If anyone can control his tongue, it proves that he has perfect control over himself in every other way.
3
We can make a large horse turn around and go wherever we want by means of a small bit in his mouth.
4
And a tiny rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot wants it to go, even though the winds are strong.
5
So also the tongue is a small thing, but what enormous damage it can do. A great forest can be set on fire by one tiny spark.
6
And the tongue is a flame of fire. It is full of wickedness, and poisons every part of the body. And the tongue is set on fire by hell itself and can turn our whole lives into a blazing flame of destruction and disaster.
7
Men have trained, or can train, every kind of animal or bird that lives and every kind of reptile and fish,
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but no human being can tame the tongue. It is always ready to pour out its deadly poison.
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Sometimes it praises our heavenly Father, and sometimes it breaks out into curses against men who are made like God.
10
And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Dear brothers, surely this is not right!
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Does a spring of water bubble out first with fresh water and then with bitter water?
12
Can you pick olives from a fig tree, or figs from a grape vine? No, and you can’t draw fresh water from a salty pool.
13
If you are wise, live a life of steady goodness so that only good deeds will pour forth. And if you don’t brag about them, then you will be truly wise!
14
And by all means don’t brag about being wise and good if you are bitter and jealous and selfish; that is the worst sort of lie.
15
For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, inspired by the devil.
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For wherever there is jealousy or selfish ambition, there will be disorder and every other kind of evil.
17
But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure and full of quiet gentleness. Then it is peace-loving and courteous. It allows discussion and is willing to yield to others; it is full of mercy and good deeds. It is wholehearted and straightforward and sincere.
18
And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of goodness.