Read The One Year Bible TLB Online
Authors: Tyndale
The One Year Bible TLB (261 page)
December 15These are messages from the Lord to Micah, who lived in the town of Moresheth during the reigns of King Jotham, King Ahaz, and King Hezekiah, all kings of Judah. The messages were addressed to both Samaria and Judah and came to Micah in the form of visions.
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Attention! Let all the peoples of the world listen. For the Lord in his holy Temple has made accusations against you!
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Look! He is coming! He leaves his throne in heaven and comes to earth, walking on the mountaintops.
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They melt beneath his feet and flow into the valleys like wax in fire, like water pouring down a hill.
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And why is this happening? Because of the sins of Israel and Judah. What sins? The idolatry and oppression centering in the capital cities, Samaria and Jerusalem!
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Therefore, the entire city of Samaria will crumble into a heap of rubble and become an open field, her streets plowed up for planting grapes! The Lord will tear down her wall and her forts, exposing their foundations, and pour their stones into the valleys below.
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All her carved images will be smashed to pieces; her ornate idol temples, built with the gifts of worshipers, will all be burned.
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I will wail and lament, howling as a jackal, mournful as an ostrich crying across the desert sands at night. I will walk naked and barefoot in sorrow and shame;
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for my people’s wound is far too deep to heal. The Lord stands ready at Jerusalem’s gates to punish her.
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Woe to the city of Gath. Weep, men of Bakah. In Beth-leaphrah roll in the dust in your anguish and shame.
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There go the people of Shaphir,
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led away as slaves—stripped, naked and ashamed. The people of Zaanan dare not show themselves outside their walls. The foundations of Beth-ezel are swept away—the very ground on which it stood.
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The people of Maroth vainly hope for better days, but only bitterness awaits them as the Lord stands poised against Jerusalem.
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Quick! Use your swiftest chariots and flee, O people of Lachish, for you were the first of the cities of Judah to follow Israel in her sin of idol worship. Then all the cities of the south began to follow your example.
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Write off Moresheth
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of Gath; there is no hope of saving her. The town of Achzib has deceived the kings of Israel, for she promised help she cannot give.
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You people of Mareshah will be a prize to your enemies. They will penetrate to Adullam, the “Pride of Israel.”
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Weep, weep for your little ones. For they are snatched away, and you will never see them again. They have gone as slaves to distant lands. Shave your heads in sorrow.
2:
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Woe to you who lie awake at night, plotting wickedness; you rise at dawn to carry out your schemes; because you can, you do.
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You want a certain piece of land or someone else’s house (though it is all he has); you take it by fraud and threats and violence.
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But the Lord God says, “I will reward your evil with evil; nothing can stop me; never again will you be proud and haughty after I am through with you.
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Then your enemies will taunt you and mock your dirge of despair: ‘We are finished, ruined. God has confiscated our land and sent us far away; he has given what is ours to others.’”
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Others will set your boundaries then. “The People of the Lord” will live where they are sent.
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“Don’t say such things,” the people say. “Don’t harp on things like that. It’s disgraceful, that sort of talk. Such evils surely will not come our way.”
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Is that the right reply for you to make, O House of Jacob? Do you think the Spirit of the Lord likes to talk to you so roughly? No! His threats are for your good, to get you on the path again.
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Yet to this very hour my people rise against me. For you steal the shirts right off the backs of those who trusted you, who walk in peace.
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You have driven out the widows from their homes and stripped their children of every God-given right.
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Up! Begone! This is no more your land and home, for you have filled it with sin, and it will vomit you out.
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“I’ll preach to you the joys of wine and drink”—that is the kind of drunken, lying prophet that you like!
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“The time will come, O Israel, when I will gather you—all that are left—and bring you together again like sheep in a fold, like a flock in a pasture—a noisy, happy crowd.
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The Messiah
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will lead you out of exile and bring you through the gates of your cities of captivity, back to your own land. Your King will go before you—the Lord leads on.”
3:
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Listen, you leaders of Israel—you are supposed to know right from wrong,
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yet you are the very ones who hate good and love evil; you skin my people and strip them to the bone.
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You devour them, flog them, break their bones, and chop them up like meat for the cooking pot—
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and then you plead with the Lord for his help in times of trouble! Do you really expect him to listen? He will look the other way!
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You false prophets! You who lead his people astray! You who cry “Peace” to those who give you food and threaten those who will not pay!
This is God’s message to you:
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“The night will close about you and cut off all your visions; darkness will cover you with never a word from God. The sun will go down upon you, and your day will end.
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Then at last you will cover your faces in shame and admit that your messages were not from God.”
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But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord, fearlessly announcing God’s punishment on Israel for her sins.
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Listen to me, you leaders of Israel who hate justice and love unfairness
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and fill Jerusalem with murder and sin of every kind—
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you leaders who take bribes; you priests and prophets who won’t preach and prophesy until you’re paid. (And yet you fawn upon the Lord and say, “All is well—the Lord is here among us. No harm can come to us.”)
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It is because of you that Jerusalem will be plowed like a field and become a heap of rubble; the mountaintop where the Temple stands will be overgrown with brush.
4:
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But in the last days Mount Zion will be the most renowned of all the mountains of the world, praised by all nations; people from all over the world will make pilgrimages there.
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“Come,” they will say to one another, “let us visit the mountain of the Lord, and see the Temple of the God of Israel; he will tell us what to do, and we will do it.” For in those days the whole world will be ruled by the Lord from Jerusalem! He will issue his laws and announce his decrees from there.
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He will arbitrate among the nations and dictate to strong nations far away. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nations shall no longer fight each other, for all war will end. There will be universal peace, and all the military academies and training camps will be closed down.
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Everyone will live quietly in his own home in peace and prosperity, for there will be nothing to fear. The Lord himself has promised this.
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(Therefore we will follow the Lord our God forever and ever, even though all the nations around us worship idols!)
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In that coming day, the Lord says that he will bring back his punished people—sick and lame and dispossessed—
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and make them strong again in their own land, a mighty nation, and the Lord himself shall be their King from Mount Zion forever.
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O Jerusalem—the Watchtower of God’s people—your royal might and power will come back to you again, just as before.
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But for now, you scream in terror. Where is your king to lead you? He is dead! Where are your wise men? All are gone! Pain has gripped you like a woman in labor.
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Writhe and groan in your terrible pain, O people of Zion, for you must leave this city and live in the fields; you will be sent far away into exile in Babylon. But there I will rescue you and free you from the grip of your enemies.
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True, many nations have gathered together against you, calling for your blood, eager to destroy you.
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But they do not know the thoughts of the Lord nor understand his plan, for the time will come when the Lord will gather together the enemies of his people like sheaves upon the threshing floor, helpless before Israel.
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Rise, thresh, O daughter of Zion; I will give you horns of iron and hoofs of brass; you will trample to pieces many people, and you will give their wealth as offerings to the Lord, the Lord of all the earth.
As I watched, the Lamb broke the first seal and began to unroll the scroll. Then one of the four Living Beings, with a voice that sounded like thunder, said, “Come!”
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I looked, and there in front of me was a white horse. Its rider carried a bow, and a crown was placed upon his head; he rode out to conquer in many battles and win the war.
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Then he unrolled the scroll to the second seal and broke it open, too. And I heard the second Living Being say, “Come!”
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This time a red horse rode out. Its rider was given a long sword and the authority to banish peace and bring anarchy to the earth; war and killing broke out everywhere.
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When he had broken the third seal, I heard the third Living Being say, “Come!” And I saw a black horse, with its rider holding a pair of balances in his hand.
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And a voice from among the four Living Beings said, “A loaf of bread for $20, or three pounds of barley flour,
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but there is no olive oil or wine.”
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And when the fourth seal was broken, I heard the fourth Living Being say, “Come!”
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And now I saw a pale horse, and its rider’s name was Death. And there followed after him another horse whose rider’s name was Hell. They were given control of one-fourth of the earth, to kill with war and famine and disease and wild animals.
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And when he broke open the fifth seal, I saw an altar, and underneath it all the souls of those who had been martyred for preaching the Word of God and for being faithful in their witnessing.
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They called loudly to the Lord and said, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it be before you judge the people of the earth for what they’ve done to us? When will you avenge our blood against those living on the earth?”
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White robes were given to each of them, and they were told to rest a little longer until their other brothers, fellow servants of Jesus, had been martyred on the earth and joined them.
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I watched as he broke the sixth seal, and there was a vast earthquake; and the sun became dark like black cloth, and the moon was blood-red.
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Then the stars of heaven appeared to be falling to earth
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—like green fruit from fig trees buffeted by mighty winds.
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And the starry heavens disappeared
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as though rolled up like a scroll and taken away; and every mountain and island shook and shifted.
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The kings of the earth, and world leaders, and rich men, and high-ranking military officers, and all men great and small, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and rocks of the mountains,
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and cried to the mountains to crush them. “Fall on us,” they pleaded, “and hide us from the face of the one sitting on the throne, and from the anger of the Lamb,
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because the great day of their anger has come, and who can survive it?”
Oh, bless the Lord, you who serve him as watchmen in the Temple every night.
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Lift your hands in holiness and bless the Lord.
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The Lord bless you from Zion—the Lord who made heaven and earth.
These are the messages of Agur, son of Jakeh, addressed to Ithiel and Ucal:
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I am tired out, O God, and ready to die. I am too stupid even to call myself a human being!
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I cannot understand man,
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let alone God.
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Who else but God goes back and forth to heaven? Who else holds the wind in his fists and wraps up the oceans in his cloak? Who but God has created the world? If there is any other, what is his name—and his Son’s name—if you know it?