The Daily Audio Bible

Gog’s Armies Destroyed

39 “And you, son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal; ² and I will turn you about and drive you forward, and bring you up from the uttermost parts of the north, and lead you against the mountains of Israel; ³ then I will strike your bow from your left hand, and will make your arrows drop out of your right hand. ⁴ You shall fall upon the mountains of Israel, you and all your hordes and the peoples that are with you; I will give you to birds of prey of every sort and to the wild beasts to be devoured. ⁵ You shall fall in the open field; for I have spoken, says the Lord God. ⁶ I will send fire on Magog and on those who dwell securely in the coastlands; and they shall know that I am the Lord.

⁷ “And my holy name I will make known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let my holy name be profaned any more; and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, the Holy One in Israel. ⁸ Behold, it is coming and it will be brought about, says the Lord God. That is the day of which I have spoken.

⁹ “Then those who dwell in the cities of Israel will go forth and make fires of the weapons and burn them, shields and bucklers, bow and arrows, handpikes and spears, and they will make fires of them for seven years; ¹⁰ so that they will not need to take wood out of the field or cut down any out of the forests, for they will make their fires of the weapons; they will despoil those who despoiled them, and plunder those who plundered them, says the Lord God.

The Burial of Gog

¹¹ “On that day I will give to Gog a place for burial in Israel, the Valley of the Travelers^[a] east of the sea; it will block the travelers, for there Gog and all his multitude will be buried; it will be called the Valley of Hamon-gog.^{[b] 12} For seven months the house of Israel will be burying them, in order to cleanse the land. ¹³ All the people of the land will bury them; and it will redound to their honor on the day that I show my glory, says the Lord God. ¹⁴ They will set apart men to pass through the land continually and bury^[c] those remaining upon the face of the land, so as to cleanse it; at the end of seven months they will make their search. ¹⁵ And when these pass through the land and any one sees a man’s bone, then he shall set up a sign by it, till the buriers have buried it in the Valley of Hamon-gog. ¹⁶ (A city Hamo′nah^[d] is there also.) Thus shall they cleanse the land.

¹⁷ “As for you, son of man, thus says the Lord God: Speak to the birds of every sort and to all beasts of the field, ‘Assemble and come, gather from all sides to the sacrificial feast which I am preparing for you, a great sacrificial feast upon the mountains of Israel, and you shall eat flesh and drink blood. ¹⁸ You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth—of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bulls, all of them fatlings of Bashan. ¹⁹ And you shall eat fat till you are filled, and drink blood till you are drunk, at the sacrificial feast which I am preparing for you. ²⁰ And you shall be filled at my table with horses and riders, with mighty men and all kinds of warriors,’ says the Lord God.

Israel Restored to the Land

²¹ “And I will set my glory among the nations; and all the nations shall see my judgment which I have executed, and my hand which I have laid on them. ²² The house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord their God, from that day forward. ²³ And the nations shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity, because they dealt so treacherously with me that I hid my face from them and gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and they all fell by the sword. ²⁴ I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and their transgressions, and hid my face from them.

²⁵ “Therefore thus says the Lord God: Now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob, and have mercy upon the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for my holy name. ²⁶ They shall forget their shame, and all the treachery they have practiced against me, when they dwell securely in their land with none to make them afraid, ²⁷ when I have brought them back from the peoples and gathered them from their enemies’ lands, and through them have vindicated my holiness in the sight of many nations. ²⁸ Then they shall know that I am the Lord their God because I sent them into exile among the nations, and then gathered them into their own land. I will leave none of them remaining among the nations any more; ²⁹ and I will not hide my face any more from them, when I pour out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, says the Lord God.”

The Vision of the New Temple

40 ^[e]In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was conquered, on that very day, the hand of the Lord was upon me, ² and brought me in the visions of God into the land of Israel, and set me down upon a very high mountain, on which was a structure like a city opposite me.^{[f] 3} When he brought me there, behold, there was a man, whose appearance was like bronze, with a line of flax and a measuring reed in his hand; and he was standing in the gateway. ⁴ And the man said to me, “Son of man, look with your eyes, and hear with your ears, and set your mind upon all that I shall show you, for you were brought here in order that I might show it to you; declare all that you see to the house of Israel.”

⁵ And behold, there was a wall all around the outside of the temple area, and the length of the measuring reed in the man’s hand was six long cubits, each being a cubit and a handbreadth in length; so he measured the thickness of the wall, one reed; and the height, one reed. ⁶ Then he went into the gateway facing east, going up its steps, and measured the threshold of the gate, one reed deep;^{[g] 7} and the side rooms, one reed long, and one reed broad; and the space between the side rooms, five cubits; and the threshold of the gate by the vestibule of the gate at the inner end, one reed. ⁸ Then he measured the vestibule of the gateway, eight cubits; ⁹ and its jambs, two cubits; and the vestibule of the gate was at the inner end. ¹⁰ And there were three side rooms on either side of the east gate; the three were of the same size; and the jambs on either side were of the same size. ¹¹ Then he measured the breadth of the opening of the gateway, ten cubits; and the breadth of the gateway, thirteen cubits. ¹² There was a barrier before the side rooms, one cubit on either side; and the side rooms were six cubits on either side. ¹³ Then he measured the gate from the back^[h] of the one side room to the back^[i] of the other, a breadth of five and twenty cubits, from door to door. ¹⁴ He measured also the vestibule, twenty cubits; and round about the vestibule of the gateway was the court.^{[j] 15} From the front of the gate at the entrance to the end of the inner vestibule of the gate was fifty cubits. ¹⁶ And the gateway had windows round about, narrowing inwards into their jambs in the side rooms, and likewise the vestibule had windows round about inside, and on the jambs were palm trees.

¹⁷ Then he brought me into the outer court; and behold, there were chambers and a pavement, round about the court; thirty chambers fronted on the pavement. ¹⁸ And the pavement ran along the side of the gates, corresponding to the length of the gates; this was the lower pavement. ¹⁹ Then he measured the distance from the inner front of^[k] the lower gate to the outer front of the inner court, a hundred cubits.

Then he went before me to the north, ²⁰ and behold, there was a gate^[l] which faced toward the north, belonging to the outer court. He measured its length and its breadth. ²¹ Its side rooms, three on either side, and its jambs and its vestibule were of the same size as those of the first gate; its length was fifty cubits, and its breadth twenty-five cubits. ²² And its windows, its vestibule, and its palm trees were of the same size as those of the gate which faced toward the east; and seven steps led up to it; and its vestibule was on the inside. ²³ And opposite the gate on the north, as on the east, was a gate to the inner court; and he measured from gate to gate, a hundred cubits.

²⁴ And he led me toward the south, and behold, there was a gate on the south; and he measured its jambs and its vestibule; they had the same size as the others. ²⁵ And there were windows round about in it and in its vestibule, like the windows of the others; its length was fifty cubits, and its breadth twenty-five cubits. ²⁶ And there were seven steps leading up to it, and its vestibule was on the inside; and it had palm trees on its jambs, one on either side. ²⁷ And there was a gate on the south of the inner court; and he measured from gate to gate toward the south, a hundred cubits.

¹⁸ But some one will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. ¹⁹ You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder. ²⁰ Do you want to be shown, you foolish fellow, that faith apart from works is barren? ²¹ Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar? ²² You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by works, ²³ and the scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness”; and he was called the friend of God. ²⁴ You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. ²⁵ And in the same way was not also Rahab the harlot justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? ²⁶ For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from works is dead.

Taming the Tongue

3 Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, for you know that we who teach shall be judged with greater strictness. ² For we all make many mistakes, and if any one makes no mistakes in what he says he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body also. ³ If we put bits into the mouths of horses that they may obey us, we guide their whole bodies. ⁴ Look at the ships also; though they are so great and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. ⁵ So the tongue is a little member and boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire!

⁶ And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is an unrighteous world among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the cycle of nature,^[a] and set on fire by hell.^{[b] 7} For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by humankind, ⁸ but no human being can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. ⁹ With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who are made in the likeness of God. ¹⁰ From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brethren, this ought not to be so. ¹¹ Does a spring pour forth from the same opening fresh water and brackish? ¹² Can a fig tree, my brethren, yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.

Two Kinds of Wisdom

¹³ Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good life let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. ¹⁴ But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. ¹⁵ This wisdom is not such as comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. ¹⁶ For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. ¹⁷ But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or insincerity. ¹⁸ And the harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

A Song of Victory