The Daily Audio Bible
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25 O Lord, You are my God; I will exalt You, I will praise Your name, for You have done wonderful things, even purposes planned of old [and fulfilled] in faithfulness and truth.
2 For You have made a city a heap, a fortified city a ruin, a palace of aliens without a city [is no more a city]; it will never be rebuilt.
3 Therefore [many] a strong people will glorify You, [many] a city of terrible and ruthless nations will [reverently] fear You.
4 For You have been a stronghold for the poor, a stronghold for the needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm, a shade from the heat; for the blast of the ruthless ones is like a rainstorm against a wall.
5 As the heat in a dry land [is reduced by the shadow of a cloud, so] You will bring down the noise of aliens [exultant over their enemies]; and as the heat is brought low by the shadow of a cloud, so the song of the ruthless ones is brought low.
6 And on this Mount [Zion] shall the Lord of hosts make for all peoples a feast of rich things [symbolic of His coronation festival inaugurating the reign of the Lord on earth, in the wake of a background of gloom, judgment, and terror], a feast of wines on the lees—of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.
7 And He will destroy on this mountain the covering of the face that is cast over the heads of all peoples [in mourning], and the veil [of profound wretchedness] that is woven and spread over all nations.
8 He will swallow up death [in victory; He will abolish death forever]. And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces; and the reproach of His people He will take away from off all the earth; for the Lord has spoken it.(A)
9 It shall be said in that day, Behold our God upon Whom we have waited and hoped, that He might save us! This is the Lord, we have waited for Him; we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.
10 For the hand of the Lord shall rest on this Mount [Zion], and Moab shall be threshed and trodden down in his place as straw is trodden down in the [filthy] water of a [primitive] cesspit.
11 And though [Moab] stretches forth his hands in the midst of [the filthy water] as a swimmer stretches out his hands to swim, the Lord will bring down [Moab’s] pride in spite of the skillfulness of his hands and together with the spoils of his hands.
12 And the high fortifications of your walls [the Lord] will bring down, lay low, and bring to the ground, even to the dust.
26 In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah: [a]We have a strong city; [the Lord] sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks.
2 Open the gates, that the [uncompromisingly] righteous nation which keeps her faith and her troth [with God] may enter in.
3 You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind [both its inclination and its character] is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You, and hopes confidently in You.
4 So trust in the Lord (commit yourself to Him, lean on Him, hope confidently in Him) forever; for the Lord God is an everlasting Rock [the Rock of Ages].
5 For He has brought down the inhabitants of the height, the lofty city; He lays it low, lays it low to the ground; He brings it even to the dust.
6 The foot has trampled it down—even the feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy.
7 The way of the [consistently] righteous (those living in moral and spiritual rectitude in every area and relationship of their lives) is level and straight; You, O [Lord], Who are upright, direct aright and make level the path of the [uncompromisingly] just and righteous.
8 Yes, in the path of Your judgments, O Lord, we wait [expectantly] for You; our heartfelt desire is for Your name and for the remembrance of You.
9 My soul yearns for You [O Lord] in the night, yes, my spirit within me seeks You earnestly; for [only] when Your judgments are in the earth will the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness (uprightness and right standing with God).
10 Though favor is shown to the wicked, yet they do not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness they deal perversely and refuse to see the majesty of the Lord.
11 Though Your hand is lifted high to strike, Lord, they do not see it. Let them see Your zeal for Your people and be ashamed; yes, let the fire reserved for Your enemies consume them.
12 Lord, You will ordain peace (God’s favor and blessings, both temporal and spiritual) for us, for You have also wrought in us and for us all our works.
13 O Lord, our God, other masters besides You have ruled over us, but we will acknowledge and mention Your name only.
14 They [the former tyrant masters] are dead, they shall not live and reappear; they are powerless ghosts, they shall not rise and come back. Therefore You have visited and made an end of them and caused every memory of them [every trace of their supremacy] to perish.
15 You have increased the nation, O Lord; You have increased the nation. You are glorified; You have enlarged all the borders of the land.
16 Lord, when they were in trouble and distress, they sought and visited You; they poured out a prayerful whisper when Your chastening was upon them.
17 As a woman with child drawing near the time of her delivery is in pain and writhes and cries out in her pangs, so we have been before You (at Your presence), O Lord.
18 We have been with child, we have been writhing and in pain; we have, as it were, brought forth [only] wind. We have not wrought any deliverance in the earth, and the inhabitants of the world [of Israel] have not yet been born.
19 Your dead shall live [O Lord]; the bodies of our dead [saints] shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For Your dew [O Lord] is a dew of [sparkling] light [heavenly, supernatural dew]; and the earth shall cast forth the dead [to life again; for on the land of the shades of the dead You will let Your dew fall].(B)
20 Come, my people, enter your chambers and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the [Lord’s] wrath is past.
21 For behold, the Lord is coming out of His place [heaven] to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; the earth also will disclose the blood shed upon her and will no longer cover her slain and conceal her guilt.
27 In that day [the Lord will deliver Israel from her enemies and also from the rebel powers of evil and darkness] His sharp and unrelenting, great, and strong sword will visit and punish Leviathan the swiftly fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting and winding serpent; and He will slay the monster that is in the sea.
2 In that day [it will be said of the redeemed nation of Israel], A vineyard beloved and lovely; sing a responsive song to it and about it!
3 I, the Lord, am its Keeper; I water it every moment; lest anyone harm it, I guard and keep it night and day.
4 Wrath is not in Me. Would that the briers and thorns [the wicked internal foe] were lined up against Me in battle! I would stride in against them; I would burn them up together.
5 Or else [if all Israel would escape being burned up together there is but one alternative], let them take hold of My strength and make complete surrender to My protection, that they may make peace with Me! Yes, let them make peace with Me!
6 In the days and generations to come Jacob shall take root; Israel shall blossom and send forth shoots and fill the whole world with fruit [of the knowledge of the true God].(C)
7 Has [the Lord] smitten [Israel] as He smote those who smote them? Or have [the Israelites] been slain as their slayers were slain?
8 By driving them out of Canaan, by exile, You contended with them in a measure [O Lord]—He removed them with His rough blast as in the day of the east wind.
9 Only on this condition shall the iniquity of Jacob (Israel) be forgiven and purged, and this shall be the full fruit [God requires] for taking away his sin: that [Israel] should make all the stones of the [idol] altars like chalk stones crushed to pieces, so that the Asherim and the sun-images shall not remain standing or rise again.
10 For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken like the wilderness; there the calf grazes, and there he lies down; he strips its branches and eats its twigs.
11 When its boughs are withered and dry, they are broken off; the women come and set them afire. For they are a people of no understanding or discernment—[b]witless folk; therefore He Who made them will not have compassion on them, and He Who formed them will show them no favor.
12 And it shall be in that day that the Lord will thresh out His grain from the flood of the River [Euphrates] to the Brook of Egypt, and you will be gathered one by one and one to another, O children of Israel!
13 And it shall be in that day that a great trumpet will be blown; and they will come who were lost and ready to perish in the land of Assyria and those who were driven out to the land of Egypt, and they will worship the Lord on the holy mountain at Jerusalem.(D)
28 Woe to [Samaria] the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim [the ten tribes], and to the fading flower of its glorious beauty, which is on the head of the rich valley of those overcome and smitten down with wine!
2 Behold, the Lord has a strong and mighty one [the Assyrian]; like a tempest of hail, a destroying storm, like a flood of mighty overflowing waters, he will cast it down to the earth with violent hand.
3 With [alien] feet [Samaria] the proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim will be trodden down.
4 And the fading flower of its glorious beauty, which is on the head of the rich valley, will be like the early fig before the fruit harvest, which, when anyone sees it, he snatches and eats it up greedily at once. [So in an amazingly short time will the Assyrians devour Samaria, Israel’s capital.]
5 [But] in that [future [c]Messianic] day the Lord of hosts shall become a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty to the [converted] remnant of His people,
6 And a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment and administers the law, and strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.
7 But even these reel from wine and stagger from strong drink: the priest and the prophet reel from strong drink; they are confused from wine, they stagger and are gone astray through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble when pronouncing judgment.
8 For all the tables are full of filthy vomit, so that there is no place that is clean.
9 To whom will He teach knowledge? [Ask the drunkards.] And whom will He make to understand the message? Those who are babies, just weaned from the milk and taken from the breasts? [Is that what He thinks we are?]
10 For it is [His prophets repeating over and over]: precept upon precept, precept upon precept, rule upon rule, rule upon rule; here a little, there a little.
11 No, but [the Lord will teach the rebels in a more humiliating way] by men with stammering lips and another tongue will He speak to this people [says Isaiah, and teach them His lessons].
12 To these [complaining Jews the Lord] had said, This is the true rest [the way to true comfort and happiness] that you shall give to the weary, and, This is the [true] refreshing—yet they would not listen [to His teaching].
13 Therefore the word of the Lord will be to them [merely monotonous repeatings of]: precept upon precept, precept upon precept, rule upon rule, rule upon rule; here a little, there a little—that they may go and fall backward, and be broken and snared and taken.
10 And all who depend on the Law [who are seeking to be justified by obedience to the Law of rituals] are under a curse and doomed to disappointment and destruction, for it is written in the Scriptures, Cursed (accursed, devoted to destruction, doomed to eternal punishment) be everyone who does not continue to abide (live and remain) by all the precepts and commands written in the Book of the Law and to practice them.(A)
11 Now it is evident that no person is justified (declared righteous and brought into right standing with God) through the Law, for the Scripture says, The man in right standing with God [the just, the righteous] shall live by and out of faith and he who through and by faith is declared righteous and in right standing with God shall live.(B)
12 But the Law does not rest on faith [does not require faith, has nothing to do with faith], for it itself says, He who does them [the things prescribed by the Law] shall live by them [not by faith].(C)
13 Christ purchased our freedom [redeeming us] from the curse (doom) of the Law [and its condemnation] by [Himself] becoming a curse for us, for it is written [in the Scriptures], Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree (is crucified);(D)
14 To the end that through [their receiving] Christ Jesus, the blessing [promised] to Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, so that we through faith might [all] receive [the realization of] the promise of the [Holy] Spirit.
15 To speak in terms of human relations, brethren, [if] even a man makes a last will and testament (a merely human covenant), no one sets it aside or makes it void or adds to it when once it has been drawn up and signed (ratified, confirmed).
16 Now the promises (covenants, agreements) were decreed and made to Abraham and his Seed (his Offspring, his Heir). He [God] does not say, And to seeds (descendants, heirs), as if referring to many persons, but, And to your Seed (your Descendant, your Heir), obviously referring to one individual, Who is [none other than] Christ (the Messiah).(E)
17 This is my argument: The Law, which began 430 years after the covenant [concerning the coming Messiah], does not and cannot annul the covenant previously established (ratified) by God, so as to abolish the promise and make it void.(F)
18 For if the inheritance [of the promise depends on observing] the Law [as these false teachers would like you to believe], it no longer [depends] on the promise; however, God gave it to Abraham [as a free gift solely] by virtue of His promise.
19 What then was the purpose of the Law? It was added [later on, after the promise, to disclose and expose to men their guilt] because of transgressions and [to make men more conscious of the sinfulness] of sin; and it was intended to be in effect until the Seed (the Descendant, the Heir) should come, to and concerning Whom the promise had been made. And it [the Law] was arranged and ordained and appointed through the instrumentality of angels [and was given] by the hand (in the person) of a go-between [Moses, an intermediary person between God and man].
20 Now a go-between (intermediary) has to do with and implies more than one party [there can be no mediator with just one person]. Yet God is [only] one Person [and He was the sole party in giving that promise to Abraham. But the Law was a contract between two, God and Israel; its validity was dependent on both].
21 Is the Law then contrary and opposed to the promises of God? Of course not! For if a Law had been given which could confer [spiritual] life, then righteousness and right standing with God would certainly have come by Law.
22 But the Scriptures [picture all mankind as sinners] shut up and imprisoned by sin, so that [the inheritance, blessing] which was promised through faith in Jesus Christ (the Messiah) might be given (released, delivered, and committed) to [all] those who believe [who adhere to and trust in and rely on Him].
Psalm 61
To the Chief Musician; on stringed instruments. [A Psalm] of David.
1 Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer.
2 From the end of the earth will I cry to You, when my heart is overwhelmed and fainting; lead me to the rock that is higher than I [yes, a rock that is too high for me].
3 For You have been a shelter and a refuge for me, a strong tower against the adversary.
4 I will dwell in Your tabernacle forever; let me find refuge and trust in the shelter of Your wings. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!
5 For You, O God, have heard my vows; You have given me the heritage of those who fear, revere, and honor Your name.
6 May You prolong the [true] [a]King’s life [adding days upon days], and may His years be to the last generation [of this world and the generations of the world to come].
7 May He sit enthroned forever before [the face of] God; O ordain that loving-kindness and faithfulness may watch over Him!
8 So will I sing praise to Your name forever, paying my vows day by day.
17 Let not your heart envy sinners, but continue in the reverent and worshipful fear of the Lord all the day long.
18 For surely there is a latter end [a future and a reward], and your hope and expectation shall not be cut off.
Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation