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12 Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel: Because you despise and spurn this [My] word and trust in cunning and oppression, in crookedness and perverseness, and rely on them,
13 Therefore this iniquity and guilt will be to you like a broken section of a high wall, bulging out and ready [at some distant day] to fall, whose crash will [then] come suddenly and swiftly, in an instant.
14 And he shall break it as a potter’s vessel is broken, breaking it in pieces without sparing so that there cannot be found among its pieces one large enough to carry coals of fire from the hearth or to dip water out of the cistern.
15 For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: In returning [to Me] and resting [in Me] you shall be saved; in quietness and in [trusting] confidence shall be your strength. But you would not,
16 And you said, No! We will speed [our own course] on horses! Therefore you will speed [in flight from your enemies]! You said, We will ride upon swift steeds [doing our own way]! Therefore will they who pursue you be swift, [so swift that]
17 One thousand of you will flee at the threat of one of them; at the threat of five you will flee till you are left like a beacon or a flagpole on the top of a mountain, and like a signal on a hill.
18 And therefore the Lord [earnestly] waits [expecting, looking, and longing] to be gracious to you; and therefore He lifts Himself up, that He may have mercy on you and show loving-kindness to you. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are all those who [earnestly] wait for Him, who expect and look and long for Him [for His victory, His favor, His love, His peace, His joy, and His matchless, unbroken companionship]!(A)
19 O people who dwell in Zion at Jerusalem, you will weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears it, He will answer you.
20 And though the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide Himself any more, but your eyes will constantly behold your Teacher.
21 And your ears will hear a word behind you, saying, This is the way; walk in it, when you turn to the right hand and when you turn to the left.
22 Then you will defile your carved images overlaid with silver and your molten images plated with gold; you will cast them away as a filthy bloodstained cloth, and you will say to them, Be gone!
23 Then will He give you rain for the seed with which you sow the soil, and bread grain from the produce of the ground, and it will be rich and plentiful. In that day your cattle will feed in large pastures.
24 The oxen likewise and the young donkeys that till the ground will eat savory and salted fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and with fork.
25 And upon every high mountain and upon every high hill there will be brooks and streams of water in the day of the great slaughter [the day of the Lord], when the towers fall [and all His enemies are destroyed].
26 Moreover, the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, like the light of seven days [concentrated in one], in the day that the Lord binds up the hurt of His people, and heals their wound [inflicted by Him because of their sins].
27 Behold, the [a]Name of the Lord comes from afar, burning with His anger, and in thick, rising smoke. His lips are full of indignation, and His tongue is like a consuming fire.
28 And His breath is like an overflowing stream that reaches even to the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction; and a bridle that causes them to err will be in the jaws of the people.
29 You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart as when one marches in procession with a flute to go to the temple on the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel.
30 And the Lord shall cause His glorious voice to be heard and the descending blow of His arm to be seen, coming down with indignant anger and with the flame of a devouring fire, amid crashing blast and cloudburst, tempest, and hailstones.
31 At the voice of the Lord the Assyrians will be stricken with dismay and terror, when He smites them with His rod.
32 And every passing stroke of the staff of punishment and doom which the Lord lays upon them shall be to the sound of [Israel’s] timbrels and lyres, when in battle He attacks [Assyria] with swinging and menacing arms.
33 For Topheth [a place of burning and abomination] has already been laid out and long ago prepared; yes, for the [Assyrian] king and [the god] Molech it has been made ready, its pyre made deep and large, with fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, kindles it.(B)
31 Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses and trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but they look not to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek and consult the Lord!
2 And yet He is wise and brings calamity and does not retract His words; He will arise against the house (the whole race) of evildoers and against the helpers of those who work iniquity.
3 Now the Egyptians are men and not God, and their horses are flesh and not spirit; and when the Lord stretches out His hand, both [Egypt] who helps will stumble, and [Judah] who is helped will fall, and they will all perish and be consumed together.
4 For the Lord has said to me, As the lion or the young lion growls over his prey—and though a large band of shepherds is called out against him, he will not be terrified at their voice or daunted at their noise—so the Lord of hosts will come down to fight upon Mount Zion and upon its hills.
5 Like birds hovering, so will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem; He will protect and deliver it, He will pass over and spare and preserve it.
6 Return, O children of Israel, to Him against Whom you have so deeply plunged into revolt.
7 For in that day every man of you will cast away [in contempt and disgust] his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which your own hands have sinfully made for you.
8 Then the Assyrian shall fall by a sword not of man; and a sword, not of men [but of God], shall devour him. And he shall flee from the sword, and his young men shall be subjected to forced labor.
9 [In his flight] he shall pass beyond his rock [refuge and stronghold] because of terror; even his officers shall desert the standard in fear and panic, says the Lord, Whose fire is in Zion and Whose furnace is in Jerusalem.
32 Behold, a [b]King will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule with justice.
2 And each one of them shall be like a hiding place from the wind and a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land [to those who turn to them].
3 Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed or dimmed, and the ears of those who hear will listen.
4 And the mind of the rash will understand knowledge and have good judgment, and the tongue of the stammerers will speak readily and plainly.
5 The fool (the unbeliever and the ungodly) will no more be called noble, nor the crafty and greedy [for gain] said to be bountiful and princely.
6 For the fool speaks folly and his mind plans iniquity: practicing profane ungodliness and speaking error concerning the Lord, leaving the craving of the hungry unsatisfied and causing the drink of the thirsty to fail.
7 The instruments and methods of the fraudulent and greedy [for gain] are evil; he devises wicked devices to ruin the poor and the lowly with lying words, even when the plea of the needy is just and right.
8 But the noble, openhearted, and liberal man devises noble things; and he stands for what is noble, openhearted, and generous.
9 Rise up, you women who are at ease! Hear my [Isaiah’s] voice, you confident and careless daughters! Listen to what I am saying!
10 In little more than a year you will be shaken with anxiety, you careless and complacent women; for the vintage will fail, and the ingathering will not come.
11 Tremble, you women who are at ease! Shudder with fear, you complacent ones! Strip yourselves bare and gird sackcloth upon your loins [in grief]!
12 They shall beat upon their breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine,
13 For the land of my people growing over with thorns and briers—yes, for all the houses of joy in the joyous city.
14 For the palace shall be forsaken, the populous city shall be deserted; the hill and the watchtower shall become dens [for wild animals] endlessly, a joy for wild donkeys, a pasture for flocks,
15 Until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is valued as a forest.(C)
16 Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness (moral and spiritual rectitude in every area and relation) will abide in the fruitful field.
17 And the effect of righteousness will be peace [internal and external], and the result of righteousness will be quietness and confident trust forever.
18 My people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, in safe dwellings, and in quiet resting-places.
19 But it [the wrath of the Lord] shall hail, coming down overpoweringly on the forest [the army of the Assyrians], and the capital [c]city shall be utterly humbled and laid prostrate.
20 Happy and fortunate are you who cast your seed upon all waters [when the river overflows its banks; for the seed will sink into the mud and when the waters subside, the plant will spring up; you will find it after many days and reap an abundant harvest], you who safely send forth the ox and the donkey [to range freely].
33 Woe to you, O destroyer, you who were not yourself destroyed, who deal treacherously though they [your victims] did not deal treacherously with you! When you have ceased to destroy, you will be destroyed; and when you have stopped dealing treacherously, they will deal treacherously with you.
2 O Lord, be gracious to us; we have waited [expectantly] for You. Be the arm [of Your servants—their strength and defense] every morning, our salvation in the time of trouble.
3 At the noise of the tumult [caused by Your voice at which the enemy is overthrown], the peoples flee; at the lifting up of Yourself, nations are scattered.
4 And the spoil [of the Assyrians] is gathered [by the inhabitants of Jerusalem] as the caterpillar gathers; as locusts leap and run to and fro, so [the Jews spoil the Assyrians’ forsaken camp as they] leap upon it.
5 The Lord is exalted, for He dwells on high; He will fill Zion with justice and righteousness (moral and spiritual rectitude in every area and relation).
6 And there shall be stability in your times, an abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; the reverent fear and worship of the Lord is your treasure and His.
7 Behold, their valiant ones cry without; the ambassadors of peace weep bitterly.
8 The highways lie waste, the wayfaring man ceases. The enemy has broken the covenant, he has despised the cities and [d]the witnesses, he regards no man.
9 The land mourns and languishes, Lebanon is confounded and [its luxuriant verdure] withers away; Sharon [a fertile pasture region south of Mount Carmel] is like a desert, and Bashan [a broad, fertile plateau east of the Jordan River] and [Mount] Carmel shake off their leaves.
5 In [this] freedom Christ has made us free [and completely liberated us]; stand fast then, and do not be hampered and held ensnared and submit again to a yoke of slavery [which you have once put off].
2 Notice, it is I, Paul, who tells you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no profit (advantage, avail) to you [[a]for if you distrust Him, you can gain nothing from Him].
3 I once more protest and testify to every man who receives circumcision that he is under obligation and bound to practice the whole of the Law and its ordinances.
4 If you seek to be justified and declared righteous and to be given a right standing with God through the Law, you are brought to nothing and so separated (severed) from Christ. You have fallen away from grace (from God’s gracious favor and unmerited blessing).
5 For we, [not relying on the Law but] through the [Holy] Spirit’s [help], by faith anticipate and wait for the blessing and good for which our righteousness and right standing with God [our [b]conformity to His will in purpose, thought, and action, causes us] to hope.
6 For [if we are] in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith activated and energized and expressed and working through love.
7 You were running the race nobly. Who has interfered in (hindered and stopped you from) your heeding and following the Truth?
8 This [evil] persuasion is not from Him Who called you [Who invited you to freedom in Christ].
9 A little leaven (a slight inclination to error, or a few false teachers) leavens the whole lump [it perverts the whole conception of faith or misleads the whole church].
10 [For my part] I have confidence [toward you] in the Lord that you will take no contrary view of the matter but will come to think with me. But he who is unsettling you, whoever he is, will have to bear the penalty.
11 But, brethren, if I still preach circumcision [as some accuse me of doing, as necessary to salvation], why am I still suffering persecution? In that case the cross has ceased to be a stumbling block and is made meaningless (done away).
12 I wish those who unsettle and confuse you would [[c]go all the way and] cut themselves off!
Psalm 63
A Psalm of David; when he was in the Wilderness of Judah.
1 O God, You are my God, earnestly will I seek You; my inner self thirsts for You, my flesh longs and is faint for You, in a dry and weary land where no water is.
2 So I have looked upon You in the sanctuary to see Your power and Your glory.
3 Because Your loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You.
4 So will I bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.
5 My whole being shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips
6 When I remember You upon my bed and meditate on You in the night watches.
7 For You have been my help, and in the shadow of Your wings will I rejoice.
8 My whole being follows hard after You and clings closely to You; Your right hand upholds me.
9 But those who seek and demand my life to ruin and destroy it shall [themselves be destroyed and] go into the lower parts of the earth [into the underworld of the dead].
10 They shall be given over to the power of the sword; they shall be a prey for foxes and jackals.
11 But the king shall rejoice in God; everyone who swears by Him [that is, who binds himself by God’s authority, acknowledging His supremacy, and devoting himself to His glory and service alone; every such one] shall glory, for the mouths of those who speak lies shall be stopped.
22 Hearken to your father, who begot you, and despise not your mother when she is old.
Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation