The Daily Audio Bible
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8 How can you say, “We understand his laws,” when your teachers have twisted them up to mean a thing I never said? 9 These wise teachers of yours will be shamed by exile for this sin, for they have rejected the word of the Lord. Are they then so wise? 10 I will give their wives and their farms to others; for all of them, great and small, prophet and priest, have one purpose in mind—to get what isn’t theirs. 11 They give useless medicine for my people’s grievous wounds, for they assure them all is well when that isn’t so at all! 12 Are they ashamed because they worship idols? No, not in the least; they don’t even know how to blush! That is why I will see to it that they lie among the fallen. I will visit them with death. 13 Their figs and grapes will disappear, their fruit trees will die, and all the good things I prepared for them will soon be gone.
14 Then the people will say, “Why should we wait here to die? Come, let us go to the walled cities and perish there. For the Lord our God has decreed our doom and given us a cup of poison to drink because of all our sins. 15 We expected peace, but no peace came; we looked for health, but there was only terror.”
16 The noise of war resounds from the northern border.[a] The whole land trembles at the approach of the terrible army, for the enemy is coming and is devouring the land and everything in it—the cities and people alike. 17 For I will send these enemy troops among you like poisonous snakes that you cannot charm. No matter what you do, they will bite you and you shall die.
18 My grief is beyond healing; my heart is broken. 19 Listen to the weeping of my people all across the land.
“Where is the Lord?” they ask. “Has God deserted us?”
“Oh, why have they angered me with their carved idols and strange evil rites?” the Lord replies.
20 “The harvest is finished; the summer is over, and we are not saved.”
21 I weep for the hurt of my people; I stand amazed, silent, dumb with grief. 22 Is there no medicine in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why doesn’t God do something? Why doesn’t he help?
9 Oh, that my eyes were a fountain of tears; I would weep forever; I would sob day and night for the slain of my people! 2 Oh, that I could go away and forget them and live in some wayside shack in the desert, for they are all adulterous, treacherous men.
3 “They bend their tongues like bows to shoot their arrows of untruth. They care nothing for right and go from bad to worse; they care nothing for me,” says the Lord.
4 Beware of your neighbor! Beware of your brother! All take advantage of one another and spread their slanderous lies. 5 With practiced tongues they fool and defraud each other; they wear themselves out with all their sinning.
6 “They pile evil upon evil, lie upon lie, and utterly refuse to come to me,” says the Lord.
7 Therefore, the Lord Almighty says this: “See, I will melt them in a crucible of affliction. I will refine them and test them like metal. What else can I do with them? 8 For their tongues aim lies like poisoned spears. They speak cleverly to their neighbors while planning to kill them. 9 Should not I punish them for such things as this?” asks the Lord. “Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?”
10 Sobbing and weeping, I point to their mountains and pastures, for now they are desolate, without a living soul. Gone is the lowing of cattle, gone the birds and wild animals. All have fled.
11 “And I will turn Jerusalem into heaps of ruined houses where only jackals have their dens. The cities of Judah shall be ghost towns, with no one living in them.”
12 Who is wise enough to understand all this? Where is the Lord’s messenger to explain it? Why is the land a wilderness so that no one dares even to travel through?
13 “Because,” the Lord replies, “my people have forsaken my commandments and not obeyed my laws. 14 Instead, they have done whatever they pleased and worshiped the idols of Baal, as their fathers told them to.” 15 Therefore, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Look! I will feed them with bitterness and give them poison to drink. 16 I will scatter them around the world, to be strangers in distant lands; and even there the sword of destruction shall chase them until I have utterly destroyed them.
17-18 The Lord Almighty says: “Send for the mourners! Quick! Begin your crying! Let the tears flow from your eyes. 19 Hear Jerusalem weeping in despair. ‘We are ruined! Disaster has befallen us! We must leave our land and homes!’” 20 Listen to the words of God, O women who wail. Teach your daughters to wail and your neighbors too. 21 For death has crept in through your windows into your homes. He has killed off the flower of your youth. Children no longer play in the streets; the young men gather no more in the squares.
22 Tell them this, says the Lord: Bodies shall be scattered across the fields like manure, like sheaves after the mower, and no one will bury them.
23 The Lord says: Let not the wise man bask in his wisdom, nor the mighty man in his might, nor the rich man in his riches. 24 Let them boast in this alone: That they truly know me, and understand that I am the Lord of justice and of righteousness whose love is steadfast; and that I love to be this way.
25-26 A time is coming, says the Lord, when I will punish all those who are circumcised in body but not in spirit—the Egyptians, Edomites, Ammonites, Moabites, Arabs, and yes, even you people of Judah. For all these pagan nations also circumcise themselves. Unless you circumcise your hearts by loving me, your circumcision is only a heathen rite like theirs, and nothing more.
3 Since you became alive again, so to speak, when Christ arose from the dead, now set your sights on the rich treasures and joys of heaven where he sits beside God in the place of honor and power. 2 Let heaven fill your thoughts; don’t spend your time worrying about things down here. 3 You should have as little desire for this world as a dead person does. Your real life is in heaven with Christ and God. 4 And when Christ who is our real life comes back again, you will shine with him and share in all his glories.
5 Away then with sinful, earthly things; deaden the evil desires lurking within you; have nothing to do with sexual sin, impurity, lust, and shameful desires; don’t worship the good things of life, for that is idolatry. 6 God’s terrible anger is upon those who do such things. 7 You used to do them when your life was still part of this world; 8 but now is the time to cast off and throw away all these rotten garments of anger, hatred, cursing, and dirty language.
9 Don’t tell lies to each other; it was your old life with all its wickedness that did that sort of thing; now it is dead and gone. 10 You are living a brand new kind of life that is continually learning more and more of what is right, and trying constantly to be more and more like Christ who created this new life within you. 11 In this new life one’s nationality or race or education or social position is unimportant; such things mean nothing. Whether a person has Christ is what matters, and he is equally available to all.
12 Since you have been chosen by God who has given you this new kind of life, and because of his deep love and concern for you, you should practice tenderhearted mercy and kindness to others. Don’t worry about making a good impression on them, but be ready to suffer quietly and patiently. 13 Be gentle and ready to forgive; never hold grudges. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.
14 Most of all, let love guide your life, for then the whole church will stay together in perfect harmony. 15 Let the peace of heart that comes from Christ be always present in your hearts and lives, for this is your responsibility and privilege as members of his body. And always be thankful.
16 Remember what Christ taught, and let his words enrich your lives and make you wise; teach them to each other and sing them out in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing to the Lord with thankful hearts. 17 And whatever you do or say, let it be as a representative of the Lord Jesus, and come with him into the presence of God the Father to give him your thanks.
32 Yet even so the people kept on sinning and refused to believe in miracles. 33 So he cut their lives short and gave them years of terror and disaster.
34 Then at last, when he had ruined them, they walked awhile behind him; how earnestly they turned around and followed him! 35 Then they remembered that God was their Rock—that their Savior was the God above all gods. 36 But it was only with their words that they followed him, not with their hearts; 37 their hearts were far away. They did not keep their promises. 38 Yet he was merciful and forgave their sins and didn’t destroy them all. Many and many a time he held back his anger. 39 For he remembered that they were merely mortal men, gone in a moment like a breath of wind.
40 Oh, how often they rebelled against him in those desert years and grieved his heart. 41 Again and again they turned away and tempted God to kill them, and limited the Holy One of Israel from giving them his blessings. 42 They forgot his power and love and how he had rescued them from their enemies; 43 they forgot the plagues he sent upon the Egyptians in Tanis[a]— 44 how he turned their rivers into blood so that no one could drink, 45 how he sent vast swarms of flies to fill the land, and how the frogs had covered all of Egypt!
46 He gave their crops to caterpillars. Their harvest was consumed by locusts. 47 He destroyed their grapevines and their sycamores with hail. 48 Their cattle died in the fields, mortally wounded by huge hailstones from heaven. Their sheep were killed by lightning. 49 He loosed on them the fierceness of his anger, sending sorrow and trouble. He dispatched against them a band of destroying angels. 50 He gave free course to his anger and did not spare the Egyptians’ lives, but handed them over to plagues and sickness. 51 Then he killed the eldest son[b] in each Egyptian family—he who was the beginning of its strength and joy.
52 But he led forth his own people like a flock, guiding them safely through the wilderness. 53 He kept them safe, so they were not afraid. But the sea closed in upon their enemies and overwhelmed them. 54 He brought them to the border of his land of blessing, to this land of hills he made for them. 55 He drove out the nations occupying the land and gave each tribe of Israel its apportioned place as its home.
27 Develop your business first before building your house.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.