The One Year Bible TLB (199 page)
Read The One Year Bible TLB Online
Authors: Tyndale
September 20But the Lord says: I will stand up and show my power and might.
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You Assyrians will gain nothing by all your efforts. Your own breath will turn to fire and kill you.
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Your armies will be burned to lime, like thorns cut down and tossed in the fire.
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Listen to what I have done, O nations far away! And you that are near, acknowledge my might!
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The sinners among my people shake with fear. “Which one of us,” they cry, “can live here in the presence of this all-consuming, everlasting fire?”
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I will tell you who can live here: All who are honest and fair, who reject making profit by fraud, who hold back their hands from taking bribes, who refuse to listen to those who plot murder, who shut their eyes to all enticement to do wrong.
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Such as these shall dwell on high. The rocks of the mountains will be their fortress of safety; food will be supplied to them, and they will have all the water they need.
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Your eyes will see the King in his beauty and the highlands of heaven far away.
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Your mind will think back to this time of terror when the Assyrian officers outside your walls are counting your towers and estimating how much they will get from your fallen city.
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But soon they will all be gone. These fierce, violent people with a strange, jabbering language you can’t understand will disappear.
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Instead you will see Jerusalem at peace, a place where God is worshiped, a city quiet and unmoved.
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The glorious Lord will be to us as a wide river of protection, and no enemy can cross.
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For the Lord is our Judge, our Lawgiver and our King; he will care for us and save us.
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The enemies’ sails hang loose on broken masts with useless tackle. Their treasure will be divided by the people of God; even the lame will win their share.
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The people of Israel will no longer say, “We are sick and helpless,” for the Lord will forgive them their sins and bless them.
34:
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Come here and listen, O nations of the earth; let the world and everything in it hear my words.
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For the Lord is enraged against the nations; his fury is against their armies. He will utterly destroy them and deliver them to slaughter.
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Their dead will be left unburied, and the stench of rotting bodies will fill the land; the mountains will flow with their blood.
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At that time the heavens above will melt away and disappear just like a rolled-up scroll, and the stars will fall as leaves, as ripe fruit from the trees.
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And when my sword has finished its work in the heavens, then watch, for it will fall upon Edom, the people I have doomed.
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The sword of the Lord is sated with blood; it is gorged with flesh as though used for slaying lambs and goats for sacrifice. For the Lord will slay a great sacrifice in Edom and make a mighty slaughter there.
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The strongest will perish, young boys and veterans too. The land will be soaked with blood, and the soil made rich with fat.
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For it is the day of vengeance, the year of recompense for what Edom has done to Israel.
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The streams of Edom will be filled with burning pitch, and the ground will be covered with fire.
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This judgment on Edom will never end. Its smoke will rise up forever. The land will lie deserted from generation to generation; no one will live there anymore.
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There the hawks and porcupines will live, and owls and ravens. For God will observe that land and find it worthy of destruction. He will test its nobles and find them worthy of death.
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It will be called “The Land of Nothing,” and its princes soon will all be gone.
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Thorns will overrun the palaces, nettles will grow in its forts, and it will become the haunt of jackals and a home for ostriches.
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The wild animals of the desert will mingle there with wolves and hyenas. Their howls will fill the night. There the night-monsters will scream at each other, and the demons will come there to rest.
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There the owl will make her nest and lay her eggs; she will hatch her young and nestle them beneath her wings, and the kites will come, each one with its mate.
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Search the book of the Lord and see all that he will do; not one detail will he miss; not one kite will be there without a mate, for the Lord has said it, and his Spirit will make it all come true.
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He has surveyed and subdivided the land and deeded it to those doleful creatures; they shall possess it forever, from generation to generation.
35:
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Even the wilderness and desert will rejoice in those days; the desert will blossom with flowers.
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Yes, there will be an abundance of flowers and singing and joy! The deserts will become as green as the Lebanon mountains, as lovely as Mount Carmel’s pastures and Sharon’s meadows; for the Lord will display his glory there, the excellency of our God.
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With this news bring cheer to all discouraged ones.
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Encourage those who are afraid. Tell them, “Be strong, fear not, for your God is coming to destroy your enemies. He is coming to save you.”
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And when he comes, he will open the eyes of the blind and unstop the ears of the deaf.
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The lame man will leap up like a deer, and those who could not speak will shout and sing! Springs will burst forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.
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The parched ground will become a pool, with springs of water in the thirsty land. Where desert jackals lived, there will be reeds and rushes!
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And a main road will go through that once-deserted land; it will be named “The Holy Highway.” No evil-hearted men may walk upon it. God will walk there with you; even the most stupid cannot miss the way.
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No lion will lurk along its course, nor will there be any other dangers; only the redeemed will travel there.
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These, the ransomed of the Lord, will go home along that road to Zion, singing the songs of everlasting joy. For them all sorrow and all sighing will be gone forever; only joy and gladness will be there.
36:
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So in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came to fight against the walled cities of Judah and conquered them.
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Then he sent his personal representative with a great army from Lachish to confer with King Hezekiah in Jerusalem. He camped near the outlet of the upper pool, along the road going past the field where cloth is bleached.
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Then Eliakim, Hilkiah’s son, who was the prime minister of Israel, and Shebna, the king’s scribe, and Joah, Asaph’s son, the royal secretary, formed a truce team and went out of the city to meet with him.
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The Assyrian ambassador told them to go and say to Hezekiah, “The mighty king of Assyria says you are a fool to think that the king of Egypt will help you.
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What are the Pharaoh’s promises worth? Mere words won’t substitute for strength, yet you rely on him for help and have rebelled against me!
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Egypt is a dangerous ally. She is a sharpened stick that will pierce your hand if you lean on it. That is the experience of everyone who has ever looked to her for help.
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But perhaps you say, ‘We are trusting in the Lord our God!’ Oh? Isn’t he the one your king insulted, tearing down his temples and altars in the hills and making everyone in Judah worship only at the altars here in Jerusalem?
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My master, the king of Assyria, wants to make a little bet with you!—that you don’t have 2,000 men left in your entire army! If you do, he will give you 2,000 horses for them to ride on! With that tiny army, how can you think of proceeding against even the smallest and worst contingent of my master’s troops? For you’ll get no help from Egypt.
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What’s more, do you think I have come here without the Lord’s telling me to take this land? The Lord said to me, ‘Go and destroy it!’”
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Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to him, “Please talk to us in Aramaic,
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for we understand it quite well. Don’t speak in Hebrew, for the people on the wall will hear.”
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But he replied, “My master wants everyone in Jerusalem to hear this, not just you. He wants them to know that if you don’t surrender, this city will be put under siege until everyone is so hungry and thirsty that he will eat his own dung and drink his own urine.”
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Then he shouted in Hebrew to the Jews listening on the wall, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria:
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“Don’t let Hezekiah fool you—nothing he can do will save you.
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Don’t let him talk you into trusting in the Lord by telling you the Lord won’t let you be conquered by the king of Assyria.
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Don’t listen to Hezekiah, for here is the king of Assyria’s offer to you: Give me a present as a token of surrender; open the gates and come out, and I will let you each have your own farm and garden and water,
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until I can arrange to take you to a country very similar to this one—a country where there are bountiful harvests of grain and grapes, a land of plenty.
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Don’t let Hezekiah deprive you of all this by saying the Lord will deliver you from my armies. Have any other nation’s gods ever gained victory over the armies of the king of Assyria?
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Don’t you remember what I did to Hamath and Arpad? Did their gods save them? And what about Sepharvaim and Samaria? Where are their gods now?
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Of all the gods of these lands, which one has ever delivered their people from my power? Name just one! And do you think this God of yours can deliver Jerusalem from me? Don’t be ridiculous!”
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But the people were silent and answered not a word, for Hezekiah had told them to say nothing in reply.
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Then Eliakim (son of Hilkiah), the prime minister, and Shebna, the royal scribe, and Joah (son of Asaph), the royal secretary, went back to Hezekiah with clothes ripped to shreds as a sign of their despair and told him all that had happened.
For, dear brothers, you have been given freedom: not freedom to do wrong, but freedom to love and serve each other.
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For the whole Law can be summed up in this one command: “Love others as you love yourself.”
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But if instead of showing love among yourselves you are always critical and catty, watch out! Beware of ruining each other.
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I advise you to obey only the Holy Spirit’s instructions. He will tell you where to go and what to do, and then you won’t always be doing the wrong things your evil nature wants you to.
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For we naturally love to do evil things that are just the opposite from the things that the Holy Spirit tells us to do; and the good things we want to do when the Spirit has his way with us are just the opposite of our natural desires. These two forces within us are constantly fighting each other to win control over us, and our wishes are never free from their pressures.
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When you are guided by the Holy Spirit, you need no longer force yourself to obey Jewish laws.
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But when you follow your own wrong inclinations, your lives will produce these evil results: impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure,
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idolatry, spiritism (that is, encouraging the activity of demons), hatred and fighting, jealousy and anger, constant effort to get the best for yourself, complaints and criticisms, the feeling that everyone else is wrong except those in your own little group—and there will be wrong doctrine,
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envy, murder, drunkenness, wild parties, and all that sort of thing. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
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But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
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gentleness and self-control; and here there is no conflict with Jewish laws.
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Those who belong to Christ have nailed their natural evil desires to his cross and crucified them there.
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If we are living now by the Holy Spirit’s power, let us follow the Holy Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.
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Then we won’t need to look for honors and popularity, which lead to jealousy and hard feelings.