The One Year Bible TLB (200 page)
Read The One Year Bible TLB Online
Authors: Tyndale
Lord, listen to my complaint: Oh, preserve my life from the conspiracy of these wicked men, these gangs of criminals.
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They cut me down with sharpened tongues; they aim their bitter words like arrows straight at my heart.
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They shoot from ambush at the innocent. Suddenly the deed is done, yet they are not afraid.
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They encourage each other to do evil. They meet in secret to set their traps. “He will never notice them here,” they say.
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They keep a sharp lookout for opportunities of crime. They spend long hours with all their endless evil thoughts and plans.
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But God himself will shoot them down. Suddenly his arrow will pierce them.
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They will stagger backward, destroyed by those they spoke against. All who see it happening will scoff at them.
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Then everyone shall stand in awe and confess the greatness of the miracles of God; at last they will realize what amazing things he does.
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And the godly shall rejoice in the Lord, and trust and praise him.
September 21When King Hezekiah heard the results of the meeting, he tore his robes and wound himself in coarse cloth used for making sacks, as a sign of humility and mourning, and went over to the Temple to pray.
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Meanwhile he sent Eliakim his prime minister, and Shebna his royal scribe, and the older priests—all dressed in sackcloth—to Isaiah the prophet, son of Amoz.
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They brought him this message from Hezekiah:
“This is a day of trouble and frustration and blasphemy; it is a serious time, as when a woman is in heavy labor trying to give birth and the child does not come.
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But perhaps the Lord your God heard the blasphemy of the king of Assyria’s representative as he scoffed at the living God. Surely God won’t let him get away with this. Surely God will rebuke him for those words. Oh, Isaiah, pray for us who are left!”
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So they took the king’s message to Isaiah.
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Then Isaiah replied, “Tell King Hezekiah that the Lord says: Don’t be disturbed by this speech from the servant of the king of Assyria and his blasphemy.
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For a report from Assyria will reach the king that he is needed at home at once, and he will return to his own land, where I will have him killed.”
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Now the Assyrian envoy left Jerusalem and went to consult his king, who had left Lachish and was besieging Libnah. But at this point the Assyrian king received word that Tirhakah, crown prince of Ethiopia, was leading an army against him from the south.
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Upon hearing this, he sent messengers back to Jerusalem to Hezekiah with this message:
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“Don’t let this God you trust in fool you by promising that Jerusalem will not be captured by the king of Assyria!
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Just remember what has happened wherever the kings of Assyria have gone, for they have crushed everyone who has opposed them. Do you think you will be any different?
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Did their gods save the cities of Gozan, Haran, or Rezeph, or the people of Eden in Telassar? No, the Assyrian kings completely destroyed them!
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And don’t forget what happened to the king of Hamath, to the king of Arpad, and to the kings of the cities of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah.”
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As soon as King Hezekiah had read this letter, he went over to the Temple and spread it out before the Lord
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and prayed, saying,
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“O Lord, Almighty God of Israel enthroned between the Guardian Angels,
you alone
are God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You alone made heaven and earth. Listen as I plead; see me as I pray. Look at this letter from King Sennacherib, for he has mocked the living God.
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It is true, O Lord, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed all those nations, just as the letter says,
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and thrown their gods into the fire; for they weren’t gods at all but merely idols, carved by men from wood and stone. Of course the Assyrians could destroy them.
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O Lord our God, save us so that all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you are God, and you alone.”
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Then Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent this message to King Hezekiah: “The Lord God of Israel says: This is my answer to your prayer against Sennacherib, Assyria’s king.
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“The Lord says to him: My people—the helpless virgin daughter of Zion—laughs at you and scoffs and shakes her head at you in scorn.
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Who is it you scoffed against and mocked? Whom did you revile? At whom did you direct your violence and pride? It was against the Holy One of Israel!
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You have sent your messengers to mock the Lord. You boast, ‘I came with my mighty army against the nations of the west. I cut down the tallest cedars and choicest cypress trees. I conquered their highest mountains and destroyed their thickest forests.’
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“You boast of wells you’ve dug in many a conquered land, and Egypt with all its armies is no obstacle to you!
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But do you not yet know that it was I who decided all this long ago? That it was I who gave you all this power from ancient times? I have caused all this to happen as I planned—that you should crush walled cities into ruined heaps.
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That’s why their people had so little power and were such easy prey for you. They were as helpless as the grass, as tender plants you trample down beneath your feet, as grass upon the housetops, burnt yellow by the sun.
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But I know you well—your comings and goings and all you do—and the way you have raged against me.
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Because of your anger against the Lord—and I heard it all!—I have put a hook in your nose and a bit in your mouth and led you back to your own land by the same road you came.”
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Then God said to Hezekiah, “Here is the proof that I am the one who is delivering this city from the king of Assyria: This year
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he will abandon his siege. Although it is too late now to plant your crops, and you will have only volunteer grain this fall, still it will give you enough seed for a small harvest next year, and two years from now you will be living in luxury again.
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And you who are left in Judah will take root again in your own soil and flourish and multiply.
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For a remnant shall go out from Jerusalem to repopulate the land; the power of the Lord Almighty will cause all this to come to pass.
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“As for the king of Assyria, his armies shall not enter Jerusalem, nor shoot their arrows there, nor march outside its gates, nor build up an earthen bank against its walls.
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He will return to his own country by the road he came on and will not enter this city, says the Lord.
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For my own honor I will defend it and in memory of my servant David.”
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That night the Angel of the Lord went out to the camp of the Assyrians and killed 185,000 soldiers; when the living wakened the next morning, all these lay dead before them.
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Then Sennacherib, king of Assyria, returned to his own country, to Nineveh.
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And one day while he was worshiping in the temple of Nisroch his god, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with their swords; then they escaped into the land of Ararat, and Esar-haddon his son became king.
38:
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It was just before all this that Hezekiah became deathly sick, and Isaiah the prophet (Amoz’ son) went to visit him and gave him this message from the Lord:
“Set your affairs in order, for you are going to die; you will not recover from this illness.”
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When Hezekiah heard this, he turned his face to the wall and prayed:
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“O Lord, don’t you remember how true I’ve been to you and how I’ve always tried to obey you in everything you said?” Then he broke down with great sobs.
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So the Lord sent another message to Isaiah:
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“Go and tell Hezekiah that the Lord God of your forefather David hears you praying and sees your tears and will let you live fifteen more years.
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He will deliver you and this city from the king of Assyria. I will defend you, says the Lord,
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and here is my guarantee:
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I will send the sun backwards ten degrees as measured on Ahaz’s sundial!”
So the sun retraced ten degrees that it had gone down!
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When King Hezekiah was well again, he wrote this poem about his experience:
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“My life is but half done and I must leave it all. I am robbed of my normal years, and now I must enter the gates of Sheol.
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Never again will I see the Lord in the land of the living. Never again will I see my friends in this world.
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My life is blown away like a shepherd’s tent; it is cut short as when a weaver stops his working at the loom. In one short day my life hangs by a thread.
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“All night I moaned; it was like being torn apart by lions.
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Delirious, I chattered like a swallow and mourned like a dove; my eyes grew weary of looking up for help. ‘O God,’ I cried, ‘I am in trouble—help me.’
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But what can I say? For he himself has sent this sickness. All my sleep has fled because of my soul’s bitterness.
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O Lord, your discipline is good and leads to life and health. Oh, heal me and make me live!
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“Yes, now I see it all—it was good for me to undergo this bitterness, for you have lovingly delivered me from death; you have forgiven all my sins.
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For dead men cannot praise you.
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They cannot be filled with hope and joy.
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The living, only the living, can praise you as I do today. One generation makes known your faithfulness to the next.
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Think of it! The Lord healed me! Every day of my life from now on I will sing my songs of praise in the Temple, accompanied by the orchestra.”
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(For Isaiah had told Hezekiah’s servants, “Make an ointment of figs and spread it over the boil, and he will get well again.”
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And then Hezekiah had asked, “What sign will the Lord give me to prove that he will heal me?”)
Dear brothers, if a Christian is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help him back onto the right path, remembering that next time it might be one of you who is in the wrong.
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Share each other’s troubles and problems, and so obey our Lord’s command.
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If anyone thinks he is too great to stoop to this, he is fooling himself. He is really a nobody.
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Let everyone be sure that he is doing his very best, for then he will have the personal satisfaction of work well done and won’t need to compare himself with someone else.
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Each of us must bear some faults and burdens of his own. For none of us is perfect!
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Those who are taught the Word of God should help their teachers by paying them.
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Don’t be misled; remember that you can’t ignore God and get away with it: a man will always reap just the kind of crop he sows!
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If he sows to please his own wrong desires, he will be planting seeds of evil and he will surely reap a harvest of spiritual decay and death; but if he plants the good things of the Spirit, he will reap the everlasting life that the Holy Spirit gives him.
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And let us not get tired of doing what is right, for after a while we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t get discouraged and give up.
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That’s why whenever we can we should always be kind to everyone, and especially to our Christian brothers.
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I will write these closing words in my own handwriting. See how large I have to make the letters!
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Those teachers of yours who are trying to convince you to be circumcised are doing it for just one reason: so that they can be popular and avoid the persecution they would get if they admitted that the cross of Christ alone can save.
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And even those teachers who submit to circumcision don’t try to keep the other Jewish laws; but they want you to be circumcised in order that they can boast that you are their disciples.
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As for me, God forbid that I should boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in all the attractive things of the world was killed long ago, and the world’s interest in me is also long dead.
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It doesn’t make any difference now whether we have been circumcised or not; what counts is whether we really have been changed into new and different people.
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May God’s mercy and peace be upon all of you who live by this principle and upon those everywhere who are really God’s own.
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From now on please don’t argue with me about these things, for I carry on my body the scars of the whippings and wounds from Jesus’ enemies that mark me as his slave.
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Dear brothers, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
Sincerely, Paul
O God in Zion, we wait before you in silent praise, and thus fulfill our vow. And because you answer prayer, all mankind will come to you with their requests.
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Though sins fill our hearts, you forgive them all.
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How greatly to be envied are those you have chosen to come and live with you within the holy tabernacle courts! What joys await us among all the good things there.
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With dread deeds and awesome power you will defend us from our enemies,
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O God who saves us. You are the only hope of all mankind throughout the world and far away upon the sea.
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He formed the mountains by his mighty strength.
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He quiets the raging oceans and all the world’s clamor.
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In the farthest corners of the earth the glorious acts of God shall startle everyone. The dawn and sunset shout for joy!
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He waters the earth to make it fertile. The rivers of God will not run dry! He prepares the earth for his people and sends them rich harvests of grain.
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He waters the furrows with abundant rain. Showers soften the earth, melting the clods and causing seeds to sprout across the land.
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Then he crowns it all with green, lush pastures in the wilderness; hillsides blossom with joy.
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The pastures are filled with flocks of sheep, and the valleys are carpeted with grain. All the world shouts with joy and sings.