The One Year Bible TLB (86 page)
Read The One Year Bible TLB Online
Authors: Tyndale
O God, don’t sit idly by, silent and inactive when we pray. Answer us! Deliver us!
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Don’t you hear the tumult and commotion of your enemies? Don’t you see what they are doing, these proud men who hate the Lord?
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They are full of craftiness and plot against your people, laying plans to slay your precious ones.
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“Come,” they say, “and let us wipe out Israel as a nation—we will destroy the very memory of her existence.”
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This was their unanimous decision at their summit conference—they signed a treaty to ally themselves against Almighty God—
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these Ishmaelites and Edomites and Moabites and Hagrites;
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people from the lands of Gebal, Ammon, Amalek, Philistia and Tyre;
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Assyria has joined them too, and is allied with the descendants of Lot.
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Do to them as once you did to Midian, or as you did to Sisera and Jabin at the river Kishon,
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and as you did to your enemies at Endor, whose decaying corpses fertilized the soil.
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Make their mighty nobles die as Oreb did, and Zeeb;
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let all their princes die like Zebah and Zalmunna,
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who said, “Let us seize for our own use these pasturelands of God!”
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O my God, blow them away like dust; like chaff before the wind—
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as a forest fire that roars across a mountain.
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Chase them with your fiery storms, tempests, and tornados.
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Utterly disgrace them until they recognize your power and name, O Lord.
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Make them failures in everything they do; let them be ashamed and terrified
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until they learn that you alone, Jehovah, are the God above all gods in supreme charge of all the earth.
Lazy people want much but get little, while the diligent are prospering.
April 15When King Jabin of Hazor heard what had happened, he sent urgent messages to the following kings:
King Jobab of Madon;
The king of Shimron;
The king of Achshaph;
All the kings of the northern hill country;
The kings in the Arabah, south of Chinneroth;
Those in the lowland;
The kings in the mountain areas of Dor, on the west;
The kings of Canaan, both east and west;
The kings of the Amorites;
The kings of the Hittites;
The kings of the Perizzites;
The kings in the Jebusite hill country;
The Hivite kings in the cities on the slopes of Mount Hermon, in the land of Mizpah.
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All these kings responded by mobilizing their armies and uniting to crush Israel. Their combined troops, along with a vast array of horses and chariots, covered the landscape around the springs of Merom as far as one could see;
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for they established their camp at the springs of Merom.
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But the Lord said to Joshua, “Don’t be afraid of them, for by this time tomorrow they will all be dead! Hamstring their horses and burn their chariots.”
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Joshua and his troops arrived suddenly at the springs of Merom and attacked.
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And the Lord gave all that vast army to the Israelis, who chased them as far as Great Sidon and a place called the Salt Pits, and eastward into the valley of Mizpah; so not one enemy troop survived the battle.
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Then Joshua and his men did as the Lord had instructed, for they hamstrung the horses and burned all the chariots.
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On the way back, Joshua captured Hazor and killed its king. (Hazor had at one time been the capital of the federation of all those kingdoms.)
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Every person there was killed and the city was burned.
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Then he attacked and destroyed all the other cities of those kings. All the people were slaughtered, just as Moses had commanded long before.
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(However, Joshua did not burn any of the cities built on mounds except for Hazor.)
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All the loot and cattle of the ravaged cities were taken by the Israelis for themselves, but they killed all the people.
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For so the Lord had commanded his disciple Moses; and Moses had passed the commandment on to Joshua, who did as he had been told: he carefully obeyed all of the Lord’s instructions to Moses.
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So Joshua conquered the entire land—the hill country, the Negeb, the land of Goshen, the lowlands, the Arabah, and the hills and lowlands of Israel.
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The Israeli territory now extended all the way from Mount Halak, near Seir, to Baal-gad in the valley of Lebanon, at the foot of Mount Hermon. And Joshua killed all the kings of those territories.
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It took seven years
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of war to accomplish all of this.
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None of the cities was given a peace treaty except the Hivites of Gibeon; all of the others were destroyed.
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For the Lord made the enemy kings want to fight the Israelis instead of asking for peace; so they were mercilessly killed, as the Lord had commanded Moses.
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During this period Joshua routed all of the giants—the descendants of Anak who lived in the hill country in Hebron, Debir, Anab, Judah, and Israel; he killed them all and completely destroyed their cities.
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None was left in all the land of Israel, though some still remained in Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod.
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So Joshua took the entire land just as the Lord had instructed Moses; and he gave it to the people of Israel as their inheritance, dividing the land among the tribes. So the land finally rested from its war.
12:
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Here is the list of the kings on the east side of the Jordan River whose cities were destroyed by the Israelis: (The area involved stretched all the way from the valley of the Arnon River to Mount Hermon, including the cities of the eastern desert.)
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King Sihon of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon. His kingdom extended from Aroer, on the edge of the Arnon Valley, and from the middle of the valley of the Arnon River to the Jabbok River, which is the boundary of the Ammonites. This includes half of the present area of Gilead, which lies north of the Jabbok River.
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Sihon also controlled the Jordan River Valley as far north as the western shores of the Lake of Galilee; and as far south as the Dead Sea and the slopes of Mount Pisgah.
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King Og of Bashan, the last of the Rephaim, who lived at Ashtaroth and Edrei:
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He ruled a territory stretching from Mount Hermon in the north to Salecah on Mount Bashan in the east, and on the west, extending to the boundary of the kingdoms of Geshur and Maacah. His kingdom also stretched south to include the northern half of Gilead where the boundary touched the border of the kingdom of Sihon, king of Heshbon.
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Moses and the people of Israel had destroyed these people, and Moses gave the land to the tribes of Reuben and the half-tribe of Manasseh.
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Here is a list of the kings destroyed by Joshua and the armies of Israel on the west side of the Jordan. (This land which lay between Baal-gad in the valley of Lebanon and Mount Halak, west of Mount Seir, was allotted by Joshua to the other tribes of Israel.
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The area included the hill country, the lowlands, the Arabah, the mountain slopes, the Judean Desert, and the Negeb.
The people who lived there were the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites): the king of Jericho; the king of Ai, near Bethel; the king of Jerusalem; the king of Hebron; the king of Jarmuth; the king of Lachish; the king of Eglon; the king of Gezer; the king of Debir; the king of Geder; the king of Hormah; the king of Arad; the king of Libnah; the king of Adullam; the king of Makkedah; the king of Bethel; the king of Tappuah; the king of Hepher; the king of Aphek; the king of Lasharon; the king of Madon; the king of Hazor; the king of Shimron-meron; the king of Achshaph; the king of Taanach; the king of Megiddo; the king of Kedesh; the king of Jokneam, in Carmel; the king of Dor in the city of Naphathdor; the king of Goiim in Gilgal; the king of Tirzah. So in all, thirty-one kings and their cities were destroyed.
As they continued onward toward Jerusalem, they reached the border between Galilee and Samaria,
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and as they entered a village there, ten lepers stood at a distance,
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crying out, “Jesus, sir, have mercy on us!”
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He looked at them and said,
“Go to the Jewish priest and show him that you are healed!”
And as they were going, their leprosy disappeared.
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One of them came back to Jesus, shouting, “Glory to God, I’m healed!”
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He fell flat on the ground in front of Jesus, face downward in the dust, thanking him for what he had done. This man was a despised
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Samaritan.
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Jesus asked,
“Didn’t I heal ten men? Where are the nine?
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Does only this foreigner return to give glory to God?”
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And Jesus said to the man,
“Stand up and go; your faith has made you well.”
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One day the Pharisees asked Jesus, “When will the Kingdom of God begin?” Jesus replied,
“The Kingdom of God isn’t ushered in with visible signs.
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You won’t be able to say, ‘It has begun here in this place or there in that part of the country.’ For the Kingdom of God is within you.”
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Later he talked again about this with his disciples.
“The time is coming when you will long for me
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to be with you even for a single day, but I won’t be here,”
he said.
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“Reports will reach you that I have returned and that I am in this place or that; don’t believe it or go out to look for me.
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For when I return, you will know it beyond all doubt. It will be as evident as the lightning that flashes across the skies.
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But first I must suffer terribly and be rejected by this whole nation.
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“When I return
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the world will be as indifferent to the things of God as the people were in Noah’s day.
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They ate and drank and married—everything just as usual right up to the day when Noah went into the ark and the Flood came and destroyed them all.
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“And the world will be as it was in the days of Lot: people went about their daily business—eating and drinking, buying and selling, farming and building—
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until the morning Lot left Sodom. Then fire and brimstone rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.
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Yes, it will be ‘business as usual’ right up to the hour of my return.
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“Those away from home that day must not return to pack; those in the fields must not return to town—
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remember what happened to Lot’s wife!
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Whoever clings to his life shall lose it, and whoever loses his life shall save it.
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That night two men will be asleep in the same room, and one will be taken away, the other left.
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Two women will be working together at household tasks; one will be taken, the other left; and so it will be with men working side by side in the fields.”
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“Lord, where will they be taken?” the disciples asked.
Jesus replied,
“Where the body is, the vultures gather!”
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How lovely is your Temple, O Lord of the armies of heaven.
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I long, yes, faint with longing to be able to enter your courtyard and come near to the Living God.
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Even the sparrows and swallows are welcome to come and nest among your altars and there have their young, O Lord of heaven’s armies, my King and my God!
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How happy are those who can live in your Temple, singing your praises.
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Happy are those who are strong in the Lord, who want above all else to follow your steps.
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When they walk through the Valley of Weeping, it will become a place of springs where pools of blessing and refreshment collect after rains!
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They will grow constantly in strength, and each of them is invited to meet with the Lord in Zion.
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O Jehovah, God of the heavenly armies, hear my prayer! Listen, God of Israel.
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O God, our Defender and our Shield, have mercy on the one you have anointed as your king.
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A single day spent in your Temple is better than a thousand anywhere else! I would rather be a doorman of the Temple of my God than live in palaces
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of wickedness.
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For Jehovah God is our Light and our Protector. He gives us grace and glory. No good thing will he withhold from those who walk along his paths.
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O Lord of the armies of heaven, blessed are those who trust in you.
A good man hates lies; wicked men lie constantly
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and come to shame.
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A man’s goodness helps him all through life, while evil men are being destroyed by their wickedness.