A King Will Reign in Righteousness
1 Behold, a king will reign in prighteousness,
and princes will rule in justice.
2 Each will be like a hiding place from the wind,
a shelter from the storm,
like streams of water in a dry place,
like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.
3 Then the qeyes of those who see will not be closed,
and the ears of those who hear will give attention.
4 The heart of the hasty will understand and know,
and the tongue of the stammerers will hasten to speak distinctly.
5 The fool will no more be called noble,
nor the scoundrel said to be honorable.
6 For the fool speaks folly,
and his heart is busy with iniquity,
to practice ungodliness,
to utter error concerning the Lord,
to leave the craving of the hungry unsatisfied,
and to deprive the thirsty of drink.
7 As for the scoundrel—his devices are evil;
he plans wicked schemes
to ruin the poor with lying words,
even when the plea of the needy is right.
8 But he who is noble plans noble things,
and on noble things he stands.
Complacent Women Warned of Disaster
9 Rise up, you women who are rat ease, hear my voice;
you complacent daughters, give ear to my speech.
10 In little more than a year
you will shudder, you complacent women;
for the grape harvest fails,
the fruit harvest will not come.
11 Tremble, you women who are at ease,
shudder, you complacent ones;
strip, and make yourselves bare,
and tie sackcloth around your waist.
12 Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields,
for the fruitful vine,
13 for the soil of my people
growing up in thorns and briers,
yes, for all the joyous houses
in the exultant city.
14 For the palace is forsaken,
the populous city deserted;
the hill and the watchtower
will become dens forever,
a joy of wild donkeys,
a pasture of flocks;
15 until sthe Spirit is poured upon us from on high,
and the wilderness tbecomes a fruitful field,
and the fruitful field is deemed a forest.
16 Then justice will dwell in the wilderness,
and righteousness abide in the fruitful field.
17 And the effect of righteousness will be peace,
and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust1 forever.
18 My people will abide in a peaceful habitation,
in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.
19 And it will hail when the forest falls down,
and the city will be utterly laid low.
20 Happy are you who sow beside all waters,
who let the feet of the ox and the donkey range free.
O Lord, Be Gracious to Us
1 Ah, you udestroyer,
who yourself have not been destroyed,
you traitor,
whom none has betrayed!
When you have ceased to destroy,
you will be destroyed;
and when you have finished betraying,
they will betray you.
2 O Lord, be vgracious to us; we wait for you.
Be our arm every morning,
our salvation in the time of trouble.
3 At the tumultuous noise peoples flee;
when you lift yourself up, nations are scattered,
4 and your spoil is gathered as the caterpillar gathers;
as locusts leap, it is leapt upon.
5 The Lord is exalted, for he dwells on high;
he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness,
6 and he will be the stability of your times,
abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge;
the fear of the Lord is Zion’s2 treasure.
7 Behold, their heroes cry in the streets;
the envoys of peace weep bitterly.
8 The highways wlie waste;
the traveler ceases.
Covenants are broken;
cities3 are despised;
there is no regard for man.
9 The land mourns and languishes;
xLebanon is confounded and withers away;
Sharon is like a desert,
and Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves.
10 “Now I will yarise,” says the Lord,
“now I will lift myself up;
now I will be exalted.
11 You conceive chaff; you give birth to stubble;
your breath is a fire that will consume you.
12 And the peoples will be as if burned to lime,
like thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire.”
13 Hear, you who are far off, what I have done;
and you who are near, acknowledge my might.
14 The sinners in Zion are afraid;
trembling has seized the godless:
z“Who among us can dwell with the consuming afire?
Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?”
15 He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly,
who despises the gain of oppressions,
who shakes his hands, lest they hold a bribe,
who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed
and shuts his eyes from looking on evil,
16 he will dwell on the heights;
his place of defense will be the fortresses of rocks;
his bread will be given him; his water will be sure.
17 Your eyes will behold the king in his beauty;
they will see a land that stretches afar.
18 Your heart will muse on the terror:
“Where is he who counted, where is he who weighed the tribute?
Where is he who counted the towers?”
19 You will see no more the insolent people,
the bpeople of an obscure speech that you cannot comprehend,
stammering in a tongue that you cannot understand.
20 Behold Zion, the city of our cappointed feasts!
Your eyes will see Jerusalem,
an untroubled habitation, an immovable dtent,
whose stakes will never be plucked up,
nor will any of its cords be broken.
21 But there the Lord in majesty will be for us
a place of broad rivers and streams,
where no galley with oars can go,
nor majestic ship can pass.
22 For ethe Lord is our judge; the Lord is our lawgiver;
fthe Lord is our king; he will save us.
23 Your cords hang loose;
they cannot hold the mast firm in its place
or keep the sail spread out.
Then prey and spoil in abundance will be divided;
even the lame will take the prey.
24 And no inhabitant will say, “I am sick”;
the people who dwell there will be gforgiven their iniquity.
Greeting
1 Paul, an aapostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
2 To the saints and bfaithful brothers1 in Christ at Colossae:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father.
Thanksgiving and Prayer
3 cWe always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 since dwe heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the ehope flaid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the gword of the truth, the gospel, 6 which has come to you, as indeed hin the whole world it is ibearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you jheard it and understood the grace of God in truth, 7 just as you learned it from kEpaphras our beloved fellow servant.2 He is a faithful minister of Christ on your3 behalf 8 and has made known to us your llove in the Spirit.
9 And so, from the day we heard, we have mnot ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge nof his will in oall spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to pwalk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: qbearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 being rstrengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; 12 giving thanks4 to the Father, who has qualified you5 to share in the sinheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has tdelivered us from the udomain of darkness and vtransferred us to the kingdom of his wbeloved Son, 14 in whom we have xredemption, the yforgiveness of sins.
The Preeminence of Christ
15 He is the zimage of the ainvisible God, bthe firstborn of all creation. 16 For cby6 him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether dthrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is ebefore all things, and in him all things fhold together. 18 And he is the ghead of the body, the church. He is hthe beginning, ithe firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be jpreeminent. 19 For in him all the kfullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him lto reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, mmaking peace by the blood of his cross.
21 And you, nwho once were oalienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now preconciled qin his body of flesh by his death, rin order to present you sholy and blameless and tabove reproach before him, 23 uif indeed you continue in the faith, vstable and wsteadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation7 under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a xminister.
Paul’s Ministry to the Church
24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am yfilling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his zbody, that is, the church, 25 of which I became a minister according to the astewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, 26 the bmystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. 27 To them cGod chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the driches of the glory of this emystery, which is Christ fin you, the ghope of glory. 28 Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone hmature in Christ. 29 For this I toil, struggling iwith all his energy that he powerfully jworks within me.
