Judgment on the Nations
1 hDraw near, O nations, to hear,
and give attention, O peoples!
iLet the earth hear, and all that fills it;
the world, and all that comes from it.
2 For the Lord is enraged against all the nations,
and furious against all their host;
he has devoted them to destruction,1 has given them over for slaughter.
3 Their slain shall be cast out,
and the stench of their corpses shall rise;
the mountains shall flow with their blood.
4 jAll the host of heaven shall rot away,
and the skies kroll up like a scroll.
All their host shall lfall,
as leaves fall from the vine,
like leaves falling from the fig tree.
5 For my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens;
behold, it descends for judgment upon mEdom,
upon the people I have devoted to destruction.
6 The Lord has a nsword; it is sated with blood;
it is gorged with fat,
with the blood of lambs and goats,
with the fat of the kidneys of rams.
For the Lord has a osacrifice in Bozrah,
a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
7 Wild oxen shall fall with them,
and young steers with the mighty bulls.
Their land shall drink its fill of blood,
and their soil shall be gorged with fat.
8 pFor the Lord has a qday of vengeance,
a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.
9 And the streams of Edom2 shall be turned into pitch,
and her soil into sulfur;
her land shall become burning pitch.
10 Night and day rit shall not be quenched;
sits smoke shall go up forever.
From generation to generation it shall lie waste;
none shall pass through it forever and ever.
11 But the hawk and the porcupine3 shall possess it,
the owl and the raven shall dwell in it.
He shall stretch the tline of confusion4 over it,
and the plumb line of emptiness.
12 Its nobles—there is no one there to call it a kingdom,
and all its princes shall be nothing.
13 Thorns shall grow over its strongholds,
nettles and thistles in its fortresses.
It shall be the haunt of jackals,
an abode for ostriches.5
14 And wild animals shall meet with hyenas;
the wild goat shall cry to his fellow;
indeed, there the night bird6 settles
and finds for herself a resting place.
15 There the owl nests and lays
and hatches and gathers her young in her shadow;
indeed, there the hawks are gathered,
each one with her mate.
16 Seek and read from the book of the Lord:
Not one of these shall be missing;
none shall be without her mate.
For the mouth of the Lord has commanded,
and his Spirit has gathered them.
17 He has cast the lot for them;
his hand has portioned it out to them with the line;
they shall possess it forever;
from generation to generation they shall dwell in it.
The Ransomed Shall Return
1 uThe wilderness and the dry land shall be glad;
the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus;
2 it shall blossom abundantly
and rejoice with joy and singing.
The glory of vLebanon shall be given to it,
the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.
wThey shall see the glory of the Lord,
the majesty of our God.
3 xStrengthen the weak hands,
and make firm the feeble knees.
4 Say to those who have an anxious heart,
“Be strong; fear not!
Behold, your God
will come with yvengeance,
with the recompense of God.
He will come and save you.”
5 Then zthe eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
6 then shall the lame man aleap like a deer,
and the tongue of the bmute sing for joy.
For waters break forth in the wilderness,
and cstreams in the desert;
7 the burning sand shall become a pool,
and the thirsty ground springs of water;
in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down,
the grass shall become reeds and rushes.
8 And a dhighway shall be there,
and it shall be called the Way of Holiness;
ethe unclean shall not pass over it.
It shall belong to those who walk on the way;
even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.7
9 No lion shall be there,
nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;
they shall not be found there,
but the fredeemed shall walk there.
10 gAnd the ransomed of the Lord shall return
and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain gladness and joy,
and hsorrow and sighing shall flee away.
Sennacherib Invades Judah
1 iIn the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. 2 And the king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh8 from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem, with a great army. And he stood by the jconduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Washer’s Field. 3 And there came out to him Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder.
4 And the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you rest this ktrust of yours? 5 Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? In whom do you now trust, that you have lrebelled against me? 6 Behold, you are trusting in Egypt, that broken mreed of a staff, which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him. 7 But if you say to me, “We ntrust in the Lord our God,” is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has oremoved, psaying to Judah and to Jerusalem, “You shall worship before this altar”? 8 Come now, make a wager with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. 9 How then can you repulse a single captain among the least of my master’s servants, when you trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? 10 Moreover, is it without the Lord that I have come up against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, “Go up against this land and destroy it.”’”
11 Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” 12 But the Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?”
13 Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in the language of Judah: “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria! 14 Thus says the king: q‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you. 15 Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord by saying, “The Lord will surely deliver us. This city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” 16 Do not listen to Hezekiah. For thus says the king of Assyria: Make your peace with me9 and come out to me. Then each one of you will eat of rhis own vine, and each one of his own fig tree, and each one of you will drink the water of his own cistern, 17 until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards. 18 Beware lest Hezekiah mislead you by saying, “The Lord will deliver us.” sHas any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? 19 tWhere are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? uHave they delivered Samaria out of my hand? 20 Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their lands out of my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’”
21 But they were silent and answered him not a word, for the king’s command was, “Do not answer him.” 22 Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.
1 For I want you to know how great a kstruggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, 2 that their hearts may be lencouraged, being mknit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s nmystery, which is Christ, 3 oin whom are hidden pall the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. 5 For though I am qabsent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good rorder and the sfirmness of your faith in Christ.
Alive in Christ
6 Therefore, tas you ureceived Christ Jesus the Lord, so vwalk in him, 7 wrooted and xbuilt up in him and established in the faith, just as you were ytaught, abounding in thanksgiving.
8 See to it that no one ztakes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human atradition, according to the belemental spirits1 of the world, and not according to Christ. 9 For in him the whole cfullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and dyou have been filled in him, who is the ehead of all rule and authority. 11 In him also you were fcircumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by gputting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been hburied with him in ibaptism, in which you were also jraised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, kwho raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were ldead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 mby ncanceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the orulers and authorities2 and put them to open shame, by ptriumphing over them in him.3
Let No One Disqualify You
16 Therefore qlet no one pass judgment on you in questions of rfood and drink, or swith regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a tshadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. 18 Let no one udisqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions,4 vpuffed up wwithout reason by his sensuous mind, 19 and not holding fast to the xHead, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.
20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, ywhy, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— 21 z“Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” 22 a(referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to bhuman precepts and teachings? 23 These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in cstopping the indulgence of the flesh.
