Job Replies: The Wicked Do Prosper
1 Then Job answered and said:
2 k“Keep listening to my words,
and let this be your comfort.
3 Bear with me, and I will speak,
and after I have spoken, mock on.
4 As for me, is my lcomplaint against man?
Why should I not be impatient?
5 Look at me and be appalled,
and mlay your hand over your mouth.
6 When I remember, I am dismayed,
and shuddering seizes my flesh.
7 nWhy do the wicked live,
reach old age, and grow mighty in power?
8 Their offspring are established in their presence,
and their descendants before their eyes.
9 oTheir houses are safe from fear,
and no prod of God is upon them.
10 Their bull breeds without fail;
their cow calves and does qnot miscarry.
11 They send out their little boys like a flock,
and their children dance.
12 They sing to the tambourine and the lyre
and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.
13 They spend their days in prosperity,
and in peace they go down to Sheol.
14 rThey say to God, ‘Depart from us!
We do not desire the knowledge of your ways.
15 What is the Almighty, that we should serve him?
And swhat profit do we get if we pray to him?’
16 Behold, is not their prosperity in their hand?
The tcounsel of the wicked is far from me.
17 “How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out?
That their calamity comes upon them?
That God1 distributes pains in his anger?
18 That they are like straw before the wind,
and like chaff that the storm carries away?
19 You say, ‘God stores up their iniquity ufor their children.’
Let him pay it out to them, that they may know it.
20 Let their own eyes see their destruction,
and let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
21 For what do they care for their houses after them,
when the vnumber of their months is cut off?
22 Will any teach God knowledge,
seeing that he judges those who are on high?
23 One dies in his full vigor,
being wholly at ease and secure,
24 his pails2 full of milk
and the marrow of his bones moist.
25 Another dies in bitterness of soul,
never having tasted of prosperity.
26 They lie down walike xin the dust,
and the worms cover them.
27 “Behold, I know your thoughts
and your schemes to wrong me.
28 For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince?
Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’
29 Have you not asked those who travel the roads,
and do you not accept their testimony
30 that the evil man is spared in the day of calamity,
that he is rescued in the day of wrath?
31 Who declares his way to his face,
and who repays him for what he has done?
32 When he is carried to the grave,
watch is kept over his tomb.
33 The clods of the valley are sweet to him;
all mankind follows after him,
and those who go before him are innumerable.
34 How then will you comfort me with empty nothings?
There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood.”
Teach Me Your Paths
1 Of David.
1 vTo you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
2 wO my God, in you I trust;
let me not be put to shame;
let not my enemies exult over me.
3 Indeed, xnone who ywait for you shall be zput to shame;
they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.
4 aMake me to know your ways, O Lord;
teach me your paths.
5 Lead me bin your truth and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all the day long.
6 Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love,
for they have been from of old.
7 cRemember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
daccording to your steadfast love remember me,
efor the sake of your goodness, O Lord!
8 Good and upright is the Lord;
therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
9 He leads the humble in what is right,
and teaches the humble his way.
10 All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness,
for those who fkeep his covenant and his testimonies.
11 gFor your name’s sake, O Lord,
hpardon my guilt, for it is great.
12 Who is the man who fears the Lord?
Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose.
13 His soul shall abide in well-being,
and ihis offspring shall inherit the land.
14 The jfriendship2 of the Lord is for those who fear him,
and he makes known to them his covenant.
15 My eyes are ever toward the Lord,
for khe will pluck my feet out of the net.
16 lTurn to me and be gracious to me,
mfor I am lonely and afflicted.
17 The troubles of my heart are enlarged;
bring me out of my distresses.
18 Consider my affliction and my trouble,
and forgive all my sins.
19 Consider how many are my foes,
and with what violent hatred they hate me.
20 Oh, guard my soul, and deliver me!
Let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.
21 May integrity and uprightness preserve me,
for I wait for you.
22 nRedeem Israel, O God,
out of all his troubles.
Ahaz Reigns in Judah
1 eAhaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father David had done, 2 but he fwalked in the ways of the kings of Israel. He even made gmetal images for the Baals, 3 and he made offerings in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom and hburned his sons as an offering,1 iaccording to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. 4 And he sacrificed and made offerings on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.
Judah Defeated
5 jTherefore the Lord his God gave him into the hand of the king of Syria, who defeated him and took captive a great number of his people and brought them to Damascus. He was also given into the hand of the king of Israel, who struck him with great force. 6 For kPekah the son of Remaliah killed 120,000 from Judah in one day, all of them men of valor, because they had lforsaken the Lord, the God of their fathers. 7 And Zichri, a mighty man of Ephraim, killed Maaseiah the king’s son and Azrikam the commander of the palace and Elkanah the next in authority to the king.
8 The men of Israel took captive 200,000 of their relatives, women, sons, and daughters. They also took much spoil from them and brought the spoil to Samaria. 9 But a prophet of the Lord was there, whose name was Oded, and he went out to meet the army that came to Samaria and said to them, “Behold, because the Lord, the God of your fathers, was angry with Judah, he gave them into your hand, mbut you have killed them in a rage that has reached up to heaven. 10 And now you intend to subjugate the people of Judah and Jerusalem, male and female, nas your slaves. Have you not sins of your own against the Lord your God? 11 Now hear me, and send back the captives from your relatives whom you have taken, for the fierce wrath of the Lord is upon you.”
12 Certain chiefs also of the men of Ephraim, Azariah the son of Johanan, Berechiah the son of Meshillemoth, Jehizkiah the son of Shallum, and Amasa the son of Hadlai, stood up against those who were coming from the war 13 and said to them, “You shall not bring the captives in here, for you propose to bring upon us guilt against the Lord in addition to our present sins and guilt. For our guilt is already great, and there is fierce wrath against Israel.” 14 So the armed men left the captives and the spoil before the princes and all the assembly. 15 And the men who have been mentioned by name rose and took the captives, and with the spoil they clothed all who were naked among them. They clothed them, gave them sandals, provided them with food and drink, and anointed them, and carrying all the feeble among them on donkeys, they brought them to their kinsfolk at Jericho, the city of palm trees. Then they returned to Samaria.
16 At that time King Ahaz osent to the king2 of Assyria for help. 17 For the Edomites had again invaded and defeated Judah and carried away captives. 18 And the pPhilistines had made raids on the cities in the Shephelah and the Negeb of Judah, and had taken Beth-shemesh, Aijalon, Gederoth, Soco with its villages, Timnah with its villages, and Gimzo with its villages. And they settled there. 19 For the Lord humbled Judah because of Ahaz king of Israel, for he had made Judah act sinfully3 and had been very qunfaithful to the Lord. 20 So rTiglath-pileser4 king of Assyria scame against him and afflicted him instead of strengthening him. 21 For Ahaz ttook a portion from the house of the Lord and the house of the king and of the princes, and gave tribute to the king of Assyria, but it did not help him.
Ahaz’s Idolatry
22 uIn the time of his distress he became yet more faithless to the Lord—this same King Ahaz. 23 For he sacrificed to the gods of Damascus that had defeated him and said, “Because the gods of the kings of Syria helped them, I will sacrifice to them that they may help me.” But they were the ruin of him and of all Israel. 24 And Ahaz gathered together the vessels of the house of God and cut in pieces the vessels of the house of God, and he shut up the doors of the house of the Lord, and he made himself valtars in every corner of Jerusalem. 25 In every city of Judah he made high places to make offerings to other gods, provoking to anger the Lord, the God of his fathers. 26 Now the rest of his acts and all his ways, from first to last, behold, they are written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel. 27 And Ahaz wslept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city, in Jerusalem, for they xdid not bring him into the tombs of the kings of Israel. And Hezekiah his son reigned in his place.
The Coming Day of Bitter Mourning
1 This is what the Lord God showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit. 2 And he said, “Amos, rwhat do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me,
“The end1 has come upon my people Israel;
I will never again pass by them.
3 The songs of the temple2 shall become wailings3 in that day,”
declares the Lord God.
“So many dead bodies!”
“They are thrown everywhere!”
s“Silence!”
4 Hear this, you who ttrample on the needy
and bring the poor of the land to an end,
5 saying, “When will the unew moon be over,
that we may sell grain?
And the Sabbath,
that we may offer wheat for sale,
that we may make the ephah small and the shekel4 great
and deal deceitfully with vfalse balances,
6 that we may wbuy the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals
and sell the chaff of the wheat?”
7 The Lord has sworn by the xpride of Jacob:
“Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
8 Shall not the land tremble on this account,
and everyone mourn who dwells in it,
and all of it yrise like the Nile,
and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?”
9 “And on that day,” declares the Lord God,
z“I will make the sun go down at noon
and adarken the earth in broad daylight.
10 I will turn your feasts into mourning
and ball your songs into lamentation;
cI will bring sackcloth on every waist
and dbaldness on every head;
I will make it like the mourning efor an only son
and the end of it like a bitter day.
11 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God,
“when I will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
but fof hearing the words of the Lord.
12 They shall wander from sea to sea,
and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord,
but they shall not find it.
13 “In that day the lovely virgins and the young men
shall faint for thirst.
14 Those who swear by the Guilt of Samaria,
and say, ‘As your god lives, O Dan,’
and, ‘As the Way of gBeersheba lives,’
they shall fall, and never rise again.”
1 Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. 2 For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.1 3 For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,
x“As I swore in my wrath,
‘They shall not enter my rest,’”
although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: y“And God zrested on the seventh day from all his works.” 5 And again in this passage he said,
a“They shall not enter my rest.”
6 Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, 7 again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted,
b“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts.”
8 For if Joshua had given them crest, God2 would not have spoken of another day later on. 9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of ddisobedience. 12 For the word of God is eliving and factive, gsharper than any two-edged hsword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And ino creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must jgive account.
Jesus the Great High Priest
14 Since then we have a great khigh priest who has passed lthrough the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us mhold fast our nconfession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our oweaknesses, but one who pin every respect has been qtempted as we are, yet rwithout sin. 16 Let us then with sconfidence tdraw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
