Job Replies: God’s Majesty Is Unsearchable
1 Then Job answered and said:
2 “How you have helped him who has no power!
How you have saved the arm that has no strength!
3 tHow you have counseled him who has no wisdom,
and plentifully declared sound knowledge!
4 With whose help have you uttered words,
and uwhose breath has come out from you?
5 The dead tremble
under the waters and their inhabitants.
6 vSheol is naked before God,1
and Abaddon has no covering.
7 He stretches out the north over the void
and hangs the earth on nothing.
8 He binds up the waters in his thick clouds,
and the cloud is not split open under them.
9 He covers the face of the full moon2
and spreads over it his cloud.
10 He has winscribed a circle on the face of the waters
at the boundary between light and darkness.
11 xThe pillars of heaven tremble
and are astounded at his rebuke.
12 yBy his power he stilled the sea;
by his understanding he shattered zRahab.
13 By his wind the heavens were made fair;
his hand pierced athe fleeing serpent.
14 Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways,
and how small a whisper do we hear of him!
But the thunder of his power who can understand?”
Joy Comes with the Morning
A Psalm of David. A song at the hdedication of the temple.
1 iI will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up
and have not let my foes rejoice over me.
2 O Lord my God, I cried to you for help,
and you have jhealed me.
3 O Lord, you have kbrought up my soul from Sheol;
you restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit.1
4 Sing praises to the Lord, O you his saints,
and lgive thanks to his holy name.2
5 For his anger is but for a moment,
and his favor is for a lifetime.3
Weeping may tarry for the night,
but joy comes with the morning.
6 As for me, I said in my prosperity,
“I shall never be moved.”
7 By your favor, O Lord,
you made my mountain stand strong;
you mhid your face;
I was dismayed.
8 To you, O Lord, I cry,
and to the Lord I nplead for mercy:
9 “What profit is there in my death,4
if I go down to the pit?5
oWill the dust praise you?
Will it tell of your faithfulness?
10 pHear, O Lord, and be merciful to me!
O Lord, be my helper!”
11 You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;
you have loosed my sackcloth
and clothed me with gladness,
12 that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent.
O Lord my God, qI will give thanks to you forever!
Manasseh Reigns in Judah
1 tManasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. 2 And he udid what was evil in the sight of the Lord, vaccording to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. 3 For he rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had wbroken down, and he erected altars to the Baals, and xmade Asheroth, and worshiped all the yhost of heaven and served them. 4 And he built altars zin the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, a“In Jerusalem shall my name be forever.” 5 And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. 6 And he bburned his sons as an offering in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, and used cfortune-telling and omens and dsorcery, and dealt with emediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. 7 And the carved image of the idol that he had made he set in the house of God, fof which God said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever, 8 gand I will no more remove the foot of Israel from the land that I appointed for your fathers, if only they will be careful to do all that I have commanded them, all the law, the statutes, and the rules given through Moses.” 9 Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray, to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the people of Israel.
Manasseh’s Repentance
10 The Lord spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they paid no attention. 11 Therefore the Lord brought upon them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh with hooks and hbound him with chains of bronze and brought him to Babylon. 12 And when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the Lord his God and ihumbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. 13 He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God.
14 Afterward he built an outer wall for the city of David west of Gihon, in the valley, and for the entrance into the Fish Gate, and carried it around Ophel, and raised it to a very great height. He also put commanders of the army in all the fortified cities in Judah. 15 And he took away the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built on the mountain of the house of the Lord and in Jerusalem, and he threw them outside of the city. 16 He also restored the altar of the Lord and offered on it sacrifices of peace offerings and of thanksgiving, and he commanded Judah to serve the Lord, the God of Israel. 17 Nevertheless, the people still sacrificed at the high places, but only to the Lord their God.
18 Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and his prayer to his God, and the words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of the Lord, the God of Israel, behold, they are in the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. 19 And his prayer, and how God was moved by his entreaty, and all his sin and his faithlessness, and the sites on which he built high places and set up the Asherim and the images, before he humbled himself, behold, they are written in the Chronicles of the Seers.1 20 So Manasseh slept with his fathers, and they buried him in his house, and Amon his son reigned in his place.
Amon’s Reign and Death
21 jAmon was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem. 22 And he kdid what was evil in the sight of the Lord, as Manasseh his father had done. Amon sacrificed to all the images that Manasseh his father had made, and served them. 23 And he did not humble himself before the Lord, as Manasseh his father had humbled himself, but this Amon incurred guilt more and more. 24 And his servants lconspired against him and put him to death in his house. 25 But the people of the land struck down all those who had conspired against King Amon. And the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his place.
Jonah Goes to Nineveh
1 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the asecond time, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that bgreat city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city,1 three days’ journey in breadth.2 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5 cAnd the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.
The People of Nineveh Repent
6 The word reached3 the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither dman nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, 8 but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them ecall out mightily to God. Let everyone fturn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. 9 gWho knows? hGod may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”
10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God irelented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
The Earthly Holy Place
1 Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness. 2 For a utent1 was prepared, the first section, in which were the vlampstand and the wtable and the xbread of the Presence.2 It is called the Holy Place. 3 Behind the second curtain was a second section3 called the yMost Holy Place, 4 having the zgolden altar of incense and the aark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden urn holding the bmanna, and cAaron’s staff that dbudded, and the etablets of the covenant. 5 Above it were the fcherubim of glory overshadowing the gmercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.
6 These preparations having thus been made, hthe priests go regularly into the first section, performing their ritual duties, 7 but into the second only the high priest goes, and he but ionce a year, and not without taking blood, which he offers jfor himself and for the unintentional sins of the people. 8 By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the kway into the holy places is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing 9 (which is symbolic for the present age).4 According to this arrangement, lgifts and sacrifices are offered mthat cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, 10 but deal only with food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation.
Redemption Through the Blood of Christ
11 But when Christ appeared as a nhigh priest of the ogood things that have come,5 then through the greater and more perfect ptent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) 12 he qentered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and rthe sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify6 for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered shimself without blemish to God, tpurify our7 uconscience from vdead works to serve the living God.
15 Therefore he is the wmediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal xinheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.8 16 For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. 17 For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. 18 Therefore ynot even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. 19 For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and zscarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, 20 saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.” 21 And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. 22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and awithout the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
23 Thus it was necessary for the bcopies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ has entered, not into holy places cmade with hands, which are copies of the dtrue things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, 26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has eappeared fonce for all at the gend of the ages to hput away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and iafter that comes judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to jbear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly kwaiting for him.
