Men and Vows
1 Moses spoke to fthe heads of the tribes of the people of Israel, saying, “This is what the Lord has commanded. 2 gIf a man vows a vow to the Lord, or hswears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word. iHe shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.
Women and Vows
3 “If a woman vows a vow to the Lord and binds herself by a pledge, while within her father’s house in her youth, 4 and her father hears of her vow and of her pledge by which she has bound herself and says nothing to her, then all her vows shall stand, and every pledge by which she has bound herself shall stand. 5 But if her father opposes her on the day that he hears of it, no vow of hers, no pledge by which she has bound herself shall stand. And the Lord will forgive her, because her father opposed her.
6 “If she marries a husband, while under her jvows or any thoughtless utterance of her lips by which she has bound herself, 7 and her husband hears of it and says nothing to her on the day that he hears, then her vows shall stand, and her pledges by which she has bound herself shall stand. 8 But if, on the day that her husband comes to hear of it, he opposes her, then he makes void her jvow that was on her, and the thoughtless utterance of her lips by which she bound herself. kAnd the Lord will forgive her. 9 (But any vow of a widow or of a divorced woman, anything by which she has bound herself, shall stand against her.) 10 And if she vowed in her husband’s house or bound herself by a pledge with an oath, 11 and her husband heard of it and said nothing to her and did not oppose her, then all her vows shall stand, and every pledge by which she bound herself shall stand. 12 But if her husband makes them null and void on the day that he hears them, then whatever proceeds out of her lips concerning her vows or concerning her pledge of herself shall not stand. Her husband has made them void, and lthe Lord will forgive her. 13 Any vow and any binding oath to afflict herself,1 her husband may establish,2 or her husband may make void. 14 But if her husband says nothing to her from day to day, then he establishes all her vows or all her pledges that are upon her. He has established them, because he said nothing to her on the day that he heard of them. 15 But if he makes them null and void after he has heard of them, then mhe shall bear her iniquity.”
16 These are the statutes that the Lord commanded Moses about a man and his wife and about a father and his daughter while she is in her youth within her father’s house.
Arise, O God, Defend Your Cause
A Maskil1 of rAsaph.
1 O God, why do you scast us off forever?
Why does your anger tsmoke against uthe sheep of your pasture?
2 vRemember your congregation, which you have wpurchased of old,
which you have xredeemed to be ythe tribe of your heritage!
Remember Mount Zion, zwhere you have dwelt.
3 Direct your steps to athe perpetual ruins;
the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary!
4 Your foes have broared in the midst of your meeting place;
cthey set up their down signs for esigns.
5 They were like those who swing faxes
in a forest of trees.2
6 And all its gcarved wood
they broke down with hatchets and hammers.
7 They hset your sanctuary on fire;
they iprofaned jthe dwelling place of your name,
bringing it down to the ground.
8 They ksaid to themselves, “We will utterly subdue them”;
they burned all the meeting places of God in the land.
9 We do not see our lsigns;
mthere is no longer any prophet,
and there is none among us who knows how long.
10 How long, O God, nis the foe to scoff?
Is the enemy to revile your name forever?
11 Why odo you hold back your hand, your right hand?
Take it from the fold of your garment3 and destroy them!
12 Yet pGod my King is from of old,
working salvation in the midst of the earth.
13 You qdivided the sea by your might;
you rbroke the heads of sthe sea monsters4 on the waters.
14 You crushed the heads of tLeviathan;
you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.
15 You usplit open springs and brooks;
you vdried up ever-flowing streams.
16 Yours is the day, yours also the night;
you have established wthe heavenly lights and the sun.
17 You have xfixed all the boundaries of the earth;
you have made ysummer and winter.
18 zRemember this, O Lord, how the enemy scoffs,
and aa foolish people reviles your name.
19 Do not deliver the soul of your bdove to the wild beasts;
cdo not forget the life of your poor forever.
20 Have regard for dthe covenant,
for ethe dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence.
21 Let not fthe downtrodden gturn back in shame;
let hthe poor and needy praise your name.
22 Arise, O God, idefend your cause;
jremember how the foolish scoff at you all the day!
23 Do not forget the clamor of your foes,
kthe uproar of those who rise against you, which goes up continually!
An Oracle Concerning Jerusalem
1 The voracle concerning wthe valley of vision.
What do you mean that you have gone up,
all of you, to the housetops,
2 you who are full of shoutings,
tumultuous city, xexultant town?
Your slain are ynot slain with the sword
or dead in battle.
3 zAll your leaders have fled together;
without the bow they were captured.
All of you who were found were captured,
though they had fled far away.
4 Therefore I said:
“Look away from me;
alet me weep bitter tears;
do not labor to comfort me
concerning the destruction of the daughter of my people.”
5 bFor the Lord God of hosts has ca day
of tumult and dtrampling and econfusion
in wthe valley of vision,
a battering down of walls
and a shouting to the mountains.
6 And fElam bore the quiver
with chariots and horsemen,
and gKir uncovered the shield.
7 Your choicest valleys were full of chariots,
and the horsemen took their stand at the gates.
8 He has taken away hthe covering of Judah.
In that day you looked to ithe weapons of the House of the Forest, 9 and you saw that jthe breaches of the city of David were many. kYou collected the waters of the lower pool, 10 and you counted the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall. 11 kYou made a reservoir between lthe two walls for the water of mthe old pool. But nyou did not look to him who did it, or see him who planned it long ago.
12 In that day othe Lord God of hosts
called for weeping and mourning,
for pbaldness and qwearing sackcloth;
13 and behold, joy and gladness,
killing oxen and slaughtering sheep,
eating flesh and drinking wine.
r“Let us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die.”
14 The Lord of hosts shas revealed himself in my ears:
“Surely tthis iniquity will not be atoned for you uuntil you die,”
says the Lord God of hosts.
15 Thus says the Lord God of hosts, “Come, go to this steward, to vShebna, who is over the household, and say to him: 16 What have you to do here, and whom have you here, wthat you have cut out here a tomb for yourself, you xwho cut out a tomb on the height and carve a dwelling for yourself in the rock? 17 Behold, the Lord will hurl you away violently, O you strong man. yHe will seize firm hold on you 18 and whirl you around and around, and throw you like a ball into a wide land. There you shall die, and there shall be zyour glorious chariots, you shame of your master’s house. 19 aI will thrust you from your office, and you will be pulled down from your station. 20 In that day I will call my servant bEliakim the son of Hilkiah, 21 and bI will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your sash on him, and will commit your authority to his hand. And he shall be ca father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. 22 And I will place don his shoulder ethe key of the house of David. fHe shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. 23 And I will fasten him glike a peg in a secure place, and he will become ha throne of honor to his father’s house. 24 And they will hang on him the whole honor of his father’s house, the offspring and issue, every small vessel, from the cups to all the flagons. 25 In that day, declares the Lord of hosts, gthe peg that was fastened in a secure place will give way, and it will be cut down and fall, and the load that was on it will be cut off, for the Lord has spoken.”
The Day of the Lord Will Come
1 This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them gI am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, 2 hthat you should remember the predictions of ithe holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, 3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come jin the last days with scoffing, kfollowing their own sinful desires. 4 lThey will say, “Where is the promise of mhis coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” 5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth nwas formed out of water and through water oby the word of God, 6 and that by means of these the world that then existed pwas deluged with water and qperished. 7 But by the same word rthe heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and sdestruction of the ungodly.
8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and ta thousand years as one day. 9 uThe Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise vas some count slowness, but wis patient toward you,1 xnot wishing that any should perish, but ythat all should reach repentance. 10 But zthe day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then athe heavens will pass away with a roar, and bthe heavenly bodies2 will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.3
11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, cwhat sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, 12 dwaiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and ethe heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! 13 But according to his promise we are waiting for fnew heavens and a new earth gin which righteousness dwells.
Final Words
14 hTherefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him iwithout spot or jblemish, and kat peace. 15 And count lthe patience of our Lord as salvation, just as mour beloved brother Paul also wrote to you naccording to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. oThere are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, pas they do the other Scriptures. 17 You therefore, beloved, qknowing this beforehand, rtake care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. 18 But sgrow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. tTo him be the glory both now and to the day of ueternity. Amen.
