²⁷ “But ^(A)if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me, ²⁸ then I will walk contrary to you ^(B)in fury, and I myself will discipline you ^(C)sevenfold for your sins. ^29 (D)You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. ³⁰ And ^(E)I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and ^(F)cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols, and my soul will abhor you. ³¹ And I will ^(G)lay your cities waste and will ^(H)make your sanctuaries desolate, and ^(I)I will not smell your pleasing aromas. ³² And ^(J)I myself will devastate the land, so that your enemies who settle in it shall be ^(K)appalled at it. ³³ And ^(L)I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.

^34 (M)“Then the land shall enjoy^[a] its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies' land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths. ³⁵ As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were dwelling in it. ³⁶ And as for those of you who are left, ^(N)I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The ^(O)sound of a ^(P)driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall when none pursues. ³⁷ They shall stumble over one another, as if to escape a sword, though none pursues. And ^(Q)you shall have no power to stand before your enemies. ³⁸ And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. ³⁹ And those of you who are left shall ^(R)rot away in your enemies' lands because of their iniquity, and also because of the iniquities of their fathers they shall rot away like them.

⁴⁰ “But if ^(S)they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they ^(T)committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me, ⁴¹ so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—if then their ^(U)uncircumcised heart is ^(V)humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, ⁴² then I will ^(W)remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will ^(X)remember the land. ⁴³ But ^(Y)the land shall be abandoned by them and enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them, and they shall make amends for their iniquity, because they spurned my rules and their soul abhorred my statutes. ⁴⁴ Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, ^(Z)I will not spurn them, neither will I abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and ^(AA)break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God. ⁴⁵ But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers, ^(AB)whom I brought out of the land of Egypt ^(AC)in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the Lord.”

^46 (AD)These are the statutes and rules and laws that the Lord made between himself and the people of Israel through Moses ^(AE)on Mount Sinai.

Hezekiah and the Babylonian Envoys

^12 (A)At that time ^(B)Merodach-baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, ^(C)sent envoys with letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that Hezekiah had been sick. ¹³ And Hezekiah welcomed them, and he showed them ^(D)all his treasure house, the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oil, his armory, all that was found in his storehouses. There was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them. ¹⁴ Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah, and said to him, “What did these men say? And from where did they come to you?” And Hezekiah said, “They have come from a far country, from Babylon.” ¹⁵ He said, “What have they seen in your house?” And Hezekiah answered, “They have seen all that is in my house; there is nothing in my storehouses that I did not show them.”

¹⁶ Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord: ¹⁷ Behold, the days are coming, when ^(E)all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord. ^18 (F)And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, ^(G)and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” ¹⁹ Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, ^(H)“The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “Why not, if there will be peace and security in my days?”

^20 (I)The rest of the deeds of Hezekiah and all his might and how he made ^(J)the pool and the conduit ^(K)and brought water into the city, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? ^21 (L)And Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and Manasseh his son reigned in his place.

^14 (A)Can your courage endure, or can your hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with you? ^(B)I the Lord have spoken, and I will do it. ^15 (C)I will scatter you among the nations and disperse you through the countries, and ^(D)I will consume your uncleanness out of you. ¹⁶ And ^(E)you shall be profaned by your own doing ^(F)in the sight of the nations, ^(G)and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

¹⁷ And the word of the Lord came to me: ^18 (H)“Son of man, the house of Israel has become ^(I)dross to me; all of them are ^(J)bronze and tin and iron and lead in the furnace; they are ^(K)dross of silver. ¹⁹ Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have all become dross, therefore, behold, I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem. ²⁰ As one gathers silver and bronze and iron and lead and tin into a furnace, ^(L)to blow the fire on it in order to melt it, so I will gather you ^(M)in my anger and in my wrath, and I will put you in and melt you. ²¹ I will gather you and blow on you with the fire of my wrath, and you shall be melted in the midst of it. ²² As silver is melted in a furnace, so you shall be melted in the midst of it, and you shall know that I am the Lord; ^(N)I have poured out my wrath upon you.”

²³ And the word of the Lord came to me: ²⁴ “Son of man, say to her, You are a land that is ^(O)not cleansed ^(P)or rained upon in the day of indignation. ^25 (Q)The conspiracy of her prophets in her midst is ^(R)like a roaring lion ^(S)tearing the prey; they have devoured human lives; they have taken treasure and precious things; they have made many widows in her midst. ^26 (T)Her priests ^(U)have done violence to my law and ^(V)have profaned my holy things. ^(W)They have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they taught the difference between the unclean and the clean, and ^(X)they have disregarded my Sabbaths, ^(Y)so that I am profaned among them. ^27 (Z)Her princes in her midst are like wolves ^(AA)tearing the prey, ^(AB)shedding blood, destroying lives to get dishonest gain. ²⁸ And ^(AC)her prophets have smeared whitewash for them, ^(AD)seeing false visions and divining lies for them, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord God,’ when the Lord has not spoken. ²⁹ The people of the land ^(AE)have practiced extortion and committed robbery. They have oppressed the poor and needy, and ^(AF)have extorted from the sojourner without justice. ^30 (AG)And I sought for a man among them ^(AH)who should build up the wall ^(AI)and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none. ³¹ Therefore ^(AJ)I have poured out my indignation upon them. I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath. I have returned ^(AK)their way upon their heads, declares the Lord God.”

Help Me, O Lord My God

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.

⁴³ Woe to you Pharisees! For ^(A)you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. ⁴⁴ Woe to you! ^(B)For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it.”

⁴⁵ One of ^(C)the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.” ⁴⁶ And he said, “Woe to you ^(D)lawyers also! For ^(E)you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. ^47 (F)Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. ^48 (G)So you are witnesses and you ^(H)consent to the deeds of ^(I)your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. ⁴⁹ Therefore also ^(J)the Wisdom of God said, ^(K)‘I will send them ^(L)prophets and apostles, ^(M)some of whom they will ^(N)kill and persecute,’ ⁵⁰ so that ^(O)the blood of all the prophets, shed ^(P)from the foundation of the world, may be ^(Q)charged against this generation, ⁵¹ from the blood of ^(R)Abel to the blood of ^(S)Zechariah, who perished between ^(T)the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be ^(U)required of this generation. ⁵² Woe to you ^(V)lawyers! ^(W)For you have taken away the key of ^(X)knowledge. You ^(Y)did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”

⁵³ As he went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things, ^54 (Z)lying in wait for him, ^(AA)to catch him in something he might say.

Concern for the Corinthian Church

^11 (A)I have been a fool! You forced me to it, for I ought to have been commended by you. For I was ^(B)not at all inferior to these super-apostles, ^(C)even though I am nothing. ^12 (D)The signs of a true apostle were performed among you ^(E)with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works. ¹³ For in what were you less favored than the rest of the churches, except that ^(F)I myself did not burden you? Forgive me this wrong!

¹⁴ Here ^(G)for the third time I am ready to come to you. And I will not be a burden, for ^(H)I seek not what is yours but you. For ^(I)children are not obligated to save up for their parents, but ^(J)parents for their children. ^15 (K)I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If ^(L)I love you more, am I to be loved less? ¹⁶ But granting that ^(M)I myself did not burden you, I was crafty, you say, and got the better of you by deceit. ¹⁷ Did I take advantage of you ^(N)through any of those whom I sent to you? ^18 (O)I urged Titus to go, and sent ^(P)the brother with him. Did Titus take advantage of you? Did we not act in the same spirit? Did we not take the same steps?

¹⁹ Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves to you? It is ^(Q)in the sight of God that we have been speaking in Christ, and ^(R)all for your upbuilding, beloved. ²⁰ For I fear that perhaps ^(S)when I come I may find you not as I wish, and that you may find me not as you wish—that perhaps there may be quarreling, jealousy, anger, hostility, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder. ²¹ I fear that when I come again my God may humble me before you, and I may have to mourn over many of those ^(T)who sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, ^(U)sexual immorality, and sensuality that they have practiced.