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Concerning Moab
15 An oracle about Moab.
Ar was devastated in a night; Moab is ruined!
Kir was devastated in a night; Moab is ruined!
2 Dibon has gone up to the temple, to the shrines to weep.[a]
Moab wails over Nebo and over Medeba.
Every head is shaved,
every beard cut off.
3 In its streets they wear mourning clothes;
on its rooftops and in its plazas, everyone wails and falls down weeping.
4 Heshbon and Elealeh cry out;
as far as Jahaz their voice is heard.
The armed men of Moab shout,
spirits trembling.
5 My heart cries out for Moab.
Its fugitives flee to Zoar, to Eglath-shelishiyah.[b]
At the ascent of Luhith,
each will go up with weeping.
On the road to Horonaim,
they will raise a piercing cry.
6 The waters of Nimrim are used up.
Grass has withered;
vegetation is dead;
greenery is gone.
7 Therefore, they carry what they had stored up,
all their provisions to the Valley of the Willows.
8 An outcry sounds within the borders of Moab,
as far as Eglaim, a cry of distress,
as far as Beer-elim, a cry of distress.
9 The waters of Dibon are full of blood.
But I will bring still more upon Dibon:
a lion for Moab’s survivors, for the remaining few in the land.
16 Send lambs to the ruler of the land,[c]
from Sela through the desert
to the mountain of Daughter Zion.
2 The daughters of Moab at the fords of the Arnon are like orphaned birds pushed from the nest.
3 Consider carefully, act justly;
at high noon provide your shade like night.
Hide the outcasts;
keep the fugitives hidden.
4 Let the outcasts of Moab live among you.
Be a hiding place for them from the destroyer.
When the oppressor is no more,
when destruction has ceased,
when the trampler has vanished from the land,
5 a throne will be established based on goodness,
and someone will sit faithfully on it in David’s dwelling[d]—
a judge who seeks justice and timely righteousness.
6 We have heard of Moab’s pride,
his great pride,
his outrageous pride and arrogance,
his empty boasting.
7 Therefore, let Moab wail;
let everyone wail for Moab.
Let them moan, utterly stricken, for the raisin cakes of Kir-hareseth.
8 The fields of Heshbon languish.
The vines of Sibmah,
whose honored grapes overpowered masters of nations,
had reached as far as Jazer and strayed to the desert.
Their tendrils spread out and crossed the sea.
9 Therefore, I will weep with Jazer’s weeping for the vines of Sibmah.
I will drench you with my tears, Heshbon and Elealeh.
Cheers have fallen silent concerning your summer fruit and your grain harvest.
10 Joy and happiness have been harvested from the farmland,
and in the vineyards no one sings, no one shouts.
No treader crushes grapes in the wine vats;
I have brought the cheers to an end.
11 Therefore, my heart plays sadly like a harp for Moab,
my inner being for Kir-heres.
12 Even if Moab presents himself,
and Moab wears himself out going to the shrine,
and comes to his sanctuary to pray,
he won’t prevail.
13 This is the word that the Lord had spoken concerning Moab long ago. 14 But now the Lord has said: In three years, like the years of a hired worker, the glory of Moab, with all its great multitude, will dwindle. The small remnant will be few and feeble.
Concerning Damascus and Ephraim
17 An oracle about Damascus.
Look! Damascus is finished as a city;
it will become a fallen ruin.
2 The villages of Aroer are abandoned forever.[e]
They will be pastures for flocks,[f]
which will lie down undisturbed.
3 Ephraim’s security will cease,
as will Damascus’ rule.
What’s left of Aram will resemble the glory of the Israelites,
says the Lord of heavenly forces.
4 On that day, Jacob’s glory will dwindle;
his sleek body will waste away.
5 It will be as when harvesters gather grain.
God will harvest armfuls at a time,
like one who gathers grain
in the Rephaim Valley.
6 Only remaining bits are left,
like an olive tree that has been shaken:
two or three olives on the highest branch;
four or five on a fruitful twig,
says the Lord God of Israel.
7 On that day, people will have regard for their maker,
and their eyes will look to the holy one of Israel.
8 They will have no regard for altars,
the work of their hands,
or look to what their fingers made:
sacred poles[g] and incense stands.
9 On that day, their strong cities will be like those abandoned by the Hivites and the Amorites;[h] abandoned because of the Israelites. They will be a wasteland,
10 because you forgot the God who saves you,
and didn’t remember the rock who shelters you.
Therefore, plant your pleasant plants,
and set out exotic sprouts;
11 make them grow the day you plant them,
and make them bloom the morning you start them.
But the harvest will disappear on a day of sickness and incurable pain.
12 Doom to the raging of many peoples;
like the thundering seas they thunder.
Doom to the roar of nations,
like the roaring of mighty waters.
13 Nations roar like the roaring of rushing waters.
But God will rebuke them,
and they will flee far away,
pursued like chaff by wind in the mountains,
like tumbleweeds before a storm.
14 In the evening, there is terror;
but before morning it is gone.
This is the fate of those who loot us,
the destiny of those who rob us.
Concerning Cush
18 Doom to the land of winged ships,
beyond the rivers of Cush
2 that sends messengers by sea,
reed vessels on the water.
Go, swift messengers,
to a nation tall and clean-shaven,
to a people feared near and far,
a nation barbaric and oppressive,
whose land the rivers divide.
3 All you who inhabit the world,
who live on earth,
when a signal is raised on the mountains, you will see!
When the trumpet blasts, you will hear!
4 The Lord said to me:
I will quietly watch from my own place,
like the shimmering heat of sunshine,
like a cloud’s shade in the harvest heat.
5 Before the harvest, when the bloom is finished, when the blossom is becoming
a ripening fruit,
God will cut the shoots with a pruning knife,
and lop off the spreading branches.
6 They will all be left to the mountain birds
and to the beasts of the land.
The birds will eat them in summer,
all the beasts of the land in winter.
7 At that time, gifts will be brought to the Lord of heavenly forces
from a tall and clean-shaven people
and from a people feared near and far,
a nation barbaric and oppressive,
whose land the rivers divide,
to the place of the name of the Lord of heavenly forces,
to Mount Zion.
Greeting
1 From Paul, an apostle who is not sent from human authority or commissioned through human agency, but sent through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead; 2 and from all the brothers and sisters with me.
To the churches in Galatia.
3 Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 4 He gave himself for our sins, so he could deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father. 5 To God be the glory forever and always! Amen.
The gospel challenged in Galatia
6 I’m amazed that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ to follow another gospel. 7 It’s not really another gospel, but certain people are confusing you and they want to change the gospel of Christ. 8 However, even if we ourselves or a heavenly angel should ever preach anything different from what we preached to you, they should be under a curse. 9 I’m repeating what we’ve said before: if anyone preaches something different from what you received, they should be under a curse!
Paul’s leadership
10 Am I trying to win over human beings or God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I wouldn’t be Christ’s slave. 11 Brothers and sisters, I want you to know that the gospel I preached isn’t human in origin. 12 I didn’t receive it or learn it from a human. It came through a revelation from Jesus Christ.
13 You heard about my previous life in Judaism, how severely I harassed God’s church and tried to destroy it. 14 I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my peers, because I was much more militant about the traditions of my ancestors. 15 But God had set me apart from birth and called me through his grace. He was pleased 16 to reveal his Son to me, so that I might preach about him to the Gentiles. I didn’t immediately consult with any human being. 17 I didn’t go up to Jerusalem to see the men who were apostles before me either, but I went away into Arabia and I returned again to Damascus. 18 Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days. 19 But I didn’t see any other of the apostles except James the brother of the Lord. 20 Before God, I’m not lying about the things that I’m writing to you! 21 Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, 22 but I wasn’t known personally by the Christian churches in Judea. 23 They only heard a report about me: “The man who used to harass us now preaches the faith that he once tried to destroy.” 24 So they were glorifying God because of me.
Psalm 58
For the music leader. Do not destroy. A psalm of David, a miktam.[a]
58 Do you really speak what is right, you gods?
Do you really judge humans fairly?
2 No: in your hearts you plan injustice;
your hands do violence on the earth.
3 The wicked backslide from the womb;
liars go astray from birth.
4 Their venom is like a snake’s venom—
like a deaf cobra’s—one that shuts its ears
5 so it can’t hear the snake charmer’s voice
or the spells of a skillful enchanter.
6 God, break their teeth out of their mouths!
Tear out the lions’ jawbones, Lord!
7 Let them dissolve like water flowing away.
When they bend the bow,
let their arrows be like headless shafts.[b]
8 Like the snail that dissolves into slime,
like a woman’s stillborn child,
let them never see the sun.
9 Before your pots feel the thorns,
whether green or burned up,
God will sweep them away![c]
10 But the righteous will rejoice when they see vengeance done,
when they wash their feet in the blood of the wicked.
11 Then it will be said:
“Yes, there is a reward for the righteous!
Yes, there is a God who judges people on the earth.”
12 Bring your mind to instruction,
your ear to knowledgeable sayings.
Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible