1 Peter 3
The Message
Cultivate Inner Beauty
3 1-4 The same goes for you wives: Be good wives to your husbands, responsive to their needs. There are husbands who, indifferent as they are to any words about God, will be captivated by your life of holy beauty. What matters is not your outer appearance—the styling of your hair, the jewelry you wear, the cut of your clothes—but your inner disposition.
4-6 Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in. The holy women of old were beautiful before God that way, and were good, loyal wives to their husbands. Sarah, for instance, taking care of Abraham, would address him as “my dear husband.” You’ll be true daughters of Sarah if you do the same, unanxious and unintimidated.
7 The same goes for you husbands: Be good husbands to your wives. Honor them, delight in them. As women they lack some of your advantages. But in the new life of God’s grace, you’re equals. Treat your wives, then, as equals so your prayers don’t run aground.
Suffering for Doing Good
8-12 Summing up: Be agreeable, be sympathetic, be loving, be compassionate, be humble. That goes for all of you, no exceptions. No retaliation. No sharp-tongued sarcasm. Instead, bless—that’s your job, to bless. You’ll be a blessing and also get a blessing.
Whoever wants to embrace life
and see the day fill up with good,
Here’s what you do:
Say nothing evil or hurtful;
Snub evil and cultivate good;
run after peace for all you’re worth.
God looks on all this with approval,
listening and responding well to what he’s asked;
But he turns his back
on those who do evil things.
13-18 If with heart and soul you’re doing good, do you think you can be stopped? Even if you suffer for it, you’re still better off. Don’t give the opposition a second thought. Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy. Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They’ll end up realizing that they’re the ones who need a bath. It’s better to suffer for doing good, if that’s what God wants, than to be punished for doing bad. That’s what Christ did definitively: suffered because of others’ sins, the Righteous One for the unrighteous ones. He went through it all—was put to death and then made alive—to bring us to God.
19-22 He went and proclaimed God’s salvation to earlier generations who ended up in the prison of judgment because they wouldn’t listen. You know, even though God waited patiently all the days that Noah built his ship, only a few were saved then, eight to be exact—saved from the water by the water. The waters of baptism do that for you, not by washing away dirt from your skin but by presenting you through Jesus’ resurrection before God with a clear conscience. Jesus has the last word on everything and everyone, from angels to armies. He’s standing right alongside God, and what he says goes.
Ezekiel 31-32
The Message
The Funeral of the Big Tree
31 1-9 In the eleventh year, on the first day of the third month, God’s Message came to me: “Son of man, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt, that pompous old goat:
“‘Who do you, astride the world,
think you really are?
Look! Assyria was a Big Tree, huge as a Lebanon cedar,
beautiful limbs offering cool shade,
Skyscraper high,
piercing the clouds.
The waters gave it drink,
the primordial deep lifted it high,
Gushing out rivers around
the place where it was planted,
And then branching out in streams
to all the trees in the forest.
It was immense,
dwarfing all the trees in the forest—
Thick boughs, long limbs,
roots delving deep into earth’s waters.
All the birds of the air
nested in its boughs.
All the wild animals
gave birth under its branches.
All the mighty nations
lived in its shade.
It was stunning in its majesty—
the reach of its branches!
the depth of its water-seeking roots!
Not a cedar in God’s garden came close to it.
No pine tree was anything like it.
Mighty oaks looked like bushes
growing alongside it.
Not a tree in God’s garden
was in the same class of beauty.
I made it beautiful,
a work of art in limbs and leaves,
The envy of every tree in Eden,
every last tree in God’s garden.’”
10-13 Therefore, God, the Master, says, “‘Because it skyscrapered upward, piercing the clouds, swaggering and proud of its stature, I turned it over to a world-famous leader to call its evil to account. I’d had enough. Outsiders, unbelievably brutal, felled it across the mountain ranges. Its branches were strewn through all the valleys, its leafy boughs clogging all the streams and rivers. Because its shade was gone, everybody walked off. No longer a tree—just a log. On that dead log birds perch. Wild animals burrow under it.
14 “‘That marks the end of the “big tree” nations. No more trees nourished from the great deep, no more cloud-piercing trees, no more earthborn trees taking over. They’re all slated for death—back to earth, right along with men and women, for whom it’s “dust to dust.”
15-17 “‘The Message of God, the Master: On the day of the funeral of the Big Tree, I threw the great deep into mourning. I stopped the flow of its rivers, held back great seas, and wrapped the Lebanon mountains in black. All the trees of the forest fainted and fell. I made the whole world quake when it crashed, and threw it into the underworld to take its place with all else that gets buried. All the trees of Eden and the finest and best trees of Lebanon, well-watered, were relieved—they had descended to the underworld with it—along with everyone who had lived in its shade and all who had been killed.
18 “‘Which of the trees of Eden came anywhere close to you in splendor and size? But you’re slated to be cut down to take your place in the underworld with the trees of Eden, to be a dead log stacked with all the other dead logs, among the other uncircumcised who are dead and buried.
“‘This means Pharaoh, the pompous old goat.
“‘Decree of God, the Master.’”
A Cloud Across the Sun
32 1-2 In the twelfth year, on the first day of the twelfth month, God’s Message came to me: “Son of man, sing a funeral lament over Pharaoh king of Egypt. Tell him:
“‘You think you’re a young lion
prowling through the nations.
You’re more like a dragon in the ocean,
snorting and thrashing about.
3-10 “‘God, the Master, says:
“‘I’m going to throw my net over you
—many nations will get in on this operation—
and haul you out with my dragnet.
I’ll dump you on the ground
out in an open field
And bring in all the crows and vultures
for a sumptuous carrion lunch.
I’ll invite wild animals from all over the world
to gorge on your guts.
I’ll scatter hunks of your meat in the mountains
and strew your bones in the valleys.
The country, right up to the mountains,
will be drenched with your blood,
your blood filling every ditch and channel.
When I blot you out,
I’ll pull the curtain on the skies
and shut out the stars.
I’ll throw a cloud across the sun
and turn off the moonlight.
I’ll turn out every light in the sky above you
and put your land in the dark.
Decree of God, the Master.
I’ll shake up everyone worldwide
when I take you off captive to strange and far-off countries.
I’ll shock people with you.
Kings will take one look and shudder.
I’ll shake my sword
and they’ll shake in their boots.
On the day you crash, they’ll tremble,
thinking, “That could be me!”
To Lay Your Pride Low
11-15 “‘God, the Master, says:
“‘The sword of the king of Babylon
is coming against you.
I’ll use the swords of champions
to lay your pride low,
Use the most brutal of nations
to knock Egypt off her high horse,
to puncture that hot-air pomposity.
I’ll destroy all their livestock
that graze along the river.
Neither human foot nor animal hoof
will muddy those waters anymore.
I’ll clear their springs and streams,
make their rivers flow clean and smooth.
Decree of God, the Master.
When I turn Egypt back to the wild
and strip her clean of all her abundant produce,
When I strike dead all who live there,
then they’ll realize that I am God.’
16 “This is a funeral song. Chant it.
Daughters of the nations, chant it.
Chant it over Egypt for the death of its pomp.”
Decree of God, the Master.
17-19 In the twelfth year, on the fifteenth day of the first month, God’s Message came to me:
“Son of man, lament over Egypt’s pompous ways.
Send her on her way.
Dispatch Egypt
and her proud daughter nations
To the underworld,
down to the country of the dead and buried.
Say, ‘You think you’re so high and mighty?
Down! Take your place with the heathen in that unhallowed grave!’
20-21 “She’ll be dumped in with those killed in battle. The sword is bared. Drag her off in all her proud pomp! All the big men and their helpers down among the dead and buried will greet them: ‘Welcome to the grave of the heathen! Join the ranks of the victims of war!’
22-23 “Assyria is there and its congregation, the whole nation a cemetery. Their graves are in the deepest part of the underworld, a congregation of graves, all killed in battle, these people who terrorized the land of the living.
24-25 “Elam is there in all her pride, a cemetery—all killed in battle, dumped in her heathen grave with the dead and buried, these people who terrorized the land of the living. They carry their shame with them, along with the others in the grave. They turned Elam into a resort for the pompous dead, landscaped with heathen graves, slaughtered in battle. They once terrorized the land of the living. Now they carry their shame down with the others in deep earth. They’re in the section set aside for the slain in battle.
26-27 “Meshech-tubal is there in all her pride, a cemetery in uncircumcised ground, dumped in with those slaughtered in battle—just deserts for terrorizing the land of the living. Now they carry their shame down with the others in deep earth. They’re in the section set aside for the slain. They’re segregated from the heroes, the old-time giants who entered the grave in full battle dress, their swords placed under their heads and their shields covering their bones, those heroes who spread terror through the land of the living.
28 “And you, Egypt, will be dumped in a heathen grave, along with all the rest, in the section set aside for the slain.
29 “Edom is there, with her kings and princes. In spite of her vaunted greatness, she is dumped in a heathen grave with the others headed for the grave.
30 “The princes of the north are there, the whole lot of them, and all the Sidonians who carry their shame to their graves—all that terror they spread with their brute power!—dumped in unhallowed ground with those killed in battle, carrying their shame with the others headed for deep earth.
31 “Pharaoh will see them all and, pompous old goat that he is, take comfort in the company he’ll keep—Pharaoh and his slaughtered army. Decree of God, the Master.
32 “I used him to spread terror in the land of the living and now I’m dumping him in heathen ground with those killed by the sword—Pharaoh and all his pomp. Decree of God, the Master.”
Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson
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