1 Thessalonians 2:17-3:13
Contemporary English Version
Paul Wants To Visit the Church Again
17 My friends, we were kept from coming to you for a while, but we never stopped thinking about you. We were eager to see you and tried our best to visit you in person. 18 We really wanted to come. I myself tried several times, but Satan always stopped us. 19 After all, when the Lord Jesus appears, who else but you will give us hope and joy and be like a glorious crown for us? 20 You alone are our glory and joy!
3 (A) Finally, we couldn't stand it any longer. We decided to stay in Athens by ourselves 2 and send our friend Timothy to you. He works with us as God's servant and preaches the good news about Christ. We wanted him to make you strong in your faith and to encourage you. 3 We didn't want any of you to be discouraged by all these troubles. You knew we would have to suffer, 4 because when we were with you, we told you this would happen. And we did suffer, as you well know. 5 At last, when I could not wait any longer, I sent Timothy to find out about your faith. I hoped Satan had not tempted you and made all our work useless.
6 (B) Timothy has now come back from his visit with you and has told us about your faith and love. He also said that you always have happy memories of us and that you want to see us as much as we want to see you.
7 My friends, even though we have a lot of trouble and suffering, your faith makes us feel better about you. 8 Your strong faith in the Lord is like a breath of new life. 9 How can we possibly thank God enough for all the happiness you have brought us? 10 Day and night we sincerely pray that we will see you again and help you to have an even stronger faith.
11 We pray that God our Father and our Lord Jesus will let us visit you. 12 May the Lord make your love for each other and for everyone else grow by leaps and bounds. This is how our love for you has grown. 13 And when our Lord comes with all his people, I pray he will make your hearts pure and innocent in the sight of God the Father.
Isaiah 17-19
Contemporary English Version
Damascus Will Be Punished
17 (A) This is a message about Damascus:
Damascus is doomed!
It will end up in ruins.
2 The villages around Aroer[a]
will be deserted,
with only sheep living there
and no one to bother them.
3 Israel[b] will lose its fortresses.
The kingdom of Damascus
will be destroyed;
its survivors will suffer
the same fate as Israel.
The Lord All-Powerful
has promised this.
Sin and Suffering
4 When that time comes,
the glorious nation of Israel
will be brought down;
its prosperous people
will be skin and bones.
5 Israel will be like wheat fields
in Rephaim Valley
picked clean of grain.
6 It will be like an olive tree
beaten with a stick,
leaving two or three olives
or maybe four or five
on the highest
or most fruitful branches.
The Lord God of Israel
has promised this.
7 At that time the people will turn and trust their Creator, the holy God of Israel. 8 They have built altars and places for burning incense to their goddess Asherah, and they have set up sacred poles[c] for her. But they will stop worshiping at these places.
9 Israel captured powerful cities and chased out the people who lived there. But these cities will lie in ruins, covered over with weeds and underbrush.[d]
10 Israel, you have forgotten
the God who saves you,
the one who is the mighty rock[e]
where you find protection.
You plant the finest flowers
to honor a foreign god.
11 The plants may sprout
and blossom
that very same morning,
but it will do you no good,
because you will suffer
endless agony.
God Defends His People
12 The nations are a noisy,
thunderous sea.
13 But even if they roar
like a fearsome flood,
God will give the command
to turn them back.
They will be like dust,
or like a tumbleweed
blowing across the hills
in a windstorm.
14 In the evening
their attack is fierce,
but by morning
they are destroyed.
This is what happens to those
who raid and rob us.
Ethiopia Will Be Punished
18 (B) Downstream from Ethiopia[f]
lies the country of Egypt,
swarming with insects.[g]
2 Egypt sends messengers
up the Nile River
on ships made of reeds.[h]
Send them fast to Ethiopia,
whose people are tall
and have smooth skin.
Their land is divided by rivers;
they are strong and brutal,
feared all over the world.[i]
3 Everyone on this earth,
listen with care!
A signal will be given
on the mountains,
and you will hear a trumpet.
4 The Lord said to me,
“I will calmly look down
from my home above—
as calmly as the sun at noon
or clouds in the heat
of harvest season.”
5 Before the blossoms
can turn into grapes,
God will cut off the sprouts
and hack off the branches.
6 Ethiopians will be food
for mountain vultures
during the summer
and for wild animals
during the winter.
7 Those Ethiopians are tall and their skin is smooth. They are feared all over the world, because they are strong and brutal. But at that time they will come from their land divided by rivers, and they will bring gifts to the Lord All-Powerful, who is worshiped on Mount Zion.
Egypt Will Be Punished
19 (C) This is a message about Egypt:
The Lord comes to Egypt,
riding swiftly on a cloud.
The people are weak from fear.
Their idols tremble
as he approaches and says,
2 “I will punish Egypt
with civil war—
neighbors, cities, and kingdoms
will fight each other.
3 “Egypt will be discouraged
when I confuse their plans.
They will try to get advice
from their idols,
from the spirits of the dead,
and from fortunetellers.
4 I will put the Egyptians
under the power of a cruel,
heartless king.
I, the Lord All-Powerful,
have promised this.”
Trouble along the Nile
5 The Nile River will dry up
and become parched land.
6 Its streams will stink,
Egypt will have no water,
and the reeds and tall grass
will dry up.
7 Fields along the Nile
will be completely barren;
every plant will disappear.
8 Those who fish in the Nile
will be discouraged
and mourn.
9 None of the cloth makers[j]
will know what to do,
and they will turn pale.[k]
10 Weavers will be confused;
paid workers will cry and mourn.
Egypt's Helpless Leaders
11 The king's officials in Zoan[l]
are foolish themselves
and give stupid advice.
How can they say to him,
“We are very wise,
and our families go back
to kings of long ago?”
12 Where are those wise men now?
If they can, let them say
what the Lord All-Powerful
intends for Egypt.
13 The royal officials in Zoan
and in Memphis
are foolish and deceived.
The leaders in every state
have given bad advice
to the nation.
14 The Lord has confused Egypt;
its leaders have made it stagger
and vomit like a drunkard.
15 No one in Egypt can do a thing,
no matter who they are.
16 When the Lord All-Powerful punishes Egypt with his mighty arm, the Egyptians will become terribly weak and will tremble with fear. 17 They will be so terrified of Judah that they will be frightened by the very mention of its name. This will happen because of what the Lord All-Powerful is planning against Egypt.
The Lord Will Bless Egypt, Assyria, and Israel
18 The time is coming when Hebrew will be spoken in five Egyptian cities, and their people will become followers of the Lord. One of these cities will be called City of the Sun.[m]
19 In the heart of Egypt an altar will be set up for the Lord; at its border a shrine will be built to honor him. 20 These will remind the Egyptians that the Lord All-Powerful is with them. And when they are in trouble and ask for help, he will send someone to rescue them from their enemies. 21 The Lord will show the Egyptians who he is, and they will know and worship the Lord. They will bring him sacrifices and offerings, and they will keep their promises to him. 22 After the Lord has punished Egypt, the people will turn to him. Then he will answer their prayers, and the Egyptians will be healed.
23 At that time a good road will run from Egypt to Assyria. The Egyptians and the Assyrians will travel back and forth from Egypt to Assyria, and they will worship together. 24 Israel will join with these two countries. They will be a blessing to everyone on earth, 25 then the Lord All-Powerful will bless them by saying,
“The Egyptians are my people.
I created the Assyrians
and chose the Israelites.”
Footnotes
- 17.2 Aroer: Either a city near Damascus with the same name as the Moabite city or the Moabite city itself, here used as an example of what will happen to Damascus.
- 17.3 Israel: The Hebrew text has “Ephraim,” another name for the northern kingdom.
- 17.8 sacred poles: Or “trees,” used as symbols of Asherah, the goddess of fertility.
- 17.9 covered … underbrush: Hebrew; one ancient translation “like the cities of the Hivites and the Amorites.”
- 17.10 mighty rock: The Hebrew text has “rock,” which is sometimes used in poetry to compare the Lord to a mountain where his people can run for protection from their enemies.
- 18.1 Ethiopia: See the note at 11.11.
- 18.1 insects: Or “sailing ships.”
- 18.2 reeds: Ancient Egypt was famous for the papyrus reeds that grew in the Nile Delta.
- 18.2 world: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text of verse 2.
- 19.9 cloth makers: Cloth was made from several kinds of plants that grew in the fields along the Nile.
- 19.9 turn pale: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.
- 19.11 Zoan: The city of Tanis in the Nile delta.
- 19.18 City of the Sun: Some manuscripts of the Standard Hebrew Text, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and one ancient translation; most manuscripts of the Standard Hebrew Text have “City of Destruction.” This probably refers to Heliopolis which means “City of the Sun” (see Jeremiah 43.13).
Psalm 114
Contemporary English Version
The Lord Works Wonders
1 (A) God brought his people
out of Egypt, that land
with a strange language.
2 He made Judah his holy place
and ruled over Israel.
3 (B) When the sea looked at God,
it ran away,
and the Jordan River
flowed upstream.
4 The mountains and the hills
skipped around like goats.
5 Ask the sea why it ran away
or ask the Jordan
why it flowed upstream.
6 Ask the mountains and the hills
why they skipped like goats!
7 Earth, you will tremble,
when the Lord God of Jacob
comes near,
8 (C) because he turns solid rock
into flowing streams
and pools of water.
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