³ But immorality (sexual vice) and all impurity [^[a]of lustful, rich, wasteful living] or greediness must not even be named among you, as is fitting and proper among saints (God’s consecrated people).

⁴ Let there be no filthiness (obscenity, indecency) nor foolish and sinful (silly and corrupt) talk, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting or becoming; but instead voice your thankfulness [to God].

⁵ For be sure of this: that no person practicing sexual vice or impurity in thought or in life, or one who is covetous [who has lustful desire for the property of others and is greedy for gain]—for he [in effect] is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

⁶ Let no one delude and deceive you with empty excuses and groundless arguments [for these sins], for through these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of rebellion and disobedience.

⁷ So do not associate or be sharers with them.

⁸ For once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of Light [lead the lives of those native-born to the Light].

⁹ For the fruit (the effect, the product) of the Light or ^[b]the Spirit [consists] in every form of kindly goodness, uprightness of heart, and trueness of life.

¹⁰ And try to learn [in your experience] what is pleasing to the Lord [let your lives be constant proofs of what is most acceptable to Him].

¹¹ Take no part in and have no fellowship with the fruitless deeds and enterprises of darkness, but instead [let your lives be so in contrast as to] ^[c]expose and reprove and convict them.

¹² For it is a shame even to speak of or mention the things that [such people] practice in secret.

¹³ But when anything is exposed and reproved by the light, it is made visible and clear; and where everything is visible and clear there is light.

¹⁴ Therefore He says, Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine (make day dawn) upon you and give you light.^(A)

¹⁵ Look carefully then how you walk! Live purposefully and worthily and accurately, not as the unwise and witless, but as wise (sensible, intelligent people),

¹⁶ Making the very most of the time [buying up each opportunity], because the days are evil.

¹⁷ Therefore do not be vague and thoughtless and foolish, but understanding and firmly grasping what the will of the Lord is.

¹⁸ And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but ever be filled and stimulated with the [Holy] Spirit.^(B)

¹⁹ Speak out to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, offering praise with voices [^[d]and instruments] and making melody with all your heart to the Lord,

²⁰ At all times and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.

²¹ Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).

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27 In that day [the Lord will deliver Israel from her enemies and also from the rebel powers of evil and darkness] His sharp and unrelenting, great, and strong sword will visit and punish Leviathan the swiftly fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting and winding serpent; and He will slay the monster that is in the sea.

² In that day [it will be said of the redeemed nation of Israel], A vineyard beloved and lovely; sing a responsive song to it and about it!

³ I, the Lord, am its Keeper; I water it every moment; lest anyone harm it, I guard and keep it night and day.

⁴ Wrath is not in Me. Would that the briers and thorns [the wicked internal foe] were lined up against Me in battle! I would stride in against them; I would burn them up together.

⁵ Or else [if all Israel would escape being burned up together there is but one alternative], let them take hold of My strength and make complete surrender to My protection, that they may make peace with Me! Yes, let them make peace with Me!

⁶ In the days and generations to come Jacob shall take root; Israel shall blossom and send forth shoots and fill the whole world with fruit [of the knowledge of the true God].^(A)

⁷ Has [the Lord] smitten [Israel] as He smote those who smote them? Or have [the Israelites] been slain as their slayers were slain?

⁸ By driving them out of Canaan, by exile, You contended with them in a measure [O Lord]—He removed them with His rough blast as in the day of the east wind.

⁹ Only on this condition shall the iniquity of Jacob (Israel) be forgiven and purged, and this shall be the full fruit [God requires] for taking away his sin: that [Israel] should make all the stones of the [idol] altars like chalk stones crushed to pieces, so that the Asherim and the sun-images shall not remain standing or rise again.

¹⁰ For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken like the wilderness; there the calf grazes, and there he lies down; he strips its branches and eats its twigs.

¹¹ When its boughs are withered and dry, they are broken off; the women come and set them afire. For they are a people of no understanding or discernment—^[a]witless folk; therefore He Who made them will not have compassion on them, and He Who formed them will show them no favor.

¹² And it shall be in that day that the Lord will thresh out His grain from the flood of the River [Euphrates] to the Brook of Egypt, and you will be gathered one by one and one to another, O children of Israel!

¹³ And it shall be in that day that a great trumpet will be blown; and they will come who were lost and ready to perish in the land of Assyria and those who were driven out to the land of Egypt, and they will worship the Lord on the holy mountain at Jerusalem.^(B)

28 Woe to [Samaria] the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim [the ten tribes], and to the fading flower of its glorious beauty, which is on the head of the rich valley of those overcome and smitten down with wine!

² Behold, the Lord has a strong and mighty one [the Assyrian]; like a tempest of hail, a destroying storm, like a flood of mighty overflowing waters, he will cast it down to the earth with violent hand.

³ With [alien] feet [Samaria] the proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim will be trodden down.

⁴ And the fading flower of its glorious beauty, which is on the head of the rich valley, will be like the early fig before the fruit harvest, which, when anyone sees it, he snatches and eats it up greedily at once. [So in an amazingly short time will the Assyrians devour Samaria, Israel’s capital.]

⁵ [But] in that [future ^[b]Messianic] day the Lord of hosts shall become a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty to the [converted] remnant of His people,

⁶ And a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment and administers the law, and strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.

⁷ But even these reel from wine and stagger from strong drink: the priest and the prophet reel from strong drink; they are confused from wine, they stagger and are gone astray through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble when pronouncing judgment.

⁸ For all the tables are full of filthy vomit, so that there is no place that is clean.

⁹ To whom will He teach knowledge? [Ask the drunkards.] And whom will He make to understand the message? Those who are babies, just weaned from the milk and taken from the breasts? [Is that what He thinks we are?]

¹⁰ For it is [His prophets repeating over and over]: precept upon precept, precept upon precept, rule upon rule, rule upon rule; here a little, there a little.

¹¹ No, but [the Lord will teach the rebels in a more humiliating way] by men with stammering lips and another tongue will He speak to this people [says Isaiah, and teach them His lessons].

¹² To these [complaining Jews the Lord] had said, This is the true rest [the way to true comfort and happiness] that you shall give to the weary, and, This is the [true] refreshing—yet they would not listen [to His teaching].

¹³ Therefore the word of the Lord will be to them [merely monotonous repeatings of]: precept upon precept, precept upon precept, rule upon rule, rule upon rule; here a little, there a little—that they may go and fall backward, and be broken and snared and taken.

¹⁴ Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you scoffers who rule this people in Jerusalem!

¹⁵ Because you have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol (the place of the dead) we have an agreement—when the overflowing scourge passes through, it will not come to us, for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood we have taken shelter.

¹⁶ Therefore thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am laying in Zion for a foundation a Stone, a tested Stone, a precious Cornerstone of sure foundation; he who believes (trusts in, relies on, and adheres to that Stone) will not ^[c]be ashamed or give way or hasten away [in sudden panic].^(C)

¹⁷ I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plummet; and hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters will overwhelm the hiding place (the shelter).

¹⁸ And your covenant with death shall be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol (the place of the dead) shall not stand; when the overwhelming scourge passes through, then you will be trodden down by it.

¹⁹ As often as it passes through, it [the enemy’s scourge] will take you; for morning by morning will it pass through, by day and by night. And it will be utter terror merely to hear and comprehend the report and the message of it [but only hard treatment and dispersion will make you understand God’s instruction].

²⁰ For [they will find that] the bed is too short for a man to stretch himself on and the covering too narrow for him to wrap himself in. [All their sources of confidence will fail them.]

²¹ For the Lord will rise up as on Mount Perazim, He will be wrathful as in the Valley of Gibeon, that He may do His work, His strange work, and bring to pass His act, His strange act.^(D)

²² Now therefore do not be scoffers, lest the bands which bind you be made strong; for a decree of destruction have I heard from the Lord God of hosts upon the whole land and the whole earth.

²³ Give ear and hear my [Isaiah’s] voice; listen and hear my words.

²⁴ Does he who plows for sowing plow continually? Does he continue to plow and harrow the ground after it is smooth?

²⁵ When he has leveled its surface, does he not cast abroad [the seed of] dill or fennel and scatter cummin [a seasoning], and put the wheat in rows, and barley in its intended place, and spelt [an inferior kind of wheat] as the border?

²⁶ [And he trains each of them correctly] for his God instructs him correctly and teaches him.

²⁷ For dill is not threshed with a sharp threshing instrument, nor is a cartwheel rolled over cummin; but dill is beaten off with a staff, and cummin with a rod [by hand].

²⁸ Does one crush bread grain? No, he does not thresh it continuously. But when he has driven his cartwheel and his horses over it, he scatters it [tossing it up to the wind] without having crushed it.

²⁹ This also comes from the Lord of hosts, Who is wonderful in counsel [and] excellent in wisdom and effectual working.