²⁴ Therefore thus says the Lord God of hosts: “O my people, ^(A)who dwell in Zion, ^(B)be not afraid of the Assyrians when they strike with the rod and lift up their staff against you as ^(C)the Egyptians did. ²⁵ For ^(D)in a very little while my fury will come to an end, and my anger will be directed to their destruction. ²⁶ And ^(E)the Lord of hosts will wield against them a whip, as when he struck ^(F)Midian ^(G)at the rock of Oreb. And his staff will be over the sea, and he will lift it ^(H)as he did in Egypt. ²⁷ And in that day ^(I)his burden will depart from your shoulder, and ^(J)his yoke from your neck; and the yoke will be broken because of the fat.”^[a]

Jesus Is Lord of the Sabbath

^23 (A)One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples ^(B)began to pluck heads of grain. ²⁴ And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, ^(C)why are they doing ^(D)what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” ²⁵ And he said to them, ^(E)“Have you never read ^(F)what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: ²⁶ how he entered the house of God, in the time of^{[a] (G)}Abiathar the high priest, and ate ^(H)the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?” ²⁷ And he said to them, ^(I)“The Sabbath was made for man, ^(J)not man for the Sabbath. ²⁸ So ^(K)the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”

A Man with a Withered Hand

3 ^(L)Again ^(M)he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. ² And ^(N)they watched Jesus,^[b] to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. ³ And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” ⁴ And he said to them, ^(O)“Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. ⁵ And he ^(P)looked around at them with anger, grieved at ^(Q)their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” ^(R)He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. ^6 (S)The Pharisees went out and immediately ^(T)held counsel with ^(U)the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

A Great Crowd Follows Jesus

^7 (V)Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and ^(W)a great crowd followed, from Galilee and Judea ⁸ and Jerusalem and ^(X)Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around ^(Y)Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him. ⁹ And he told his disciples to ^(Z)have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they ^(AA)crush him, ¹⁰ for ^(AB)he had healed many, so that all who had ^(AC)diseases pressed around him ^(AD)to touch him. ^11 (AE)And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they ^(AF)fell down before him and cried out, “You are ^(AG)the Son of God.” ¹² And ^(AH)he strictly ordered them not to make him known.

The Judgment of Babylon

13 The oracle concerning ^(A)Babylon which ^(B)Isaiah the son of Amoz saw.

The Restoration of Jacob

14 ^(AJ)For the Lord will have compassion on Jacob and will again choose Israel, and ^(AK)will set them in their own land, and ^(AL)sojourners will join them and will attach themselves to the house of Jacob. ² And ^(AM)the peoples will take them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will possess them in the Lord's land ^(AN)as male and female slaves.^{[g] (AO)}They will take captive those who were their captors, ^(AP)and rule over those who oppressed them.

9 And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and ^(A)I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given ^(B)the key to the shaft of ^(C)the bottomless pit.^{[a] 2} He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft ^(D)rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and ^(E)the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft. ³ Then from the smoke came ^(F)locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth. ⁴ They were told ^(G)not to harm ^(H)the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree, but only those people who do not have ^(I)the seal of God on their foreheads. ⁵ They were allowed to torment them ^(J)for five months, but not to kill them, and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings someone. ⁶ And in those days ^(K)people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them.

^7 (L)In appearance the locusts were like horses prepared for battle: ^(M)on their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were ^(N)like human faces, ⁸ their hair like women's hair, and ^(O)their teeth like lions' teeth; ⁹ they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the noise of their wings was ^(P)like the noise of many chariots with ^(Q)horses rushing into battle. ¹⁰ They have tails and stings like scorpions, and their power to hurt people ^(R)for five months is in their tails. ¹¹ They have ^(S)as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit. His name in Hebrew is ^(T)Abaddon, and in Greek he is called Apollyon.^[b]

^12 (U)The first woe has passed; behold, two woes are still to come.

¹³ Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from ^(V)the four horns of the golden altar before God, ¹⁴ saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release ^(W)the four angels who are bound at ^(X)the great river Euphrates.” ¹⁵ So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and the year, were released ^(Y)to kill a third of mankind. ¹⁶ The number of ^(Z)mounted troops was ^(AA)twice ten thousand times ten thousand; ^(AB)I heard their number. ¹⁷ And this is how I saw the horses in my vision and those who rode them: they wore breastplates the color of fire and of sapphire^[c] and of sulfur, and the heads of the horses were ^(AC)like lions' heads, and fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths. ¹⁸ By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths. ¹⁹ For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails are like serpents with heads, and by means of them they wound.

²⁰ The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, ^(AD)did not repent of ^(AE)the works of their hands nor give up worshiping ^(AF)demons ^(AG)and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, ²¹ nor did they repent of their murders or their ^(AH)sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.