Isaiah 21-22
Christian Standard Bible
A Judgment on Babylon
21 A pronouncement(A) concerning the desert by the sea:(B)
Like storms that pass over the Negev,
it comes from the desert, from the land of terror.
2 A troubling vision is declared to me:
“The treacherous one acts treacherously,(C)
and the destroyer destroys.
Advance, Elam! Lay siege, you Medes!
I will put an end to all the groaning.”
3 Therefore I am[a] filled with anguish.
Pain grips me, like the pain of a woman in labor.(D)
I am too perplexed to hear,
too dismayed to see.
4 My heart staggers;
horror terrifies me.
He has turned my last glimmer of hope[b]
into sheer terror.(E)
5 Prepare a table,(F) and spread out a carpet!
Eat and drink!
Rise up, you princes, and oil the shields!
6 For the Lord has said to me,
“Go, post a lookout;
let him report what he sees.
7 When he sees riders—
pairs of horsemen,
riders on donkeys,
riders on camels—
he must pay close attention.”
8 Then the lookout[c] reported,
“Lord, I stand on the watchtower all day,(G)
and I stay at my post all night.
9 Look, riders come—
horsemen in pairs.”
And he answered, saying,
“Babylon has fallen,(H) has fallen.
All the images of her gods
have been shattered on the ground.”(I)
10 My people who have been crushed
on the threshing floor,(J)
I have declared to you
what I have heard from the Lord of Armies,
the God of Israel.
A Pronouncement against Dumah
11 A pronouncement(K) concerning Dumah:[d](L)
One calls to me from Seir,(M)
“Watchman, what is left of the night?
Watchman, what is left of the night?”
12 The watchman said,
“Morning has come, and also night.
If you want to ask, ask!
Come back again.”
A Pronouncement against Arabia
13 A pronouncement concerning Arabia:(N)
In the desert[e] brush
you will camp for the night,
you caravans of Dedanites.(O)
14 Bring water for the thirsty.
The inhabitants of the land of Tema(P)
meet[f] the refugees with food.
15 For they have fled from swords,
from the drawn sword,
from the bow that is strung,
and from the stress of battle.
16 For the Lord said this to me: “Within one year,(Q) as a hired worker counts years, all the glory of Kedar(R) will be gone. 17 The remaining Kedarite archers will be few in number.” For the Lord, the God of Israel, has spoken.
A Pronouncement against Jerusalem
22 A pronouncement(S) concerning the Valley of Vision:(T)
What’s the matter with you?
Why have all of you gone up to the rooftops?(U)
2 The noisy city, the jubilant town,(V)
is filled with celebration.
Your dead did not die by the sword;
they were not killed in battle.
3 All your rulers have fled together,
captured without a bow.
All your fugitives were captured together;
they had fled far away.
4 Therefore I said,
“Look away from me! Let me weep bitterly!(W)
Do not try to comfort me
about the destruction of my dear[g] people.”
5 For the Lord God of Armies
had a day of tumult, trampling, and confusion(X)
in the Valley of Vision—
people shouting[h] and crying to the mountains;
6 Elam took up a quiver
with chariots and horsemen,[i]
and Kir(Y) uncovered the shield.
7 Your best valleys were full of chariots,
and horsemen were positioned at the city gates.
8 He removed the defenses of Judah.
On that day you looked to the weapons in the House of the Forest.(Z) 9 You saw that there were many breaches in the walls of the city of David.(AA) You collected water from the lower pool.(AB) 10 You counted the houses of Jerusalem so that you could tear them down to fortify the wall. 11 You made a reservoir between the walls(AC) for the water of the ancient pool,(AD) but you did not look to the one who made it, or consider the one who created it long ago.
12 On that day the Lord God of Armies
called for weeping,(AE) for wailing, for shaven heads,
and for the wearing of sackcloth.
13 But look: joy and gladness,
butchering of cattle, slaughtering of sheep and goats,
eating of meat, and drinking of wine—
“Let’s eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!” (AF)
14 The Lord of Armies has directly revealed to me:(AG)
“This iniquity will not be wiped out for you people as long as you live.”[j](AH)
The Lord God of Armies has spoken.
A Pronouncement against Shebna
15 The Lord God of Armies said, “Go to Shebna,(AI) that steward who is in charge of the palace, and say to him: 16 What are you doing here? Who authorized you to carve out a tomb for yourself here, carving your tomb on the height and cutting a resting place for yourself out of rock?(AJ) 17 Look, you strong man! The Lord is about to shake you violently. He will take hold of you, 18 wind you up into a ball, and sling you into a wide land.[k] There you will die, and there your glorious chariots will be—a disgrace to the house of your lord. 19 I will remove you from your office; you will be ousted from your position.
20 “On that day I will call for my servant, Eliakim son of Hilkiah.(AK) 21 I will clothe him with your robe and tie your sash around him. I will hand your authority over to him, and he will be like a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah.(AL) 22 I will place the key(AM) of the house of David on his shoulder; what he opens, no one can close; what he closes, no one can open.(AN) 23 I will drive him, like a peg, into a firm place. He will be a throne of honor for his father’s family. 24 They will hang on him all the glory of his father’s family: the descendants and the offshoots—all the small vessels, from bowls to every kind of jar. 25 On that day”—the declaration of the Lord of Armies—“the peg that was driven into a firm place will give way, be cut off, and fall, and the load on it will be destroyed.” Indeed, the Lord has spoken.
Footnotes
- 21:3 Lit my waist is, or my insides are
- 21:4 Lit my twilight
- 21:8 DSS, Syr; MT reads Then a lion
- 21:11 Some Hb mss, LXX read Edom
- 21:13 LXX, Syr, Tg, Vg read desert at evening
- 21:14 LXX, Syr, Tg, Vg read meet as a command
- 22:4 Lit of the daughter of my
- 22:5 Or Vision—a tearing down of a wall, or Vision—Kir raged; Hb obscure
- 22:6 Lit chariots of man
- 22:14 Lit for you until you die
- 22:17–18 Hb obscure
1 Corinthians 8:1-9:11
Christian Standard Bible
Food Offered to Idols
8 Now about food sacrificed to idols:(A) We know that “we all have knowledge.” Knowledge puffs up,(B) but love(C) builds up. 2 If anyone thinks he knows anything, he does not yet know it as he ought to know it.(D) 3 But if anyone loves God,(E) he is known(F) by him.
4 About eating food sacrificed to idols, then, we know that “an idol is nothing in the world,”[a] and that “there is no God but one.”(G) 5 For even if there are so-called gods,(H) whether in heaven or on earth—as there are many “gods” and many “lords”— 6 yet for us there is one God, the Father.(I) All things are from him,(J) and we exist for him. And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ. All things are through him, and we exist through him.(K)
7 However, not everyone has this knowledge. Some have been so used to idolatry up until now that when they eat food sacrificed to an idol, their conscience, being weak, is defiled. 8 Food will not bring us close to God.[b] We are not worse off if we don’t eat, and we are not better if we do eat.(L) 9 But be careful that this right of yours in no way becomes a stumbling block(M) to the weak. 10 For if someone sees you, the one who has knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, won’t his weak conscience be encouraged[c] to eat food offered to idols? 11 So the weak person, the brother or sister for whom Christ died,(N) is ruined[d](O) by your knowledge.(P) 12 Now when you sin like this against brothers and sisters and wound their weak conscience, you are sinning against Christ. 13 Therefore, if food causes my brother or sister to fall, I will never again eat meat,(Q) so that I won’t cause my brother or sister to fall.
Paul’s Example as an Apostle
9 Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? 2 If I am not an apostle to others, at least I am to you, because you are the seal(R) of my apostleship in the Lord.
3 My defense to those who examine me is this: 4 Don’t we have the right to eat and drink?(S) 5 Don’t we have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife[e] like the other apostles,(T) the Lord’s brothers, and Cephas?(U) 6 Or do only Barnabas(V) and I have no right to refrain from working? 7 Who serves as a soldier at his own expense?(W) Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its fruit? Or who shepherds a flock and does not drink the milk from the flock?
8 Am I saying this from a human perspective? Doesn’t the law also say the same thing? 9 For it is written in the law of Moses, Do not muzzle an ox(X) while it treads out grain.[f](Y) Is God really concerned about oxen? 10 Isn’t he really saying it for our sake? Yes, this is written for our sake,(Z) because he who plows ought to plow in hope,(AA) and he who threshes should thresh in hope of sharing the crop.(AB) 11 If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it too much if we reap material benefits from you?
Psalm 104:23-29
Christian Standard Bible
23 Man goes out to his work
and to his labor until evening.(A)
24 How countless are your works, Lord!
In wisdom you have made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.[a](B)
25 Here is the sea, vast and wide,
teeming with creatures beyond number—
living things both large and small.(C)
26 There the ships move about,
and Leviathan, which you formed to play there.(D)
27 All of them wait for you
to give them their food at the right time.(E)
28 When you give it to them,
they gather it;
when you open your hand,
they are satisfied with good things.(F)
29 When you hide your face,
they are terrified;
when you take away their breath,
they die and return to the dust.(G)
Footnotes
- 104:24 Lit possessions
Proverbs 22:5-7
Christian Standard Bible
5 There are thorns and snares on the way of the crooked;(A)
the one who guards himself stays far from them.
6 Start a youth out on his way;(B)
even when he grows old he will not depart from it.
The Christian Standard Bible. Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible®, and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers, all rights reserved.
Bible Gateway Recommends
