Fourth Vision: Joshua and Satan

3 Then he showed me the high priest Joshua standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan^[a] standing at his right hand to accuse him. ² And the Lord said to Satan,^[b] ‘The Lord rebuke you, O Satan!^[c] The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this man a brand plucked from the fire?’ ³ Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. ⁴ The angel said to those who were standing before him, ‘Take off his filthy clothes.’ And to him he said, ‘See, I have taken your guilt away from you, and I will clothe you in festal apparel.’ ⁵ And I said, ‘Let them put a clean turban on his head.’ So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him in the apparel; and the angel of the Lord was standing by.

⁶ Then the angel of the Lord assured Joshua, saying ⁷ ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: If you will walk in my ways and keep my requirements, then you shall rule my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you the right of access among those who are standing here. ⁸ Now listen, Joshua, high priest, you and your colleagues who sit before you! For they are an omen of things to come: I am going to bring my servant the Branch. ⁹ For on the stone that I have set before Joshua, on a single stone with seven facets, I will engrave its inscription, says the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the guilt of this land in a single day. ¹⁰ On that day, says the Lord of hosts, you shall invite each other to come under your vine and fig tree.’

Psalm 17

Prayer for Deliverance from Persecutors

A Prayer of David.

⁴ For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell^[a] and committed them to chains^[b] of deepest darkness to be kept until the judgement; ⁵ and if he did not spare the ancient world, even though he saved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood on a world of the ungodly; ⁶ and if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction^[c] and made them an example of what is coming to the ungodly;^{[d] 7} and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man greatly distressed by the licentiousness of the lawless ⁸ (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by their lawless deeds that he saw and heard), ⁹ then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgement ¹⁰ —especially those who indulge their flesh in depraved lust, and who despise authority.

Bold and wilful, they are not afraid to slander the glorious ones,^{[e] 11} whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not bring against them a slanderous judgement from the Lord.^{[f] 12} These people, however, are like irrational animals, mere creatures of instinct, born to be caught and killed. They slander what they do not understand, and when those creatures are destroyed,^[g] they also will be destroyed, ¹³ suffering^[h] the penalty for doing wrong. They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, revelling in their dissipation^[i] while they feast with you. ¹⁴ They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! ¹⁵ They have left the straight road and have gone astray, following the road of Balaam son of Bosor,^[j] who loved the wages of doing wrong, ¹⁶ but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.

¹⁷ These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm; for them the deepest darkness has been reserved. ¹⁸ For they speak bombastic nonsense, and with licentious desires of the flesh they entice people who have just^[k] escaped from those who live in error. ¹⁹ They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for people are slaves to whatever masters them. ²⁰ For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first. ²¹ For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment that was passed on to them.