Jeremiah 12:1-14:10
Tree of Life Version
Why do the Wicked Prosper?
12 Righteous are You, Adonai,
when I plead my case with You.
Yet I speak with You about justice.
Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
Why do all the treacherous thrive?
2 You planted them, so they have taken root.
They are growing, bearing fruit.
You are near in their mouth,
yet far from their mind.
3 But You have known me, Adonai.
You see me, and examine my heart toward You.
Drag them off like sheep for slaughter.
Set them apart for the day of carnage.[a]
4 How long will the land mourn
and the grass of all the field wither?
Because those living in it are evil,
beasts and birds are swept away.
For they said, “He cannot see our end.”
5 “If you raced with those on foot
and they wore you out,
how can you compete with horses?
If you are secure in a land of peace,
how will you do in Jordan’s thickets?
6 For even your brothers—your father’s house—
even they will betray you,
even they will shout out after you.
Have no confidence in them,
even if they say nice words to you.”
7 “I have abandoned My House.
I have forsaken My inheritance.
I have given the beloved of My soul
Into the hand of her enemies.
8 My inheritance became to Me
like a lion in the forest—
her voice roared against Me!
Therefore I despised her.
9 Is My inheritance a speckled vulture?
Are vultures circling all around her?
Go, gather all the wild beasts,
bring them for devouring!
Adonai’s Vineyard in Ruins
10 “Many shepherds ruined My vineyard.
They trampled My property.
They made My pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.
11 They made it a wasteland.
It mourns before Me, desolate.
The whole land will be laid waste,
because no one takes it to heart.”
12 On all the bare hills in the wilderness
destroyers have come.
For the sword of Adonai is devouring
from the one end of the land to the other end of the land.
No flesh has shalom.
13 They sowed wheat but reaped thorns.
They wore themselves out, gaining nothing.
So be ashamed of your harvest,
because of Adonai’s fierce anger.
14 Thus says Adonai, “As for all My evil neighbors who strike at the inheritance that I bequeathed to My people Israel—I am about to uproot them from their land and pluck the house of Judah from them. 15 Yet it will come to pass, after I have uprooted them, that I will again have compassion on them and I will bring them back, each one to his inheritance and each one to his land.
16 “So it will come to pass, if they will diligently learn the ways of My people—to swear by My Name, ‘As Adonai lives,’ just as they taught My people to swear by Baal—then they will be built up in the midst of My people. 17 But if they will not obey, then I will uproot that nation, plucking it up and destroying it.” It is a declaration of Adonai.
Linen Waistband and Wine Jugs
13 Thus Adonai said to me: “Go, and buy yourself a linen waistband and put it around your waist, and do not put it in water.”
2 So I got a waistband in keeping with the word of Adonai, and put it on my waist. 3 Then the word of Adonai came to me a second time, saying: 4 “Take the waistband that you bought, which is on your waist, and get up, go to Perath[b] and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.”
5 So I went and hid it at Perath, as Adonai commanded me. 6 Now it came to pass after many days that Adonai said to me: “Get up, go to Perath, and take the waistband that I commanded you to hide there.” 7 So I went to Perath, dug it up and took the waistband from the place where I had hidden it. But to my surprise, the waistband was marred, worth nothing at all.
8 Then the word of Adonai came to me, saying, 9 thus says Adonai: “Just so I will mar the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. 10 This wicked people, who refuse to hear My words, who walk in the stubbornness of their own heart, and go after other gods to serve them and worship them, will be just like this waistband—worth nothing at all. 11 For just as the waistband clings to a man’s waist, so I will make the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to Me,” declares Adonai, “to be to Me a people, a name, a praise and a glory. But they would not obey.”
12 Moreover, speak this word to them, thus says Adonai, the God of Israel: “Every jug should be filled with wine.” When they say to you, ‘Don’t we know very well that every jug should be filled with wine?’ 13 Then you will say to them, thus says Adonai, ‘I am about to fill all the inhabitants of this land—even the kings who sit on David’s throne, the kohanim, the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem—with drunkenness. 14 And I will smash them against each other, even fathers and sons,’ says Adonai. ‘I will show no pity, nor regret, nor compassion, to keep Me from destroying them.’”
Darkness and Downfall
15 Hear and give ear!
o not be haughty!
For Adonai has spoken.
16 Give glory to Adonai your God,
before it grows dark,
and before your feet stumble
on mountains at dusk.
When you look for light,
He turns it into the shadow of death,
and turns it into deep darkness.
17 But if you will not listen,
my soul will sob in secret
before such pride,
and my eyes will weep bitterly
and overflow with tears,
for Adonai’s flock will be taken captive.
18 Say to the king and the queen mother:
“Sit down low,
for your glorious crown
has fallen from your head.”
19 The towns of the South will be shut up,
with no one to open them.
All Judah is taken into exile—
utterly swept into exile.
20 Lift up your eyes and see
those coming from the north.
Where is the flock given to you,
Your beautiful sheep?
21 What will you say, when He sets up the allies
you cultivated for yourself, over you as head?
Will not labor pains seize you,
like a woman in travail?
22 Suppose you say in your heart,
“Why did these things happen to me?”
Because of your great iniquity,
your skirts are uncovered
and your heels suffer violence.
23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin?
Or the leopard his spots?
So, could you do good,
that are accustomed to doing evil?
24 “Therefore I will scatter them
like drifting straw in the desert wind.
25 This is your lot, the portion
measured for you from Me.”
It is a declaration of Adonai.
“For you have forgotten Me
and trusted in falsehood.
26 Therefore I will also uncover your skirts over your face,
expose your shame.
27 Your adulteries, your lustful neighings,
the lewdness of your prostitution—
on the hills in the field
I have seen your loathsome acts.
Oy you, Jerusalem! You are unclean!
How much longer?”
Physical and Spiritual Drought
14 The word of Adonai that came to Jeremiah concerning the droughts:
2 Judah will mourn, and her gates languish.
They will bow in black to the ground
And Jerusalem’s wail will go up.
3 Their nobles will send their lads for water.
They come to the cisterns,
but find no water.
Their jars return empty.
They are ashamed and humiliated;
they cover their heads.
4 Because the ground is cracked,
since there has been no rain in the land,
the farmers are ashamed—
they cover their heads.
5 For even the doe in the field
abandons her newborn fawn,
because there is no grass.
6 Wild donkeys stand on the barren hills,
as they pant for air like jackals.
Their eyes fail,
since there is no foliage.
7 Though our iniquities testify against us,
Adonai, act for Your Name’s sake.
For our backslidings are many.
We have sinned against You.
8 O hope of Israel,
Savior in time of trouble,
why are You like a stranger in the land,
or like a traveler who stays for a night?
9 Why are You like a man overcome,
like a champion who cannot save?
Yet you, Adonai, are in our midst,
and we are called by Your Name.
Do not forsake us!
10 Thus says Adonai to this people:
How they loved to wander.
They did not restrain their feet.
So Adonai does not accept them.
Now will He remember their iniquity,
and punish their sins.
Footnotes
- Jeremiah 12:3 cf. Jacob 5:5.
- Jeremiah 13:4 Possibly Euphrates, so through v. 7.
1 Thessalonians 1:1-2:8
Tree of Life Version
Greetings
1 Paul, Silvanus,[a] and Timothy,
To the community of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Yeshua the Messiah:
Grace to you and shalom.
Good News with Power
2 We always give thanks to God for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers—continually 3 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadiness of hope in our Lord Yeshua the Messiah. 4 We know, brothers and sisters loved by God, that you are chosen, 5 because our Good News did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Ruach ha-Kodesh and with complete certainty—just as you know what kind of men we proved to be while among you for your sake.
6 You also became imitators of us and of the Lord, having accepted the message in much tribulation, with the joy of the Ruach ha-Kodesh. 7 So you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. 8 For the word of the Lord rang out from you—not just in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faithfulness toward God has gone out, so that we have no need to say anything. 9 For they themselves bring news about what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, 10 and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead—Yeshua, the One delivering us from the coming wrath.
Cherishing Spiritual Children
2 For you yourselves know, brothers and sisters, that our visit to you was not in vain. 2 On the contrary, after we had first suffered and been mistreated in Philippi, as you know,[b] we had boldness in our God to tell you the Good News of God—even in the midst of much opposition. 3 For our urging is not out of deceit or impure motives or trickery. 4 But just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News, so we declare it—not pleasing men but rather God, who examines our hearts.[c]
5 For as you know and God is witness, we never came with a word of flattery or a motive of greed— 6 or seeking glory from people, whether from you or from others, 7 even though we could have thrown our weight around as emissaries of Messiah. Rather, we proved to be infants[d] among you. Like a nursing mother[e] cherishes her children, 8 in this way we were yearning for you. We were delighted to share with you not only the Good News of God but also our very souls, because you had become dear to us.
Footnotes
- 1 Thessalonians 1:1 Or Silas; cf. Acts 15:22ff.
- 1 Thessalonians 2:2 cf. Acts 16:19-40
- 1 Thessalonians 2:4 cf. Ps. 17:3; Prov. 21:2.
- 1 Thessalonians 2:7 Some mss. read gentle.
- 1 Thessalonians 2:7 cf. Deut. 22:6.
Psalm 79
Tree of Life Version
A Lament Over Jerusalem
Psalm 79
1 A Psalm of Asaph.
God, the nations have invaded Your inheritance,
defiled Your holy Temple,
and reduced Jerusalem to ruins.
2 They gave the carcasses of Your servants as food to the birds of the skies,
the flesh of Your kedoshim to the beasts of the earth.
3 They poured out their blood like water all around Jerusalem,
and there was no one to bury them.
4 We have become a taunt to our neighbors,
a scorn and derision to those around us.
5 How long, Adonai, will You be angry?
Forever?
Will Your jealousy keep blazing like fire?
6 Pour out Your wrath
on the nations that do not acknowledge You,
on the kingdoms that do not call on Your name.
7 For they have devoured Jacob
and laid waste his country.
8 Do not hold against us the sins of our fathers.
May Your mercies come quickly to meet us,
for we are brought very low.
9 Help us, God of our salvation—
for the sake of the glory of Your Name.
Deliver us, and atone for our sins—
for Your name’s sake.
10 Why should the nations say:
“Where is their God?”
Before our eyes, let it be known among the nations
that You avenge the shed blood of Your servants.
11 Let the prisoner’s groan come to You.
By Your great arm preserve those who are doomed to die.
12 Pay back into the midst of our neighbors sevenfold their reproach—
the reproach they hurled at You, my Lord.
13 So we, Your people, the flock of Your pasture,
will praise You forever.
From generation to generation
we will recount Your praise.
Proverbs 24:30-34
Tree of Life Version
Lesson of the Lazy
30 I passed by the field of the slacker,
by the vineyard of one lacking judgment.
31 Surprisingly, it was all overgrown with thorns,
the ground was covered with weeds,
and its stone wall was broken down.
32 Then I took to heart what I observed
and learned a lesson from what I saw:
33 “A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to sleep,”
34 then your poverty comes tramping in,
and your need like an armed soldier.
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.