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23 A message about Tyre:
For a period under David and Solomon, the Israelites live in harmony with their neighbors. But jealousy and envy are frequently under the surface. The people of Israel occupy a key location that becomes a battleground for domination by world powers because of its important trade routes. At some point, every single one of Israel’s neighbors attacks and abuses this little nation. This oracle has to do primarily with the city of Tyre, a port on the Phoenician coast famous for the people’s advanced technologies and skills in shipbuilding, sailing, and trading. But those who sail across the Mediterranean so easily are getting ready to face hard times.
Cry out in anguish, you who travel the Mediterranean from east to west!
Cry out, Tarshishian ships, because Tyre is no more.
It is devastated—no houses, no harbor—nothing is left.
The people from Cyprus have witnessed it.
2 Grieve quietly, you people along the coast,
you merchants of Sidon, who cross the sea.
3 You go through great waters in boats filled with the grain of Shihor;
the harvest of the Nile was Tyre’s revenue;
She was the marketplace of the nations.
4 Shame runs deep for Sidon since the sea has said,
“I bore and raised no sons or daughters as my own.”
5 Egypt will be terribly upset, too,
when they learn about Tyre’s destruction.
6 So you who live along the coast,
make for Tarshish, and bewail your fate.
7 One wonders: could this really be the same city?
It was so jubilant, so magnificent, so commanding for its trade.
Is this the city that’s been around longer than memory
and her citizens have traveled to exotic, faraway places?
8 Tyre’s merchants and traders were princes and nobles,
respected everywhere around the world.
Who did this to Tyre,
a city that awards honor with crowns?
9 The Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, has determined,
Tyre should be destroyed, wrecked, and disgraced
To spoil the foolish arrogance of all glory and
to show how insignificant earthly honors are.
10 People of Tarshish, you should traverse your land as if it were the Nile.
With Tyre out of the way, there’s nothing to stop you anymore.
11 God’s power extends across the sea;
He has terrified the nations,
turning Canaan loose against them to demolish their fortresses.
12 Eternal One: The celebration is over, downtrodden virgin daughter of Sidon.
There’s nothing left of you to take pride in.
Go ahead, pack up and move to Cyprus.
But you still won’t find rest.
13 Just look at the land of the Chaldeans in southern Mesopotamia. There are no such people anymore. The Assyrians came along, took it over, and left it for the desert animals; they built their siege machines, stripped its palaces, and determined that it should be ruined.
14 Cry out in anguish, ships of Tarshish
because your fortress is no more.
15 Tyre will be forgotten for 70 years—the lifespan of a king. After that Tyre’s fate will be like the song of the prostitute:
16 “O forgotten woman, yesterday’s prostitute,
take up a harp, and walk about the city.
Play it well, and sing your melodies,
so you will be remembered.”
17 When 70 years have passed, the Eternal will visit Tyre, and she’ll return to her wicked ways—selling herself to all the countries of the world. 18 But everything Tyre earns—her profit, her goods—won’t be stored or saved: all will be devoted to the Eternal; her stocks will supply all the food and fine clothing needed by those who serve in the presence of the Eternal One.
24 See here, the Eternal One will empty the earth.
He will lay it waste, contort the mountains and plains,
And scatter its inhabitants all over the place.
2 Things will be topsy-turvy, hierarchies upended. No one will be safe,
not laypeople or priests, not servants or masters,
not maids or mistresses, not buyers or sellers,
not lenders or borrowers, not debtors or creditors.
3 The earth will be emptied, all emptied, despoiled, utterly despoiled.
The Eternal said that it should be so.
4 So the earth mourns, droops wearily down;
the world languishes and droops; the high and mighty languish in grief.
5 The earth is polluted by those who live on it;
they pay no attention to God’s teaching.
They violate His directives and break the everlasting covenant.
6 Consequently, a nasty curse consumes the earth,
and those who inhabit it are to blame for it.
They’ll be burned up,
leaving very few people to survive.
7 Luscious wine grapes shrivel to nothing.
The vines rot, and everyone who had taken
joy from their nectar sighs in deep depression.
8 No more music, no more songs, no more dancing to tambourines,
laughing with revelers, or playing the harps.
9 People don’t drink wine and sing with pleasure anymore;
the stronger stuff is mostly bitter to those who drink it.
10 The chaotic city is in shambles,
and every house is boarded up so no one can go in.
11 People rebel in the streets, demanding wine.
All joy turns to gloom; happiness has been banished from the land.
12 In the city nothing is left but desolation,
and the gate is battered and ruined.
13 This is how it will be on the earth for the nations—
only a few survivors will be left—
as when an olive tree is shaken and a few olives hold on
or when the grape harvest is in and a few grapes remain for gleaning.
14 But people will take joy again.
They will shout out and sing
of the Eternal One’s majesty across the ocean.
15 Join in the song and praise the Eternal from the east.
Praise the Eternal, the God of Israel, all along the coast of the sea.
16 Listen and you can hear the merry voices from the corners of the earth
singing, “Honor to the Righteous One.” But as for me,
I say, “I am wasting away, wasting away.
Woe is me!
I can see treachery, treachery, and it wears me down.
Traitors deal in treachery.”
17 Terror, pit, and trap face you,
you people of the earth.
18 And whoever runs from the sound of terror will only fall into a pit;
when he climbs out of the pit, he’ll run and be caught in a trap.
The sky above will open up
and the ground below will quake—nothing will be safe.
19 The earth is broken and shattered and splits apart.
It shakes and quakes violently.
20 Like a drunk, the earth staggers and reels;
it shudders and shakes, like a shack in the wind.
For its rebellion weighs so heavily on it, that it will fall
and have no chance for repair.
21 On that day, even the heavenly powers and earthly rulers
will feel the Eternal’s punishing wrath.
22 They’ll be gathered up like prisoners, thrown in a dungeon,
and suffer the punishment of God after many days.
23 A shadow of shame will settle over the full moon and bright sun,
and their brilliance will begin to fade;
for the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies,
Will rule from His chosen place on earth—Mount Zion in Jerusalem,
and His glory will shine out with brilliance for the elders to see.
25 Eternal One, You are my God.
I will lift You up and praise Your name.
Because You have made wonders marvelous and beautiful—
the most ancient designs holding strong and sure.
2 Your power is awesome. You have brought down whole cities,
turned fortresses and strongholds into piles of sticks and rubble.
A citadel of foreigners is no longer even a city.
Those structures are gone forever.
3 This is why nations strong and mighty will glorify You;
the cities of ruthless people will fear and respect You.
4 Because You stand up for the poor and weak,
You comfort and empower them in their distress,
Giving them safe harbor and cool shade when it’s hot;
You shelter them from their oppressors’ blows
As a strong wall holds back the driving rain.
5 You shelter from the relentless heat of the desert.
You quiet the clamor of outsiders, ease them to stillness.
Like a full, dark cloud relieves the heat,
You silence the arrogant song of the violent.
6 The Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, is preparing a feast,
a feast for everyone on this mystical mountain
With aged wine and good food, the finest wine and choicest meat.
7 And God will swallow up the oppression that weighs us down.
He will take away the heavy shroud
that is draped over all peoples of the world.
8 God will swallow up death forever.
The Lord, the Eternal, will wipe away the tears from each and every face
And deflect the scorn and shame His people endure from the whole world,
for the Eternal determined that it should be so.
9 And in that moment, at that glorious time, people will say,
People: This is our God! We put our hope in him.
We knew that He would save us!
This is our God, the Eternal for whom we waited.
Let us rejoice and celebrate in His liberation.
10 For on this mountain, the powerful hand of the Eternal abides.
He will smash and tread Moab like straw on manure.
11 And God will reach out, like a swimmer pulling water,
and drag down their arrogance and everything that made them proud.
12 God will bring down their strongest walls, their impenetrable defenses,
and grind them to the ground until they are only dust.
26 When that time arrives, the people of this place called Judah will sing this song:
People: By the grace of God, our city is strong;
its structures and defenses He made secure.
2 Now open the gates to welcome the righteous,
so that those who keep faith may enter in.
3 You will keep the peace, a perfect peace, for all who trust in You,
for those who dedicate their hearts and minds to You.
4 So trust in the Eternal One forever,
for He is like a great Rock—strong, stable, trustworthy, and lasting.
5 He humbles the high and mighty.
Even the indomitable city falls before His strength, reducing it to dust.
6 The feet of the poor, the weak, the infirm and forgotten
will trample the dust of the formerly great.
7 The path of those who do right is straight and smooth.
O God, You who are upright, You make the way of the righteous level.
8 When we act in justice and righteousness—following Your laws—we wait for You.
We are eager to hear Your holy name and remember Your ways.
9 At night I long for You with all that is in Me.
When morning comes, I seek You with all my heart.
For when Your justice is done on earth,
then everyone in the world will learn righteousness.
10 If grace is extended to those who do wrong,
the perpetrators never learn what is right.
Even when surrounded by upright people, they gravitate to evil
and never even notice the awesome beauty of the Eternal.
11 O Eternal One, even when Your hand is raised against them, they do not see it.
When they finally do see how passionately
You act on the people’s behalf, they will be ashamed.
Ah, let the fire that consumes Your enemies consume them.
12 Eternal One, You are preparing peace for us;
in fact, everything we have accomplished has come from You.
13 Others have tried to rule over us,
but You, Eternal One, are our God.
At the end of the day, when all is done,
we acknowledge only You.
14 But now these would-be rulers are dead, never to live again;
these shadowy spirits will never rise.
You have punished and utterly destroyed them—
You erased every memory of them.
15 By contrast You have made this people great, Eternal One—
made this nation vital and strong. To you be all glory!
You have expanded the borders of this land.
16 When You corrected their wrongdoing, Eternal One,
they could hardly even whisper a prayer.
Weak with distress, they looked to You for help.
17 You witnessed us twist and turn before You, O Eternal,
like a birthing woman in agony of labor.
18 We were that woman, laboring to deliver,
but we gave birth only to futility and emptiness.
We couldn’t deliver the earth, save it, renew it.
We couldn’t make it teem with life.
19 But Your dead will live; their lifeless bodies will rise up again!
You who sleep in the dust, get up and shout for joy!
The dew of a new day will wash you glistening fresh,
and the earth will push forth those who had passed before.
20 O my people, hide in your rooms for a time. Shut the doors behind you
and hide away until God’s anger has passed.
21 See here, the Eternal One will emerge from His place
to punish the earth’s inhabitants for their wrongdoing.
The earth will not hide the blood that has been spilled into her dust;
she will no longer cover those who have been murdered.
27 On that day, the Eternal One will unsheathe His sword—fierce, great, and strong—and punish the monster of chaos and terror, Leviathan the fleeing serpent. He will strike Leviathan, the twisting serpent, and slay the dragon of the sea.
2 In that day, O joy, sing out about the vineyard most fruitful.
3 Eternal One: I, the Eternal One, tend and keep this vineyard;
I water and guard it day and night,
Protecting it against any that might wish to harm it.
4 I am empty of anger.
If it produces nasty weeds and thorns,
I will simply stomp them down and burn them up.
5 But let My vineyard look to Me for protection and nurture;
let it seek My peace;
let it seek My peace.
6 In days to come this people, Jacob, will take root;
Israel, My promise people, will burst into bloom
And fill the whole world with fruit to enjoy.
7 Has God struck Israel as He struck those who struck her?
Has she been killed as her killers were killed?
8 By driving her away, You have dealt with her;
You blew her away with a fierce blast
As when the east wind comes ripping through.
You sent her away to live as strangers in a foreign land.
9 In this way, the people descended from Jacob will have their sins forgiven.
This is how they’ll pay in full the penalty for their wrongdoing—
When God crumbles all the stones of their altars into dust like chalk,
and when not one of their sacred poles and incense altars is left standing.
10 The city that had been so strong and vibrant
is isolated and alone, abandoned, a deserted wilderness.
Calves munch through it, lounging around
and eating whatever twigs dare to shoot up.
11 When the branches are dead and dried and broken,
women will gather and burn them up.
For these people are foolish and lack understanding,
so their Creator will not be compassionate toward them.
Though He made them, He will not show them favor.
12 On that day, people of Israel—people of promise—the Eternal will thresh the lands from the Euphrates to the Nile, from Mesopotamia to Egypt, and gather you up one by one. 13 With a great trumpet blast, everyone who was dying in captivity—in Assyria and Egypt—will come to worship the Eternal on the holy mountain that is Jerusalem.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.