Beginning
God’s Message to Lebanon
23 This is a message about Tyre:
You trading ships, cry!
The houses and harbor of Tyre are destroyed.
This news came to the ships
from the land of Cyprus.
2 Be silent, you who live on the island of Tyre;
you merchants of Sidon, be silent.
Sailors have made you rich.
3 They traveled the sea to bring grain from Egypt;
the sailors of Tyre brought grain from the Nile Valley
and sold it to other nations.
4 Sidon, be ashamed.
Strong city of the sea, be ashamed, because the sea says:
“I have not felt the pain of giving birth;
I have not reared young men or women.”
5 Egypt will hear the news about Tyre,
and it will make Egypt hurt with sorrow.
6 You ships should return to Tarshish.
You people living near the sea should be sad.
7 Look at your once happy city!
Look at your old, old city!
People from that city have traveled
far away to live.
8 Who planned Tyre’s destruction?
Tyre made others rich.
Its merchants were treated like princes,
and its traders were greatly respected.
9 It was the Lord All-Powerful who planned this.
He decided to make these proud people unimportant;
he decided to disgrace those who were greatly respected.
10 Go through your land, people of Tarshish,
like the Nile goes through Egypt.
There is no harbor for you now!
11 The Lord has stretched his hand over the sea
and made its kingdoms tremble.
He commands that Canaan’s
strong, walled cities be destroyed.
12 He said, “Sidon, you will not rejoice any longer,
because you are destroyed.
Even if you cross the sea to Cyprus,
you will not find a place to rest.”
13 Look at the land of the Babylonians;
it is not a country now.
Assyria has made it a place for wild animals.
Assyria built towers to attack it;
the soldiers took all the treasures from its cities,
and they turned it into ruins.
14 So be sad, you trading ships,
because your strong city is destroyed.
15 At that time people will forget about Tyre for seventy years, which is the length of a king’s life. After seventy years, Tyre will be like the prostitute in this song:
16 “Oh woman, you are forgotten.
Take your harp and walk through the city.
Play your harp well. Sing your song often.
Then people will remember you.”
17 After seventy years the Lord will deal with Tyre, and it will again have trade. It will be like a prostitute for all the nations of the earth. 18 The profits will be saved for the Lord. Tyre will not keep the money she earns but will give them to the people who serve the Lord, so they will have plenty of food and nice clothes.
The Lord Will Punish the World
24 Look! The Lord will destroy the earth and leave it empty;
he will ruin the surface of the land and scatter its people.
2 At that time the same thing will happen to everyone:
to common people and priests,
to slaves and masters,
to women slaves and their women masters,
to buyers and sellers,
to those who borrow and those who lend,
to bankers and those who owe the bank.
3 The earth will be completely empty.
The wealth will all be taken,
because the Lord has commanded it.
4 The earth will dry up and die;
the world will grow weak and die;
the great leaders in this land will become weak.
5 The people of the earth have ruined it,
because they do not follow God’s teachings
or obey God’s laws
or keep their agreement with God that was to last forever.
6 So a curse will destroy the earth.
The people of the world are guilty,
so they will be burned up;
only a few will be left.
7 The new wine will be bad, and the grapevines will die.
People who were happy will be sad.
8 The happy music of the tambourines will end.
The happy sounds of wild parties will stop.
The joyful music from the harps will end.
9 People will no longer sing while they drink their wine.
The beer will taste bitter to those who drink it.
10 The ruined city will be empty,
and people will hide behind closed doors.
11 People in the streets will ask for wine,
but joy will have turned to sadness;
all the happiness will have left.
12 The city will be left in ruins,
and its gates will be smashed to pieces.
13 This is what will happen all over the earth
and to all the nations.
The earth will be like an olive tree after the harvest
or like the few grapes left on a vine after harvest.
14 The people shout for joy.
From the west they praise the greatness of the Lord.
15 People in the east, praise the Lord.
People in the islands of the sea,
praise the name of the Lord, the God of Israel.
16 We hear songs from every part of the earth
praising God, the Righteous One.
But I said, “I am dying! I am dying!
How terrible it will be for me!
Traitors turn against people;
with their dishonesty, they turn against people.”
17 There are terrors, holes, and traps
for the people of the earth.
18 Anyone who tries to escape from the sound of terror
will fall into a hole.
Anyone who climbs out of the hole
will be caught in a trap.
The clouds in the sky will pour out rain,
and the foundations of the earth will shake.
19 The earth will be broken up;
the earth will split open;
the earth will shake violently.
20 The earth will stumble around like someone who is drunk;
it will shake like a hut in a storm.
Its sin is like a heavy weight on its back;
it will fall and never rise again.
21 At that time the Lord will punish
the powers in the sky above
and the rulers on earth below.
22 They will be gathered together
like prisoners thrown into a dungeon;
they will be shut up in prison.
After much time they will be punished.
23 The moon will be embarrassed,
and the sun will be ashamed,
because the Lord All-Powerful will rule as king
on Mount Zion in Jerusalem.
Jerusalem’s leaders will see his greatness.
A Song of Praise to God
25 Lord, you are my God.
I honor you and praise you,
because you have done amazing things.
You have always done what you said you would do;
you have done what you planned long ago.
2 You have made the city a pile of rocks
and have destroyed her walls.
The city our enemies built with strong walls is gone;
it will never be built again.
3 People from powerful nations will honor you;
cruel people from strong cities will fear you.
4 You protect the poor;
you protect the helpless when they are in danger.
You are like a shelter from storms,
like shade that protects them from the heat.
The cruel people attack
like a rainstorm beating against the wall,
5 like the heat in the desert.
But you, God, stop their violent attack.
As a cloud cools a hot day,
you silence the songs of those who have no mercy.
God’s Banquet for His Servants
6 The Lord All-Powerful will prepare a feast
on this mountain for all people.
It will be a feast with all the best food and wine,
the finest meat and wine.
7 On this mountain God will destroy
the veil that covers all nations,
the veil that stretches over all peoples;
8 he will destroy death forever.
The Lord God will wipe away every tear from every face.
He will take away the shame of his people from the earth.
The Lord has spoken.
9 At that time people will say,
“Our God is doing this!
We have waited for him, and he has come to save us.
This is the Lord. We waited for him,
so we will rejoice and be happy when he saves us.”
10 The Lord will protect Jerusalem,
but he will crush our enemy Moab
like straw that is trampled down in the manure.
11 They will spread their arms in it
like a person who is swimming.
But God will bring down their pride,
and all the clever things they have made will mean nothing.
12 Moab’s high walls protect them,
but God will destroy these walls.
He will throw them down to the ground,
even to the dust.
A Song of Praise to God
26 At that time people will sing this song in Judah:
We have a strong city.
God protects us with its strong walls and defenses.
2 Open the gates,
and the good people will enter,
those who follow God.
3 You, Lord, give true peace
to those who depend on you,
because they trust you.
4 So, trust the Lord always,
because he is our Rock forever.
5 He will destroy the proud city,
and he will punish the people living there.
He will bring that high city down to the ground
and throw it down into the dust.
6 Then those who were hurt by the city will walk on its ruins;
those who were made poor by the city will trample it under their feet.
7 The path of life is level for those who are right with God;
Lord, you make the way of life smooth for those people.
8 But, Lord, we are waiting
for your way of justice.
Our souls want to remember
you and your name.
9 My soul wants to be with you at night,
and my spirit wants to be with you at the dawn of every day.
When your way of justice comes to the land,
people of the world will learn the right way of living.
10 Evil people will not learn to do good
even if you show them kindness.
They will continue doing evil, even if they live in a good world;
they never see the Lord’s greatness.
11 Lord, you are ready to punish those people,
but they do not see that.
Show them your strong love for your people.
Then those who are evil will be ashamed.
Burn them in the fire
you have prepared for your enemies.
12 Lord, all our success is because of what you have done,
so give us peace.
13 Lord, our God, other masters besides you have ruled us,
but we honor only you.
14 Those masters are now dead;
their ghosts will not rise from death.
You punished and destroyed them
and erased any memory of them.
15 Lord, you multiplied the number of your people;
you multiplied them and brought honor to yourself.
You made the borders of the land wide.
16 Lord, people remember you when they are in trouble;
they say quiet prayers to you when you punish them.
17 Lord, when we are with you,
we are like a woman giving birth to a baby;
she cries and has pain from the birth.
18 In the same way, we had pain.
We gave birth, but only to wind.
We don’t bring salvation to the land
or make new people for the world.
19 Your people have died, but they will live again;
their bodies will rise from death.
You who lie in the ground,
wake up and be happy!
The dew covering you is like the dew of a new day;
the ground will give birth to the dead.
Judgment: Reward or Punishment
20 My people, go into your rooms
and shut your doors behind you.
Hide in your rooms for a short time
until God’s anger is finished.
21 The Lord will leave his place
to punish the people of the world for their sins.
The earth will show the blood of the people who have been killed;
it will not cover the dead any longer.
27 At that time the Lord will punish Leviathan, the gliding snake.
He will punish Leviathan, the coiled snake,
with his great and hard and powerful sword.
He will kill the monster in the sea.
2 At that time
people will sing about the pleasant vineyard.
3 “I, the Lord, will care for that vineyard;
I will water it at the right time.
No one will hurt it,
because I will guard it day and night.
4 I am not angry.
If anyone builds a wall of thornbushes in war,
I will march to it and burn it.
5 But if anyone comes to me for safety
and wants to make peace with me,
he should come and make peace with me.”
6 In the days to come, the people of Jacob will be like a plant with good roots;
Israel will grow like a plant beginning to bloom.
Then the world will be filled with their children.
The Lord Will Send Israel Away
7 The Lord has not hurt his people as he hurt their enemies;
his people have not been killed like those who tried to kill them.
8 He will settle his argument with Israel by sending it far away.
Like a hot desert wind, he will drive it away.
9 This is how Israel’s guilt will be forgiven;
this is how its sins will be taken away:
Israel will crush the rocks of the altar to dust,
and no statues or altars will be left standing for the Asherah idols.
10 At that time the strong, walled city will be empty
like a desert.
Calves will eat grass there.
They will lie down there
and eat leaves from the branches.
11 The limbs will become dry and break off,
so women will use them for firewood.
The people refuse to understand,
so God will not comfort them;
their Maker will not be kind to them.
12 At that time the Lord will begin gathering his people one by one from the Euphrates River to the brook of Egypt. He will separate them from others as grain is separated from chaff. 13 Many of my people are now lost in Assyria. Some have run away to Egypt. But at that time a great trumpet will be blown, and all those people will come and worship the Lord on that holy mountain in Jerusalem.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.