Bible in 90 Days
The Restoration of David’s Kingdom
11 On that day I will raise up
the booth of David that is fallen
and repair its[a] breaches
and raise up its[b] ruins
and rebuild it as in the days of old,(A)
12 in order that they may possess the remnant of Edom
and all the nations who are called by my name,
says the Lord who does this.(B)
13 The time is surely coming, says the Lord,
when the one who plows shall catch up with the one who reaps
and the treader of grapes with the one who sows the seed;
the mountains shall drip sweet wine,
and all the hills shall flow with it.(C)
14 I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel,
and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine,
and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.(D)
15 I will plant them upon their land,
and they shall never again be plucked up
out of the land that I have given them,
says the Lord your God.(E)
Proud Edom Will Be Brought Low
1 The vision of Obadiah.
Thus says the Lord God concerning Edom:
We have heard a report from the Lord,
and a messenger has been sent among the nations:
“Rise up! Let us rise against it for battle!”(F)
2 I will surely make you least among the nations;
you shall be utterly despised.
3 Your proud heart has deceived you,
you who live in the clefts of the rock,[c]
whose dwelling is in the heights.
You say in your heart,
“Who will bring me down to the ground?”(G)
4 Though you soar aloft like the eagle,
though your nest is set among the stars,
from there I will bring you down,
says the Lord.(H)
Pillage and Slaughter Will Repay Edom’s Cruelty
5 If thieves came to you,
if plunderers by night
—how you have been destroyed!—
would they not steal only what they wanted?
If grape gatherers came to you,
would they not leave gleanings?(I)
6 How Esau has been pillaged,
his treasures searched out!
7 All your allies have deceived you;
they have driven you to the border;
your confederates have prevailed against you;
those who ate your food have set a trap for you—
there is no understanding.(J)
8 On that day, says the Lord,
I will destroy the wise out of Edom
and understanding out of Mount Esau.(K)
9 Your warriors shall be shattered, O Teman,
so that everyone from Mount Esau will be cut off.(L)
Edom Mistreated His Brother
10 For the slaughter and violence done to your brother Jacob,
shame shall cover you,
and you shall be cut off forever.(M)
11 On the day that you stood aside,
on the day that strangers carried off his wealth
and foreigners entered his gates
and cast lots for Jerusalem,
you, too, were one of them.(N)
12 But you should not have gloated over[d] your brother
on the day of his misfortune;
you should not have rejoiced over the people of Judah
on the day of their ruin;
you should not have boasted
on the day of distress.(O)
13 You should not have entered the gate of my people
on the day of their calamity;
you should not have joined in the gloating over Judah’s[e] disaster
on the day of his calamity;
you should not have stolen his goods
on the day of his calamity.(P)
14 You should not have stood at the crossings
to cut off his fugitives;
you should not have handed over his survivors
on the day of distress.
15 For the day of the Lord is near against all the nations.
As you have done, it shall be done to you;
your deeds shall return on your own head.(Q)
16 For as you have drunk on my holy mountain,
all the nations shall drink continually;
they shall drink and gulp down[f]
and shall be as though they had never been.(R)
Israel’s Final Triumph
17 But on Mount Zion there shall be those who escape,
and it shall be holy,
and the house of Jacob shall take possession of those who dispossessed them.(S)
18 The house of Jacob shall be a fire,
the house of Joseph a flame,
and the house of Esau stubble;
they shall burn them and consume them,
and there shall be no survivor of the house of Esau,
for the Lord has spoken.(T)
19 Those of the Negeb shall possess Mount Esau,
and those of the Shephelah the land of the Philistines;
they shall possess the land of Ephraim and the land of Samaria,
and Benjamin shall possess Gilead.(U)
20 The exiles of the Israelites who are in Halah[g]
shall possess[h] Phoenicia as far as Zarephath,
and the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad
shall possess the towns of the Negeb.(V)
21 Those who have been saved[i] shall go up to Mount Zion
to rule Mount Esau,
and the kingdom shall be the Lord’s.(W)
Jonah Tries to Run Away from God
1 Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying,(X) 2 “Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it, for their wickedness has come up before me.”(Y) 3 But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid his fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.(Z)
4 But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and such a mighty storm came upon the sea that the ship threatened to break up.(AA) 5 Then the sailors were afraid, and each cried to his god. They threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea, to lighten it for them. Jonah, meanwhile, had gone down into the hold of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep.(AB) 6 The captain came and said to him, “What are you doing sound asleep? Get up; call on your god! Perhaps the god will spare us a thought so that we do not perish.”(AC)
7 The sailors[j] said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, so that we may know on whose account this calamity has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.(AD) 8 Then they said to him, “Tell us why this calamity has come upon us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?”(AE) 9 “I am a Hebrew,” he replied. “I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”(AF) 10 Then the men were even more afraid and said to him, “What is this that you have done!” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them so.(AG)
11 Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?” For the sea was growing more and more tempestuous. 12 He said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great storm has come upon you.”(AH) 13 Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to bring the ship[k] back to land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more stormy against them. 14 Then they cried out to the Lord, “Please, O Lord, we pray, do not let us perish on account of this man’s life. Do not make us guilty of innocent blood, for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.”(AI) 15 So they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. 16 Then the men feared the Lord even more, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.(AJ)
17 [l]But the Lord provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.(AK)
A Psalm of Thanksgiving
2 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, 2 saying,
“I called to the Lord out of my distress,
and he answered me;
out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
and you heard my voice.
3 You cast me into the deep,
into the heart of the seas,
and the flood surrounded me;
all your waves and your billows
passed over me.(AL)
4 Then I said, ‘I am driven away
from your sight;
how[m] shall I look again
upon your holy temple?’(AM)
5 The waters closed in over me;
the deep surrounded me;
weeds were wrapped around my head(AN)
6 at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land
whose bars closed upon me forever;
yet you brought up my life from the Pit,
O Lord my God.(AO)
7 As my life was ebbing away,
I remembered the Lord,
and my prayer came to you,
into your holy temple.(AP)
8 Those who worship vain idols
forsake their true loyalty.(AQ)
9 But I with the voice of thanksgiving
will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay.
Deliverance belongs to the Lord!”(AR)
10 Then the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out onto the dry land.
Conversion of Nineveh
3 The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying,(AS) 2 “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.(AT)
6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.(AU) 7 Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water.(AV) 8 Humans and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands.(AW) 9 Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.”(AX)
10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them, and he did not do it.(AY)
Jonah’s Anger
4 But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry.(AZ) 2 He prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning, for I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment.(BA) 3 And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”(BB) 4 And the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?”(BC) 5 Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.(BD)
6 The Lord God appointed a bush and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort, so Jonah was very happy about the bush. 7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”
Jonah Is Reproved
9 But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” And he said, “Yes, angry enough to die.” 10 Then the Lord said, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left and also many animals?”(BE)
1 The word of the Lord that came to Micah of Moresheth in the days of Kings Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.(BF)
Judgment Pronounced against Samaria
2 Hear, you peoples, all of you;
listen, O earth, and all that is in it,
and let the Lord God be a witness against you,
the Lord from his holy temple.(BG)
3 For the Lord is coming out of his place
and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth.(BH)
4 Then the mountains will melt under him,
and the valleys will burst open
like wax near the fire,
like waters poured down a slope.(BI)
5 All this is for the transgression of Jacob
and for the sins of the house of Israel.
What is the transgression of Jacob?
Is it not Samaria?
And what is the high place[n] of Judah?
Is it not Jerusalem?(BJ)
6 Therefore I will make Samaria a heap in the open country,
a place for planting vineyards.
I will pour down her stones into the valley
and uncover her foundations.(BK)
7 All her images shall be beaten to pieces,
all her wages shall be burned with fire,
and all her idols I will lay waste;
for as the wages of a prostitute she gathered them,
and as the wages of a prostitute they shall again be used.(BL)
The Doom of the Cities of Judah
8 For this I will lament and wail;
I will go barefoot and naked;
I will make lamentation like the jackals
and mourning like the ostriches.(BM)
9 For her wound[o] is incurable.
It has come to Judah;
it has reached to the gate of my people,
to Jerusalem.(BN)
10 Tell it not in Gath;
weep not at all;
in Beth-leaphrah
roll yourselves in the dust.(BO)
11 Pass on your way,
inhabitants of Shaphir,
in nakedness and shame;
the inhabitants of Zaanan
do not come forth;
Beth-ezel is wailing
and shall remove its support from you.(BP)
12 For the inhabitants of Maroth
wait anxiously for good,
yet disaster has come down from the Lord
to the gate of Jerusalem.(BQ)
13 Harness the steeds to the chariots,
inhabitants of Lachish;
it was the beginning of sin
to daughter Zion,
for in you were found
the transgressions of Israel.(BR)
14 Therefore you shall give parting gifts
to Moresheth-gath;
the houses of Achzib shall be a deception
to the kings of Israel.(BS)
15 I will again bring a conqueror upon you,
inhabitants of Mareshah;
the glory of Israel
shall come to Adullam.(BT)
16 Make yourselves bald and cut off your hair
for your pampered children;
make yourselves as bald as the eagle,
for they have gone from you into exile.(BU)
Social Evils Denounced
2 Woe to those who devise wickedness
and evil deeds[p] on their beds!
When the morning dawns, they perform it,
because it is in their power.(BV)
2 They covet fields and seize them,
houses and take them away;
they oppress householder and house,
people and their inheritance.(BW)
3 Therefore thus says the Lord:
Now, I am devising against this family an evil
from which you cannot remove your necks,
and you shall not walk arrogantly,
for it will be an evil time.(BX)
4 On that day they shall take up a taunt song against you
and wail with bitter lamentation
and say, “We are utterly ruined;
the Lord[q] alters the inheritance of my people;
how he removes it from me!
Among our captors[r] he parcels out our fields.”(BY)
5 Therefore you will have no one in the Lord’s assembly
to allot you a piece of land.(BZ)
6 “Do not preach”—thus they preach—
“one should not preach of such things;
disgrace will not overtake us.”(CA)
7 Should this be said, O house of Jacob?
Is the Lord’s patience exhausted?
Are these his doings?
Do not my words do good
to one who walks uprightly?
8 But you rise up against my people[s] as an enemy;
you strip the robe from the peaceful,[t]
from those who pass by trustingly
with no thought of war.
9 The women of my people you drive out
from their pleasant houses;
from their young children you take away
my glory forever.
10 Arise and go,
for this is no place to rest,
because of uncleanness that destroys
with a violent destruction.(CB)
11 If someone were to go about uttering empty falsehoods,
saying, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,”
such a one would be the preacher for this people!(CC)
A Promise for the Remnant of Israel
12 I will surely gather all of you, O Jacob;
I will gather the survivors of Israel;
I will set them together
like sheep in a fold,
like a flock in its pasture;
it will resound with people.(CD)
13 The one who breaks out will go up before them;
they will break through and pass the gate,
going out by it.
Their king will pass on before them,
the Lord at their head.(CE)
Wicked Rulers and Prophets
3 And I said:
Listen, you heads of Jacob
and rulers of the house of Israel!
Should you not know justice?—(CF)
2 you who hate the good and love the evil,
who tear the skin off my people[u]
and the flesh off their bones,(CG)
3 who eat the flesh of my people,
flay their skin off them,
break their bones in pieces,
and chop them up like meat[v] in a kettle,
like flesh in a caldron.(CH)
4 Then they will cry to the Lord,
but he will not answer them;
he will hide his face from them at that time
because they have acted wickedly.(CI)
5 Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets
who lead my people astray,
who cry “Peace”
when they have something to eat
but declare war against those
who put nothing into their mouths.(CJ)
6 Therefore it shall be night to you, without vision,
and darkness to you, without revelation.
The sun shall go down upon the prophets,
and the day shall be black over them;(CK)
7 the seers shall be disgraced
and the diviners put to shame;
they shall all cover their lips,
for there is no answer from God.(CL)
8 But as for me, I am filled with power,
with the spirit of the Lord,
and with justice and might,
to declare to Jacob his transgression
and to Israel his sin.(CM)
9 Hear this, you rulers of the house of Jacob
and chiefs of the house of Israel,
who abhor justice
and pervert all equity,(CN)
10 who build Zion with blood
and Jerusalem with wrong!(CO)
11 Its rulers give judgment for a bribe;
its priests teach for a price;
its prophets give oracles for money;
yet they lean upon the Lord and say,
“Surely the Lord is with us!
No harm shall come upon us.”(CP)
12 Therefore because of you
Zion shall be plowed as a field;
Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins,
and the mountain of the temple a wooded height.(CQ)
Peace and Security through Obedience
4 In days to come
the mountain of the Lord’s temple
shall be established as the highest of the mountains
and shall be raised up above the hills.
Peoples shall stream to it,(CR)
2 and many nations shall come and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.(CS)
3 He shall judge between many peoples
and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation;
neither shall they learn war any more;(CT)
4 but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees,
and no one shall make them afraid,
for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.(CU)
5 For all the peoples walk,
each in the name of its god,
but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God
forever and ever.(CV)
Restoration Promised after Exile
6 On that day, says the Lord,
I will assemble the lame
and gather those who have been driven away
and those whom I have afflicted.(CW)
7 The lame I will make the remnant,
and those who were cast off, a strong nation,
and the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion
now and forevermore.(CX)
8 And you, O tower of the flock,
hill of daughter Zion,
to you it shall come,
the former dominion shall come,
the sovereignty of daughter Jerusalem.(CY)
9 Now why do you cry aloud?
Is there no king in you?
Has your counselor perished,
that pangs have seized you like a woman in labor?(CZ)
10 Writhe and groan,[w] O daughter Zion,
like a woman in labor,
for now you shall go forth from the city
and camp in the open country;
you shall go to Babylon.
There you shall be rescued;
there the Lord will redeem you
from the hands of your enemies.(DA)
11 Now many nations
are assembled against you,
saying, “Let her be profaned,
and let our eyes gaze upon Zion.”(DB)
12 But they do not know
the thoughts of the Lord;
they do not understand his plan,
that he has gathered them as sheaves to the threshing floor.(DC)
13 Arise and thresh,
O daughter Zion,
for I will make your horn iron
and your hoofs bronze;
you shall beat in pieces many peoples
and shall[x] devote their gain to the Lord,
their wealth to the Lord of the whole earth.(DD)
5 [y]Now you are walled around with a wall;[z]
siege is laid against us;
with a rod they strike the ruler of Israel
upon the cheek.(DE)
The Ruler from Bethlehem
2 [aa]But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah,
who are one of the little clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to rule in Israel,
whose origin is from of old,
from ancient days.(DF)
3 Therefore he shall give them up until the time
when she who is in labor has brought forth;
then the rest of his kindred shall return
to the people of Israel.(DG)
4 And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great
to the ends of the earth,(DH)
5 and he shall be the one of peace.
If the Assyrians come into our land
and tread upon our soil,[ab]
we will raise against them seven shepherds
and eight rulers.(DI)
6 They shall rule the land of Assyria with the sword
and the land of Nimrod with the drawn sword;[ac]
they[ad] shall rescue us from the Assyrians
if they come into our land
or tread within our border.(DJ)
The Future Role of the Remnant
7 Then the remnant of Jacob,
surrounded by many peoples,
shall be like dew from the Lord,
like showers on the grass,
which do not depend upon people
or wait for any mortal.(DK)
8 And among the nations the remnant of Jacob,
surrounded by many peoples,
shall be like a lion among the animals of the forest,
like a young lion among the flocks of sheep,
which, when it goes through, treads down
and tears in pieces, with no one to deliver.(DL)
9 Your hand shall be lifted up over your adversaries,
and all your enemies shall be cut off.(DM)
10 On that day, says the Lord,
I will cut off your horses from among you
and will destroy your chariots;(DN)
11 and I will cut off the cities of your land
and destroy all your strongholds;(DO)
12 and I will cut off sorceries from your hand,
and you shall have no more soothsayers;(DP)
13 and I will cut off your images
and your pillars from among you,
and you shall bow down no more
to the work of your hands;
14 and I will uproot your sacred poles[ae] from among you
and destroy your towns.(DQ)
15 And in anger and wrath I will execute vengeance
on the nations that did not obey.(DR)
God Challenges Israel
6 Hear what the Lord says:
Rise, plead your case before the mountains,
and let the hills hear your voice.(DS)
2 Hear, you mountains, the case of the Lord,
and you enduring foundations of the earth,
for the Lord has a case against his people,
and he will contend with Israel.(DT)
3 “O my people, what have I done to you?
In what have I wearied you? Answer me!(DU)
4 For I brought you up from the land of Egypt
and redeemed you from the house of slavery,
and I sent before you Moses,
Aaron, and Miriam.(DV)
5 O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised,
what Balaam son of Beor answered him,
and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,
that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.”(DW)
What God Requires
6 “With what shall I come before the Lord
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”(DX)
8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good,
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice and to love kindness
and to walk humbly with your God?(DY)
Cheating and Violence to Be Punished
9 The voice of the Lord cries to the city
(and he shall save those who fear his name[af]):
Hear, O tribe and assembly of the city![ag]
10 Can I forget[ah] the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked
and the despicable false measure?(DZ)
11 Can I tolerate wicked scales
and a bag of dishonest weights?(EA)
12 Your[ai] wealthy are full of violence;
your[aj] inhabitants speak lies
with tongues of deceit in their mouths.
13 Therefore I have begun[ak] to strike you down,
making you desolate because of your sins.(EB)
14 You shall eat but not be satisfied,
and there shall be a gnawing hunger within you;
you shall put away but not save,
and what you save, I will hand over to the sword.(EC)
15 You shall sow but not reap;
you shall tread olives but not anoint yourselves with oil;
you shall tread grapes but not drink wine.(ED)
16 For you have kept the statutes of Omri[al]
and all the works of the house of Ahab,
and you have followed their counsels.
Therefore I will make you a desolation and your[am] inhabitants an object of hissing,
so you shall bear the scorn of my people.(EE)
The Total Corruption of the People
7 Woe is me! For I have become like one who,
after the summer fruit has been gathered,
after the vintage has been gleaned,
finds no cluster to eat;
there is no first-ripe fig for which I hunger.(EF)
2 The faithful have disappeared from the land,
and there is no one left who is upright;
they all lie in wait for blood,
and they hunt each other with nets.(EG)
3 Their hands are skilled to do evil;
the official and the judge ask for a bribe,
and the powerful dictate what they desire;
thus they pervert justice.[an](EH)
4 The best of them is like a brier,
the most upright of them a thorn hedge.
The day of their[ao] sentinels, of their[ap] punishment, has come;
now their confusion is at hand.(EI)
5 Put no trust in a friend;
have no confidence in a loved one;
guard the doors of your mouth
from her who lies in your embrace,
6 for the son treats the father with contempt,
the daughter rises up against her mother,
the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
your enemies are members of your own household.(EJ)
7 But as for me, I will look to the Lord;
I will wait for the God of my salvation;
my God will hear me.(EK)
Penitence and Trust in God
8 Do not rejoice over me, my enemies;[aq]
when I fall, I shall rise;
when I sit in darkness,
the Lord will be a light to me.(EL)
9 I must bear the indignation of the Lord
because I have sinned against him,
until he takes my side
and executes judgment for me.
He will bring me out to the light;
I shall see his vindication.(EM)
10 Then my enemies[ar] will see,
and shame will cover those[as] who said to me,
“Where is the Lord your God?”
My eyes will see their[at] downfall;[au]
now they[av] will be trodden down
like the mire of the streets.(EN)
A Prophecy of Restoration
11 A day for the building of your walls!
On that day the boundary shall be far extended.(EO)
12 On that day they will come to you
from Assyria to[aw] Egypt
and from Egypt to the River,
from sea to sea and from mountain to mountain.(EP)
13 But the earth will be desolate
because of its inhabitants,
for the fruit of their doings.(EQ)
14 Shepherd your people with your staff,
the flock that belongs to you,
which lives alone in a forest
in the midst of a garden land;
let them feed in Bashan and Gilead
as in the days of old.
15 As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt,
show us[ax] marvelous things.(ER)
16 The nations shall see and be ashamed
of all their might;
they shall lay their hands on their mouths;
their ears shall be deaf;(ES)
17 they shall lick dust like a snake,
like the crawling things of the earth;
they shall come trembling out of their fortresses;
they shall turn in dread to the Lord our God,
and they shall stand in fear of you.(ET)
God’s Compassion and Steadfast Love
18 Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity
and passing over the transgression
of the remnant of his possession?
He does not retain his anger forever
because he delights in showing steadfast love.(EU)
19 He will again have compassion upon us;
he will tread our iniquities under foot.
You will cast all our[ay] sins
into the depths of the sea.(EV)
20 You will show faithfulness to Jacob
and steadfast love to Abraham,
as you have sworn to our ancestors
from the days of old.(EW)
1 An oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh.(EX)
The Consuming Wrath of God
2 A jealous and avenging God is the Lord;
the Lord is avenging and wrathful;
the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries
and prolongs it against his enemies.(EY)
3 The Lord is slow to anger but great in power,
and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty.
His way is in whirlwind and storm,
and the clouds are the dust of his feet.(EZ)
4 He rebukes the sea and makes it dry,
and he dries up all the rivers;
Bashan and Carmel wither,
and the bloom of Lebanon fades.
5 The mountains quake before him,
and the hills melt;
the earth heaves before him,
the world and all who live in it.(FA)
6 Who can stand before his indignation?
Who can endure the heat of his anger?
His wrath is poured out like fire,
and by him the rocks are broken in pieces.(FB)
7 The Lord is good,
a stronghold in a day of trouble;
he protects those who take refuge in him,
8 even in a rushing flood.
He will make a full end of his adversaries[az]
and will pursue his enemies into darkness.(FC)
9 Why do you plot against the Lord?
He will make an end;
no adversary will rise up twice.(FD)
10 Like thorns they are entangled;
like drunkards they are drunk;
they are consumed like dry straw.(FE)
11 From you one has gone out
who plots evil against the Lord,
one who counsels wickedness.(FF)
Good News for Judah
12 Thus says the Lord:
Though they are at full strength and many,[ba]
they will be cut off and pass away.
Though I have afflicted you,
I will afflict you no more.(FG)
13 And now I will break off his yoke from you
and snap the bonds that bind you.(FH)
14 The Lord has commanded concerning you:
Your name shall be perpetuated no longer;
from the house of your gods I will cut off
the carved image and the cast image.
I will prepare your grave, for you are worthless.(FI)
15 [bb]Look! On the mountains the feet of one
who brings good tidings,
who proclaims peace!
Celebrate your festivals, O Judah;
fulfill your vows,
for never again shall the wicked invade you;
they are utterly cut off.(FJ)
The Destruction of the Wicked City
2 A scatterer has come up against you.
Guard the ramparts;
watch the road;
gird your loins;
collect all your strength.(FK)
2 (For the Lord is restoring the majesty of Jacob,
as well as the majesty of Israel,
though ravagers have ravaged them
and ruined their branches.)(FL)
3 The shields of his warriors are red;
his soldiers are clothed in crimson.
The metal on the chariots flashes
on the day when he musters them;
the chargers[bc] prance.(FM)
4 The chariots race madly through the streets;
they rush to and fro through the squares;
their appearance is like torches;
they dart like lightning.(FN)
5 He calls his officers;
they stumble as they come forward;
they hasten to the wall,
and the screen[bd] is set up.
6 The river gates are opened;
the palace trembles.
7 It is decreed[be] that the city[bf] be exiled,
its slave women led away,
moaning like doves
and beating their breasts.(FO)
8 Nineveh is like a pool
whose waters[bg] run away.
“Halt! Halt!”—
but no one turns back.(FP)
9 “Plunder the silver;
plunder the gold!
There is no end of treasure!
An abundance of every precious thing!”
10 Devastation, desolation, and destruction!
Hearts faint and knees tremble;
all loins quake;
all faces grow pale!(FQ)
11 What became of the lions’ den,
the cave of the young lions,
where the lion goes,
and the lion’s cubs, with no one to disturb them?(FR)
12 The lion has torn enough for his whelps
and strangled prey for his lionesses;
he has filled his caves with prey
and his dens with torn flesh.(FS)
13 See, I am against you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will burn your[bh] chariots in smoke, and the sword shall devour your young lions; I will cut off your prey from the earth, and the voice of your messengers shall be heard no more.(FT)
Ruin Imminent and Inevitable
3 Woe, city of bloodshed,
utterly deceitful, full of plunder—
no end to the prey!(FU)
2 The crack of whip and rumble of wheel,
galloping horse and bounding chariot!(FV)
3 Horsemen charging,
flashing sword and glittering spear,
piles of dead,
heaps of corpses,
dead bodies without end—
they stumble over the bodies!(FW)
4 Because of the countless debaucheries of the prostitute,
gracefully alluring, mistress of sorcery,
who enslaves[bi] nations through her debaucheries
and peoples through her sorcery,(FX)
5 I am against you,
says the Lord of hosts,
and will lift up your skirts over your face,
and I will let nations look on your nakedness
and kingdoms on your shame.(FY)
6 I will throw filth at you
and treat you with contempt
and make you a spectacle.(FZ)
7 Then all who see you will shrink from you and say,
“Nineveh is devastated; who will bemoan her?”
Where shall I seek comforters for you?(GA)
8 Are you better than Thebes[bj]
that sat by the Nile,
with water around her,
her rampart a sea,
water her wall?(GB)
9 Cush was her strength,
Egypt, too, and that without limit;
Put and the Libyans were her[bk] helpers.(GC)
10 Yet she became an exile;
she went into captivity;
even her infants were dashed in pieces
at the head of every street;
lots were cast for her nobles;
all her dignitaries were bound in fetters.(GD)
11 You also will be drunken;
you will go into hiding;[bl]
you will seek
a refuge from the enemy.(GE)
12 All your fortresses are like fig trees
with first-ripe figs—
if shaken they fall
into the mouth of the eater.(GF)
13 Look at your troops:
they are women in your midst.
The gates of your land
are wide open to your foes;
fire has devoured the bars of your gates.(GG)
14 Draw water for the siege;
strengthen your forts;
trample the clay;
tread the mortar;
take hold of the brick mold!
15 There the fire will devour you;
the sword will cut you off.
It will devour you like the locust.
Multiply yourselves like the locust;
multiply like the grasshopper!(GH)
16 You increased your merchants
more than the stars of the heavens.
The locust sheds its skin and flies away.
17 Your guards are like grasshoppers,
your scribes like swarms[bm] of locusts
settling on the fences
on a cold day—
when the sun rises, they fly away;
no one knows where they have gone.
18 Your shepherds are asleep,
O king of Assyria;
your nobles slumber.
Your people are scattered on the mountains
with no one to gather them.(GI)
19 There is no assuaging your hurt;
your wound is mortal.
All who hear the news about you
clap their hands over you.
For who has ever escaped
your endless cruelty?(GJ)
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.