The Daily Audio Bible

Hoshea Reigns over Israel

17 In the twelfth year of King Ahaz of Judah, Hoshea son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel; he reigned nine years.^{(A) 2} He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, yet not like the kings of Israel who were before him. ³ King Shalmaneser of Assyria came up against him; Hoshea became his vassal and paid him tribute.^{(B) 4} But the king of Assyria found treachery in Hoshea, for he had sent messengers to King So of Egypt and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year; therefore the king of Assyria confined him and imprisoned him.

Israel Carried Captive to Assyria

⁵ Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria; for three years he besieged it. ⁶ In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria captured Samaria; he carried the Israelites away to Assyria. He placed them in Halah, on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.^(C)

⁷ This occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They had worshiped other gods^{(D) 8} and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord had driven out before the people of Israel and in the customs that the kings of Israel had introduced.^{[a](E) 9} The people of Israel did^[b] things that were not right against the Lord their God. They built for themselves high places at all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city;^{(F) 10} they set up for themselves pillars and sacred poles^[c] on every high hill and under every green tree;^{(G) 11} there they made offerings on all the high places, as the nations did whom the Lord had carried away before them. They did wicked things, provoking the Lord to anger; ¹² they served idols, of which the Lord had said to them, “You shall not do this.”^{(H) 13} Yet the Lord warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the law that I commanded your ancestors and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets.”^{(I) 14} They would not listen but were stubborn, as their ancestors had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God.^{(J) 15} They despised his statutes and his covenant that he had made with their ancestors and the warnings that he had given them. They went after false idols and became false; they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the Lord had commanded them that they should not do as they did.^{(K) 16} They rejected all the commandments of the Lord their God and made for themselves cast images of two calves; they made a sacred pole,^[d] worshiped all the host of heaven, and served Baal.^{(L) 17} They made their sons and their daughters pass through fire, used divination and augury, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger.^{(M) 18} Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight; none was left but the tribe of Judah alone.^(N)

¹⁹ Judah also did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God but walked in the customs that Israel had introduced. ²⁰ The Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel; he punished them and gave them into the hand of plunderers, until he had banished them from his presence.^(O)

²¹ When he had torn Israel from the house of David, they made Jeroboam son of Nebat king. Jeroboam drove Israel from following the Lord and made them commit great sin.^{(P) 22} The people of Israel continued in all the sins that Jeroboam committed; they did not depart from them ²³ until the Lord removed Israel out of his sight, as he had foretold through all his servants the prophets. So Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria until this day.

Assyria Resettles Samaria

²⁴ The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and placed them in the cities of Samaria in place of the people of Israel; they took possession of Samaria and settled in its cities.^{(Q) 25} When they first settled there, they did not worship the Lord; therefore the Lord sent lions among them that killed some of them. ²⁶ So the king of Assyria was told, “The nations that you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the god of the land; therefore he has sent lions among them; they are killing them because they do not know the law of the god of the land.” ²⁷ Then the king of Assyria commanded, “Send there one of the priests whom you carried away from there; let him^[e] go and live there and teach them the law of the god of the land.”^{(R) 28} So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel; he taught them how they should worship the Lord.

²⁹ But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in the shrines of the high places that the people of Samaria had made, every nation in the cities in which they lived; ³⁰ the people of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, the people of Cuth made Nergal, the people of Hamath made Ashima;^{(S) 31} the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.^{(T) 32} They also worshiped the Lord and appointed from among themselves all sorts of people as priests of the high places, who sacrificed for them in the shrines of the high places.^{(U) 33} So they worshiped the Lord but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away.^{(V) 34} To this day they continue to practice their former customs.

They do not worship the Lord, and they do not follow the statutes or the ordinances or the law or the commandment that the Lord commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel.^{(W) 35} The Lord had made a covenant with them and commanded them, “You shall not worship other gods or bow yourselves to them or serve them or sacrifice to them,^{(X) 36} but you shall worship the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm; you shall bow yourselves to him, and to him you shall sacrifice.^{(Y) 37} The statutes and the ordinances and the law and the commandment that he wrote for you, you shall always be careful to observe. You shall not worship other gods;^{(Z) 38} you shall not forget the covenant that I have made with you. You shall not worship other gods,^{(AA) 39} but you shall worship the Lord your God; he will deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies.” ⁴⁰ They would not listen, however, but continued to practice their former custom.

⁴¹ So these nations worshiped the Lord but also served their carved images; to this day their children and their children’s children continue to do as their ancestors did.^(AB)

Hezekiah’s Reign over Judah

18 In the third year of King Hoshea son of Elah of Israel, Hezekiah son of King Ahaz of Judah began to reign.^{(AC) 2} He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign; he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi daughter of Zechariah.^{(AD) 3} He did what was right in the sight of the Lord, just as his ancestor David had done. ⁴ He removed the high places, broke down the pillars, and cut down the sacred pole.^[f] He broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it; it was called Nehushtan.^{(AE) 5} He relied on the Lord, the God of Israel, so that there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah after him or among those who were before him.^{(AF) 6} For he held fast to the Lord; he did not depart from following him but kept the commandments that the Lord had commanded Moses.^{(AG) 7} The Lord was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him.^{(AH) 8} He attacked the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory, from watchtower to fortified city.^(AI)

⁹ In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of King Hoshea son of Elah of Israel, King Shalmaneser of Assyria came up against Samaria, besieged it,^{(AJ) 10} and at the end of three years took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of King Hoshea of Israel, Samaria was taken.^{(AK) 11} The king of Assyria carried the Israelites away to Assyria and settled them in Halah, on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes,^{(AL) 12} because they did not obey the voice of the Lord their God but transgressed his covenant—all that Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded; they neither listened nor obeyed.

Paul Goes to Macedonia and Greece

20 After the uproar had ceased, Paul sent for the disciples, and after encouraging them and saying farewell, he left for Macedonia.^{(A) 2} When he had gone through those regions and had given them much encouragement, he came to Greece, ³ where he stayed for three months. He was about to set sail for Syria when a plot was made against him by the Jews, so he decided to return through Macedonia.^{(B) 4} He was accompanied^[a] by Sopater son of Pyrrhus from Beroea, by Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica, by Gaius from Derbe, and by Timothy, as well as by Tychicus and Trophimus from Asia.^{(C) 5} They went ahead and were waiting for us in Troas, ⁶ but we sailed from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and in five days we joined them in Troas, where we stayed for seven days.^(D)

Paul’s Farewell Visit to Troas

⁷ On the first day of the week, when we met to break bread, Paul was holding a discussion with them; since he intended to leave the next day, he continued speaking until midnight.^{(E) 8} There were many lamps in the room upstairs where we were meeting. ⁹ A young man named Eutychus, who was sitting in the window, began to sink off into a deep sleep while Paul talked still longer. Overcome by sleep, he fell to the ground three floors below and was picked up dead. ¹⁰ But Paul went down and bending over him took him in his arms and said, “Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.”^{(F) 11} Then Paul went upstairs, and after he had broken bread and eaten, he continued to converse with them until dawn; then he left. ¹² Meanwhile they had taken the boy away alive and were not a little comforted.

The Voyage from Troas to Miletus

¹³ We went ahead to the ship and set sail for Assos, intending to take Paul on board there, for he had made this arrangement, intending to go by land himself. ¹⁴ When he met us in Assos, we took him on board and went to Mitylene. ¹⁵ We sailed from there, and on the following day we arrived opposite Chios. The next day we touched at Samos, and^[b] the day after that we came to Miletus. ¹⁶ For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, so that he might not have to spend time in Asia; he was eager to be in Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost.^(G)

Paul Speaks to the Ephesian Elders

¹⁷ From Miletus he sent a message to Ephesus, asking the elders of the church to meet him.^{(H) 18} When they came to him, he said to them:

“You yourselves know how I lived among you the entire time from the first day that I set foot in Asia,^{(I) 19} serving the Lord with all humility and with tears, enduring the trials that came to me through the plots of the Jews. ²⁰ I did not shrink from doing anything helpful, proclaiming the message to you and teaching you publicly and from house to house,^{(J) 21} as I testified to both Jews and Greeks about repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus.^{[c](K) 22} And now, as a captive to the Spirit,^[d] I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there,^{(L) 23} except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and persecutions are waiting for me.^{(M) 24} But I do not count my life of any value to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the good news of God’s grace.^(N)

²⁵ “And now I know that none of you, among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom, will ever see my face again.^{(O) 26} Therefore I declare to you this day that I am not responsible for the blood of any of you,^{(P) 27} for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.^{(Q) 28} Keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock, of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God^[e] that he obtained with the blood of his own Son.^{[f](R) 29} I know that after I have gone, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.^{(S) 30} Some even from your own group will come distorting the truth in order to entice the disciples to follow them. ³¹ Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to warn everyone with tears.^{(T) 32} And now I commend you to God and to the message of his grace, a message that is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all who are sanctified.^{(U) 33} I coveted no one’s silver or gold or clothing.^{(V) 34} You know for yourselves that I worked with my own hands to support myself and my companions.^{(W) 35} In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”^(X)

³⁶ When he had finished speaking, he knelt down with them all and prayed.^{(Y) 37} There was much weeping among them all; they embraced Paul and kissed him,^{(Z) 38} grieving especially because of what he had said, that they would not see him again. Then they brought him to the ship.^(AA)

Psalm 148

Praise for God’s Universal Glory