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God Will Destroy Moab
15 (A)This is a message about Moab.
The cities of Ar and Kir are destroyed in a single night, and silence covers the land of Moab. 2 The people of Dibon[a] climb the hill to weep at the shrine. The people of Moab wail in grief over the cities of Nebo and Medeba; they have shaved their heads and their beards in grief. 3 The people in the streets are dressed in sackcloth; in the city squares and on the rooftops people mourn and cry. 4 The people of Heshbon and Elealeh cry out, and their cry can be heard as far away as Jahaz. Even the soldiers tremble; their courage is gone. 5 My heart cries out for Moab! The people have fled to the town of Zoar, and to Eglath Shelishiyah. Some climb the road to Luhith, weeping as they go; some escape to Horonaim, grieving loudly. 6 Nimrim Brook is dry, the grass beside it has withered, and nothing green is left. 7 The people go across the Valley of Willows, trying to escape with all their possessions. 8 Everywhere at Moab's borders the sound of crying is heard. It is heard at the towns of Eglaim and Beerelim. 9 At the town of Dibon the river is red with blood, and God has something even worse in store for the people there. Yes, there will be a bloody slaughter of everyone left in Moab.
Moab's Hopeless Situation
16 From the city of Sela in the desert the people of Moab send a lamb as a present to the one who rules in Jerusalem. 2 They wait on the banks of the Arnon River and move aimlessly back and forth, like birds driven from their nest.
3 They say to the people of Judah, “Tell us what to do. Protect us like a tree that casts a cool shadow in the heat of noon, and let us rest in your shade. We are refugees; hide us where no one can find us. 4 Let us stay in your land. Protect us from those who want to destroy us.”
(Oppression and destruction will end, and those who are devastating the country will be gone. 5 Then one of David's descendants will be king, and he will rule the people with faithfulness and love. He will be quick to do what is right, and he will see that justice is done.)
6 The people of Judah say, “We have heard how proud the people of Moab are. We know that they are arrogant and conceited, but their boasts are empty.”
7 The people of Moab will weep because of the troubles they suffer. They will all weep when they remember the fine food they used to eat in the city of Kir Heres. They will be driven to despair. 8 The farms near Heshbon and the vineyards of Sibmah are destroyed—those vineyards whose wine used to make the rulers of the nations drunk. At one time the vines spread as far as the city of Jazer, and eastward into the desert, and westward to the other side of the Dead Sea. 9 Now I weep for Sibmah's vines as I weep for Jazer. My tears fall for Heshbon and Elealeh, because there is no harvest to make the people glad. 10 No one is happy now in the fertile fields. No one shouts or sings in the vineyards. No one tramples grapes to make wine; the shouts of joy are ended.[b] 11 I groan with sadness for Moab, with grief for Kir Heres. 12 The people of Moab wear themselves out going to their mountain shrines and to their temples to pray, but it will do them no good.
13 That is the message the Lord gave earlier about Moab. 14 And now the Lord says, “In exactly three years Moab's great wealth will disappear. Of its many people, only a few will survive, and they will be weak.”
God Will Punish Syria and Israel
17 (B)The Lord said, “Damascus will not be a city any longer; it will be only a pile of ruins. 2 The cities of Syria will be deserted forever.[c] They will be a pasture for sheep and cattle, and no one will drive them away. 3 Israel will be defenseless, and Damascus will lose its independence. Those Syrians who survive will be in disgrace like the people of Israel. I, the Lord Almighty, have spoken.”
4 The Lord said, “A day is coming when Israel's greatness will come to an end, and its wealth will be replaced by poverty. 5 Israel will be like a field where the grain has been cut and harvested, as desolate as a field in Rephaim Valley when it has been picked bare. 6 Only a few people will survive, and Israel will be like an olive tree from which all the olives have been picked except two or three at the very top, or a few that are left on the lower branches. I, the Lord God of Israel, have spoken.”
7 When that day comes, people will turn for help to their Creator, the holy God of Israel. 8 They will no longer rely on the altars they made with their own hands, or trust in their own handiwork—symbols of the goddess Asherah and altars for burning incense.
9 When that day comes, well-defended cities will be deserted and left in ruins like the cities that the Hivites and the Amorites[d] abandoned as they fled from the people of Israel.
10 Israel, you have forgotten the God who rescues you and protects you like a mighty rock. Instead, you plant sacred gardens[e] in order to worship a foreign god. 11 But even if they sprouted and blossomed the very morning you planted them, there would still be no harvest. There would be only trouble and incurable pain.
Enemy Nations Are Defeated
12 Powerful nations are in commotion with a sound like the roar of the sea, like the crashing of huge waves. 13 The nations advance like rushing waves, but God reprimands them and they retreat, driven away like dust on a mountainside, like straw in a whirlwind. 14 At evening they cause terror, but by morning they are gone. That is the fate of everyone who plunders our land.
God Will Punish Ethiopia
18 (C)Beyond the rivers of Ethiopia[f] there is a land where the sound of wings is heard. 2 From that land ambassadors come down the Nile in boats made of reeds. Go back home, swift messengers! Take a message back to your land divided by rivers, to your strong and powerful nation, to your tall and smooth-skinned people, who are feared all over the world.
3 Listen, everyone who lives on earth! Look for a signal flag to be raised on the mountaintops! Listen for the blowing of the bugle! 4 The Lord said to me, “I will look down from heaven as quietly as the dew forms in the warm nights of harvest time, as serenely as the sun shines in the heat of the day. 5 Before the grapes are gathered, when the blossoms have all fallen and the grapes are ripening, the enemy will destroy the Ethiopians[g] as easily as a knife cuts branches from a vine. 6 The corpses of their soldiers will be left exposed to the birds and the wild animals. In summer the birds will feed on them, and in winter, the animals.”
7 A time is coming when the Lord Almighty will receive offerings from this land divided by rivers, this strong and powerful nation, this tall and smooth-skinned people, who are feared all over the world. They will come to Mount Zion, where the Lord Almighty is worshiped.
1 From Paul, whose call to be an apostle did not come from human beings or by human means, but from Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from death. 2 All the believers who are here join me in sending greetings to the churches of Galatia:
3 May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.
4 In order to set us free from this present evil age, Christ gave himself for our sins, in obedience to the will of our God and Father. 5 To God be the glory forever and ever! Amen.
The One Gospel
6 I am surprised at you! In no time at all you are deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ,[a] and are accepting another gospel. 7 Actually, there is no “other gospel,” but I say this because there are some people who are upsetting you and trying to change the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel that is different from the one we preached to you, may he be condemned to hell! 9 We have said it before, and now I say it again: if anyone preaches to you a gospel that is different from the one you accepted, may he be condemned to hell!
10 Does this sound as if I am trying to win human approval? No indeed! What I want is God's approval! Am I trying to be popular with people? If I were still trying to do so, I would not be a servant of Christ.
How Paul Became an Apostle
11 Let me tell you, my friends, that the gospel I preach is not of human origin. 12 I did not receive it from any human being, nor did anyone teach it to me. It was Jesus Christ himself who revealed it to me.
13 (A)You have been told how I used to live when I was devoted to the Jewish religion, how I persecuted without mercy the church of God and did my best to destroy it. 14 (B)I was ahead of most other Jews of my age in my practice of the Jewish religion, and was much more devoted to the traditions of our ancestors.
15 (C)But God in his grace chose me even before I was born, and called me to serve him. And when he decided 16 to reveal his Son to me, so that I might preach the Good News about him to the Gentiles, I did not go to anyone for advice, 17 nor did I go to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before me. Instead, I went at once to Arabia, and then I returned to Damascus. 18 (D)It was three years later that I went to Jerusalem to obtain information from Peter, and I stayed with him for two weeks. 19 I did not see any other apostle except James,[b] the Lord's brother.
20 What I write is true. God knows that I am not lying!
21 Afterward I went to places in Syria and Cilicia. 22 At that time the members of the churches in Judea did not know me personally. 23 They knew only what others were saying: “The man who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith that he once tried to destroy!” 24 And so they praised God because of me.
A Prayer for God to Punish the Wicked[a]
58 Do you rulers[b] ever give a just decision?
Do you judge everyone fairly?
2 No! You think only of the evil you can do,
and commit crimes of violence in the land.
3 Evildoers go wrong all their lives;
they tell lies from the day they are born.
4 They are full of poison like snakes;
they stop up their ears like a deaf cobra,
5 which does not hear the voice of the snake charmer,
or the chant of the clever magician.
6 Break the teeth of these fierce lions, O God.
7 May they disappear like water draining away;
may they be crushed like weeds on a path.[c]
8 May they be like snails that dissolve into slime;
may they be like a baby born dead that never sees the light.
9 Before they know it, they are cut down like weeds;
in his fierce anger God will blow them away
while they are still living.[d]
10 The righteous will be glad when they see sinners punished;
they will wade through the blood of the wicked.
11 People will say, “The righteous are indeed rewarded;
there is indeed a God who judges the world.”
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12 Pay attention to your teacher and learn all you can.
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.