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Concerning Egypt
19 An oracle about Egypt.
Look! The Lord is riding upon a swift cloud,
and is coming to Egypt.
Egypt’s idols will tremble before God;
the Egyptians’ hearts will melt within them.
2 I will stir up Egyptian against Egyptian,
and they will fight,
one against another,
neighbor against neighbor,
city against city,
kingdom against kingdom.
3 Egypt’s spirit will fail from within;
I will frustrate their plans.
They will consult the idols and spirits
and ghosts and fortune-tellers.
4 I will hand Egypt over to a harsh master;
a strong king will rule them, says the Lord God of heavenly forces.
5 The waters of the sea will dry up;
the river will be parched and bare.
6 The rivers will stink;
the streams will shrink and dry;
reeds and rushes will decay.
7 Grass around the Nile, the grass at the mouth of the Nile,
and all the sown land of the Nile
will dry up, blow away, and be no more.
8 Those who fish will lament;
all who cast fishhooks in the Nile will mourn,
and those who spread nets on the water will pine away.
9 Workers with flax will be dismayed;
carders and weavers will grow pale.[a]
10 Makers of cloth will be crushed;
all who earn money will become distressed.
11 The officials of Tanis are fools;
the wisest of Pharaoh’s counselors give stupid advice.
How can you say to Pharaoh,
“I’m a wise person,
one of the ancient kings”?
12 Where now are your wise ones?
Let them tell you,
let them inform you what the Lord of heavenly forces has planned concerning Egypt.
13 The officials of Tanis have become fools;
the princes of Memphis are deluded;
the tribal chiefs have led Egypt astray.
14 The Lord has poured into them a spirit of confusion.
They will make Egypt stumble in everything it does,
just as a drunk stumbles in his vomit.
15 Neither head nor tail, palm branch nor reed
will be able to do anything for Egypt.
Bless God’s people
16 On that day, the Egyptians will be like women and will tremble with terror before the hand that the Lord of heavenly forces will raise against them. 17 Judah’s land will become what the Egyptians dread; whenever anyone mentions it, they will be terrified because of the plans that the Lord of heavenly forces is making against them.
18 On that day, there will be five cities in the land of Egypt that speak the language of Canaan and swear loyalty to the Lord of heavenly forces. One of them will be called “the city of the sun.”[b]
19 On that day, there will be an altar to the Lord within the land of Egypt, and a standing stone for the Lord at its border. 20 It will be a sign and a witness to the Lord of heavenly forces in the land of Egypt. When they cry out to the Lord because of oppressors, God will send them a savior and defender to rescue them. 21 The Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians; the Egyptians will know the Lord on that day. They will worship with sacrifices and offerings, making solemn promises to the Lord and fulfilling them. 22 The Lord will strike Egypt; striking and then healing. They will return to the Lord, who will hear their pleas and heal them.
23 On that day, there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will come to Egypt, and the Egyptians to Assyria; and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians.
24 On that day, Israel will be the third along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing at the center of the world. 25 The Lord of heavenly forces will pronounce this blessing: Bless Egypt my people, and Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance.
Isaiah naked and barefoot
20 In the year that Assyria’s King Sargon sent his general to Ashdod, he fought against Ashdod and captured it. 2 At that time the Lord had spoken through Isaiah, Amoz’s son, “Go, take off the mourning clothes from your waist, and remove the shoes from your feet.” And Isaiah did this, walking naked and barefoot.
3 The Lord said, “Just as my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot three years, as a sign and omen against Egypt and Cush, 4 so will the king of Assyria lead the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, both young and old, naked and barefoot, with buttocks bared, humiliating Egypt. 5 They will be shattered and shamed because of Cush their hope, and because of Egypt their glory.
6 “On that day, those who live on this coast will say, ‘Look at those in whom we had hoped, to whom we fled for help and rescue from the king of Assyria. How then will we escape?’”
Fallen, fallen is Babylon
21 An oracle about the wilderness near the sea.
Like whirlwinds sweeping through the arid southern plain,
it comes from the desert, from a fearsome land.
2 A harsh vision was proclaimed to me:
The betrayer betrays, and the destroyer destroys.
Go up, Elam! Lay siege, Media!
Put an end to all her groaning.
3 Therefore, I’m shaken to my core in anguish.
Pains have seized me like the pains of a woman in labor.
I’m too bent over to hear,
too dismayed to see.
4 My heart pounds; convulsions overpower me.
He has turned my evening of pleasure into dread—
5 setting the table, spreading the cloth, eating, drinking.
“Arise, captains!
Polish the shields.”
6 The Lord said this to me:
“Go, post a lookout to report what he sees.
7 When he sees chariots, pairs of horsemen,
donkey riders, camel riders,
he should listen carefully,
carefully, very carefully.”
8 Then the seer[c] called out:
“Upon a watchtower, Lord,
I’m standing all day;
and upon my observation post
I’m stationed throughout the night.
9 Here they come:
charioteers, pairs of horsemen!”
One spoke up and said,
“Fallen, fallen is Babylon,
and all the images of her gods
are shattered on the ground!”
10 Oh, my downtrodden people, threshed on my threshing floor,
what I heard from the Lord of heavenly forces,
the God of Israel, I reported to you.
A mysterious dialogue
11 An oracle about Dumah.[d]
Someone is calling to me from Seir:
“Guard, how long is the night?
Guard, how long is the night?”
12 The guard said,
“Morning has come, but it is still night.
If you must inquire, inquire;
come back again.”
13 An oracle about the desert.
In the woods, in the desert where you camp,
caravans of the Dedanites 14 meet the thirsty with water;
inhabitants of the land of Tema greet the refugees with bread.
15 They have fled from swords,
from the drawn sword,
from the bent bow
and from the intensity of battle.
16 So the Lord said to me: Within a year, according to the number of years for which a laborer is hired, all the glory of Kedar will end; 17 there will be few Kedarite archers remaining. The Lord God of Israel has spoken.
Confirmation of Paul’s leadership
2 Then after fourteen years I went up to Jerusalem again with Barnabas, and I took Titus along also. 2 I went there because of a revelation, and I laid out the gospel that I preach to the Gentiles for them. But I did it privately with the influential leaders to make sure that I wouldn’t be working or that I hadn’t worked for nothing. 3 However, not even Titus, who was with me and who was a Greek, was required to be circumcised. 4 But false brothers and sisters, who were brought in secretly, slipped in to spy on our freedom, which we have in Christ Jesus, and to make us slaves. 5 We didn’t give in and submit to them for a single moment, so that the truth of the gospel would continue to be with you.
6 The influential leaders didn’t add anything to what I was preaching—and whatever they were makes no difference to me, because God doesn’t show favoritism. 7 But on the contrary, they saw that I had been given the responsibility to preach the gospel to the people who aren’t circumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised. 8 The one who empowered Peter to become an apostle to the circumcised empowered me also to be one to the Gentiles. 9 James, Cephas, and John, who are considered to be key leaders, shook hands with me and Barnabas as equals when they recognized the grace that was given to me. So it was agreed that we would go to the Gentiles, while they continue to go to the people who were circumcised. 10 They asked only that we would remember the poor, which was certainly something I was willing to do.
The Jewish-Gentile controversy
11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was wrong. 12 He had been eating with the Gentiles before certain people came from James. But when they came, he began to back out and separate himself, because he was afraid of the people who promoted circumcision. 13 And the rest of the Jews also joined him in this hypocrisy so that even Barnabas got carried away with them in their hypocrisy. 14 But when I saw that they weren’t acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of everyone, “If you, though you’re a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you require the Gentiles to live like Jews?”
15 We are born Jews—we’re not Gentile sinners. 16 However, we know that a person isn’t made righteous by the works of the Law but rather through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. We ourselves believed in Christ Jesus so that we could be made righteous by the faithfulness of Christ and not by the works of the Law—because no one will be made righteous by the works of the Law.
Psalm 59
For the music leader. Do not destroy. A miktam[a] of David, when Saul sent men to watch the house in order to kill him.
59 Oh, my God, deliver me from my enemies;
put me out of reach from those who rise up against me.
2 Deliver me from evildoers;
save me from the bloodthirsty.
3 Look at how they lie in ambush for my life!
Powerful people are attacking me, Lord—
but not because of any error or sin of mine.
4 They run and take their stand—
but not because of any fault of mine.
Get up when I cry out to you!
Look at what’s happening!
5 You are the Lord God of heavenly forces,
the God of Israel!
Wake up and punish all the nations!
Grant no mercy to any wicked traitor! Selah
6 They come back every evening,
growling like dogs,
prowling around the city.
7 See what they belch out with their mouths:
swords are between their lips!
Who can listen to them?[b]
8 But you, Lord, laugh at them.
You mock all the nations.
9 I keep looking for you, my strength,
because God is my stronghold.
10 My loving God will come to meet me.
God will allow me to look down on my enemies.
11 Don’t kill them, or my people might forget;
instead, by your power
shake them up and bring them down,
you who are our shield and my Lord.
12 For the sin of their mouths,
the words that they speak,
let them be captured in their pride.
For the curses and lies they repeat,
13 finish them off in anger;
finish them off until they are gone!
Then let it be known to the ends of the earth
that God rules over Jacob. Selah
14 They come back every evening,
growling like dogs,
prowling around the city.
15 They roam about for food,
and if they don’t get their fill,
they stay all night.
16 But me? I will sing of your strength!
In the morning I will shout out loud
about your faithful love
because you have been my stronghold,
my shelter when I was distraught.
17 I will sing praises to you, my strength,
because God is my stronghold,
my loving God.
13 Don’t withhold instruction from children;
if you strike them with a rod, they won’t die.
14 Strike them with a rod,
and you will save their lives from the grave.[a]
Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible