The Daily Audio Bible

⁶ I have posted watchmen
on your walls, Yerushalayim;
they will never fall silent,
neither by day nor by night.
You who call on Adonai,
give yourselves no rest;
⁷ and give him no rest till he restores Yerushalayim
and makes it a praise on earth.
⁸ Adonai has sworn by his right hand
and by his mighty arm:
“Never again will I give your grain
to your enemies as food;
nor will strangers drink your wine,
for which you worked so hard;
⁹ but those who harvest the grain will eat it
with praises to Adonai;
those who gathered the wine will drink it
in the courtyards of my sanctuary.”

¹⁰ Go on through, go on through the gates,
clear the way for the people!
Build up a highway, build it up!
Clear away the stones!
Raise a banner for the peoples!
¹¹ Adonai has proclaimed to the end of the earth,
“Say to the daughter of Tziyon,
‘Here, your Salvation is coming!
Here, his reward is with him,
and his recompense is before him.’”
¹² They will call them The Holy People,
The Redeemed of Adonai.
You will be called D’rushah [Sought-After],
‘Ir Lo Ne‘ezvah [City-No-Longer-Abandoned].

63 Who is this, coming from Edom,
from Botzrah with clothing stained crimson,
so magnificently dressed,
so stately in his great strength?

“It is I, who speak victoriously,
I, well able to save.”

² Why is your apparel red,
your clothes like someone treading a winepress?

³ “I have trodden the winepress alone;
from the peoples, not one was with me.
So I trod them in my anger,
trampled them in my fury;
so their lifeblood spurted out on my clothing,
and I have stained all my garments;
⁴ for the day of vengeance that was in my heart
and my year of redemption have come.
⁵ I looked, but there was no one to help,
and I was appalled that no one upheld me.
Therefore my own arm brought me salvation,
and my own fury upheld me.
⁶ In my anger I trod down the peoples,
made them drunk with my fury,
then poured out their lifeblood on the earth.”

⁷ I will recall the grace of Adonai
and the praises of Adonai,
because of all that Adonai has granted us
and his great goodness toward the house of Isra’el,
which he bestowed on them in keeping with his mercy,
in keeping with the greatness of his grace.
⁸ For he said, “They are indeed my people,
children who are not disloyal.”
So he became their Savior.
⁹ In all their troubles he was troubled;
then the Angel of His Presence saved them;
in his love and pity he redeemed them.

He had lifted them up and carried them
throughout the days of old.
¹⁰ However, they rebelled,
they grieved his Holy Spirit;
so he became their enemy
and himself fought against them.

¹¹ But then his people remembered
the days of old, the days of Moshe:
“Where is he who brought them up from the sea
with the shepherds of his flock?
Where is he who put his Holy Spirit
right there among them,
¹² who caused his glorious arm to go
at Moshe’s right hand?
He divided the water ahead of them,
to make himself an eternal name;
¹³ he led them through the deep
like a sure-footed horse through the desert;
¹⁴ like cattle going down into a valley
the Spirit of Adonai had them rest.
This is how you led your people,
to make yourself a glorious name.”

¹⁵ Look down from heaven; and see
from your holy, glorious dwelling.
Where are your zeal and your mighty deeds,
your inner concern and compassion?
Don’t hold back, ¹⁶ for you are our father.
Even if Avraham were not to know us,
and Isra’el were not to acknowledge us,
you, Adonai, are our father,
Our Redeemer of Old is your name.

¹⁷ Adonai, why do you let us wander from your ways
and harden our hearts, so that we do not fear you?
Return, for the sake of your servants,
the tribes who are your possession.
¹⁸ Your holy people held your sanctuary such a short time,
before our adversaries trampled it down.
¹⁹ For so long we have been like those you never ruled,
like those who were not called by your name!

^(64:1) We wish you would tear open heaven and come down,
so the mountains would shake at your presence!

64 ⁽²⁾ It would be like fire kindling the brush,
and the fire then makes the water boil.
Then your enemies would know your name,
the nations would tremble before you!
^2 (3) When you did tremendous things
that we were not expecting,
we wished that you would come down,
so that the mountains would shake at your presence!
^3 (4) No one has ever heard,
no ear perceived, no eye seen,
any God but you.
You work for him who waits for you.
^4 (5) You favored those who were glad to do justice,
those who remembered you in your ways.
When you were angry, we kept sinning;
but if we keep your ancient ways, we will be saved.
^5 (6) All of us are like someone unclean,
all our righteous deeds like menstrual rags;
we wither, all of us, like leaves;
and our misdeeds blow us away like the wind.
^6 (7) No one calls on your name
or bestirs himself to take hold of you,
for you have hidden your face from us
and caused our misdeeds to destroy us.

^7 (8) But now, Adonai, you are our father;
we are the clay, you are our potter;
and we are all the work of your hands.
^8 (9) Do not be so very angry, Adonai!
Don’t remember crime forever.
Look, please, we are all your people.
^9 (10) Your holy cities have become a desert,
Tziyon a desert, Yerushalayim a ruin.
^10 (11) Our holy, beautiful house,
where our ancestors used to praise you,
has been burned to the ground;
all we cherished has been ruined.
^11 (12) Adonai, after all this,
will you still hold back?
Will you still stay silent
and punish us past endurance?

65 “I made myself accessible
to those who didn’t ask for me,
I let myself be found
by those who didn’t seek me.
I said, ‘Here I am! Here I am!’
to a nation not called by my name.
² I spread out my hands all day long
to a rebellious people
who live in a way that is not good,
who follow their own inclinations;
³ a people who provoke me to my face all the time,
sacrificing in gardens and burning incense on bricks.
⁴ They sit among the graves
and spend the night in caverns;
they eat pig meat
and their pots hold soup made from disgusting things.
⁵ They say, ‘Keep your distance, don’t come near me,
because I am holier than you.’
These are smoke in my nose,
a fire that burns all day!
⁶ See, it is written before me;
I will not be silent until I repay them;
I will repay them to the full,
⁷ your own crimes and those of your ancestors together,”

says Adonai.

“They offered incense on the mountains
and insulted me on the hills.
First I will measure out their wages
and then repay them in full.”

⁸ Here is what Adonai says:
“As when juice is found in a cluster of grapes,
and people say, ‘Don’t destroy it,
there is still some good in it,’
so I will do likewise for the sake of my servants,
and not destroy them all.
⁹ I will bring forth descendants from Ya‘akov,
heirs of my mountains from Y’hudah;
my chosen ones will possess them,
and my servants will live there.
¹⁰ The Sharon will be a pasture for flocks,
the Akhor Valley a place for cattle to rest,
for my people who have sought me.

¹¹ “But as for you who abandon Adonai,
who forget my holy mountain,
who prepare a table for a Gad, a god of luck,
and fill bowls of mixed wine for Meni, a god of destiny —
¹² I will destine you to the sword,
you will all bow down to be slaughtered;
because when I called, you did not answer;
when I spoke, you did not hear,
but did what was evil from my point of view
and chose what did not please me.”

¹³ Therefore this is what Adonai Elohim says:

“My servants will eat, while you go hungry;
my servants will drink, while you go thirsty.
My servants will rejoice,
while you will be ashamed.
¹⁴ Yes, my servants will sing for joy from their hearts,
but you will cry out from the pain in your heart
and howl from an anguished spirit.
¹⁵ My chosen will use your name as a curse —
‘May Adonai Elohim strike you dead!’
But to his servants he will give another name.
¹⁶ Thus someone on earth who blesses himself
will bless himself by the God of truth,
and someone on earth who swears an oath
will swear by the God of truth;
for past troubles will be forgotten,
hidden from my eyes.

¹⁷ “For, look! I create new heavens
and a new earth;
past things will not be remembered,
they will no more come to mind.
¹⁸ So be glad and rejoice forever
in what I am creating;
for look! I am making Yerushalayim a joy,
and her people a delight.
¹⁹ I will rejoice in Yerushalayim
and take joy in my people.
The sound of weeping will no longer be heard in it,
no longer the sound of crying.
²⁰ No more will babies die in infancy,
no more will an old man die short of his days —
he who dies at a hundred will be thought young,
and at less than a hundred thought cursed.
²¹ They will build houses and live in them,
they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
²² They will not build and others live there,
they will not plant and others eat;
for the days of my people
will be like the days of a tree,
and my chosen will themselves enjoy
the use of what they make.
²³ They will not toil in vain
or raise children to be destroyed,
for they are the seed blessed by Adonai;
and their offspring with them.
²⁴ Before they call, I will answer;
while they are still speaking, I will hear.
²⁵ The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
and the lion eat straw like an ox
(but the serpent — its food will be dust).
They will not hurt or destroy
anywhere on my holy mountain,”

says Adonai.

⁽¹⁾ How good God is to Isra’el,
to those who are pure in heart!
² But as for me, I lost my balance,
my feet nearly slipped,
³ when I grew envious of the arrogant
and saw how the wicked prosper.
⁴ For when their death comes, it is painless;
and meanwhile, their bodies are healthy;
⁵ they don’t have ordinary people’s troubles,
they aren’t plagued like others.

⁶ So for them, pride is a necklace;
and violence clothes them like a robe.
⁷ Their eyes peep out through folds of fat;
evil thoughts overflow from their hearts.
⁸ They scoff and speak with malice,
they loftily utter threats.
⁹ They set their mouths against heaven;
their tongues swagger through the earth.

¹⁰ Therefore his people return here
and [thoughtlessly] suck up that whole cup of water.
¹¹ Then they ask, “How does God know?
Does the Most High really have knowledge?”

¹² Yes, this is what the wicked are like;
those free of misfortune keep increasing their wealth.
¹³ It’s all for nothing that I’ve kept my heart clean
and washed my hands, staying free of guilt;
¹⁴ for all day long I am plagued;
my punishment comes every morning.

¹⁵ If I had said, “I will talk like them,”
I would have betrayed a generation of your children.
¹⁶ When I tried to understand all this,
I found it too hard for me —
¹⁷ until I went into the sanctuaries of God
and grasped what their destiny would be.
¹⁸ Indeed, you place them on a slippery slope
and make them fall to their ruin.

¹⁹ How suddenly they are destroyed,
swept away by terrors!
²⁰ They are like a dream when one awakens;
Adonai, when you rouse yourself,
you will despise their phantoms.

²¹ When I had a sour attitude
and felt stung by pained emotions,
²² I was too stupid to understand;
I was like a brute beast with you.
²³ Nevertheless, I am always with you;
you hold my right hand.
²⁴ You will guide me with your advice;
and afterwards, you will receive me with honor.

²⁵ Whom do I have in heaven but you?
And with you, I lack nothing on earth.
²⁶ My mind and body may fail; but God
is the rock for my mind and my portion forever.

²⁷ Those who are far from you will perish;
you destroy all who adulterously leave you.
²⁸ But for me, the nearness of God is my good;
I have made Adonai Elohim my refuge,
so that I can tell of all your works.

¹³ My son, eat honey, for it is good;
    honeycomb drippings are sweet to your taste.
¹⁴ Know that wisdom is similar[ly sweet] to your soul;
    if you find it, then you will have a future,
    what you hope for will not be cut off.