The Daily Audio Bible
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8 “‘How can you say, “We are wise;
Adonai’s Torah is with us,”
when in fact the lying pen of the scribes
has turned it into falsehood?
9 The wise are put to shame,
alarmed, entrapped.
They have rejected the word of Adonai,
so what wisdom do they have?
10 “‘Therefore I will give their wives to others,
and their fields to those who take them over;
for from the least to the greatest,
all are greedy for gains;
prophets and cohanim alike
all practice fraud —
11 they dress the wound of the daughter of my people,
but only superficially,
saying, “There is perfect shalom,”
when there is no shalom.
12 They should be ashamed
of their detestable deeds,
but they are not ashamed at all,
they don’t know how to blush.
So when others fall, they too will fall;
when I punish them, they will stumble,’
says Adonai.
13 “‘I will put an end to them,’ says Adonai.
‘There are no grapes on the vine,
and no figs on the fig tree;
the leaf has withered; and what I have given them
will pass from their possession.’”
14 “Why are we sitting still? Assemble!
Let’s enter the fortified cities
and meet our doom there!
For Adonai our God has doomed us;
he has given us bitter water to drink,
because we have sinned against Adonai.
15 When we look for peace, nothing good comes;
when we seek a time of healing, instead there is terror.”
16 From Dan can be heard the snorting of his horses;
when his stallions neigh, the whole land trembles.
For they come devouring the land and all in it,
the city and those who dwell there.
17 “Yes, now I am sending snakes among you,
vipers that no one can charm,
and they will bite you,” says Adonai.
18 My grief has no cure, I am sick at heart.
19 Listen to my people’s cry of distress
out of a distant land:
“Is Adonai no longer in Tziyon?
Is her king no longer there?”
“Why do they provoke me with their idols
and their futile foreign gods?”
20 “The harvest has passed, the summer is over,
and still we are not saved.”
21 The daughter of my people is broken,
and it’s tearing me to pieces;
everything looks dark to me,
horror seizes me.
22 Has Gil‘ad exhausted its healing resin?
Is no physician there?
If there is, then why is the daughter of my people
so slow to recover her health?
23 (9:1) I wish my head were made of water
and my eyes were a fountain of tears,
so that I could cry day and night
over the slain of the daughter of my people!
9 (2) I wish I were out in the desert,
in some travelers’ lodge —
then I could get away from my people
and distance myself from them!
“Indeed they are all adulterers,
a band of traitors is what they are.
2 (3) They bend their tongues, their ‘bow’ of falsehood,
and hold sway in the land, but not for truth.
For they go from evil to evil,
and me they do not know,”
says Adonai.
3 (4) Everyone, be on guard against your neighbor,
don’t trust even a brother;
for every brother is out to trick you,
and every neighbor goes around gossiping.
4 (5) Everyone deceives his neighbor,
no one speaks the truth;
they have taught their tongues to lie,
they wear themselves out with sinning.
5 (6) “You inhabit a world of deceit;
deceitfully they refuse to know me,”
says Adonai.
6 (7) “Therefore,” says Adonai-Tzva’ot,
“I will refine them and test them.
What else can I do with the daughter of my people?
7 (8) Their tongues are sharpened arrows;
with their mouths they speak deceit —
they say nice words to their neighbors,
while inwardly plotting against them.
8 (9) Should I not punish them for these things?” asks Adonai.
“Should I not take vengeance on such a nation?”
9 (10) I weep and wail for the mountains
and lament over the desert pastures,
because they have been burned up;
no one passes through;
they no longer hear the sound of cattle;
the birds and wild animals have fled, are gone.
10 (11) “I will make Yerushalayim a heap of ruins,
turn it into a lair for jackals,
and make the cities of Y’hudah desolate,
with no one living there.”
11 (12) Who is wise enough to understand this?
To whom has the mouth of Adonai spoken,
so that he can proclaim it?
Why has the land perished
and been laid waste like a desert,
so that no one passes through?
12 (13) Adonai answers:
“Because they abandoned my Torah,
which I set before them,
and neither listened to what I said
nor lived accordingly,
13 (14) but have lived by their own hearts’ stubbornness
and by the ba‘alim, as their ancestors taught them —
14 (15) therefore,” says Adonai-Tzva’ot,
the God of Isra’el:
“I will feed this people bitter wormwood
and give them poisonous water to drink.
15 (16) I will scatter them among nations
that neither they nor their ancestors have known.
I will send the sword after them
until I have wiped them out.”
16 (17) Thus says Adonai-Tzva’ot:
“Mark this, then summon the mourning women,
so that they will come;
send for those who are best [at mourning],
so that they will come:
17 (18) ‘Have them hurry and wail for us,
so our eyes will be wet from crying,
and our eyelids gush with tears.’
18 (19) For the sound of wailing is heard from Tziyon:
‘We are utterly ruined,
we are completely ashamed,
because we have left the land,
and our homes have been torn down!’”
19 (20) You women, hear the word of Adonai!
Let your ears receive the words from his mouth.
Teach your daughters how to wail,
have each teach her friend how to lament:
20 (21) “Death has come up through our windows,
it has entered our palaces,
it has cut down children in the streets
and young people in the public places.”
21 (22) Say: “Here is what Adonai says:
‘The corpses of people are scattered
like dung in an open field,
like sheaves left behind by the reaper
with no one to gather them.’”
22 (23) Here is what Adonai says:
“The wise man should not boast of his wisdom,
the powerful should not boast of his power,
the wealthy should not boast of his wealth;
23 (24) instead, let the boaster boast about this:
that he understands and knows me —
that I am Adonai, practicing grace,
justice and righteousness in the land;
for in these things I take pleasure,” says Adonai.
24 (25) “The days are coming,” says Adonai, “when I will punish all those who have been circumcised in their uncircumcision — 25 (26) Egypt, Y’hudah, Edom, the people of ‘Amon and Mo’av, and all those living in the desert who cut the edges [of their beard]:
“For although all the Goyim are uncircumcised,
all the house of Isra’el have uncircumcised hearts.”
3 So if you were raised along with the Messiah, then seek the things above, where the Messiah is sitting at the right hand of God.[a] 2 Focus your minds on the things above, not on things here on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with the Messiah in God. 4 When the Messiah, who is our life, appears, then you too will appear with him in glory!
5 Therefore, put to death the earthly parts of your nature — sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed (which is a form of idolatry); 6 for it is because of these things that God’s anger is coming on those who disobey him. 7 True enough, you used to practice these things in the life you once lived; 8 but now, put them all away — anger, exasperation, meanness, slander and obscene talk. 9 Never lie to one another; because you have stripped away the old self, with its ways, 10 and have put on the new self, which is continually being renewed in fuller and fuller knowledge, closer and closer to the image of its Creator. 11 The new self allows no room for discriminating between Gentile and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, foreigner, savage, slave, free man; on the contrary, in all, the Messiah is everything.
12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with feelings of compassion and with kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with one another; if anyone has a complaint against someone else, forgive him. Indeed, just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must forgive.
14 Above all these, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together perfectly; 15 and let the shalom which comes from the Messiah be your heart’s decision-maker, for this is why you were called to be part of a single Body.
And be thankful — 16 let the Word of the Messiah, in all its richness, live in you, as you teach and counsel each other in all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude to God in your hearts. 17 That is, everything you do or say, do in the name of the Lord Yeshua, giving thanks through him to God the Father.
32 Still, they kept on sinning
and put no faith in his wonders.
33 Therefore, he ended their days in futility
and their years in terror.
34 When he brought death among them, they would seek him;
they would repent and seek God eagerly,
35 remembering that God was their Rock,
El ‘Elyon their Redeemer.
36 But they tried to deceive him with their words,
they lied to him with their tongues;
37 for their hearts were not right with him,
and they were unfaithful to his covenant.
38 Yet he, because he is full of compassion,
forgave their sin and did not destroy;
many times he turned away his anger
and didn’t rouse all his wrath.
39 So he remembered that they were but flesh,
a wind that blows past and does not return.
40 How often they rebelled against him in the desert
and grieved him in the wastelands!
41 Repeatedly they challenged God
and pained the Holy One of Isra’el.
42 They didn’t remember how he used his hand
on the day he redeemed them from their enemy,
43 how he displayed his signs in Egypt,
his wonders in the region of Tzo‘an.
44 He turned their rivers into blood,
so they couldn’t drink from their streams.
45 He sent swarms of flies, which devoured them,
and frogs, which destroyed them.
46 He gave their harvest to shearer-worms,
the fruit of their labor to locusts.
47 He destroyed their vineyards with hail
and their sycamore-figs with frost.
48 Their cattle too he gave over to the hail
and their flocks to lightning bolts.
49 He sent over them his fierce anger,
fury, indignation and trouble,
with a company of destroying angels
50 to clear a path for his wrath.
He did not spare them from death,
but gave them over to the plague,
51 striking all the firstborn in Egypt,
the firstfruits of their strength in the tents of Ham.
52 But his own people he led out like sheep,
guiding them like a flock in the desert.
53 He led them safely, and they weren’t afraid,
even when the sea overwhelmed their foes.
54 He brought them to his holy land,
to the hill-country won by his right hand.
55 He expelled nations before them,
apportioned them property to inherit
and made Isra’el’s tribes live in their tents.
27 Prepare your outside work,
and get things ready for yourself on the land;
after that, build your house.
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.