The Daily Audio Bible
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12 In the face of such grace that day, you will thank God.
People: Thank you, thank you, thank you, Eternal One,
God of our people, of our promise
For establishing an end to our punishment,
for taking me back with kindness, and comforting me.
2 See, God has come to rescue me;
I will trust in Him and not be afraid,
For the Eternal, indeed, the Eternal is my strength and my song.
My very own God has rescued me.
God has given His people a new surety and confidence, a new sense of purpose, strength, and determination.
3 With joy in each step, you will drink deeply from the springs of salvation.
4 You’ll want to sing out that day,
People: Give thanks to the Eternal; call on His name.
Spread the news throughout the world of what He has done
and how great is His name!
5 Sing praises to the Eternal!
Everyone, everywhere should know that God acts in amazing ways.
6 You who live in this God-blessed place, this Zion, shout out and sing for joy!
For God is great, and God is here—with us and around us—the Holy One of Israel.
13 The burden of Babylon (Isaiah, Amoz’s son, saw this message):
Isaiah, like many prophets, bears a burden: speaking as God’s mouthpiece in the world. But the burden he bears is nothing compared to the punishing burden Babylon will face for the violence it inflicts on the small nations it is annexing. Isaiah “sees” this message; no one knows how. Was it a vision? Was it a dream? Was it an insight gleaned from some ordinary moment in his extraordinary life?
2 Eternal One: Raise a signal on a bare mountaintop;
flash the message; broadcast it widely.
Shout out to the nations to assemble an army;
wave them on and welcome them at the gates of the nobles.
3 I have enlisted them to be the ones to execute My fierce anger.
They are mine—I have commanded and consecrated them—these high and mighty ones.
4 Listen! There is restlessness and rumbling on the mountains,
as a powerful company assembles.
Listen! There is an uproar among the nations
as they gather their might together.
The Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies,
is mustering an army—thousands, maybe millions—for war.
5 They come from lands far away,
beyond distant horizons.
That’s where the Eternal calls up His weapons of wrath—
in order to destroy the whole land!
6 Cry out in terror!—the time is coming;
the day of the Eternal is nearly here,
Violence and destruction as only God-All-Powerful can wreak.
7-8 This is why all hands will shake and tremble;
every heart will flutter and melt.
People will be paralyzed with fear, weakened with terror.
Taut and shaking, they’ll be overcome like a woman in labor.
They’ll look to each other dumbfounded,
their faces flushed with fear.
9 See here! The fury of God has been building and is too great to stop;
the day of the Eternal is nearly here.
It will come down in all its cruelty, fury, and fiery anger,
to make the land a wasteland, to wipe out all who failed God.
So complete, so persistent are the nation’s sins that even the lights of heaven go out.
10 For the stars that define the constellations in the heavens
will fail to give their light.
The sun will go dark even when it’s high in the sky;
the moon will not shine.[a]
11 Eternal One: I will turn the world’s wrongdoings back on itself.
I will punish those who act wickedly.
I will stop the arrogant musings of the proud and pompous,
and make them puny and weak.
12 People will be a rarity in the land,
like great chunks of gold from Ophir.
13 Like nothing you’ve ever dreamed,
the heavens will tremble and the earth itself will rock out of place,
When the fury of the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, is unleashed
and the power of God’s anger is loosed.
14 Then, in their confusion and distress,
like a hunted gazelle or a neglected stray sheep,
They will turn to their own people and run for whatever seems safe;
they’ll try to escape to their own land.
15 The terror rages on. Anyone who’s found will be run through with a sword.
Those who are caught will die by its cruel edge.
16 Their babies will be dashed to pieces on the rocks as they look on in horror;
their houses will be ransacked, and their wives will be raped.
17 See, I’m rousing up the Medes against them; they are a people
who kill indiscriminately and can’t be bribed off with silver or gold.
18 The young warriors will fall before their arrows;
not even infants or toddlers will receive mercy at their hands.
19 But afterward, the awesome and mighty city Babylon, pride of the Chaldeans,
will be razed to the ground like Sodom and Gomorrah, which God destroyed.
20 It’ll never be inhabited again, and future generations will never call it home;
there Arab nomads won’t pitch their tents; shepherds won’t rest their flocks.
21 Only desert animals will occupy the deserted city;
owls will nest in their formerly swept-clean houses.
Mangy jackals and wild goats will roam among the rubble
and romp among the ruins.
22 Hyenas will prowl around and howl among its towers;
jackals will haunt its formerly palatial palaces;
Babylon’s time of destruction is coming; her days are numbered.
14 For the Eternal will extend mercy to Jacob, this family of God’s people. God will choose Israel all over again, and He will settle them in comfort and rest back on their land. Others who are unrelated will want to join them and stick close to the house of Jacob, God’s promise people, 2 who will take them in. These others will work for and among Israel. Whoever used to hold Israel captive—controlling the people’s every moment and every move—will in turn be controlled by Israel; and whoever used to oppress Israel will instead be subject to Israel.
3 Ah, Israel, there will be a time when the Eternal will give you rest from the burden of your labor, the pain of your servitude. 4 And then you will take up this chant against the fallen king of Babylon:
People: How silent and still the oppressor;
the pressure is gone; the raging is done!
5 The Eternal has broken the hold of the wicked,
snapped the staff and the scepter of tyrannical rulers.
6 They would stop at nothing to beat, batter, and bruise the nations,
constantly raging as they hunted down and tyrannized the peoples.
7 The whole earth, mountains to sea, breathes a sigh of relief;
the peace and quiet erupts into a lively, joyful song.
8 The cypresses and cedars of Lebanon rejoice at his demise, singing:
“You can’t hurt us anymore. Now that you’ve been cut down,
No one comes to cut us down!”
9 O Babylon, the land of the dead is excited to greet you at its door.
Your king will enter the grave with ghastly pomp.
It stirs the shadows and spirits of the dead—all long forgotten leaders—
it arouses all the dethroned kings of the nations to welcome your arrival.
10 These departed souls will respond to you with rattling voices,
Departed Souls: Even you, who were so powerful and unstoppable in life,
have been weakened just like us!
11 All of your pomp and power and the music of your harps join you here
where the dead abide,
Where maggots squirm beneath you,
where worms cover you like a blanket.
12 My, how you’ve fallen from the heights of heaven!
O morning star, son of the dawn!
What a star you were, as you menaced and weakened the nations,
but now you’ve been cut down, fallen to earth.
13 Remember how you said to yourself,
“I will ascend to heaven—reach higher and with more power—
and set my throne high above God’s own stars?”
Remember how you thought you could be a god, saying:
“I will sit among them at the mount of assembly in the northern heights.
14 I will rise above the highest clouds and
make myself like the Most High”?
15 Hah! Instead, you have sunk like a stone to where the dead abide.
You’ve hit bottom of the bottommost pit.
16 People peer down at you from above,
and their curiosity overflows.
People: Wow, is this the man who once terrorized the world?
Is he the one who rocked the earth’s kingdoms and threatened us with disaster?
17 Is he the one who turned the bustling cities of the world into a wasteland,
and never let the prisoners of war go home?
18 While all the other world leaders are memorialized with honor,
and each occupies his own elaborate tomb,
19 You will be reviled and disgraced—your tomb desecrated,
your corpse thrown aside like a worthless branch.
Those slain in battle, pierced by swords, will cover you;
you’ll go down to the pit like a corpse left on the battlefield.
20 Because you wrecked your own land and killed your own people,
your corpse will not share in the honor of a proper burial.
May the offspring of such evil never be mentioned again;
don’t speak their names or hear their tales.
21 Let them be obliterated because of their fathers’ wicked deeds
so that they never have a chance to follow in their steps,
Terrorizing and possessing the earth,
filling up the world with their cities!
Then people can live in normalcy and peace.
Eternal One: 22-24 I will move against Babylon and put an end to her future generations. I will cut them off—leaving no survivors—so that your oppressors will become nameless and faceless shadows. I’ll sweep that city with My broom of destruction and turn its pools into stagnant marshes and leave its ruins to be ruled by wild animals.
God swears that our oppressors will be punished. The Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, makes this pledge.
Eternal One: Things will happen as I plan.
Things will be as I determine.
25 I will break Assyria’s hold on My land;
on mountain after mountain I will trample over them.
Then My people will no longer have to bow beneath the Assyrian yoke
or bear up under its heavy burden.
26 Because I, God of earth and heaven,
have devised a plan for the whole earth;
I have reached out and am ready to effect change among the nations.
27 And who can argue with that or stand in God’s way?
The Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, has determined
That this is how it should be.
And so it will be.
While most of Isaiah’s messages are directed to the people of Judah, he pronounces other oracles against neighboring nations and empires. This is typical of most prophets. Chapters 13–23 contain a number of oracles (or prophetic messages) addressed to the nations and cities such as Assyria, Philistia, Moab, Damascus, Cush, Egypt, Babylon, and others. Each message is distinct, for the sins of their citizens and the threats they face are unique to them. Still each message contains an overriding, dominant claim: God is sovereign over all the earth; and although He has a special relationship with Israel and Judah, all the nations must ultimately bow before God.
28 When our king, Ahaz, died having endured and survived Assyria’s attacks against us, the prophet received this message.
29 Don’t get too excited, Philistia, because your enemy is dead.
The rod that struck you may be broken,
But from the root of the serpent, a viper will come out;
the offspring of that viper will be a flying cobra.
30 The poor among us will have enough to eat;
the needy and most vulnerable will sleep in peace.
But I will go after your key people with famine,
and then wipe out any who remain.
31 Look out, Philistia; you will soon vanish!
Let your gates and your city walls cry out!
It’ll be bad for you soon, because an army from the north
Is bearing down on you, burning cities in its wake;
and there is not a straggler in its ranks.
32 So, how do we answer the ambassadors of the nations?
The Eternal has made Zion what it is—
And His humbled and afflicted people will find shelter there.
13 This is my third trip to your city and community. As the Scripture says, “Every charge must be confirmed by two or three witnesses.”[a] 2 As I said before on my second visit, I say now again while absent. Consider this an advance warning, if you wish, to those of you still caught up in your old sins and to all the rest as well: when I come the next time, I will not spare anyone who is out of order. 3 You asked to see evidence that the power of the Anointed One, the Liberating King, is at work in me. Well, you will see it because He won’t be weak in dealing with you. Instead, He will do great things in you. 4 Now it’s true that He was crucified in weakness, but it’s also true that He lives by God’s power. For we who belong to Him are weak in Him, but we will live with Him by God’s power for you.
Weakness looks like failure in the eyes of the world, but for Paul weakness is an avenue to share in Jesus’ death and, therefore, in His life as well. The challenge is to remain faithful even in the difficult times, even when there is no one left to provide support. It is in these times that God’s power and comfort are most evident. This call to embrace weakness and suffering is difficult. It is normal to run from pain. But the examples of Jesus in the Gospels, of Paul in his letters, and of David in the psalms are of finding God’s strength in times of weakness.
5 Examine yourselves. Check your faith! Are you really in the faith? Do you still not know that Jesus the Anointed is in you?—unless, of course, you have failed the test. 6 Surely you will realize we have not failed the test, 7 but we pray to God that you will stay away from evil. What’s important is not whether we appear to have passed the test, but that you do what is right and act honorably, even if it appears that we have failed. 8 For there’s nothing we can do to oppose the truth; all we can do is align ourselves with it. 9 You see, we celebrate when we are weak but you are strong. Our prayer is simple: that you may be whole and complete. 10 How I hope I am saving you by writing this to you in advance; this letter will spare me from using the Lord’s authority to come down on you when I arrive. His intention in giving me this authority is to build you up, not tear you down.
11 Finally, brothers and sisters, keep rejoicing and repair whatever is broken. Encourage each other, think as one, and live at peace; and God, the Author of love and peace, will remain with you. 12 Greet each other with a holy kiss, as brothers and sisters. 13 All the saints here with me send you their greeting.
14 May the grace of the Lord Jesus the Anointed, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit remain with you all. [Amen.][b]
Paul ends his letters as he begins them, praying that grace be with those who read this letter. From first to last, the life of faith is framed by grace.
Psalm 57
For the worship leader. A prayer[a] of David to the tune “Do Not Destroy,”[b] when he hid from Saul in a cave.
This individual lament refers back to those perilous times when David fled from Saul and hid in caves (1 Samuel 22; 24). David found real security not in the hidden recesses of the caves but in the shadow of God’s wings.
1 Mercy. May Your mercy come to me, O God,
for my soul is safe within You, the guardian of my life.
I will seek protection in the shade of Your wings
until the destruction has passed.
2 I cry out to God, the Most High,
to God who always does what is good for me.
3 Out of heaven my rescue comes.
He dispatches His mercy and truth
And goes after whoever tries to run over me.
[pause][c]
4 I am surrounded by lions;
I lie in a den of ravenous beasts.
Those around me have spears and arrows for teeth,
a sharpened blade for a tongue.
5 O God, be lifted up above the heavens;
may Your glory cover the earth.
6 Yet my foes cast a net to catch my feet and bring me to my knees.
I am weary from all of this.
They dug a pit to snare me
but fell into their own trap.
[pause]
7 My heart is ready, O God;
my heart is ready,
And I will sing!
Yes, I will sing praise!
8 Wake up, my glory!
Wake up, harp and lyre;
I will stir the sleepy dawn with praise!
9 I will offer You my thanks, O Lord, before the nations of the world;
I will sing of Your greatness no matter where I am.
10 For Your amazing mercy ascends far into the heavens;
Your truth rises above the clouds.
11 O God, be lifted up above the heavens;
may Your glory cover the earth.
9 Do not waste your wisdom on a fool,
for he doesn’t care for anything you have to say.
10 Do not shift the property line by moving the boundary markers your ancestors established
or try to steal property from orphans
11 Because their Redeemer is strong,
and He will plead their case against you.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.