The Daily Audio Bible
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10 Eternal One: Now’s the time for action. I will arise.
People will esteem Me and recognize My greatness.
11 For you have produced nothing but chaff and worthless stubble.
Your breath is a fire that will sweep back and consume you.
12 Your people will be burned to ashes
like thornbushes cut down and burned up in the fire.
13 Listen well, wherever you are; make sure you know
that I have accomplished this.
Near and far, you’d better take note of My incomparable strength.
14 Those who do wrong, the guilty and criminal in Zion, are terrified;
in the presence and power of God, the godless tremble.
They ask themselves,
“Who could possibly survive this all-consuming conflagration?
Who can live through the unrelenting heat, the flames, the smoke?”
15 I will tell you who: the one who goes through life with integrity and
speaks truth with conviction, refusing to take part in fraud and abuse,
Whose hands are free of bribes, whose ears are covered to violent schemes,
and whose eyes are shut to the temptations of evil.
16 That one will survive and prosper on the heights of Zion
and take comfort in the shelter of rock fortresses,
And never be hungry, never thirsty.
17 Ah, you will see for yourself the beauty of the One who rules over all.
Your eyes will take in a land that stretches far beyond the horizon.
18 You will think back on the terror you experienced:
“Where is the officer who counted the plunder, weighed out our taxes, and calculated our defenses?”
19 You will no longer see rude and arrogant people in charge of the city,
and you will no longer have to listen to their strange babbling and incomprehensible muttering.
20 Ah, just look at Zion! The city where we celebrate,
where we make our God-appointed feasts.
You’ll see a Jerusalem at peace, untroubled, undisturbed,
like a permanent tent with stakes driven deep and ropes that never break.
21 There, the Eternal, so splendid and regal,
will be for us a place of broad rivers and wide canals.
No large boats will pass through them—
no mighty ships will sail their waters.
22 For the Eternal One is our Judge; He has prescribed our laws;
He rules over us, and He is the One who will save us.
23 You who try to sail in will be unable,
as if your lines are limp, your mast is wobbly, and your sails are furled.
The spoils in your hold will be divided among the deserving.
Even those who can hardly walk will take what you had taken.
24 And nobody who lives in God’s city will say he doesn’t feel well.
For everyone will be washed clean and forgiven for their wrongdoing.
34 Gather around, everyone. All peoples take note!
The earth and everything in it,
The world and all that comes from it should hear this, too,
2 For the Eternal One is furious with all the nations. He has had it with their armies.
He has marked them for destruction, and has given them over to slaughter.
3 Their blood will run like rivers down the mountains,
their corpses tossed out, heaped up, and randomly piled in a great stinking mound.
4 All the stars in the once-vibrant heavens will vanish:
and the sky will be rolled up like a scroll.
All the starry hosts will wither and fall,
like grape leaves crisped by fall or fig leaves shriveled by winter.[a]
5 Eternal One: For once my sword has had its fill in the heavens;
I’ll set it against Edom, those people who despise My own.
I have marked Edom for judgment and destruction.
6 The Eternal One indeed has a blood-gulping sword.
It drinks up fat and blood from the innards
And flesh of lambs, goats, and rams—the sacrifice.
And now the Eternal is coming to sacrifice the Edomites—
A great slaughter in their capital Bozrah,
7 And great wild cattle will be slaughtered
along with them—bulls, oxen, and steers—
Until their land is soggy with blood and oozes with their fat.
8 For the Eternal has determined a time for retaliation,
a time to vindicate Zion, ravaged by Babylon and Edom.
The Edomites take advantage of Judah during the Babylonian conquest. Like parasites they eat away at the land, the strength, and the resources of Judah. Edom is a place of incorrigible violence, filled with devastating evils. In a word, Edom has become like Sodom and Gomorrah. God cannot let that stand, so He comes to vindicate His covenant people. The image Isaiah paints here of Edom and its grim future is hellish. The great, bustling civilization of Edom is reduced to nothing and eventually annihilated; its land becomes a wasteland, the haunt of fearsome desert creatures.
9 Edom’s waters will be made thick and black as oily pitch.
Its dust will turn to brimstone, and the land will ignite with burning pitch.
10 Edom’s fiery judgment will burn day and night for all time;
the smoke from it will ascend forever.
For generations to come it will be a wasteland,
and no person will make it their home ever again.
11 Desert owls and screech owls, great owls and ravens
will take up residence in that bleak place.
When God measures the land,
desolation will be its width and chaos will mark its length.
12 The land will be known as No Kingdom.
No nobles are there to name a king. Its line of princes will cease.
13 Its great towers will be covered in thorns.
Nasty nettles and thistles will overrun its strong cities.
Wild jackals will slink around the premises,
and ostriches will make themselves at home.
14 Among the howling and hissing wild creatures and demons,
Lilith herself, demoness of the night, will call Edom her haunt,
A place to recoup and rest between her devastating forays.
15 Owls of all sorts will take up habitation there,
nesting and laying their eggs.
They will hatch their young and cover them beneath their wings.
Vultures and their mates will gather there.
16 You can look for it and read all about it in the book of the Eternal One.
None of these creatures will be missing and none will lack a mate
Because His voice has given the order
and His Spirit has gathered them in that place.
17 He has determined where they should live;
He has handed it over to them and it will be theirs for all time.
They will live there, one generation after the next, forever.
35 Imagine the wilderness whooping for joy,
the desert’s unbridled happiness with its spring flowers.
2 It will happen! The deserts will come alive with new growth budding and blooming,
singing and celebrating with sheer delight.
The glory of Lebanon’s cedars and the majesty of Carmel and Sharon
will spill over to the deserts.
The glory of the Eternal One will be on full display there,
and they will revel in the majestic splendor of our God.
3 So, with confidence and hope in this message,
strengthen those with feeble hands, shore up the weak-kneed and weary.
4 Tell those who worry, the anxious and fearful,
“Take strength; have courage! There’s nothing to fear.
Look, here—your God! Right here is your God!
The balance is shifting; God will right all wrongs.
None other than God will give you success.
He is coming to make you safe.”
5 Then, such healing, such repair: the eyes of the blind will be opened;
the ears of the deaf will be clear.
6-7 The lame will leap like deer excited;
they will run and jump tirelessly and gracefully.
The stutterer, the stammerer, and the tongue of the mute
will sing out loud and clear in joyful song.
Waters will pour through the deserts;
streams will flow in godforsaken lands.
Burning sands and hardened wastelands will become pools, shimmering with life;
the thirsty ground will drink deep from refreshing springs.
Abandoned villages where predators once lurked will become grassy playgrounds.
Dry, arid land will turn lush and green.
8 And the road to this happy renovation will be clearly signed.
People will declare the way itself to be holy—the route, “sacred.”
Only those who are right with God
will be able to walk its pleasant path,
And nobody—no visitor, no dimwit—will get lost along it.
9 There’ll be no lions lying in wait, no predators or dangers in sight.
Only those made right with God will journey there.
10 Those whom the Eternal One has recalled from a punishing exile,
they will go along so easily. They will walk this path,
Come waltzing to Zion, singing their way
to that place of right relation to God.
An aura of joy never-ending will attend them;
they will clasp gladness and joy to their hearts,
While sadness and despair evaporate into thin air.
36 After Hezekiah had been Judah’s king for 14 years, King Sennacherib of Assyria launched an attack against Judah’s fortified cities and conquered them. 2 Sennacherib sent his right-hand man (whom they call the Rabshakeh) to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem along with an army to intimidate him. The Rabshakeh came from Lachish, formerly a great Judean city, and stationed himself along the highway that skirts the field where they launder the cloth, near the aqueduct for the upper pool. 3 Three men from Hezekiah’s court came down from the palace to meet him there. They were Hilkiah’s son Eliakim, the palace administrator; Shebna, the royal secretary; and Asaph’s son Joah, the recorder.
4 The Rabshakeh told them to relay to Hezekiah these words of Sennacherib, the great king of Assyria.
Rabshakeh: How come you’re so sure of yourself? 5 Your strategy and strength for war seem to be limited to diplomacy and empty words. Now that you have rebelled against me, who are you really relying on? 6 Take a look! Are you really counting on the help of a crushed reed, Egypt, against me? Relying on Egypt is like leaning on a splintering stick that ends up jabbing you through the palm. That’s the way Pharaoh, king of Egypt, is to everyone who relies on him. 7 Or maybe you’ll tell me, “We are putting our trust in the Eternal One our God.” Hah! I don’t think so. Don’t forget that Hezekiah went around destroying all His altars and wrecking His places of worship, insisting that Judah and Jerusalem must worship before the one altar in Jerusalem.
Hezekiah ascends to the throne as Judah’s king in 715 b.c. He may have served for a time as co-regent with his father Ahaz, so when the Assyrian army marches against him and issues its demands (apparently in 701 b.c.), Hezekiah has many years of experience. As a king of David’s royal line, Hezekiah’s reign is anchored to a promise God made to King David hundreds of years earlier. Indeed Judah enjoyed some success, but now all seems uncertain. Not long before Hezekiah takes the throne in Jerusalem, Israel, his northern neighbor, succumbs to invaders from Assyria. Now more than 20 years later, the Assyrians are moving against Jerusalem and her king. With bullying words and intimidating tactics, the Rabshakeh tries to force the Judean king to surrender Jerusalem and its citizens. Ironically—or perhaps providentially—the place where Isaiah met Ahaz, Hezekiah’s father, with God’s message turns out to be near the place where the Rabshakeh now makes his demands upon Judah.
8 Come on now. Make a deal with my master, the king of Assyria: I’ll give you 2,000 horses if you can do your part and deliver the same number of riders. 9 How can you repel even the weakest unit in my master’s army when you have to look to Egypt for chariots and drivers? 10 And just in case you think that I’m attacking you of my own volition, you should know that I am not. Your God, the Eternal, sent me. Your God said to me, “Rise up against that land (namely you Judeans), and destroy it.”
11 Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah appealed to the Rabshakeh.
Hezekiah’s Men: Please speak to us, your servants, in a language we understand—Aramaic—not in Judah’s common language, so that the people on the wall who are trying to listen in can’t understand.
Rabshakeh: 12 My, my, my! Do you think that my king sent me here to speak only to your king and to you when those people stand just as much to lose as you? Don’t you think that these people along the wall should have a chance to hear our negotiations? After all, they’ll be reduced with you to eating their own feces and drinking their own urine.
13 So the Rabshakeh stood up and spoke even louder in the Judean language so all could hear and understand.
Rabshakeh: Hear the words of Great King Sennacherib, king of Assyria, dominator of the world!
14 “Don’t listen to Hezekiah’s lies. Your king won’t be able to save you. 15 Don’t let him convince you to trust the Eternal by saying, ‘The Eternal will surely save us; God will spare Jerusalem from the king of Assyria.’ 16 Don’t believe it for a minute.”
My king, Sennacherib, says, “Make your peace with me. Don’t fight it, but come on out and join me. Then each of you will be able to enjoy your home and garden, eat your own grapes and figs, and drink the water from your own cistern 17 until I come and bring you back to my place. Oh, it’s like yours, to be sure. It has grain for bread and vineyards for new wine. 18 Be careful or Hezekiah will deceive you with his empty claim: ‘The Eternal One will surely save us.’ Look around. We’ve defeated everyone we’ve fought—every capital of every country. And did their gods save them? No. 19 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad, Sepharvaim, or even your sibling to the north, Samaria? 20 All of these are fallen—not a god in sight to save them. Do you really think you’re so different? Why should the Eternal save Jerusalem from me?”
21 To their credit, the people didn’t say anything. Hezekiah had commanded them not to answer the Rabshakeh, and indeed they just sat there silently. 22 Then the three men who had gone for Hezekiah—Hilkiah’s son Eliakim, the palace administrator; Shebna, the royal secretary; and Asaph’s son Joah, the recorder—returned to their king. In great distress, they tore their clothes and told him everything the Rabshakeh said.
13 Brothers and sisters, God has called you to freedom! Hear the call, and do not spoil this gift by using your liberty to engage in what your flesh desires; instead, use it to serve each other as Jesus taught through love. 14 For the whole law comes down to this one instruction: “Love your neighbor as yourself,”[a] so 15 why all this vicious gnawing on each other? If you are not careful, you will find you’ve eaten each other alive!
16 Here’s my instruction: walk in the Spirit, and let the Spirit bring order to your life. If you do, you will never give in to your selfish and sinful cravings. 17 For everything the flesh desires goes against the Spirit, and everything the Spirit desires goes against the flesh. There is a constant battle raging between them that prevents you from doing the good you want to do. 18 But when you are led by the Spirit, you are no longer subject to the law.
19 It’s clear that our flesh entices us into practicing some of its most heinous acts: participating in corrupt sexual relationships, impurity, unbridled lust, 20 idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, arguing, jealousy, anger, selfishness, contentiousness, division, 21 envy of others’ good fortune, drunkenness, drunken revelry, and other shameful vices that plague humankind. I told you this clearly before, and I only tell you again so there is no room for confusion: those who give in to these ways will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Paul has been preaching about the call of God to freedom, and so he now spells it out: we are done with the demands of the law; now we are free to live in the Spirit and to be truly right with God. As free people, the Spirit gives us the characteristics of Jesus; we, too, can freely love in joy and peace. We can have patience along with kindness and faithfulness that can only come from the Father. We can reflect the goodness of God while being gentle in operating with self-control. For those who follow Him and live in the Spirit, these characteristics or fruits are a gift from God. As we grow in the faith, we find that we belong to God and can walk daily in the Spirit.
22 The Holy Spirit produces a different kind of fruit: unconditional love, joy, peace, patience, kindheartedness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. You won’t find any law opposed to fruit like this. 24 Those of us who belong to the Anointed One have crucified our old lives and put to death the flesh and all the lusts and desires that plague us.
25 Now since we have chosen to walk with the Spirit, let’s keep each step in perfect sync with God’s Spirit. 26 This will happen when we set aside our self-interests and work together to create true community instead of a culture consumed by provocation, pride, and envy.
Psalm 64
For the worship leader. A song of David.
1 O True God, hear my voice! Listen to my complaint!
Guard my life; keep me safe from my enemy’s threats.
2 Hide me from the sinful circle that conspires against me,
from the band of rebels out to make trouble,
3 Who sharpen their tongues into swords,
who take aim with poisonous words like arrows.
4 They hide in the shadows and shoot at the innocent;
they shoot at them without warning and without any fear.
5 They persist in their evil purpose
and plan in secret to lay their traps.
And they say, “Who will see them?”
6 They plot their offense with precision and say,
“Now we have the perfect crime.”
The human heart and mind are deep and complex.
7 But without hesitation the True God will shoot at them;
His arrow will surely wound them.
8 He will use their very own words to bring them to destruction;
all who see will be appalled at what happens to them.
9 Then everyone will fear the True God;
they will proclaim His deeds
and will reflect upon all He has done.
10 The righteous will delight in the Eternal
and will take shelter in Him.
All those with an honest heart will glorify Him!
23 Invest in truth, sock it away!
Never cash in wisdom, guidance, or insight.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.