The Daily Audio Bible
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10 Now I will arise, says the Lord.
Now I will exalt myself; now I will stand tall.
11 You conceive straw, give birth to stubble;
your breath is a fire that devours you.
12 Peoples will be burned to lime,
thorns cut up and set ablaze.
13 You who are far away, hear what I have done;
and you who are near, know my strength!
14 Sinners became terrified in Zion;
trembling seized the godless:
“Who among us can live with the devouring fire?
Who among us can live with the everlasting blaze?”
15 The one who walks righteously and speaks truthfully,
who rejects profit from extortion,
who waves away a bribe instead of grabbing it,
who won’t listen to bloody plots,
and who won’t contemplate doing something evil.
16 He will live on the heights;
fortresses in the cliffs will be his refuge.
His food will be provided,
his water guaranteed.
17 When you gaze upon a king in his glamour
and look at the surrounding land,
18 in dismay you will think:
Where is the one who counts?
Where is the one who weighs?
Where is the one who counts towers?
19 You will no longer see the defiant people,
the people of speech too obscure to understand,
who stammer in an incomprehensible language.
20 Gaze upon Zion, our festival town.
Your eyes will see Jerusalem,
a carefree dwelling,
a tent that is not packed up,
whose stakes are never pulled up,
whose ropes won’t snap.
21 The Lord’s majesty will be there for us:
as a place of rivers, broad streams
where no boat will go,
no majestic ship will cross.
22 The Lord is our judge;
the Lord is our leader;
the Lord is our king—
he will deliver us.
23 Your ropes are loosened;
they can’t hold the mast firmly;
they can’t spread the sail.
Then abundant spoil will be divided;
even the lame will seize spoil.
24 And no inhabitant will say, “I’m sick.”
The people living there will be forgiven their sin.
Vengeance against Edom
34 Draw near, you nations, to hear;
and listen, you peoples.
Hear, earth and all who fill it,
world and all its offspring.
2 The Lord rages against all the nations,
and is angry with all their armies.
God is about to wipe them out
and has prepared them for slaughter.
3 Their dead will be cast out,
the stench of their corpses will rise,
and the mountains will melt from their blood.
4 All the stars of heaven will dissolve,
the skies will roll up like a scroll,
and all the stars will fall,
like a leaf withering from a vine,
like fruit from a fig tree.
5 When my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens,
it will descend upon Edom for judgment,
upon a people I have doomed for destruction.
6 The Lord has a sword covered with blood;
it is soaked with fat
from the blood of lambs and goats,
from the kidney fat of rams,
for the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah,
a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
7 Wild oxen will fall with them,
steers with mighty bulls,
and their land will be drenched with blood;
its soil soaked with fat.
8 The Lord has a day of vengeance,
a year of payback for Zion’s cause.
9 Edom’s streams will be turned into pitch,
its dust into sulfur,
and its land will become burning pitch.
10 Night and day won’t be extinguished;
its smoke will go up forever.
From generation to generation it will lie waste;
no one will ever pass through it again.
11 Screech owls and crows will possess it;
owls and ravens will live there.[a]
God will stretch over it the measuring line of chaos
and the plummet stone of emptiness over its officials.
12 No Kingdom There, they will call it,
and all its princes will disappear.
13 Thorns will grow up in its palaces,
weeds and brambles in its fortresses.
It will be a dwelling for jackals,
a home for ostriches.
14 Wildcats will meet hyenas,
the goat demon will call to his friends,
and there Lilith[b] will lurk
and find her resting place.
15 There the snake will nest and lay eggs
and brood and hatch in its shadow.
There too vultures will gather,
each with its mate.[c]
16 Consult the Lord’s scroll and read:
Not one of these will be missing;
none will lack its mate.
God’s own mouth has commanded;
God’s own spirit has gathered them.
17 God has cast the lot for them;
God’s hand allotted it to them with the measuring line.
They will possess it forever;
they will live in it from generation to generation.
Fertile wilderness
35 The desert and the dry land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom like the crocus.
2 They will burst into bloom,
and rejoice with joy and singing.
They will receive the glory of Lebanon,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon.
They will see the Lord’s glory,
the splendor of our God.
3 Strengthen the weak hands,
and support the unsteady knees.
4 Say to those who are panicking:
“Be strong! Don’t fear!
Here’s your God,
coming with vengeance;
with divine retribution
God will come to save you.”
5 Then the eyes of the blind will be opened,
and the ears of the deaf will be cleared.
6 Then the lame will leap like the deer,
and the tongue of the speechless will sing.
Waters will spring up in the desert,
and streams in the wilderness.
7 The burning sand will become a pool,
and the thirsty ground, fountains of water.
The jackals’ habitat, a pasture;[d]
grass will become reeds and rushes.
8 A highway will be there.
It will be called The Holy Way.
The unclean won’t travel on it,
but it will be for those walking on that way.[e]
Even fools won’t get lost on it;
9 no lion will be there,
and no predator will go up on it.
None of these will be there;
only the redeemed will walk on it.
10 The Lord’s ransomed ones will return and enter Zion with singing,
with everlasting joy upon their heads.
Happiness and joy will overwhelm them;
grief and groaning will flee away.
Sennacherib’s message
36 Assyria’s King Sennacherib marched against all of Judah’s fortified cities and captured them in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah. 2 Assyria’s king sent his field commander from Lachish, together with a large army, to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. He stood at the water channel of the Upper Pool, which is on the road to the field where clothes are washed. 3 Hilkiah’s son Eliakim, who was the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Asaph’s son Joah the recorder went out to them.
4 Then the field commander said to them, “Say to Hezekiah: Assyria’s Great King says this: Why do you feel so confident? 5 Do you think that empty words are the same as good strategy and the strength to fight? Who are you trusting that you now rebel against me? 6 It appears that you are trusting in a staff—Egypt—that’s nothing but a broken reed! It will stab the hand of anyone who leans on it! That’s all that Pharaoh, Egypt’s king, is to anyone who trusts in him. 7 Now suppose you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God.’ Isn’t he the one whose shrines and altars Hezekiah removed, telling Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship only at this altar’?
8 “So now, make a wager with my master, Assyria’s king. I’ll give you two thousand horses if you can supply the riders! 9 How will you drive back even the least important official among my master’s servants when you are relying on Egypt for chariots and riders? 10 What’s more, do you think I’ve marched against this place to destroy it without the Lord’s support? It was the Lord who told me, ‘March against this land and destroy it!’”
11 Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the field commander, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, because we understand it. Don’t speak with us in Hebrew,[f] because the people on the wall will hear it.”
12 The field commander said to them, “Did my master send me to speak these words just to you and your master and not also to the men on the wall? They are the ones who will have to eat their dung and drink their urine along with you.” 13 Then the field commander stood up and shouted in Hebrew at the top of his voice: “Listen to the message of the great king, Assyria’s king. 14 The king says this: Don’t let Hezekiah lie to you. He won’t be able to rescue you. 15 Don’t let Hezekiah persuade you to trust the Lord by saying, ‘The Lord will certainly rescue us. This city won’t be handed over to Assyria’s king.’
16 “Don’t listen to Hezekiah, because this is what Assyria’s king says: Surrender to me and come out. Then each of you will eat from your own vine and fig tree and drink water from your own well 17 until I come to take you to a land just like your land. It will be a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards. 18 Don’t let Hezekiah fool you by saying, ‘The Lord will rescue us.’ Did any of the other gods of the nations save their lands from the power of Assyria’s king? 19 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Did they rescue Samaria from my power? 20 Which one of the gods from those countries has rescued their land from my power? Will the Lord save Jerusalem from my power?”
21 But they kept quiet and didn’t answer him with a single word, because King Hezekiah’s command was, “Don’t answer him!” 22 Hilkiah’s son Eliakim, who was the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Asaph’s son Joah the recorder came to Hezekiah with ripped clothes. They told him what the field commander had said.
13 You were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only don’t let this freedom be an opportunity to indulge your selfish impulses, but serve each other through love. 14 All the Law has been fulfilled in a single statement: Love your neighbor as yourself.[a] 15 But if you bite and devour each other, be careful that you don’t get eaten up by each other!
Two different ways of living
16 I say be guided by the Spirit and you won’t carry out your selfish desires. 17 A person’s selfish desires are set against the Spirit, and the Spirit is set against one’s selfish desires. They are opposed to each other, so you shouldn’t do whatever you want to do. 18 But if you are being led by the Spirit, you aren’t under the Law. 19 The actions that are produced by selfish motives are obvious, since they include sexual immorality, moral corruption, doing whatever feels good, 20 idolatry, drug use and casting spells, hate, fighting, obsession, losing your temper, competitive opposition, conflict, selfishness, group rivalry, 21 jealousy, drunkenness, partying, and other things like that. I warn you as I have already warned you, that those who do these kinds of things won’t inherit God’s kingdom.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against things like this. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the self with its passions and its desires.
25 If we live by the Spirit, let’s follow the Spirit. 26 Let’s not become arrogant, make each other angry, or be jealous of each other.
Psalm 64
For the music leader. A psalm of David.
64 Listen to me when I complain, God!
Protect my life from the enemy’s terror!
2 Hide me from the secret plots of wicked people;
hide me from the schemes of evildoers
3 who sharpen their tongues like swords.
They aim their arrow—a cruel word—
4 from their hiding places
so as to shoot an innocent person.
They shoot without warning and without fear.
5 They encourage themselves with evil words.
They plan on laying traps in secret.
“Who will be able to see them?” they ask.
6 “Let someone try to expose our crimes!
We’ve devised a perfect plot!
It’s deep within the human mind and heart.”[a]
7 But God will shoot them with an arrow!
Without warning, they will be wounded!
8 The Lord will make them trip over their own tongues;
everyone who sees them will just shake their heads.
9 Then all people will honor God,
will announce the act of God,
will understand it was God’s work.
10 Let the righteous rejoice in the Lord;
let them take refuge in him;
let everyone whose heart is in the right place give praise!
23 Buy truth and don’t sell it;
buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding.
Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible