The Daily Audio Bible

Trouble for Judah and Jerusalem

3 Listen to this! I will show you what the Lord, the Almighty Lord, will do. He will remove from Jerusalem and Judah everything that people trust to help them. He will take away even their food and their water.

² He will take away

⁴ The Lord says, ‘I will cause boys to become their leaders who will rule them badly. ⁵ People will be cruel to each other. Men will argue against one another and neighbours will fight each other. Young people will insult older people. And useless people will speak against people that they should respect.

⁶ A man will go to his father's house and he will take hold of his brother. The man will say to him, “Look, you have a coat. So you should be our leader! You can rule over the few buildings that remain in our city!”

⁷ But the brother will refuse. He will say, “I cannot make things any better! There is no food or clothes in my house. Do not choose me as a leader of people.” ’

⁸ Jerusalem is falling down! The towns of Judah are in trouble! The Lord hates the things that their people say and the things that they do. They have turned against the Lord and they insult him.

⁹ Their proud faces show that they are guilty. Their sins are as bad as the sins of Sodom's people. And they do not try to hide it! It will be very bad for them! They have caused great trouble for themselves.

¹⁰ Tell the righteous people that they are in a good place. They will enjoy the results of the good things that they have done. ¹¹ But it will be very bad for the wicked people. They will receive the punishment that they deserve.

¹² Now children are cruel to my people and women rule over them. My people, your leaders lead you in the wrong direction. They cannot show you what is right.

¹³ The Lord stands up to judge his people. He will decide how to punish them. ¹⁴ He comes to judge the leaders and rulers of his people. He says to them, ‘You have destroyed my vineyard. You have robbed the poor people and you have stored their things in your own houses.

¹⁵ What are you leaders doing? You should not hurt my people. You should not be cruel to the poor people, as if you are pushing their faces into the dirt.’

The Lord Almighty has said this.

The Lord warns Jerusalem's women

¹⁶ The Lord says, ‘Zion's women are very proud. They walk with their heads up high. They turn their eyes towards the men and they have no shame. They like the men to look at them. They walk with small steps so that the rings on their ankles make a nice sound. ¹⁷ Because of that, the Lord God will give them sores on their heads. Those beautiful women will be bald!’

^18-23 On that day, the Lord God will take away the beautiful rings that they wear on their ankles. He will remove all the valuable rings and bright stones that they wear on their heads, their necks, their ears, their arms, their fingers and their noses. He will take away their beautiful clothes, their belts, their perfumes and their magic rings.

²⁴ Instead of a nice smell of perfume, there will be a smell of dead animals. Instead of a beautiful belt, they will tie a rope round themselves. Instead of lovely hair, they will be bald. They will wear rough sackcloth instead of beautiful dresses. They will have the mark of a prisoner on their skin, instead of beauty.

²⁵ The men of your city will die in war. Yes, your strong brave men will die in battle.

²⁶ The city's gates will see all this and they will weep! The city will be empty. Zion will be like a poor woman who sits on the ground, completely alone.

4 In that day, seven women will catch one man and they will hold him. They will say, ‘Please take away our shame. We will buy our own food and we will wear our own clothes. But please, let us belong to you.’

Good news

² In that day, the branch of the Lord will be great and beautiful. The land will give fruit and crops. Those people who remain in Israel will be proud and happy because of the food that the land supplies. ³ Everyone who remains in Zion and Jerusalem will be called holy. All their names will be on a list of Jerusalem's people who live there. ⁴ At that time, the Lord God will wash away the dirt from Zion's women. He will make Jerusalem clean from the blood that murderers have left. He will do that as judge, and he will punish people as with fire. ⁵ The Lord himself will be above all of Mount Zion, and over all the people who meet together there. There will be cloud and smoke over them during the day. There will be bright flames of fire at night. The Lord's glory will cover over them all. ⁶ During the day, it will give people shade from the sun's heat. It will also keep them safe from storms and heavy rain.

The song of the vineyard

5 Now I will sing a song for the person that I love. I will sing to him about his vineyard.

³ So now, listen to me, you people who live in Jerusalem and in Judah. You must be the judge! Who did what was right? Was it me or my vineyard? You decide!

⁴ I did everything that I could to help my vineyard. I could have done no more! But when I waited to get sweet grapes from the vines, there were only bitter ones! Why was that?

⁵ Now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will break down its walls, so that it becomes an open field. Then wild animals will go in and they will destroy the vines.

⁶ I will make the land become useless. Nobody will take care of the vines. Nobody will dig the ground. Weeds and thorn bushes will grow there. I will command the clouds, ‘Do not drop any rain on it.’

⁷ Israel's nation is like the vineyard of the Lord Almighty. Judah's people are his beautiful garden. But when the Lord looked there for justice, he found only murder! When he looked for people who were righteous, he saw that they were cruel.

Bad trouble will come

⁸ It will be very bad for you people who buy many houses for yourselves. You also buy land to join to the land that you already have. Then there is no more land left for anyone else. You are the only people who remain on the land.

⁹ I have heard the Lord Almighty promise this: ‘All these great, beautiful houses will certainly become empty. There will be nobody to live in them.

¹⁰ Large vineyards will give only a few bottles of wine. If you plant ten bags of seed, you will only get one bag of grain as your harvest.’

¹¹ It will be bad for you people who like to get up early to start drinking. You continue to drink late into the night, until you are very drunk.

¹² You have wild parties with plenty of music and wine. You make music with your lyres, harps, tambourines and flutes. But you do not understand the things that the Lord is doing. You do not see the things that he has made.

¹³ Because of that, my people will go into exile in countries far away. They do not know God. Their leaders will die because they have nothing to eat. All the other people will have nothing to drink.

¹⁴ So the deep hole of death will be hungry! It will open wide to eat the people of Jerusalem. The leaders and the people will go down into it. It will eat up those who are happy at their wild parties in Jerusalem.

¹⁵ So the Lord will bring its people down low. Its proud people will become ashamed.

¹⁶ But the Lord Almighty will be lifted up high by his justice. People will know that he is holy when he comes as judge.

¹⁷ Then lambs will find good grass to eat, as they do in their own fields. Fat sheep will find food to eat among the stones of the old houses.

¹⁸ It will be very bad for you people who are always deceiving others. You cannot leave your sins behind, like someone who pulls a cart with a rope.

¹⁹ People like that laugh at God. They say, ‘The Lord should do something quickly! We want to see what he can do. The holy God of Israel should do what he has decided to do. Then we will really know what that is!’

²⁰ It will be very bad for people who call evil things good. And they call good things evil. They say, ‘It is light’, when it is dark. And they say, ‘It is dark’, when it is light. They say that bitter things are sweet. And they say that sweet things are bitter.

²¹ It will be very bad for people who think that they are wise. They think that they are very clever.

²² It will be very bad for people who think that they are famous because they can drink a lot of wine. They think that they are very brave to mix strong drinks together.

²³ If people like that receive a bribe, they will not say that wicked people are guilty. They also refuse to say that righteous people are not guilty.

²⁴ Because of that, they will come to a bad end. It will be for them like a hot fire that destroys dry grass. Their roots will die and their flowers will blow away like dust. They have refused to obey the laws of the Lord Almighty. They have not listened to the message that the holy God of Israel has taught them.

²⁵ So the Lord has become angry with his people. He is ready to punish them. He has lifted up his hand, so that the mountains shake. Dead bodies of people are lying all over the streets. But that is not enough! The Lord is still angry with them. His hand is ready to punish them even more.

²⁶ The Lord will send a message to foreign nations to come and attack. He calls to nations that are far away, and now they are already coming! Their armies march quickly to Jerusalem.

²⁷ None of their soldiers are tired. They do not fall down. Nobody rests. Nobody sleeps. They have tied their belts strongly. Their shoes do not break in pieces. ²⁸ Their arrows are sharp. Their bows are ready to shoot. Their horses' feet are as hard as stones. The wheels of their chariots go round very fast.

²⁹ As they march to fight, they roar like lions. They are like strong young lions that catch other animals to eat. They carry their prisoners away to places where nobody can rescue them.

³⁰ On the day that they attack, the enemy will roar over the people that they catch. They will make a noise like a rough sea. If anyone looks across the land, it will be completely dark because of all the trouble. Clouds will make the light of day become dark.

Paul speaks about false teachers

11 Please be patient with me! I am speaking like a fool. I know that you are being patient with me already! ² God wants to keep you for himself. And that is what I want too. I have brought you to Christ, like a pure bride who marries one husband. I want you to be pure and to belong only to him. ³ Remember how the snake deceived Eve. Because he was clever, she believed his lies.^[a] I am afraid that the same thing might happen to you. False teachers may make you believe wrong things. Then you will no longer love Christ in a pure and honest way. ⁴ You are ready to listen to any false teachers who come to you. They might tell you about a different Jesus from the Jesus that we told you about. They might want you to receive a different spirit from the Spirit that you received from us. They might tell you a different kind of good news from the message that you heard from us. You seem to accept all this!

⁵ Those teachers call themselves very special apostles. But I think that I am as special as they are! ⁶ Perhaps I do not speak as well as they speak. But I do know what I am speaking about. We have always made this very clear to you in everything that we do.

⁷ When I told you God's good news, I never asked you to pay me anything. I made myself less important so that you could be more important. I do not think that I was wrong to do that. ⁸ Believers in other churches gave money to me so that I could serve you. It is like I was robbing them so that I could help you. ⁹ When I was there with you, I never made you help me. Even when I needed something, I did not cause trouble to anyone. Instead, the believers who came from Macedonia gave me everything that I needed. I was very careful never to cause you to have trouble. And I will continue to be careful like that. ¹⁰ The message that I speak about Christ is true. So I will continue to be proud of how I lived among you. Nobody in the whole region of Achaia can stop me doing that. ¹¹ You must not think that I say this because I do not love you. God himself knows that I love you.

¹² Yes, I will continue to work among you in the way that I am already doing. I will not take any pay from you. Then there will be no chance for those other teachers to be proud about themselves. They will not be able to say that they work in the same way that we do. ¹³ Those people are false apostles. They do not work in an honest way. They try to make people think that Christ has sent them as his apostles. ¹⁴ That should not surprise you! Even Satan can change himself to look like an angel who belongs to the light. ¹⁵ So do not be surprised when Satan's servants do the same thing. They can also seem to be serving God. They may seem to be doing good things, but really what they do is bad. So God will punish them in the end.

David wrote this special song for the music leader. Use the music called Mahalath.

People are wicked^[a]

²⁸ 4. Do not move any stone that shows the border of your land. Your ancestors put it there to stop arguments.

²⁹ 5. A worker with special skills may work for a king. He will no longer have to work for ordinary people.