The Daily Audio Bible
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5 [a] Now you are walled about with a wall;[b]
siege is laid against us;
with a rod they strike upon the cheek
the ruler of Israel.
The Ruler from Bethlehem
2 [c] But you, O Bethlehem Eph′rathah,
who are little to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to be ruler in Israel,
whose origin is from of old,
from ancient days.
3 Therefore he shall give them up until the time
when she who is in travail has brought forth;
then the rest of his brethren shall return
to the people of Israel.
4 And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great
to the ends of the earth.
5 And this shall be peace,
when the Assyrian comes into our land
and treads upon our soil,[d]
that we will raise against him seven shepherds
and eight princes of men;
6 they shall rule the land of Assyria with the sword,
and the land of Nimrod with the drawn sword;[e]
and they[f] shall deliver us from the Assyrian
when he comes into our land
and treads within our border.
The Future Role of the Remnant
7 Then the remnant of Jacob shall be
in the midst of many peoples
like dew from the Lord,
like showers upon the grass,
which tarry not for men
nor wait for the sons of men.
8 And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations,
in the midst of many peoples,
like a lion among the beasts of the forest,
like a young lion among the flocks of sheep,
which, when it goes through, treads down
and tears in pieces, and there is none to deliver.
9 Your hand shall be lifted up over your adversaries,
and all your enemies shall be cut off.
10 And in that day, says the Lord,
I will cut off your horses from among you
and will destroy your chariots;
11 and I will cut off the cities of your land
and throw down all your strongholds;
12 and I will cut off sorceries from your hand,
and you shall have no more soothsayers;
13 and I will cut off your images
and your pillars from among you,
and you shall bow down no more
to the work of your hands;
14 and I will root out your Ashe′rim from among you
and destroy your cities.
15 And in anger and wrath I will execute vengeance
upon the nations that did not obey.
God Challenges Israel
6 Hear what the Lord says:
Arise, plead your case before the mountains,
and let the hills hear your voice.
2 Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the Lord,
and you enduring foundations of the earth;
for the Lord has a controversy with his people,
and he will contend with Israel.
3 “O my people, what have I done to you?
In what have I wearied you? Answer me!
4 For I brought you up from the land of Egypt,
and redeemed you from the house of bondage;
and I sent before you Moses,
Aaron, and Miriam.
5 O my people, remember what Balak king of Moab devised,
and what Balaam the son of Be′or answered him,
and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,
that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.”
What God Requires
6 “With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my first-born for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
8 He has showed you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,[g]
and to walk humbly with your God?
Cheating and Violence to Be Punished
9 The voice of the Lord cries to the city—
and it is sound wisdom to fear thy name:
“Hear, O tribe and assembly of the city![h]
10 Can I forget[i] the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked,
and the scant measure that is accursed?
11 Shall I acquit the man with wicked scales
and with a bag of deceitful weights?
12 Your[j] rich men are full of violence;
your[k] inhabitants speak lies,
and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.
13 Therefore I have begun[l] to smite you,
making you desolate because of your sins.
14 You shall eat, but not be satisfied,
and there shall be hunger in your inward parts;
you shall put away, but not save,
and what you save I will give to the sword.
15 You shall sow, but not reap;
you shall tread olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil;
you shall tread grapes, but not drink wine.
16 For you have kept the statutes of Omri,[m]
and all the works of the house of Ahab;
and you have walked in their counsels;
that I may make you a desolation, and your[n] inhabitants a hissing;
so you shall bear the scorn of the peoples.”[o]
The Total Corruption of the People
7 Woe is me! For I have become
as when the summer fruit has been gathered,
as when the vintage has been gleaned:
there is no cluster to eat,
no first-ripe fig which my soul desires.
2 The godly man has perished from the earth,
and there is none upright among men;
they all lie in wait for blood,
and each hunts his brother with a net.
3 Their hands are upon what is evil, to do it diligently;
the prince and the judge ask for a bribe,
and the great man utters the evil desire of his soul;
thus they weave it together.
4 The best of them is like a brier,
the most upright of them a thorn hedge.
The day of their[p] watchmen, of their[q] punishment, has come;
now their confusion is at hand.
5 Put no trust in a neighbor,
have no confidence in a friend;
guard the doors of your mouth
from her who lies in your bosom;
6 for the son treats the father with contempt,
the daughter rises up against her mother,
the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.
7 But as for me, I will look to the Lord,
I will wait for the God of my salvation;
my God will hear me.
Penitence and Trust in God
8 Rejoice not over me, O my enemy;
when I fall, I shall rise;
when I sit in darkness,
the Lord will be a light to me.
9 I will bear the indignation of the Lord
because I have sinned against him,
until he pleads my cause
and executes judgment for me.
He will bring me forth to the light;
I shall behold his deliverance.
10 Then my enemy will see,
and shame will cover her who said to me,
“Where is the Lord your God?”
My eyes will gloat over her;
now she will be trodden down
like the mire of the streets.
A Prophecy of Restoration
11 A day for the building of your walls!
In that day the boundary shall be far extended.
12 In that day they will come to you,
from Assyria to[r] Egypt,
and from Egypt to the River,
from sea to sea and from mountain to mountain.
13 But the earth will be desolate
because of its inhabitants,
for the fruit of their doings.
14 Shepherd thy people with thy staff,
the flock of thy inheritance,
who dwell alone in a forest
in the midst of a garden land;
let them feed in Bashan and Gilead
as in the days of old.
15 As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt
I will show them[s] marvelous things.
16 The nations shall see and be ashamed
of all their might;
they shall lay their hands on their mouths;
their ears shall be deaf;
17 they shall lick the dust like a serpent,
like the crawling things of the earth;
they shall come trembling out of their strongholds,
they shall turn in dread to the Lord our God,
and they shall fear because of thee.
God’s Compassion and Steadfast Love
18 Who is a God like thee, pardoning iniquity
and passing over transgression
for the remnant of his inheritance?
He does not retain his anger for ever
because he delights in steadfast love.
19 He will again have compassion upon us,
he will tread our iniquities under foot.
Thou wilt cast all our[t] sins
into the depths of the sea.
20 Thou wilt show faithfulness to Jacob
and steadfast love to Abraham,
as thou hast sworn to our fathers
from the days of old.
The 144,000 of Israel Sealed
7 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree. 2 Then I saw another angel ascend from the rising of the sun, with the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm earth and sea, 3 saying, “Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God upon their foreheads.” 4 And I heard the number of the sealed, a hundred and forty-four thousand sealed, out of every tribe of the sons of Israel, 5 twelve thousand sealed out of the tribe of Judah, twelve thousand of the tribe of Reuben, twelve thousand of the tribe of Gad, 6 twelve thousand of the tribe of Asher, twelve thousand of the tribe of Naph′tali, twelve thousand of the tribe of Manas′seh, 7 twelve thousand of the tribe of Simeon, twelve thousand of the tribe of Levi, twelve thousand of the tribe of Is′sachar, 8 twelve thousand of the tribe of Zeb′ulun, twelve thousand of the tribe of Joseph, twelve thousand sealed out of the tribe of Benjamin.
The Multitude from Every Nation
9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!” 11 And all the angels stood round the throne and round the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.”
13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and whence have they come?” 14 I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
15 Therefore are they before the throne of God,
and serve him day and night within his temple;
and he who sits upon the throne will shelter them with his presence.
16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more;
the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat.
17 For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of living water;
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Praise for God’s Goodness and Might
135 Praise the Lord!
Praise the name of the Lord,
give praise, O servants of the Lord,
2 you that stand in the house of the Lord,
in the courts of the house of our God!
3 Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good;
sing to his name, for he is gracious!
4 For the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself,
Israel as his own possession.
5 For I know that the Lord is great,
and that our Lord is above all gods.
6 Whatever the Lord pleases he does,
in heaven and on earth,
in the seas and all deeps.
7 He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth,
who makes lightnings for the rain
and brings forth the wind from his storehouses.
8 He it was who smote the first-born of Egypt,
both of man and of beast;
9 who in thy midst, O Egypt,
sent signs and wonders
against Pharaoh and all his servants;
10 who smote many nations
and slew mighty kings,
11 Sihon, king of the Amorites,
and Og, king of Bashan,
and all the kingdoms of Canaan,
12 and gave their land as a heritage,
a heritage to his people Israel.
13 Thy name, O Lord, endures for ever,
thy renown, O Lord, throughout all ages.
14 For the Lord will vindicate his people,
and have compassion on his servants.
15 The idols of the nations are silver and gold,
the work of men’s hands.
16 They have mouths, but they speak not,
they have eyes, but they see not,
17 they have ears, but they hear not,
nor is there any breath in their mouths.
18 Like them be those who make them!—
yea, every one who trusts in them!
19 O house of Israel, bless the Lord!
O house of Aaron, bless the Lord!
20 O house of Levi, bless the Lord!
You that fear the Lord, bless the Lord!
21 Blessed be the Lord from Zion,
he who dwells in Jerusalem!
Praise the Lord!
5 Every word of God proves true;
he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.
6 Do not add to his words,
lest he rebuke you, and you be found a liar.
Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.