The Daily Audio Bible
Today's audio is from the NIV. Switch to the NIV to read along with the audio.
8 How can you say, “We are wise,(A)
we have the law of the Lord”?
See, that has been changed into falsehood
by the lying pen of the scribes![a]
9 The wise are put to shame,
terrified, and trapped;
Since they have rejected the word of the Lord,
what sort of wisdom do they have?(B)
Shameless in Their Crimes
10 Therefore, I will give their wives to other men,
their fields to new owners.
Small and great alike, all are greedy for gain,
prophet and priest, all practice fraud.(C)
11 They have treated lightly
the injury to the daughter of my people:[b]
“Peace, peace!” they say,
though there is no peace.(D)
12 They have acted shamefully; they have done abominable things,
yet they are not at all ashamed,
they do not know how to blush.
Hence they shall be among those who fall;
in their time of punishment they shall stumble,
says the Lord.(E)
Threats of Punishment
13 I will gather them all in—oracle of the Lord:
no grapes on the vine,
No figs on the fig trees,
foliage withered!
Whatever I have given them is gone.
14 Why do we remain here?
Let us assemble and flee to the fortified cities,
where we will meet our doom;
For the Lord our God has doomed us,
he has given us poisoned water to drink,
because we have sinned against the Lord.(F)
15 We wait for peace to no avail;
for a time of healing, but terror comes instead.(G)
16 From Dan is heard
the snorting of horses;
The neighing of stallions
shakes the whole land.
They come to devour the land and everything in it,
the city and its inhabitants.
17 Yes, I will send against you
poisonous snakes.
Against them no charm will work
when they bite you—oracle of the Lord.(H)
The Prophet’s Grief over the People’s Suffering
18 My joy is gone,
grief is upon me,
my heart is sick.
19 Listen! the cry of the daughter of my people,
far and wide in the land!
“Is the Lord no longer in Zion,
is her King no longer in her midst?”
Why do they provoke me with their idols,
with their foreign nonentities?(I)
20 “The harvest is over, the summer ended,
but we have not yet been saved!”
21 I am broken by the injury of the daughter of my people.
I am in mourning; horror has seized me.(J)
22 Is there no balm in Gilead,[c]
no healer there?
Why does new flesh not grow
over the wound of the daughter of my people?(K)
23 Oh, that my head were a spring of water,
my eyes a fountain of tears,
That I might weep day and night
over the slain from the daughter of my people!
Chapter 9
The Corruption of the People
1 Oh, that I had in the wilderness
a travelers’ lodging!
That I might leave my people
and depart from them.
They are all adulterers,
a band of traitors.
2 They ready their tongues like a drawn bow;
with lying, and not with truth,
they are powerful in the land.
They go from evil to evil,
and me they do not know—oracle of the Lord.
3 Be on your guard, everyone against his neighbor;
put no trust in any brother.
Every brother imitates Jacob, the supplanter,[d]
every neighbor is guilty of slander.
4 Each one deceives the other,
no one speaks the truth.
They have accustomed their tongues to lying,
they are perverse and cannot repent.(L)
5 Violence upon violence,
deceit upon deceit:
They refuse to know me—
oracle of the Lord.
6 Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts:
I will refine them and test them;
how else should I deal with the daughter of my people?
7 A murderous arrow is their tongue,
their mouths utter deceit;
They speak peaceably with their neighbors,
but in their hearts they lay an ambush!(M)
8 Should I not punish them for these deeds—oracle of the Lord;
on a nation such as this should I not take vengeance?(N)
Dirge over the Ravaged Land
9 Over the mountains I shall break out in cries of lamentation,
over the pastures in the wilderness, in a dirge:
They are scorched, and no one crosses them,
no sound of lowing cattle;
Birds of the air as well as beasts,
all have fled and are gone.(O)
10 I will turn Jerusalem into a heap of ruins,
a haunt of jackals;
The cities of Judah I will make a waste,
where no one dwells.(P)
11 Who is wise enough to understand this? To whom has the mouth of the Lord spoken? Let him declare it!
Why is the land ravaged,
scorched like a wilderness no one crosses?(Q)
12 The Lord said: Because they have abandoned my law, which I set before them, and did not listen to me or follow it, 13 but followed instead their stubborn hearts and the Baals, as their ancestors had taught them,(R) 14 therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: See now, I will give this people wormwood to eat and poisoned water to drink.(S) 15 I will scatter them among nations whom neither they nor their ancestors have known; I will send the sword to pursue them until I have completely destroyed them.(T)
16 Thus says the Lord of hosts:
Inquire, and call the wailing women to come;
summon the most skilled of them.
17 Let them come quickly
and raise for us a dirge,
That our eyes may run with tears,
our pupils flow with water.(U)
18 The sound of the dirge is heard from Zion:
We are ruined and greatly ashamed;
We have left the land,
given up our dwellings!
19 Hear, you women, the word of the Lord,
let your ears receive the word of his mouth.
Teach your daughters a dirge,
and each other a lament:
20 Death has come up through our windows,
has entered our citadels,
To cut down children in the street,
young people in the squares.(V)
21 Corpses shall fall
like dung in the open field,
Like sheaves behind the harvester,
with no one to gather them.
True Glory
22 Thus says the Lord:
Let not the wise boast of his wisdom,
nor the strong boast of his strength,
nor the rich man boast of his riches;
23 But rather, let those who boast, boast of this,
that in their prudence they know me,(W)
Know that I, the Lord, act with fidelity,
justice, and integrity on earth.
How I take delight in these—oracle of the Lord.
False Circumcision. 24 See, days are coming—oracle of the Lord—when I will demand an account of all those circumcised in the foreskin:(X) 25 Egypt and Judah, Edom and the Ammonites, Moab, and those who live in the wilderness and shave their temples.[e] For all the nations are uncircumcised, even the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised at heart.
IV. The Ideal Christian Life in the World
Chapter 3
Mystical Death and Resurrection.[a] 1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.(A) 2 Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.(B) 4 When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory.
Renunciation of Vice.[b] 5 Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly:(C) immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and the greed that is idolatry.[c] 6 Because of these the wrath of God[d] is coming [upon the disobedient].(D) 7 By these you too once conducted yourselves, when you lived in that way. 8 But now you must put them all away:[e] anger, fury, malice, slander, and obscene language out of your mouths.(E) 9 Stop lying to one another, since you have taken off the old self with its practices(F) 10 [f]and have put on the new self, which is being renewed, for knowledge, in the image of its creator.(G) 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian,[g] slave, free; but Christ is all and in all.(H)
12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,(I) 13 bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.(J) 14 And over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection.(K) 15 And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, the peace into which you were also called in one body. And be thankful.(L) 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.(M) 17 And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.(N)
32 In spite of all this they went on sinning,
they did not believe in his wonders.
D
33 God ended their days abruptly,
their years in sudden death.
34 When he slew them, they began to seek him;
they again looked for God.(A)
35 They remembered[a] that God was their rock,
God Most High, their redeemer.
36 But they deceived him with their mouths,
lied to him with their tongues.
37 Their hearts were not constant toward him;
they were not faithful to his covenant.(B)
38 [b]But God being compassionate forgave their sin;
he did not utterly destroy them.
Time and again he turned back his anger,
unwilling to unleash all his rage.(C)
39 He remembered that they were flesh,
a breath that passes on and does not return.
III
A
40 How often they rebelled against God in the wilderness,
grieved him in the wasteland.
41 Again and again they tested God,
provoked the Holy One of Israel.
42 They did not remember his power,
the day he redeemed them from the foe,(D)
43 [c]When he performed his signs in Egypt,
his wonders in the plain of Zoan.(E)
44 God turned their rivers to blood;
their streams they could not drink.
45 He sent swarms of insects that devoured them,(F)
frogs that destroyed them.
46 He gave their harvest to the caterpillar,
the fruits of their labor to the locust.
47 He killed their vines with hail,(G)
their sycamores with frost.
48 He exposed their cattle to plague,
their flocks to pestilence.(H)
49 He let loose against them the heat of his anger,
wrath, fury, and distress,
a band of deadly messengers.
50 He cleared a path for his anger;
he did not spare them from death,
but delivered their animals to the plague.
51 He struck all the firstborn of Egypt,(I)
the first fruits of their vigor in the tents of Ham.
52 Then God led forth his people like sheep,
guided them like a flock through the wilderness.(J)
53 He led them on secure and unafraid,
while the sea enveloped their enemies.(K)
54 And he brought them to his holy mountain,
the hill his right hand had won.(L)
55 He drove out the nations before them,
allotted them as their inherited portion,
and settled in their tents the tribes of Israel.
27 Complete your outdoor tasks,
and arrange your work in the field;
afterward you can build your house.[a]
Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.