Old/New Testament
The Kingdom of Righteousness
32 See, a king will rule according to righteousness,
and princes will rule according to justice.
2 And each one will be like a hiding place from the wind
and a covering from the rainstorm,
like streams of water in a dry region,
like the shade of a large rock in a weary land.
3 And the eyes of those who see will not gaze,[a]
and the ears of those who hear will listen.
4 And the minds[b] of the rash will understand knowledge,[c]
and the tongues[d] of stammerers will hasten to speak clearly.
5 A fool will no longer be called noble,
and a scoundrel will not be said to be eminent.
6 For a fool speaks folly,
and his mind[e] does iniquity:
to behave wickedly,[f]
and to speak error concerning Yahweh,
to leave the throat of the hungry empty,
and he deprives the thirsty of drink.
7 And a scoundrel, his weapons are evil;
he plans evil devices
to ruin the poor with words of deception
even[g] when the speech of the needy is right.
8 But[h] the nobleman plans noble things,
and he stands upon noble things.
Against the Carefree Women
9 Women who are at ease, rise up; hear my voice!
Carefree daughters, listen to my word!
10 In a year[i] you will tremble, carefree ones,
for the vintage will come to an end;
the harvest will not come.
11 Tremble, you who are at ease;
tremble, carefree ones;
strip, and strip yourself,
and gird yourself on your loins,[j]
12 mourning over breasts,
over fields of delight,
over the fruitful vine,
13 over the soil of my people.
It goes up in thorns[k] and briers,[l]
indeed over all of the houses of joy in the jubilant city.
14 For the palace will be forsaken,
the crowded city[m] deserted;
the hill and the watchtower will become[n] a cave forever,
the joy of wild asses, a pasture for[o] flocks.
15 Until a spirit is poured out on us from on high,
and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field,
and the fruitful field is reckoned as the forest.
16 Then[p] justice will dwell in the wilderness,
and righteousness will live in the fruitful field.
17 And the work of righteousness will be peace,
and the work of righteousness, quietness and security forever.
18 And my people will dwell in a settlement of peace
and in a dwelling place of security
and in undisturbed resting places.
19 And it hails when the forest comes down,[q]
and the city will become low in humiliation.
20 Happy are you who sow by all waters,
who let the foot of the ox and the donkey go free.
Yahweh’s Judgment and Help
33 Ah, destroyer, and yourself not destroyed!
And treacherous one, and no one has dealt treacherously with him![r]
When you cease[s] destroying, you will be destroyed.
When you stop dealing treacherously, one will deal treacherously with you.
2 Yahweh, be gracious to us, we wait for you.
Be our[t] arm in the mornings,
indeed our salvation in the time of trouble.
3 At the sound of tumult, peoples fled;
because of your exaltation, nations scattered.
4 And your spoil is gathered,
as the gathering of the locust,
as a swarm of locusts storming on it.
5 Yahweh is exalted, for he dwells on high;
he filled Zion with justice and righteousness,
6 and he will be the security of your times,
an abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge.
The fear of Yahweh is his treasure.
7 Look! Their heroes cry out in the street;
the messengers of peace weep bitterly.
8 Highways are deserted;
the traveler on the road ceases.
One breaks a treaty,
he rejects the cities,[u]
he does not hold man in high regard.
9 The land mourns; it languishes.
Lebanon feels abashed; it withers.
Sharon is like the desert,
and Bashan and Carmel are losing their leaves.[v]
10 “Now I will arise,” says Yahweh.
“Now I will lift myself up proudly;
now I will raise myself.
11 You conceive dry grass, you bring forth stubble;
your breath is a fire; it will consume you.
12 And the peoples will be burning to lime—
they are burned like thorns that have been cut down in the fire.
13 You who are far away, hear what I have done;
and you who are near, know my might!”
14 Sinners are afraid in Zion;
trembling has seized the godless:
“Who of us can live[w] with devouring fire?
Who of us can live[x] with everlasting consuming hearths?”
15 He who walks in righteousness
and speaks uprightness,
who rejects the gain of extortion,
who refuses[y] a bribe,
who stops up his ears[z] from hearing bloodshed[aa]
and shuts his eyes from seeing evil.
16 That one will live on the heights;
the fortresses of rocks will be his refuge.
His food will be given;
his waters[ab] will endure.
17 Your eyes will see the king in his beauty;
they will see a distant land.[ac]
18 Your mind[ad] will meditate on the terror:
“Where is the one who counted?
Where is the one who weighed out?
Where is the one who counted the towers?”
19 You will not see the insolent people,
the people whose language is too obscure to understand,[ae]
whose stammering of tongue cannot be understood.[af]
20 Look on Zion, the city of our appointed festivals!
Your eyes will see Jerusalem,
an undisturbed settlement,
a tent that is not moved.[ag]
No one will ever pull out its tent pegs,
and none of its ropes will be torn in two.
21 Rather, there Yahweh will be mighty for us,
a place of rivers and broad streams,[ah]
a galley ship with[ai] oars[aj] cannot go in it,
and a mighty ship cannot pass through it.
22 For Yahweh is our judge; Yahweh is our lawgiver.
Yahweh is our king; he is the one who will save us.
23 Your riggings hang slack;
they do not hold the base of their mast firm,
they do not spread out the sail.
Then the prey of spoil in abundance will be divided;
the lame will take plunder.
24 And no inhabitant will say, “I am sick”;
the people who live in it, their iniquity will be taken away.
Greeting
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 2 to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ in Colossae. Grace to you and peace from God our Father.
Thanksgiving for the Colossian Believers
3 We give thanks always to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ when we[a] pray for you, 4 since we[b] heard about your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope reserved for you in heaven, which you have heard about beforehand in the word of truth, the gospel, 6 that has come to you, just as also in all the world it is bearing fruit and increasing, just as also among you from the day you heard about and understood the grace of God in truth, 7 just as you learned it[c] from Epaphras, our dear fellow slave who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf,[d] 8 who also made clear to us your love in the Spirit.
Prayer for Maturity Based on Christ’s Preeminence
9 Because of this also we, from the day we heard about it,[e] did not cease praying for you, and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual insight, 10 so that you may live in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please him in all respects[f], bearing fruit in every good deed and increasing in the knowledge of God, 11 enabled with all power, according to his glorious might, for all steadfastness and patience with joy, 12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you for a share of the inheritance of the saints in light, 13 who has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us[g] to the kingdom of the Son he loves[h], 14 in whom we have the redemption, the forgiveness of sins, 15 who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all[i] creation, 16 because all things in the heavens and on the earth were created by him, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers, all things were created through him and for him, 17 and he himself is before all things, and in him all things are held together, 18 and he himself is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he himself may become first in everything, 19 because he was well pleased for all the fullness to dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile all things to himself, by[j] making peace through the blood of his cross, through him, whether things on earth or things in heaven.
21 And although you were formerly alienated[k][l] and enemies in attitude, because of your evil deeds, 22 but now you have been reconciled[m] by his physical body[n] through death, to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23 if indeed you remain in the faith, established and steadfast and not shifted away from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.
Paul’s Suffering and Stewardship
24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings on behalf of you, and I fill up in my flesh what is lacking of the afflictions of Christ, on behalf of his body which is the church, 25 of which I became a minister, according to God’s stewardship which was given to me for you, to complete the word of God, 26 the mystery which has been hidden from the ages and from the generations, but has now been revealed to his saints, 27 to whom God wanted to make known what is the glorious wealth of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory, 28 whom we proclaim, by[o] admonishing every person[p] and teaching every person[q] with all wisdom, in order that we may present every person[r] mature in Christ, 29 for which purpose also I labor, striving according to his working which is at work powerfully in me.
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