Old/New Testament
A message about Tyre
23 This is a message about Tyre.
Weep aloud, you people in the great ships of Tarshish. An enemy has destroyed the port and the houses of Tyre. They heard this news in Cyprus.
2 Weep quietly, you people who live on the coast of the sea. Yes, weep, you traders of Sidon city. Your sailors travelled across the sea and you became rich. 3 They brought grain to you from Shihor region in Egypt. You received crops that had grown beside the Nile river. Tyre became an important city where traders from many nations came.
4 Be ashamed, you people in Sidon. You have become strong because of the sea. But the sea now speaks against you! It says, ‘I have not given birth to any children. I have not taken care of any sons or daughters as a parent should do.’
5 When the people in Egypt hear the news about Tyre, they will be very sad and upset.
6 Travel to Tarshish! Weep aloud, you people who live on the coast of the sea. 7 Tyre is a city where you had many parties. It has been there since long ago. People from this city went to live in foreign countries far away. 8 It is a royal city and its traders are princes. They are famous everywhere on earth. So who decided to destroy it?
9 The Lord Almighty did that! He decided to show that the pride of those people is useless. He decided to bring all those famous people down low.
10 People of Tarshish, now you will have to grow your own crops. Grow them like they do beside the Nile river. Traders no longer come to Tyre to sell their things.
11 The Lord has lifted his hand up over the sea. He has made kingdoms shake with fear. He has given his command against Canaan, to destroy all its strong places.[a]
12 He says to Sidon's people, ‘Your parties have finished! Now it will be a time of pain for you. Move away, if you can! Travel to Cyprus. But you will still not be safe there.’
13 Look at what happened in Babylonia. Its people have disappeared! The Assyrian army has made it a place for wild animals to live in. Their soldiers built hills of earth against the city's walls. They climbed over and they destroyed its strong buildings. Babylon's buildings became heaps of stones.
14 So weep aloud, you great ships of Tarshish. Enemies have destroyed your strong place.
15 At that time people will forget Tyre for 70 years. That is how long one king lives. At the end of 70 years, there will be a change in Tyre. It will happen to them like the song about the prostitute:
16 ‘Prostitute that people have forgotten,
walk about the city with your harp.
Play it well. Sing many songs.
Then people will remember you again.’
17 At the end of 70 years, the Lord will be kind to Tyre. People from all the nations of the world will come to Tyre to buy things. Tyre will receive their money, like the prostitute in the song. 18 But the money that Tyre receives will belong to the Lord. Tyre's traders will not hide their riches or store them. Their money will buy plenty of food and beautiful clothes for people who worship the Lord.
The Lord will judge all people
24 Understand this! The Lord is ready to destroy the earth. It will become a desert. He will spoil the ground. He will chase away all the people who live on it.
2 It will be the same for all people:
priests as well as ordinary people,
masters as well as their servants,
rich ladies as well as their servant girls,
sellers as well as buyers,
people who lend money as well as those who borrow it,
rich people as well as poor people.
3 The whole earth will become empty. Nothing will remain. The Lord has said that this punishment will certainly happen.
4 The earth becomes dry and all the plants die. The whole world becomes weak and helpless. Its important people also become weak.
5 The people who live on the earth have caused it to become unclean.
They have not obeyed God's laws.
They have turned against his teaching.
They have not obeyed the covenant that God made with them for ever.
6 That is why a curse is destroying the land. The people who live on it are guilty and God is punishing them. They become fewer and fewer. Only a very few of them remain.
7 There is no new wine and the vines are dying. The people who were happy to drink the wine are now sad. 8 The happy sound of tambourines has stopped. The noise from parties has finished. The harps no longer make any happy music. 9 People cannot drink wine, so they do not sing. When people drink beer, it seems bitter.
10 The city has become so spoiled that it is useless. People have locked their houses so that nobody can go in. 11 They shout in the streets because they have no wine. Nobody is happy any more, anywhere on the earth.
12 The city has become a heap of stones. Its gates lie in pieces on the ground.
13 This is what will happen among all the nations on the earth. Only a few people will remain, like a few olives that remain on a tree after the harvest. After people have picked the grapes off a vine, there are only a few that remain.
14 Those people who are still alive sing aloud because they are happy. People who live in the west praise the Lord because he is great. 15 So people who live in the east should praise the Lord too. People who live on the coast of the sea will also praise the name of the Lord, Israel's God. 16 From every part of the earth, we hear songs. People sing to praise the Righteous One.
But I say, ‘I have become very weak and thin! It will be very bad for me! Evil people are turning against their friends. They deceive people more and more!’
17 People everywhere on the earth, terror is ready to catch you! You will fall into a deep hole, and a trap will catch you! 18 Anyone who runs away from the sound of the terror will fall into the deep hole. The trap will catch anyone who climbs out of the big hole. God has opened the windows of the sky. He has caused the foundations of the earth to shake.
19 The earth has become broken into many pieces. It has torn apart. It is shaking powerfully. 20 The earth is like a drunk man. It cannot walk in a straight line. It moves in all directions, like a tent in a storm. The people's sins are like a heavy weight on the earth. It cannot carry them and it will fall. It will never be able to get up again.
21 At that time, the Lord will punish the powerful beings in the skies above. He will punish the kings who rule on the earth below. 22 He will bring them together like prisoners in a deep hole. That will be their prison. They will be there for a time, and then he will come to punish them.
23 The moon will hide its face in shame. The bright light of the sun will become dark. Yes, the Lord Almighty will become king on Mount Zion. He will rule with great power in Jerusalem. The leaders of the people will see his great glory.
A song to thank God
25 Lord, you are my God!
I will praise you
because your name is great.
You have done wonderful things.
You decided a long time ago what you would do.
And you have done exactly what you promised to do.
2 You have destroyed cities
so that they become a heap of stones.
You have destroyed the strongest cities.
The beautiful palaces in foreign lands have disappeared.
Nobody will build them again.
3 So people of strong nations will praise you.
The people of cruel nations will be afraid of you.
4 You Lord have been a safe place for poor people.
When helpless people were in trouble,
you have kept them safe.
You were a place for them to hide from the storm.
You gave them shade from the heat.
Yes, cruel people attack them
like a storm that hits against a wall.
5 and like strong heat in the desert.
You Lord stopped the proud noise of foreign people.
Like the shadow of a cloud that stops the heat of the sun,
you stopped our cruel enemy's songs.
You stopped them as they boasted of their strength.
6 The Lord Almighty will prepare a feast on this mountain.[b]
It will be a feast for all the nations of the world.
It will be a great feast, with plenty of meat and wine.
The best meat and the best wine will be there.
7 On this mountain the Lord will take away the things
that make all people sad.
He will remove the cloth
that covers the people of all nations.
8 The Almighty Lord will destroy death for ever.
He will clean away the tears in everyone's eyes.
His people will not feel ashamed any more.
Nobody in all the world will ever insult them again.
That is what the Lord has said.
9 At that time, people will say,
‘Look! This is our God!
We trusted him to keep us safe,
and he rescued us.
Yes, this is the Lord!
We trusted him to keep us safe.
We will sing with joy,
because he has saved us.’
10 The Lord's power will bless this mountain.
He will knock down Moab's people
and he will walk all over them.
He will walk on them,
as if they are straw in a heap of dung.
11 Moab's people will try to escape from that punishment.
They will push with their hands as they try to swim out!
But the Lord will make their proud strength useless,
whatever they do to escape.
12 He will knock down the high walls of Moab's city.
He will completely destroy their strong place.
It will all fall down into the dust on the ground.
Paul and Timothy say ‘Hello’
1 Paul and Timothy write this letter to you. We are servants of Christ Jesus.
We are writing to you, God's own people who live in Philippi. You belong to God because you are united with Christ Jesus. We are writing to all of you. This includes the leaders and the deacons in the church there.[a]
2 We pray that God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ will continue to help you. We pray that they will give you peace in your minds.
Paul thanks God for the believers at Philippi
3 Every time that I think about you, I thank my God because of you. 4 I am always praying for you. Every time that I pray for you, I feel very happy. 5 I am happy because together we tell people the good news about Christ. You have always helped me with that work, since the first day that you yourselves heard the good news. 6 I know that God has begun to do good things in you. And I am sure that he will continue to work in you. Then, on the day when Jesus Christ returns, his work in you will be finished.
7 It is right for me to feel like this about all of you, because I love you very much. God has been very kind to all of us. Because you know that, you have continued to help me. You have helped me while I have been here in this prison. You also helped me when I was free and I could teach the good news. I explained to people why the good news is God's true message. Together, we have known how kind God is. 8 God knows that I very much want to be with all of you. I love you very much, just like Christ Jesus himself loves you.
9 This is what I pray for you. I pray that you will continue to love each other more and more. I pray that you will know God better and better. I pray that you will understand all those things that are true. 10 Then you will be able to choose what is best in the way that you live. Then, on the day when Christ returns, you will be completely clean. You will not be guilty of any bad thing. 11 Because of the work that Jesus Christ has done in you, you will be right with God. And your lives will be full of good things. As a result, people will praise God and they will say that he is very great.
Paul has served God in prison
12 My friends, I want you to know this. The trouble that has happened to me has helped more people to know about God's good news. 13 I am in a prison because I am Christ's servant.[b] The soldiers in the king's house and all the people here know that. 14 Also, because I am in a prison, most of the other believers here trust the Lord even more. The Lord has made them brave, so that they are not afraid to speak God's message to people.
15 It is true that some of these Christians are jealous of me. They want to show that they are better than me. That is why they tell people the message about Christ. But other Christians speak about Christ because they want to help me. 16 They tell people about him because they love me. They know that God has put me here in this prison. And he wants me to show people that the good news is true. 17 Those other people speak about Christ because they want to seem important. They do not really want to help people. They just want to cause trouble for me while I am here in this prison. 18 But it does not matter to me! All of them are telling people about Christ. That is the most important thing. Whether they speak because of wrong reasons or because of right reasons, they are speaking the message about Christ! Because of that, I am happy.
Yes, I will continue to be happy. 19 You are praying for me and Jesus Christ's Spirit is helping me. So I know that what has happened to me will have a good result. Yes, God will rescue me. 20 I never want to do anything that will cause me to be ashamed. I hope very much that I will never do that. I want to be brave now, as I always have been. In the way that I live, I want to show that Christ is very great. I want to do that if I continue to live. And I want to do that if I die.
21 Christ is everything that I live for. If I die, that will be even better for me. 22 But if I continue to live, I will be able to do more good things to help people. I do not know whether it would be better to live or to die. I do not know which to choose. 23 Both of them seem very good to me. I want to leave this world so that I can be with Christ. That is a much better thing. 24 But you people need me to continue to live here in this world. 25 Yes, I am sure that you need me. For that reason, I know that I will continue to live among you. Then I will be able to help you to trust Christ even more. And that will make you even happier. 26 Then, when I am there with you again, you will have an even better reason to thank Christ Jesus.
27 The most important thing is that you continue to live in a good way. Live in the way that the good news about Christ teaches. I want to know that you agree together about the good news. And that you work together to show others that the good news is true. Whether I come to visit you or not, I want to know that you all help one another like that. 28 I want to know that you are not afraid of the people who speak against you. If you are brave, that will be a sign from God. It will show your enemies that they will lose and you will win. God will punish them, but he will save you. 29 God is helping you to serve Christ well. That means that you believe in Christ. But it also means that you receive trouble and pain on his behalf. Both of those are gifts from God. 30 You are receiving the same kinds of trouble that I myself receive. You saw that when I was with you. Now you hear that it is still happening to me.
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