Old/New Testament
26 On that day this song will be sung
in the land of Y’hudah:
“We have a strong city!
He has built walls and ramparts for our safety.
2 Open the gates! Let the righteous nation enter,
a nation that keeps faith!
3 “A person whose desire rests on you
you preserve in perfect peace,
because he trusts in you.
4 Trust in Adonai forever,
because in Yah Adonai,
is a Rock of Ages.”
5 For he has humbled those in high places,
levelling the lofty city,
levelling it to the ground,
laying it in the dust.
6 It is trampled underfoot by the feet of the poor,
by the footsteps of the needy.
7 The way of the righteous is level;
Righteous One, you smooth the path for the righteous.
8 Following the way of your judgments,
we put our hope in you.
The desire of all our soul
is to remember you and your name.
9 My soul desires you at night,
my spirit in me seeks you at dawn;
for when your judgments are here on earth,
the people in the world learn what righteousness is.
10 Even if pity is shown to the wicked,
he still doesn’t learn what righteousness is.
In a land of uprightness he will still act wrongly
and fail to see the majesty of Adonai.
11 Adonai, you raised your hand,
but they still didn’t see.
Yet with shame they will see your zeal for the people.
Yes, fire will destroy your enemies.
12 Adonai, you will grant us peace;
because all we have done, you have done for us.
13 Adonai our God, other lords
besides you have ruled us,
but only you do we invoke
by name.
14 The dead will not live again,
the ghosts will not rise again;
for you punished and destroyed them,
wiped out all memory of them.
15 You enlarged the nation, Adonai,
you enlarged the nation;
and thus you glorified yourself;
you extended all the frontiers of the country.
16 Adonai, when they were troubled,
they sought you.
When you chastened them,
they poured out a silent prayer.
17 As a pregnant woman about to give birth
cries out and writhes in her labor pains,
so we have been at your presence, Adonai —
18 we have been pregnant and been in pain.
But we, as it were, have given birth to wind;
we have not brought salvation to the land,
and those inhabiting the world have not come to life.
19 Your dead will live, my corpses will rise;
awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust;
for your dew is like the morning dew,
and the earth will bring the ghosts to life.
20 Come, my people, enter your rooms,
and shut your doors behind you.
Hide yourselves for a little while
until the wrath is past.
21 For see! Adonai emerges from his place
to punish those on earth for their sin.
Then the earth will reveal the blood shed on it
and no longer conceal its slain.
27 On that day Adonai,
with his great, strong, relentless sword,
will punish Livyatan the fleeing serpent,
the twisting serpent Livyatan;
he will slay the sea monster.
2 On that day, a pleasant vineyard —
sing about it!
3 “I, Adonai, guard it.
Moment to moment I water it.
So that no harm will come to it,
I guard it night and day.
4 I have no anger in me.
If it gives me briars and thorns,
then, as in war, I will trample it down
and burn it up at once;
5 unless it takes hold of my strength,
in order to make peace with me,
yes, to make peace with me.”
6 The time is coming when Ya‘akov will take root;
Isra’el will bud and flower,
and fill the whole world with a harvest.
7 [Adonai] will not strike Isra’el,
as he did others who struck Isra’el;
he will not kill them,
as he did the others.
8 Your controversy with her is fully resolved
by sending her [into exile].
He removes her with a rough gust of wind
on a day when it’s blowing from the east.
9 So the iniquity of Ya‘akov is atoned for by this,
and removing his sin produces this result:
he chops up all the altar stones like chalk —
sacred poles and sun-pillars stand no more.
10 For the fortified city is alone,
abandoned and deserted, like the desert.
Calves graze and lie down there,
stripping its branches bare.
11 When its harvest dries up, it is broken off;
women come and set it on fire.
For this is a people without understanding.
Therefore he who made them will not pity them,
he who formed them will show them no mercy.
12 On that day Adonai will beat out the grain
between the Euphrates River and the Vadi of Egypt;
and you will be gathered, one by one,
people of Isra’el!
13 On that day a great shofar will sound.
Those lost in the land of Ashur will come,
also those scattered through the land of Egypt;
and they will worship Adonai
on the holy mountain in Yerushalayim.
2 Therefore, if you have any encouragement for me from your being in union with the Messiah, any comfort flowing from love, any fellowship with me in the Spirit, or any compassion and sympathy, 2 then complete my joy by having a common purpose and a common love, by being one in heart and mind. 3 Do nothing out of rivalry or vanity; but, in humility, regard each other as better than yourselves — 4 look out for each other’s interests and not just for your own.
5 Let your attitude toward one another be governed by your being in union with the Messiah Yeshua:
6 Though he was in the form of God,
he did not regard equality with God
something to be possessed by force.
7 On the contrary, he emptied himself,
in that he took the form of a slave
by becoming like human beings are.
And when he appeared as a human being,
8 he humbled himself still more
by becoming obedient even to death —
death on a stake as a criminal!
9 Therefore God raised him to the highest place
and gave him the name above every name;
10 that in honor of the name given Yeshua,
every knee will bow —
in heaven, on earth and under the earth —
11 and every tongue will acknowledge[a]
that Yeshua the Messiah is Adonai —
to the glory of God the Father.
12 So, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed when I was with you, it is even more important that you obey now when I am away from you: keep working out your deliverance with fear and trembling,[b] 13 for God is the one working among you both the willing and the working for what pleases him. 14 Do everything without kvetching or arguing, 15 so that you may be blameless and pure children of God, without defect in the midst of a twisted and perverted generation,[c] among whom you shine like stars in the sky, 16 as you hold on to the Word of Life. If you do this, I will be able to boast, when the Day of the Messiah comes, that I did not run or toil for nothing. 17 Indeed, even if my lifeblood is poured out as a drink offering over the sacrifice and service of your faith, I will still be glad and rejoice with you all. 18 Likewise, you too should be glad and rejoice with me.
19 But I hope in the Lord Yeshua to send Timothy to you shortly, so that I too may be cheered by knowing how you are doing. 20 I have no one who compares with him, who will care so sincerely for your welfare — 21 people all put their own interests ahead of the Messiah Yeshua’s. 22 But you know his character, that like a child with his father he slaved with me to advance the Good News. 23 So I hope to send him just as soon as I see how things will go with me, 24 and I am confident in the Lord that before long I myself will come too.
25 Also I considered it necessary to send you Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow-worker and fellow-soldier, the emissary whom you sent to take care of my needs; 26 since he has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard he was ill. 27 Indeed he was ill, close to death; but God had mercy on him — and not only on him, but also on me — otherwise I would have had sorrow piled on sorrow. 28 Therefore, I am all the more eager to send him, so that you may rejoice when you see him again; and I, for my part, may be less sad. 29 So give him a joyful welcome in the Lord; honor such people. 30 For he risked his life and nearly died working for the Messiah, in order to give me the help you were not in a position to give.
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.