Old/New Testament
26 In that day, this song will be sung in the land of Judah:
“We have a strong city.
God appoints salvation for walls and bulwarks.
2 Open the gates, that the righteous nation may enter:
the one which keeps faith.
3 You will keep whoever’s mind is steadfast in perfect peace,
because he trusts in you.
4 Trust in Yahweh forever;
for in Yah, Yahweh, is an everlasting Rock.
5 For he has brought down those who dwell on high, the lofty city.
He lays it low.
He lays it low even to the ground.
He brings it even to the dust.
6 The foot shall tread it down,
even the feet of the poor
and the steps of the needy.”
7 The way of the just is uprightness.
You who are upright make the path of the righteous level.
8 Yes, in the way of your judgments, Yahweh, we have waited for you.
Your name and your renown are the desire of our soul.
9 With my soul I have desired you in the night.
Yes, with my spirit within me I will seek you earnestly;
for when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
10 Let favor be shown to the wicked,
yet he will not learn righteousness.
In the land of uprightness he will deal wrongfully,
and will not see Yahweh’s majesty.
11 Yahweh, your hand is lifted up, yet they don’t see;
but they will see your zeal for the people and be disappointed.
Yes, fire will consume your adversaries.
12 Yahweh, you will ordain peace for us,
for you have also done all our work for us.
13 Yahweh our God, other lords besides you have had dominion over us,
but we will only acknowledge your name.
14 The dead shall not live.
The departed spirits shall not rise.
Therefore you have visited and destroyed them,
and caused all memory of them to perish.
15 You have increased the nation, O Yahweh.
You have increased the nation!
You are glorified!
You have enlarged all the borders of the land.
16 Yahweh, in trouble they have visited you.
They poured out a prayer when your chastening was on them.
17 Just as a woman with child, who draws near the time of her delivery,
is in pain and cries out in her pangs,
so we have been before you, Yahweh.
18 We have been with child.
We have been in pain.
We gave birth, it seems, only to wind.
We have not worked any deliverance in the earth;
neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.
19 Your dead shall live.
Their dead bodies shall arise.
Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust;
for your dew is like the dew of herbs,
and the earth will cast out the departed spirits.
20 Come, my people, enter into your rooms,
and shut your doors behind you.
Hide yourself for a little moment,
until the indignation is past.
21 For, behold, Yahweh comes out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity.
The earth also will disclose her blood, and will no longer cover her slain.
27 In that day, Yahweh with his hard and great and strong sword will punish leviathan, the fleeing serpent, and leviathan, the twisted serpent; and he will kill the dragon that is in the sea.
2 In that day, sing to her, “A pleasant vineyard! 3 I, Yahweh, am its keeper. I will water it every moment. Lest anyone damage it, I will keep it night and day. 4 Wrath is not in me, but if I should find briers and thorns, I would do battle! I would march on them and I would burn them together. 5 Or else let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me. Let him make peace with me.”
6 In days to come, Jacob will take root. Israel will blossom and bud. They will fill the surface of the world with fruit. 7 Has he struck them as he struck those who struck them? Or are they killed like those who killed them were killed? 8 In measure, when you send them away, you contend with them. He has removed them with his rough blast in the day of the east wind. 9 Therefore by this the iniquity of Jacob will be forgiven, and this is all the fruit of taking away his sin: that he makes all the stones of the altar as chalk stones that are beaten in pieces, so that the Asherah poles and the incense altars shall rise no more. 10 For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness. The calf will feed there, and there he will lie down, and consume its branches. 11 When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off. The women will come and set them on fire, for they are a people of no understanding. Therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them, and he who formed them will show them no favor.
12 It will happen in that day that Yahweh will thresh from the flowing stream of the Euphrates to the brook of Egypt; and you will be gathered one by one, children of Israel.
13 It will happen in that day that a great trumpet will be blown; and those who were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and those who were outcasts in the land of Egypt, shall come; and they will worship Yahweh in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.
2 If therefore there is any exhortation in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tender mercies and compassion, 2 make my joy full by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind; 3 doing nothing through rivalry or through conceit, but in humility, each counting others better than himself; 4 each of you not just looking to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others.
5 Have this in your mind, which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, existing in the form of God, didn’t consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, yes, the death of the cross. 9 Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave to him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
12 So then, my beloved, even as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 13 For it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
14 Do all things without complaining and arguing, 15 that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without defect in the middle of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you are seen as lights in the world, 16 holding up the word of life, that I may have something to boast in the day of Christ that I didn’t run in vain nor labor in vain. 17 Yes, and if I am poured out on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. 18 In the same way, you also should be glad and rejoice with me.
19 But I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, that I also may be cheered up when I know how you are doing. 20 For I have no one else like-minded, who will truly care about you. 21 For they all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ. 22 But you know that he has proved himself. As a child serves a father, so he served with me in furtherance of the Good News. 23 Therefore I hope to send him at once, as soon as I see how it will go with me. 24 But I trust in the Lord that I myself also will come shortly.
25 But I thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow worker, fellow soldier, and your apostle and servant of my need, 26 since he longed for you all, and was very troubled because you had heard that he was sick. 27 For indeed he was sick nearly to death, but God had mercy on him, and not on him only, but on me also, that I might not have sorrow on sorrow. 28 I have sent him therefore the more diligently, that when you see him again, you may rejoice, and that I may be the less sorrowful. 29 Receive him therefore in the Lord with all joy, and hold such people in honor, 30 because for the work of Christ he came near to death, risking his life to supply that which was lacking in your service toward me.
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