Old/New Testament
End-Time Vision
34 Draw near, O nations, to hear,
and listen, O peoples!
Let the earth hear, and all it contains,
the world, and all its offspring!
2 For Adonai is enraged at all the nations,
and furious at all their armies.
He will utterly destroy them.
He will give them over to slaughter.
3 So their slain will be thrown out,
and the stench of their corpses will rise,
and the hills will be drenched with their blood.
4 Then all the host of heaven will dissolve,
and the skies will be rolled up like a scroll—
so all their array will wither away,
like a leaf drooping from a vine,
like a fig shriveling from a fig tree.
Seek the Scroll and Read
5 For My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens.
See, it will come down upon Edom,
upon the people I have devoted to judgment.
6 The sword of Adonai is filled with blood, gorged with fat—
the blood of lambs and goats,
the fat of kidneys of rams.
For Adonai has a sacrifice in Bozrah,
a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
7 Wild oxen will go down with them,
bull calves with mighty steers.
So their land will be soaked with blood
and their dust greasy with fat.
8 For Adonai has a day of vengeance,
a year of recompense for the hostility against Zion.
9 Its streams will be turned into pitch,
its dust into brimstone,
and its land will become burning tar.
10 It will not be quenched night or day.
Its smoke will go up forever.
From generation to generation it will lay waste—
forever and ever none will pass through it.
11 But pelican and porcupine will have it,
owl and raven will dwell in it.
He will stretch a line of chaos over it
and stones of desolation.
12 As for its nobles, there are none there to call it a kingdom,
and all its princes will come to nothing.
13 Thorns will come up in its palaces,
nettles and thistles in its fortresses.
It will be a haunt of jackals,
an abode for ostriches.
14 Wildcats will meet with wolves,
the goat-demon will cry to its kind—
yes, the night monster will settle there
and find itself a resting place.
15 A tree snake will nest and lay eggs there,
hatch and gather them under its shadow.
Surely, hawks are gathered there,
each one with her mate.
16 Seek from the scroll of Adonai, and read!
Not one of them will be missing;
none will lack its mate.
For His mouth commanded it,
and His Ruach gathered them.
17 He cast the lot for them,
and His hand divided it out to them with the line.
They will possess it forever,
and dwell in it from generation to generation.
Highway in the Wilderness
35 The wilderness and dry land will be glad.
The desert will rejoice and blossom like a lily.
2 It will blossom profusely,
will rejoice with joy and singing,
will be given the glory of Lebanon,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon.
They will see the glory of Adonai,
the splendor of our God.
3 Strengthen the limp hands,
make firm the wobbly knees.
4 Say to those with anxious heart,
“Be strong, have no fear!”
Behold, your God!
Vengeance is coming!
God’s recompense—it is coming!
Then He will save you.
5 Then the eyes of the blind will be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.[a]
6 Then the lame will leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the mute will sing.[b]
For water will burst forth in the desert
and streams in the wilderness.
7 The parched land will become a pool,
the thirsty ground springs of water.
In the haunt of jackals, where they rest,
grass will become reeds and rushes.
8 A highway will be there—a roadway.
It will be called the Way of Holiness.
The unclean will not travel on it.
It is for the one who walks the way.
Fools will not go astray.
9 No lion will be there.
No ravenous beast will go up on it.
They will not be found there.
But the redeemed will walk there.
10 The ransomed of Adonai will return
and come to Zion with singing,
with everlasting joy upon their heads.
They will obtain gladness and joy,
and sorrow and sighing will flee away.
Sennacherib Dares Jerusalem
36 Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah that King Sennacherib of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. 2 The king of Assyria sent the Rab-shakeh[c] from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a massive army. The Rab-shakeh stood by the aqueduct of the upper pool in the highway of the washer’s field. 3 Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder came out to him.
4 So the Rab-shakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: ‘What is this confidence you’ve relied on? 5 I say your strategy and strength for war are only words of a lip. Who do you rely on now, so that you have rebelled against me? 6 Behold, you rely on this splintered reed as a staff—Egypt! If a man leans on it, it will go into the palm of his hand and pierce it—thus Pharaoh king of Egypt is to all who trust in him.
7 “‘But if you say to me: ‘We trust in Adonai our God’—is it not He whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, and then said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You must worship before this altar’?
8 “So now, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria. I’ll give you 2,000 horses—if you could put riders of your own on them. 9 So, how can you repulse a single lieutenant—the least of my master’s servants? Yes, you’re relying on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen.
10 “Moreover, have I now come up against this land to destroy it without Adonai’s approval? Adonai said to me: ‘Go up against this land, and destroy it.’”
11 Then Eliakim and Shebna and Joah said to the Rab-shakeh: “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Don’t speak to us in the language of the Jews when the people on the wall are listening.”
12 But the Rab-shakeh said: “Has my master sent me only to your master and to you to speak these words? Hasn’t he sent me to the men who sit on the wall—who will eat their own waste and drink their own urine with you?”
13 Then the Rab-shakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in the language of the Jews and said: “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria. 14 Thus says the king: ‘Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you! 15 Nor let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in Adonai by saying, “Adonai will surely deliver us—this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”’
16 “Don’t listen to Hezekiah! For thus says the king of Assyria: ‘Make peace with me and come out to me. Then everyone will eat from his own vine and fig tree, and everyone will drink water from his own cistern, 17 until I come and take you away to a land like your own land—a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards.’
18 “Beware that Hezekiah does not mislead you by saying, ‘Adonai will deliver us.’ Has any one of the gods of the nations delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? 19 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Indeed, when did they deliver Samaria from my hand? 20 Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their country out of my hand? So will Adonai deliver Jerusalem from my hand?”
21 But they were silent, and did not answer him a word, for the king’s commandment was, “Do not answer him.”
22 Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of the Rab-shakeh.
2 I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those in Laodicea, as well as for those who have still not seen me face to face. 2 My purpose is that their hearts, joined together in love, may be encouraged. May they have all the riches of the full assurance of understanding, leading to a true knowledge of the mystery of God—that is, Messiah. 3 In Him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden. [a] 4 I am telling you this so that no one will deceive you with persuasive-sounding arguments. 5 For even though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit—rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your trust in Messiah.
Living Out the Mystery
6 Therefore as you received Messiah Yeshua as Lord, so continue to walk in Him— 7 rooted and built up in Him and established in your faith just as you were taught, overflowing with thankfulness. 8 See that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men and the basic principles of the world rather than Messiah. 9 For all the fullness of Deity lives bodily in Him, 10 and in Him you have been filled to fullness. He is the head over every ruler and authority.
11 In Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision done not by hand, in the stripping away of the body of the flesh through the circumcision of Messiah. 12 You were buried along with Him in immersion, through which you also were raised with Him by trusting in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 When you were dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with Him when He pardoned us all our transgressions. 14 He wiped out the handwritten record of debts with the decrees against us, which was hostile to us. He took it away by nailing it to the cross. 15 After disarming the principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in the cross.[b]
The Danger of False Wisdom
16 Therefore, do not let anyone pass judgment on you in matters of food or drink, or in respect to a festival or new moon or Shabbat. [c] 17 These are a foreshadowing of things to come, but the reality is Messiah. [d] 18 Let no one disqualify you by insisting on false humility and worship of angels—going into detail about what he has seen, puffed up without cause by his fleshly mind. 19 He is not holding fast to the Head. It is from Him that the whole body, nourished and held together by its joints and tendons, grows with a godly increase. 20 If you died with Messiah to the basic principles of the world, why—as though living in the world—do you subject yourselves to their rules? 21 “Don’t handle! Don’t taste! Don’t touch!” 22 These all lead to decay with use, based as they are on man-made commands and teachings. [e] 23 Indeed, these are matters that have an appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and humility and self-denial of the body—yet none are of any value for stopping indulgence of the flesh.
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.