Old/New Testament
Catastrophe of Babylon
47 Come down and sit in the dust,
virgin daughter of Babylon.
Sit on the ground without a throne,
daughter of the Chaldeans.
For you will no more be called
tender and delicate.
2 Take the millstones and grind flour.
Remove your veil, strip off the skirt,
uncover the leg, cross the rivers.
3 Your nakedness will be uncovered,
and your shame will be exposed.
I will take vengeance,
and will spare no one.
4 Our Redeemer, Adonai-Tzva’ot is His Name,
is the Holy One of Israel.
5 Sit in silence, go into darkness,
daughter of the Chaldeans.
For you will no more be called
the mistress-queen of kingdoms.
6 I was angry with My people.
I profaned My heritage.
I gave them into your hand,
but you showed them no mercy.
You made your yoke very heavy on the aged.
7 You said, “Forever,
I will be the eternal mistress-queen!”
You did not lay these things to heart
or remember their end.
8 Now then, hear this, voluptuous one,
dwelling securely, saying in your heart,
“I am, and there is no one besides me!
I will not sit as a widow,
or know the loss of children,”
9 These two things will come upon you
in a moment, in one day—
loss of children and widowhood—
they will come upon you in full measure
in spite of your many sorceries
and your many spells.
10 You felt secure in your wickedness,
You said, “No one sees me.”
Your wisdom and your knowledge
led you astray,
so you have said in your heart,
“I am—there is no one else beside me!”
11 But calamity will come upon you.
You won’t know how to charm it away.
Disaster will fall on you,
for which you cannot atone.
Catastrophe you cannot foresee
will suddenly come upon you.
12 Stand fast in your enchantments
and your many sorceries,
which you have toiled over since your youth.
Perhaps you will succeed?
Perhaps you will cause terror?
13 You are weary of your consultations.
So many!
So let the astrologers, star-gazers, predicting by new moons,
stand up and save you from what will come upon you.
14 Behold, they shall be as stubble.
Fire will consume them.
They cannot deliver themselves
from the power of the flame!
It is not a coal for warming by
or a fire to sit before!
15 So much have they become to you,
with whom you have toiled,
trafficking with you from your youth,
each wandering about his own way.
No one will save you!
Who Foretold These Things?
48 Hear this, house of Jacob,
who are called by the Name of Israel,
who came from the wellspring of Judah,
who swear by the Name of Adonai
and confess the God of Israel—
but not in truth or righteousness.
2 For they call themselves by the holy city,
and lean on the God of Israel,
Adonai-Tzva’ot is His Name.
3 “I foretold the former things long ago.
They went forth from My mouth,
and I caused them to be heard.
Suddenly I acted, so they came about.
4 For I know that you are obstinate,
and your neck is iron sinew,
and your forehead bronze.
5 So I foretold it to you long ago.
before it came about I made you hear,
lest you should say, ‘My idol did them,
my carved image, yes,
my molded image commanded them.’
6 You have heard. See all of it.
So will you not admit it?
I proclaim to you new things from now on—
hidden things that you have not known.
7 They are created now, not long ago.
Before today you had not heard them.
So you will not say, ‘Sure, I knew them.’
8 You have not heard; you never knew;
even from long ago your ear has not been open.
For I knew that you are treacherous,
and from birth were called a rebel.
9 For My Name’s sake I defer My anger,
for My praise I will restrain it for you—
otherwise I would cut you off.
10 Behold, I have refined you,
though not as silver.
I tested you in the furnace of affliction.[a]
11 For My own sake, for My own sake, I act.
For how should I be profaned?
I will not give My glory to another.
12 Listen to Me, Jacob,
Israel whom I called:
I am He;
I am the first; I am also the last.[b]
13 Surely My hand founded the earth,
My right hand spread out the heavens.
When I call to them, they stand together.
14 Assemble, all of you, and listen!
Who among them foretold these things?
Adonai loves him.
He will do His will against Babylon—
His arm against the Chaldeans.
15 I, I have spoken, yes I called him.
I will bring him, so his ways will succeed.
16 Draw near to Me, hear this:
Since the beginning, I have not spoken in secret.
From the time it existed, I was there.
So now Adonai Elohim has sent Me,
and His Ruach.”[c]
17 Thus says Adonai, your Redeemer,
the Holy One of Israel:
“I am Adonai your God,
who teaches you to profit,
who leads you in the way you should go.
18 If only you had listened to My commandments!
then your peace would be like a river,
and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.
19 Your seed would have been like sand,
and your offspring like its grains.
Their name would never be cut off
or destroyed from before Me.”
20 “Get out of Babylon,
flee from Chaldea!
With a shout of joy,
proclaim this,
send it out to the end of the earth, say:
‘Adonai has redeemed His servant Jacob!
21 They did not thirst when He led them through the deserts.
He caused the water to flow out of the rock for them.
He split the rock also,
and the waters gushed out.’”
22 “There is no shalom,” says Adonai,
“for the wicked.”
Second Servant Song: Light of the Nations
49 Listen, to Me, islands!
Pay attention, peoples far away.
Adonai called Me from the womb,
from My mother’s belly He named Me.
2 He made My mouth like a sharp sword.
In the shadow of His hand He hid Me.
He made Me a polished arrow,
He has hidden Me in His quiver.
3 He said to Me, “You are My servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
4 But I said, “I have labored in vain,
I have spent my strength for nothing and futility.
Yet surely the justice due to me is with Adonai,
and my reward with my God.”
5 So now says Adonai,
who formed Me from the womb to be His servant,
to bring Jacob back to Him,
to gather Israel back to Him.
For I am honored in the eyes of Adonai
and My God has become my strength.
6 So He says,
“It is too trifling a thing that You should be My servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and restore the preserved ones of Israel.
So I will give You as a light for the nations,
that You should be My salvation to the end of the earth.”[d]
7 Thus says Adonai,
the Redeemer of Israel, their Holy One,
to the One despised,[e] to the One the nation abhors,
to a servant of rulers:
“Kings will see and arise,
princes will also bow down,
because of Adonai who is faithful,
the Holy One of Israel who has chosen You.”
Compassion on Zion’s Children
8 Thus says Adonai:
“In a time of favor I will answer you.
In a day of salvation I will help you.
I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people,
to restore the land,
to make them possess its desolate inheritances,
9 saying to the prisoners, ‘Come out!’
to those in darkness, ‘Be shown!’
Along the roads they will graze—
their pasture will be on all the barren heights.
10 They will not hunger or thirst,
nor scorching wind or sun strike them,
for their compassionate One will lead them,
and will guide them by springs of water.
11 I will make all My mountains a road,
and My highways will be raised up.
12 “Behold, these shall come from afar.
behold, these from the north and from the west,
and from the land of Sinim.
13 Shout for joy, heavens!
Rejoice, earth!
Break forth into ringing shouts, O mountains!
For Adonai has comforted His people
and has compassion on His afflicted.”
14 But Zion said: “Adonai has forsaken me,
Adonai has forgotten me.”
15 “Can a woman forget her nursing baby
or lack compassion for a child of her womb?
Even if these forget,
I will not forget you.
16 Behold, I have engraved you
on the palms of My hands.
Your walls are continually before Me.
17 Your children will come quickly.
Your destroyers and devastators will go away from you.
18 Lift up your eyes around and see:
all of them will gather and come to you.”
“As I live”
—it is Adonai’s declaration—
“you will wear them all as jewelry
and bind them on like a bride.”
19 For your waste and desolate places
and your destroyed land
will now be surely too small for the inhabitants,
and those who swallowed you up will be far away.
20 The children of your bereavement
will yet say in your ears,
“The place is too cramped for me!
Make room for me to settle in.”
21 Then you will say in your heart,
“Who has borne these for me?
Wasn’t I bereaved of my children—
barren, an exile and wandering?
So who has raised these?
Behold, I was left alone—
these, where were they?”
22 Thus says Adonai Elohim:
“Look, I will lift My hand to the nations,
and raise My banner to the peoples!
They will bring your sons on their chest,
and carry your daughters on their shoulders.
23 Kings will be your guardians,
their princesses your nurses.
They will bow down to you with their face to the ground,
and lick the dust of your feet.
Then you will know that I am Adonai—
those hoping in Me will not be ashamed.”
24 Can plunder be taken from the mighty,
or captives of the righteous freed?
25 For thus says Adonai:
“Yes, captives of the mighty will be taken
and the prey of the tyrant will be freed.
For I will oppose your adversary.
I will save your children.
26 I will feed your oppressors their flesh.
They will be drunk with their blood as with sweet wine.
Then all flesh will know
that I, Adonai, am your Savior
and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”
Walking in Sanctification
4 Finally then, brothers and sisters, we ask you and appeal in the Lord Yeshua—just as you received from us the way you ought to walk and please God (as in fact you are walking)—that you keep progressing more and more. [a] 2 For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Yeshua. 3 For this is the will of God—your sanctification:[b]
to abstain from sexual immorality;
4 to know, each of you, how to gain control over his own body[c] in holiness and honor— 5 not in the passion of lust like the pagans who do not know God;
6 and not to overstep his brother and take advantage of him in this matter—
because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, as we told you before and solemnly warned you. 7 For God did not call us to impurity, but in holiness. 8 Consequently, the one who rejects this is not rejecting man, but God, who gives His Ruach ha-Kodesh to you.
9 Now concerning brotherly love, you have no need for anyone to write you—for you yourselves are taught by God[d] to love one another. 10 In fact, you even practice it toward all your brothers and sisters throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to keep progressing more and more 11 and aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, just as we directed you— 12 so you may behave properly toward outsiders and not have need of anything.
The Shofar Call of Messiah’s Return
13 Now we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who are asleep, so that you may not grieve like the rest who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Yeshua died and rose again, so with Him God will also bring those who have fallen asleep in Yeshua. [e] 15 For this we tell you, by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord shall in no way precede those who are asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself shall come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the blast of God’s shofar,[f] and the dead in Messiah shall rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left behind, will be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air—and so we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.