Old/New Testament

4 But in the last days Mount Zion will be the most renowned of all the mountains of the world, praised by all nations; people from all over the world will make pilgrimages there.

² “Come,” they will say to one another, “let us visit the mountain of the Lord, and see the Temple of the God of Israel; he will tell us what to do, and we will do it.” For in those days the whole world will be ruled by the Lord from Jerusalem! He will issue his laws and announce his decrees from there.

³ He will arbitrate among the nations and dictate to strong nations far away. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nations shall no longer fight each other, for all war will end. There will be universal peace, and all the military academies and training camps will be closed down.

⁴ Everyone will live quietly in his own home in peace and prosperity, for there will be nothing to fear. The Lord himself has promised this. ⁵ (Therefore we will follow the Lord our God forever and ever, even though all the nations around us worship idols!)

⁶ In that coming day, the Lord says that he will bring back his punished people—sick and lame and dispossessed— ⁷ and make them strong again in their own land, a mighty nation, and the Lord himself shall be their King from Mount Zion forever. ⁸ O Jerusalem—the Watchtower of God’s people—your royal might and power will come back to you again, just as before.

⁹ But for now, you scream in terror. Where is your king to lead you? He is dead! Where are your wise men? All are gone! Pain has gripped you like a woman in labor. ¹⁰ Writhe and groan in your terrible pain, O people of Zion, for you must leave this city and live in the fields; you will be sent far away into exile in Babylon. But there I will rescue you and free you from the grip of your enemies.

¹¹ True, many nations have gathered together against you, calling for your blood, eager to destroy you. ¹² But they do not know the thoughts of the Lord nor understand his plan, for the time will come when the Lord will gather together the enemies of his people like sheaves upon the threshing floor, helpless before Israel.

¹³ Rise, thresh, O daughter of Zion; I will give you horns of iron and hoofs of brass; you will trample to pieces many people, and you will give their wealth as offerings to the Lord, the Lord of all the earth.

5 Mobilize! The enemy lays siege to Jerusalem! With a rod they shall strike the Judge of Israel on the face.

² “O Bethlehem Ephrathah, you are but a small Judean village, yet you will be the birthplace of my King who is alive from everlasting ages past!” ³ God will abandon his people to their enemies until she who is to give birth has her son; then at last his fellow countrymen—the exile remnants of Israel—will rejoin their brethren in their own land.

⁴ And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God, and his people shall remain there undisturbed, for he will be greatly honored all around the world. ⁵ He will be our Peace. And when the Assyrian^[a] invades our land and marches across our hills, he will appoint seven shepherds to watch over us, eight princes to lead us. ⁶ They will rule Assyria with drawn swords and enter the gates of the land of Nimrod. He will deliver us from the Assyrians when they invade our land.

⁷ Then the nation of Israel will refresh the world like a gentle dew or the welcome showers of rain, ⁸ and Israel will be as strong as a lion. The nations will be like helpless sheep before her! ⁹ She will stand up to her foes; all her enemies will be wiped out.

¹⁰ “At that same time,” says the Lord, “I will destroy all the weapons you depend on, ¹¹ tear down your walls, and demolish the defenses of your cities. ¹² I will put an end to all witchcraft—there will be no more fortune-tellers to consult— ¹³ and destroy all your idols. Never again will you worship what you have made, ¹⁴ for I will abolish the heathen shrines from among you, and destroy the cities where your idol temples stand.

¹⁵ “I will pour out my vengeance upon the nations who refuse to obey me.”

12 Then a great pageant appeared in heaven, portraying things to come. I saw a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon beneath her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her head. ² She was pregnant and screamed in the pain of her labor, awaiting her delivery.

³ Suddenly a red Dragon appeared, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns on his heads. ⁴ His tail drew along behind him a third of the stars, which he plunged to the earth. He stood before the woman as she was about to give birth to her child, ready to eat the baby as soon as it was born.

⁵ She gave birth to a boy who was to rule all nations with a heavy hand, and he was caught up to God and to his throne. ⁶ The woman fled into the wilderness, where God had prepared a place for her, to take care of her for 1,260 days.

⁷ Then there was war in heaven; Michael and the angels under his command fought the Dragon and his hosts of fallen angels. ⁸ And the Dragon lost the battle and was forced from heaven. ⁹ This great Dragon—the ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world—was thrown down onto the earth with all his army.

¹⁰ Then I heard a loud voice shouting across the heavens, “It has happened at last! God’s salvation and the power and the rule, and the authority of his Christ are finally here; for the Accuser of our brothers has been thrown down from heaven onto earth—he accused them day and night before our God. ¹¹ They defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by their testimony; for they did not love their lives but laid them down for him. ¹² Rejoice, O heavens! You citizens of heaven, rejoice! Be glad! But woe to you people of the world, for the devil has come down to you in great anger, knowing that he has little time.”

¹³ And when the Dragon found himself cast down to earth, he persecuted the woman who had given birth to the child. ¹⁴ But she was given two wings like those of a great eagle, to fly into the wilderness to the place prepared for her, where she was cared for and protected from the Serpent, the Dragon, for three and a half years.^[a]

¹⁵ And from the Serpent’s mouth a vast flood of water gushed out and swept toward the woman in an effort to get rid of her; ¹⁶ but the earth helped her by opening its mouth and swallowing the flood! ¹⁷ Then the furious Dragon set out to attack the rest of her children—all who were keeping God’s commandments and confessing that they belong to Jesus. ¹⁸ He stood waiting on an ocean beach.