Old/New Testament
1 This is the vision Isaiah son of Amoz saw about what would happen to Judah and Jerusalem. Isaiah saw these things while Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah were kings of Judah.
God’s Case Against His Children
2 Heaven and earth, listen,
because the Lord is speaking:
“I raised my children and helped them grow up,
but they have turned against me.
3 An ox knows its master,
and a donkey knows where its owner feeds it,
but the people of Israel do not know me;
my people do not understand.”
4 How terrible! Israel is a nation of sin,
a people loaded down with guilt,
a group of children doing evil,
children who are full of evil.
They have left the Lord;
they hate God, the Holy One of Israel,
and have turned away from him as if he were a stranger.
5 Why should you continue to be punished?
Why do you continue to turn against him?
Your whole head is hurt,
and your whole heart is sick.
6 There is no healthy spot
from the bottom of your foot to the top of your head;
you are covered with wounds, hurts, and open sores
that are not cleaned and covered,
and no medicine takes away the pain.
7 Your land is ruined;
your cities have been burned with fire.
While you watch,
your enemies are stealing everything from your land;
it is ruined like a country destroyed by enemies.
8 Jerusalem is left alone
like an empty shelter in a vineyard,
like a hut left in a field of melons,
like a city surrounded by enemies.
9 The Lord All-Powerful
allowed a few of our people to live.
Otherwise we would have been completely destroyed
like the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
10 Jerusalem, your rulers are like those of Sodom,
and your people are like those of Gomorrah.
Hear the word of the Lord;
listen to the teaching of our God!
11 The Lord says,
“I do not want all these sacrifices.
I have had enough of your burnt sacrifices
of male sheep and fat from fine animals.
I am not pleased
by the blood of bulls, lambs, and goats.
12 You come to meet with me,
but who asked you to do
all this running in and out of my Temple’s rooms?
13 Don’t continue bringing me worthless sacrifices!
I hate the incense you burn.
I can’t stand your New Moons, Sabbaths, and other feast days;
I can’t stand the evil you do in your holy meetings.
14 I hate your New Moon feasts
and your other yearly feasts.
They have become a heavy weight on me,
and I am tired of carrying it.
15 When you raise your arms to me in prayer,
I will refuse to look at you.
Even if you say many prayers,
I will not listen to you,
because your hands are full of blood.
16 Wash yourselves and make yourselves clean.
Stop doing the evil things I see you do.
Stop doing wrong.
17 Learn to do good.
Seek justice.
Punish those who hurt others.
Help the orphans.
Stand up for the rights of widows.”
18 The Lord says,
“Come, let us talk about these things.
Though your sins are like scarlet,
they can be as white as snow.
Though your sins are deep red,
they can be white like wool.
19 If you become willing and obey me,
you will eat good crops from the land.
20 But if you refuse to obey and if you turn against me,
you will be destroyed by your enemies’ swords.”
The Lord himself said these things.
Jerusalem Is Not Loyal to God
21 The city of Jerusalem once followed the Lord,
but she is no longer loyal to him.
She used to be filled with fairness;
people there lived the way God wanted.
But now, murderers live there.
22 Jerusalem, you have become like the scum left when silver is purified;
you are like wine mixed with water.
23 Your rulers are rebels
and friends of thieves.
They all accept money for doing wrong,
and they are paid to cheat people.
They don’t seek justice for the orphans
or listen to the widows’ needs.
24 So the Lord God All-Powerful,
the Mighty One of Israel, says:
“You, my enemies, will not cause me any more trouble.
I will pay you back for what you did.
25 I will turn against you
and clean away all your wrongs as if with soap;
I will take all the worthless things out of you.
26 I will bring back judges as you had long ago;
your counselors will be like those you had in the beginning.
Then you will be called the City That Is Right with God,
the Loyal City.”
27 By doing what is fair,
Jerusalem will be free again.
By doing what is right,
her people who come back to the Lord will have freedom.
28 But sinners and those who turn against him will be destroyed;
those who have left the Lord will die.
29 “You will be ashamed,
because you have worshiped gods under the oak trees.
You will be disgraced,
because you have worshiped idols in your gardens.
30 You will be like an oak whose leaves are dying
or like a garden without water.
31 Powerful people will be like small, dry pieces of wood,
and their works will be like sparks.
They will burn together,
and no one will be able to put out that fire.”
The Message About Jerusalem
2 Isaiah son of Amoz saw this message about Judah and Jerusalem:
2 In the last days
the mountain on which the Lord’s Temple stands
will become the most important of all mountains.
It will be raised above the hills,
and people from all nations will come streaming to it.
3 Many nations will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the Temple of the God of Jacob.
Then God will teach us his ways,
and we will obey his teachings.”
His teachings will go out from Jerusalem;
the message of the Lord will go out from Jerusalem.
4 He will settle arguments among the nations
and will make decisions for many nations.
Then they will make their swords into plows
and their spears into hooks for trimming trees.
Nations will no longer fight other nations,
nor will they train for war anymore.
5 Come, family of Jacob,
and let us follow the way of the Lord.
A Terrible Day Is Coming
6 Lord, you have left your people,
the family of Jacob,
because they have become filled with wrong ideas from people in the East.
They try to tell the future like the Philistines,
and they have completely accepted those foreign ideas.
7 Their land has been filled with silver and gold;
there are a great many treasures there.
Their land has been filled with horses;
there are many chariots there.
8 Their land is full of idols.
The people worship these idols they made with their own hands
and shaped with their own fingers.
9 People will not be proud any longer
but will bow low with shame.
God, do not forgive them.
10 Go into the caves of the cliffs;
dig holes and hide in the ground
from the anger of the Lord
and from his great power!
11 Proud people will be made humble,
and they will bow low with shame.
At that time only the Lord will still be praised.
12 The Lord All-Powerful has a certain day planned
when he will punish the proud and those who brag,
and they will no longer be important.
13 He will bring down the tall cedar trees from Lebanon
and the great oak trees of Bashan,
14 all the tall mountains
and the high hills,
15 every tall tower
and every high, strong wall,
16 all the trading ships
and the beautiful ships.
17 At that time proud people will be made humble,
and they will bow low with shame.
At that time only the Lord will be praised,
18 but all the idols will be gone.
19 People will run to caves in the rocky cliffs
and will dig holes and hide in the ground
from the anger of the Lord
and his great power,
when he stands to shake the earth.
20 At that time people will throw away
their gold and silver idols,
which they made for themselves to worship;
they will throw them away to the bats and moles.
21 Then the people will hide in caves
and cracks in the rocks
from the anger of the Lord
and his great power,
when he stands to shake the earth.
22 You should stop trusting in people to save you,
because people are only human;
they aren’t able to help you.
Keep Your Freedom
5 We have freedom now, because Christ made us free. So stand strong. Do not change and go back into the slavery of the law. 2 Listen, I Paul tell you that if you go back to the law by being circumcised, Christ does you no good. 3 Again, I warn every man: If you allow yourselves to be circumcised, you must follow all the law. 4 If you try to be made right with God through the law, your life with Christ is over—you have left God’s grace. 5 But we have the true hope that comes from being made right with God, and by the Spirit we wait eagerly for this hope. 6 When we are in Christ Jesus, it is not important if we are circumcised or not. The important thing is faith—the kind of faith that works through love.
7 You were running a good race. Who stopped you from following the true way? 8 This change did not come from the One who chose you. 9 Be careful! “Just a little yeast makes the whole batch of dough rise.” 10 But I trust in the Lord that you will not believe those different ideas. Whoever is confusing you with such ideas will be punished.
11 My brothers and sisters, I do not teach that a man must be circumcised. If I teach circumcision, why am I still being attacked? If I still taught circumcision, my preaching about the cross would not be a problem. 12 I wish the people who are bothering you would castrate[a] themselves!
13 My brothers and sisters, God called you to be free, but do not use your freedom as an excuse to do what pleases your sinful self. Serve each other with love. 14 The whole law is made complete in this one command: “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”[b] 15 If you go on hurting each other and tearing each other apart, be careful, or you will completely destroy each other.
The Spirit and Human Nature
16 So I tell you: Live by following the Spirit. Then you will not do what your sinful selves want. 17 Our sinful selves want what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit wants what is against our sinful selves. The two are against each other, so you cannot do just what you please. 18 But if the Spirit is leading you, you are not under the law.
19 The wrong things the sinful self does are clear: being sexually unfaithful, not being pure, taking part in sexual sins, 20 worshiping gods, doing witchcraft, hating, making trouble, being jealous, being angry, being selfish, making people angry with each other, causing divisions among people, 21 feeling envy, being drunk, having wild and wasteful parties, and doing other things like these. I warn you now as I warned you before: Those who do these things will not inherit God’s kingdom. 22 But the Spirit produces the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. There is no law that says these things are wrong. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their own sinful selves. They have given up their old selfish feelings and the evil things they wanted to do. 25 We get our new life from the Spirit, so we should follow the Spirit. 26 We must not be proud or make trouble with each other or be jealous of each other.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.