Old/New Testament

32 Look, a righteous King is coming, with honest princes! ² He will shelter Israel from the storm and wind. He will refresh her as a river in the desert and as the cooling shadow of a mighty rock within a hot and weary land. ³ Then at last the eyes of Israel will open wide to God; his people will listen to his voice. ⁴ Even the hotheads among them will be full of sense and understanding, and those who stammer in uncertainty will speak out plainly.

⁵ In those days the ungodly, the atheists, will not be heroes! Wealthy cheaters will not be spoken of as generous, outstanding men! ⁶ Everyone will recognize an evil man when he sees him, and hypocrites will fool no one at all. Their lies about God and their cheating of the hungry will be plain for all to see. ⁷ The smooth tricks of evil men will be exposed, as will all the lies they use to oppress the poor in the courts. ⁸ But good men will be generous to others and will be blessed of God for all they do.

⁹ Listen, you women who loll around in lazy ease; listen to me and I will tell you your reward: ¹⁰ In a short time—in just a little more than a year—suddenly you’ll care, O careless ones. For the crops of fruit will fail; the harvest will not take place. ¹¹ Tremble, O women of ease; throw off your unconcern. Strip off your pretty clothes—wear sackcloth for your grief. ¹² Beat your breasts in sorrow for those bountiful farms of yours that will soon be gone, and for those fruitful vines of other years. ¹³ For your lands will thrive with thorns and briars; your joyous homes and happy cities will be gone. ¹⁴ Palaces and mansions will all be deserted, the crowded cities empty. Wild herds of donkeys and goats will graze upon the mountains where the watchtowers are, ¹⁵ until at last the Spirit is poured down on us from heaven. Then once again enormous crops will come. ¹⁶ Then justice will rule through all the land, ¹⁷ and out of justice, peace. Quietness and confidence will reign forever more.

¹⁸ My people will live in safety, quietly at home, ¹⁹ but the Assyrians^[a] will be destroyed and their cities laid low. ²⁰ And God will greatly bless his people. Wherever they plant, bountiful crops will spring up, and their flocks and herds will graze in green pastures.

33 Woe to you, Assyrians,^[b] who have destroyed everything around you but have never felt destruction for yourselves. You expect others to respect their promises to you, while you betray them! Now you, too, will be betrayed and destroyed.

² But to us, O Lord, be merciful, for we have waited for you. Be our strength each day and our salvation in the time of trouble. ³ The enemy runs at the sound of your voice. When you stand up, the nations flee. ⁴ Just as locusts strip the fields and vines, so Jerusalem will strip the fallen army of Assyria!^[c]

⁵ The Lord is very great and lives in heaven. He will make Jerusalem the home of justice and goodness and righteousness. ⁶ An abundance of salvation is stored up for Judah in a safe place, along with wisdom and knowledge and reverence for God.

⁷ But now your ambassadors weep in bitter disappointment, for Assyria has refused their cry for peace. ⁸ Your roads lie in ruins; travelers detour on back roads. The Assyrians have broken their peace pact^[d] and care nothing for the promises they made in the presence of witnesses—they have no respect for anyone. ⁹ All the land of Israel is in trouble; Lebanon has been destroyed; Sharon has become a wilderness; Bashan and Carmel are plundered.

¹⁰ But the Lord says: I will stand up and show my power and might. ¹¹ You Assyrians will gain nothing by all your efforts. Your own breath will turn to fire and kill you. ¹² Your armies will be burned to lime, like thorns cut down and tossed in the fire. ¹³ Listen to what I have done, O nations far away! And you that are near, acknowledge my might!

¹⁴ The sinners among my people shake with fear. “Which one of us,” they cry, “can live here in the presence of this all-consuming, everlasting fire?” ¹⁵ I will tell you who can live here: All who are honest and fair, who reject making profit by fraud, who hold back their hands from taking bribes, who refuse to listen to those who plot murder, who shut their eyes to all enticement to do wrong. ¹⁶ Such as these shall dwell on high. The rocks of the mountains will be their fortress of safety; food will be supplied to them, and they will have all the water they need.

¹⁷ Your eyes will see the King in his beauty and the highlands of heaven far away. ¹⁸ Your mind will think back to this time of terror when the Assyrian officers outside your walls are counting your towers and estimating how much they will get from your fallen city. ¹⁹ But soon they will all be gone. These fierce, violent people with a strange, jabbering language you can’t understand will disappear.

²⁰ Instead you will see Jerusalem at peace, a place where God is worshiped, a city quiet and unmoved. ²¹ The glorious Lord will be to us as a wide river of protection, and no enemy can cross. ²² For the Lord is our Judge, our Lawgiver and our King; he will care for us and save us. ²³ The enemies’ sails hang loose on broken masts with useless tackle. Their treasure will be divided by the people of God; even the lame will win their share. ²⁴ The people of Israel will no longer say, “We are sick and helpless,” for the Lord will forgive them their sins and bless them.

1 From: Paul, chosen by God to be Jesus Christ’s messenger, and from Brother Timothy.

² To: The faithful Christian brothers—God’s people—in the city of Colosse.

May God our Father shower you with blessings and fill you with his great peace.

³ Whenever we pray for you, we always begin by giving thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, ⁴ for we have heard how much you trust the Lord, and how much you love his people. ⁵ And you are looking forward to the joys of heaven, and have been ever since the Gospel first was preached to you. ⁶ The same Good News that came to you is going out all over the world and changing lives everywhere, just as it changed yours that very first day you heard it and understood about God’s great kindness to sinners.

⁷ Epaphras, our much-loved fellow worker, was the one who brought you this Good News. He is Jesus Christ’s faithful slave, here to help us in your place. ⁸ And he is the one who has told us about the great love for others that the Holy Spirit has given you.

⁹ So ever since we first heard about you we have kept on praying and asking God to help you understand what he wants you to do; asking him to make you wise about spiritual things; ¹⁰ and asking that the way you live will always please the Lord and honor him, so that you will always be doing good, kind things for others, while all the time you are learning to know God better and better.

¹¹ We are praying, too, that you will be filled with his mighty, glorious strength so that you can keep going no matter what happens—always full of the joy of the Lord, ¹² and always thankful to the Father who has made us fit to share all the wonderful things that belong to those who live in the Kingdom of light. ¹³ For he has rescued us out of the darkness and gloom of Satan’s kingdom and brought us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, ¹⁴ who bought our freedom with his blood and forgave us all our sins.

¹⁵ Christ is the exact likeness of the unseen God. He existed before God made anything at all,^[a] and, in fact, ¹⁶ Christ himself is the Creator who made everything in heaven and earth, the things we can see and the things we can’t; the spirit world with its kings and kingdoms, its rulers and authorities; all were made by Christ for his own use and glory. ¹⁷ He was before all else began and it is his power that holds everything together. ¹⁸ He is the Head of the body made up of his people—that is, his Church—which he began; and he is the Leader of all those who arise from the dead,^[b] so that he is first in everything; ¹⁹ for God wanted all of himself to be in his Son.

²⁰ It was through what his Son did that God cleared a path for everything to come to him—all things in heaven and on earth—for Christ’s death on the cross has made peace with God for all by his blood. ²¹ This includes you who were once so far away from God. You were his enemies and hated him and were separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions, yet now he has brought you back as his friends. ²² He has done this through the death on the cross of his own human body, and now as a result Christ has brought you into the very presence of God, and you are standing there before him with nothing left against you—nothing left that he could even chide you for; ²³ the only condition is that you fully believe the Truth, standing in it steadfast and firm, strong in the Lord, convinced of the Good News that Jesus died for you, and never shifting from trusting him to save you. This is the wonderful news that came to each of you and is now spreading all over the world. And I, Paul, have the joy of telling it to others.

²⁴ But part of my work is to suffer for you; and I am glad, for I am helping to finish up the remainder of Christ’s sufferings for his body, the Church.

²⁵ God has sent me to help his Church and to tell his secret plan to you Gentiles. ^26-27 He has kept this secret for centuries and generations past, but now at last it has pleased him to tell it to those who love him and live for him, and the riches and glory of his plan are for you Gentiles, too. And this is the secret: Christ in your hearts is your only hope of glory.

²⁸ So everywhere we go we talk about Christ to all who will listen, warning them and teaching them as well as we know how. We want to be able to present each one to God, perfect because of what Christ has done for each of them. ²⁹ This is my work, and I can do it only because Christ’s mighty energy is at work within me.