Old/New Testament
Judgment of the Nations
34 “Come near, you nations, to listen,
and pay attention, you peoples!
Let the earth hear, and all that fills it;
the world, and all that comes out of it.
2 For the Lord is angry against all the nations,
and furious against all their armies.
He has doomed them to destruction,
and[a] given them up to be slaughtered.[b]
3 Their slain[c] will be thrown out;
and as for their dead bodies—
their stench will ascend;
the[d] mountains will be soaked with their blood.
4 The valleys will be split,
all the stars[e] in the heavens will fall down,[f]
and the skies will be rolled up like a scroll.
All their starry host will fade away
like leaves withering on a vine,
or fruit withering on a fig tree.
5 For my sword will be seen[g] in the heavens.
Look! It descends in judgment on Edom,
on the people I have doomed to destruction.
6 The Lord has a sword bathed in blood;
it’s covered[h] with fat,
with the blood of lambs and goats,
and with fat from the kidneys of rams.”
Judgment on Bozrah and Edom
“For the Lord holds a sacrifice in Bozrah,
and a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
7 Wild oxen will fall together with them—
young steers and mighty bulls.
Their land will be drenched[i] with blood,
and their soil will be swollen with fat.
8 For the Lord has a day of vengeance,
a year of recompense for Zion’s cause.
9 Edom’s[j] streams will be turned into burning sulfur,
and its dust into sulfur;
its land will become pitch.
10 It will burn night and day,
and will never be extinguished.
Its smoke will rise from generation to generation,
and it will lie desolate forever and ever.
And no one will pass through it.[k]
11 “But hawks and hedgehogs will possess it;
owls and ravens will nest in it.
God[l] will stretch out over it a measuring line, and chaos,[m]
and plumb lines of emptiness, and its nobles.[n]
12 They will name it “No Kingdom There,”
and all its princes will come to nothing.
13 Thorns will grow over its palaces,
nettles and brambles its fortresses.
It will become a haunt for jackals,
a home for ostriches.
14 And desert creatures will meet with hyenas,
and goat-demons will call out to each other.
There also Liliths[o] will settle,
and find for themselves[p] a resting place.
15 Owls[q] will nest there, lay eggs,
hatch them, and care for their young
under the shadow of their wings;[r]
yes[s] indeed, vultures will gather there,
each one with its mate.”
The Certainty of God’s Deliverance
16 “Study and read from the book of the Lord:
And not one[t] will be missing,
each will not long for its mate.[u]
For it is the mouth of the Lord that has issued the order,
and it is his Spirit that has gathered them.
17 It is he who has allotted their portions,[v]
and his hand has divided it for them with a measuring line forever.[w]
They will possess it forever;[x]
from generation to generation they will live in it.”[y]
The Future of Israel’s Land
35 “The desert and the dry land will rejoice;
the desert will celebrate and blossom. Like crocuses,
2 it will burst into bloom,
and rejoice with gladness and shouts of joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon.
They will see the glory of the Lord,
the splendor of our God.[z]
3 Strengthen the feeble hands,
and support the stumbling knees.
4 Say to those with anxious hearts,
‘Be strong, do not be afraid!
Here is your God—
he will bring[aa] vengeance,
he will bring[ab] divine retribution,
and he will save you.’
5 “Then the eyes of the blind will be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unblocked;
6 then the lame will leap like deer,
and the tongues of speechless people will sing for joy.
Yes, waters will gush forth in the wilderness,
and streams will run[ac] through the desert;
7 the burning sands will become a pool,
and the thirsty ground fountains of water.
In the haunts of jackals there will be
a verdant resting place with[ad] reeds and rushes.”
God’s Holy Highway
8 “A highway will be there—yes, there—[ae]
and people will call it[af] ‘The Holy Way’.[ag]
As for unclean people,
they will not journey on it,
but it will be for whomever[ah] is traveling on that Way—
not even fools will get lost.
9 No lions will be there—
no—[ai] nor will any ferocious beasts get up on it,
and[aj] they will not be found there.
“But the redeemed will walk there,
10 and the Lord’s ransomed ones will return
and enter Zion with singing.
Everlasting joy will rest upon their heads,
gladness and joy will overtake them,[ak]
and sorrow and mourning will flee away.”
Sennacherib Attacks
36 In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah,[al] King Sennacherib of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. 2 Then the king of Assyria sent his field commander,[am] along with a very[an] large army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. When the field commander stopped at the aqueduct at the Upper Pool on the road to Laundryman’s Field, 3 Hilkiah’s son Eliakim, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the secretary, and Asaph’s son Joah, the recorder, went out to him.
4 The field commander told them:
“Tell Hezekiah, king of Judah,[ao] ‘This is what the mighty king, the king of Assyria, has to say: What is this “guarantee” that makes you yourself[ap] rely on it?[aq] 5 Do you really think that guarantees alone can withstand[ar] strategy and military strength? On whom are you now depending, that you’re rebelling against me? 6 Take note: you’re relying on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces the palm of anyone who leans on it. This is what Pharaoh king of Egypt is like to everybody who depends on him!
7 But if you all[as] say to me, “We are depending on the Lord our God”—isn’t he the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, while he kept on telling Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You are to worship in front of this altar in[at] Jerusalem’?[au] 8 Come now, all of you,[av] make a bet with my master, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you can furnish riders for them! 9 How, then, can you repulse even one officer from[aw] the least of my master’s officials, when you are depending for yourselves[ax] on Egypt for chariots and horsemen? 10 One other thing: have I really marched against this country to destroy it apart from the Lord’s direction?[ay] The Lord himself ordered me, ‘March against this country to[az] destroy it.’”[ba]
11 Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah replied to him,[bb] “Please speak with[bc] your servants—with us[bd]—in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don’t speak to us in Hebrew[be] where the people sitting on[bf] the wall can hear.”
12 But the field commander asked, “Was it only to all of you and to your[bg] master that my master sent me to speak these things? Wasn’t it also to the men sitting on the wall—who, like you, will have to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine?”
13 Then the[bh] commander stood up and shouted out loud in Hebrew:[bi]
“Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria! 14 This is what the king of Assyria[bj] says: ‘Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you—for he cannot save you! 15 Don’t let Hezekiah persuade you to rely on the Lord when he says, “The Lord will really deliver[bk] us!” and[bl] “This city will never be handed over to the king of Assyria!” 16 Don’t listen to Hezekiah, because this is what the king of Assyria says: ‘Make your peace with me and come out to me. Then everyone will eat from his own vine and from his own 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—to[bm] a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.’ 18 Be careful not to let Hezekiah mislead you when he says, “The Lord will save us.” Has any god of any nation ever delivered[bn] his country from the[bo] king of Assyria? 19 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sephar-vaim? Have they saved Samaria from me?[bp] 20 Who among all the gods of these countries has delivered[bq] their land from me?[br] How then can the Lord deliver[bs] Jerusalem from me?’”[bt]
21 But the people remained silent and didn’t respond to him with so much as a single word, because the king had commanded, “Don’t answer him.”
22 Then Hilkiah’s son Eliakim, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the secretary, and Asaph’s son Joah, the recorder, approached Hezekiah with their clothes torn,[bu] and let him know what the field commander had said.
2 For I want you to know how much I struggle for you, for those in Laodicea, and for all who have never seen me face to face.[a] 2 Because they are united in love, I pray[b] that their hearts may be encouraged by all the riches that come from a complete understanding of the full knowledge of the Messiah,[c] who is[d] the mystery of God. 3 In him are stored all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I say this so that no one will mislead you with nice-sounding rhetoric. 5 For although I am physically absent, I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see how stable you are and how firm your faith in the Messiah[e] is.
Fullness of Life
6 So then, just as you have received the Messiah[f] Jesus the Lord, continue to live dependent on him. 7 For you have been rooted in him and are being built up and strengthened in the faith, just as you were taught, while you continue to be thankful. 8 See to it that no one enslaves you through philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the basic principles of the world,[g] and not according to the Messiah,[h] 9 because all the essence[i] of deity inhabits him in bodily form. 10 And you have been filled by him, who is the head of every ruler and authority. 11 In union with him you were also circumcised with a circumcision performed without human[j] hands by stripping off the corrupt nature by the circumcision performed by the Messiah.[k] 12 When you were buried with the Messiah[l] in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 Even when you were dead because of your offenses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God[m] made you alive with him when he forgave us all of our offenses, 14 having erased the charges that were brought against us, along with their obligations that were hostile to us. He took those charges away when he nailed them to the cross. 15 And when he had disarmed the rulers and the authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in the cross.[n]
16 Therefore, let no one judge you in matters of food and drink or with respect to a festival, a New Moon, or Sabbath days.[o] 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the reality[p] belongs to the Messiah.[q] 18 Let no one who delights in humility and the worship of angels cheat you out of the prize by rejoicing about what he has seen.[r] Such a person is puffed up for no reason by his carnal mind. 19 He does not hold on to the head, from whom the whole body, which is nourished and held together by its joints and ligaments, grows as God enables it.
The New Life in the Messiah
20 If you have died with the Messiah[s] to the basic principles of the world,[t] why are you submitting to its decrees as though you still lived in the world? 21 “Don’t handle this! Don’t taste or touch that!” 22 All of these things will be destroyed as they are used, because they are based on human commands and teachings. 23 These things have the appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion, humility, and harsh treatment of the body, but they have no value against self-indulgence.
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