Old/New Testament

47 ¶ Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground, without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans; for thou shalt no longer be called tender and delicate.

² Take the millstones and grind meal; uncover thy locks, remove the shoes from thy feet, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers.

³ Thy nakedness shall be uncovered and thy shame shall be seen; I will take vengeance, and I will not help any man.

⁴ As for our redeemer, the LORD of the hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel.

⁵ Sit, be silent, and go into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans; for thou shalt no longer be called, The lady of kingdoms.

⁶ I was wroth with my people; I have profaned my inheritance and given them into thine hand; thou didst show them no mercy; upon the ancient thou hast very heavily laid thy yoke.

⁷ ¶ And thou didst say, I shall be a lady for ever. Until now thou hast not laid these things to heart, neither didst thou remember thy latter end.

⁸ Therefore now hear this, thou delicate one, that dost sit in confidence and say in thine heart, I am, and no one else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I be fatherless.

⁹ But these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day; the loss of thy fathers and widowhood: they shall come upon thee in their perfection for the multitude of thy sorceries and for the great abundance of thine enchantments.

¹⁰ For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness: thou hast said, No one sees me. Thy wisdom and thine own knowledge; it has deceived thee; for thou hast said in thine heart, I am, and no one else beside me.

¹¹ Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from where it rises; and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off: and destruction shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know.

¹² Stand now with thine enchantments and with the multitude of thy sorceries in which thou hast laboured from thy youth; if so be thou shalt be able to better thyself, if so be thou may prevail.

¹³ Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now those that contemplate the heavens, those that speculate regarding the stars, those that teach the courses of the moon, stand up and defend thee from these things that shall come upon thee.

¹⁴ Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver their lives from the hand of the flame; there shall not be a coal left to warm at, nor light to sit before it.

¹⁵ Thus shall they be unto thee with whom thou hast laboured, even thy merchants, from thy youth: they shall wander each one to his own way; there shall be no one to save thee.

48 ¶ Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, who call yourselves by the name of Israel, those that are come forth out of the waters of Judah, those who swear by the name of the LORD and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor in righteousness.

² For they call themselves of the holy city and stay themselves upon the God of Israel. The LORD of the hosts is his name.

³ That which happened, I have already declared many days ago; and it went forth out of my mouth, and I published it; I did it suddenly, and it came to pass.

⁴ Because I know that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow bronze;

⁵ I have already declared it many days ago; before it came to pass I showed it to thee: lest thou should say, My idol has done it, my graven image, and my molten image, has commanded these things.

⁶ Thou hast heard it, thou hast seen it all; and will ye not declare it? I have showed thee new things from this time, even hidden things, and thou didst not know them.

⁷ They are created now, and not in days past; nor before this day hast thou heard them lest thou should say, Behold, I knew them.

⁸ Certainly thou hast never heard this; certainly thou hast never known this; certainly thine ear was never before opened: for I knew that being unfaithful thou would disobey; therefore, I called thee a rebel from the womb.

⁹ ¶ For my name’s sake I will defer my anger, and for my praise I will wait patiently for thee that I not cut thee off.

¹⁰ Behold, I have refined thee, and not as silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.

¹¹ For mine own sake, even for mine own sake, I will do it, for how should my name be profaned? and I will not give my glory unto another.

¹² Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel, my called; I am he; I am the first, I also am the last.

¹³ Certainly my hand founded the earth, and my right hand measured the heavens with the palm; as I named them, they appeared together.

¹⁴ All ye, assemble yourselves and hear; who is there among them that declares these things? The LORD has loved him, the one who will execute his will on Babylon and his arm upon the Chaldeans.

¹⁵ I, even I, have spoken; I have called him: I have brought him, and therefore his way shall be prospered.

¹⁶ ¶ Come near unto me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was done, I was there: and now the LORD God has sent me and his Spirit.

¹⁷ Thus has the LORD, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel said: I am the LORD thy God who teaches thee to profit, who causes thee to walk by the way in which thou dost walk.

¹⁸ O that thou would look unto my commandments! Then thy peace would be as a river and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea:

¹⁹ Thy seed would be as the sand, and the offspring of thy bowels like the gravel thereof; his name would never be cut off nor destroyed from before me.

²⁰ Come out of Babylon, flee from among the Chaldeans. Give news of this with a voice of joy; publish this; take this news to the end of the earth; say, The LORD has redeemed his slave Jacob.

²¹ And they did not thirst when he led them through the deserts; he caused water to flow out of the rock for them; he clave the rock, and the waters gushed out.

²² There is no peace for the wicked, said the LORD.

49 ¶ Listen, O isles, unto me, and hearken, ye peoples, from far, The LORD has called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother he has remembered my name.

² And he has made my mouth like a sharp sword; with the shadow of his hand he has covered me, and made me a clean arrow; in his quiver he has kept me.

³ And he said unto me, Thou art my slave, O Israel; in thee I will glory.

⁴ But I said, I have laboured in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing, and in vain; yet surely my judgment is before the LORD and my recompense with my God.

⁵ And now, saith the LORD, he that formed me from the womb to be his slave, so that Jacob might be converted unto him. But if Israel will not be gathered, even so, yet I shall be esteemed in the eyes of the LORD, and my God shall be my strength.

⁶ And he said, It is a light thing that thou should be my slave to wake up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the desolations of Israel; I have also given thee for a light to the Gentiles that thou may be my saving health unto the end of the earth.

⁷ ¶ Thus has the LORD said, the Redeemer of Israel, his Holy One, to him whom man despises, to him whom the Gentiles abhor, to the slave of the tyrants, Kings shall see and be raised up as princes and shall worship because of the LORD, for faithful is the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen thee.

⁸ Thus has the LORD said, In an acceptable time I have heard thee, and in the day of saving health I have helped thee; and I will preserve thee and give thee for a covenant of people, that thou might awaken the earth, that thou might inherit the desolate heritages;

⁹ that thou may say to the prisoners, Go forth; and unto those that are in darkness, Show yourselves. Upon the ways shall they be fed, and upon all the high places shall be their pastures.

¹⁰ They shall never hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for he that has mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water he shall feed them.

¹¹ And I will turn all my mountains into a way, and my highways shall be exalted.

¹² Behold, these shall come from far; and, behold, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim.

¹³ ¶ Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the LORD has comforted his people and will have mercy upon his afflicted.

¹⁴ But Zion said, The LORD has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me.

¹⁵ Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Even though they may forget, I will not forget thee.

¹⁶ Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.

¹⁷ Thy builders shall come in haste; thy destroyers and those that made thee waste shall go forth of thee.

¹⁸ ¶ Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to thee. As I live, saith the LORD, thou shalt surely clothe thyself with them all, as with a garment of honour and shalt be girded by them as a bride.

¹⁹ For thy waste and thy desolate places and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and those that destroyed thee shall be separated far away.

²⁰ Even thy sons which were fatherless, shall say in thine ears, The place is too strait for me; give place to me that I may dwell.

²¹ Then shalt thou say in thine heart, Who has begotten me these, seeing I had lost my children and was desolate, a stranger removed from my land? and who has brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been?

²² Thus has the Lord GOD said, Behold, I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles and raise up my banner as an example to the peoples: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders.

²³ And kings shall be thy nursing fathers and their princesses thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD: for those that wait for me shall not be ashamed.

²⁴ ¶ Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered?

²⁵ But thus saith the LORD, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I will contend with him that contends with thee, and I will save thy sons.

²⁶ And I will feed those that oppress thee with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood, as with sweet wine: and all flesh shall know that I the LORD am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob.

4 ¶ It is in order then, brethren, that we beseech and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that in the manner ye were taught of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would continue to grow.

² For ye already know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus.

³ For the will of God is your sanctification, that ye should separate yourselves from fornication,

⁴ that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honesty,

⁵ not with affection of lust, as the Gentiles who do not know God,

⁶ that no one oppress and defraud his brother in any matter because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified.

⁷ For God has not called us unto uncleanness, but unto sanctification.

⁸ He therefore that despises us, does not despise man, but God, who has also given unto us his Holy Spirit.

⁹ ¶ But as touching love among the brethren, ye need not that I write unto you, for ye yourselves have learned of God that ye are to show charity to one another.

¹⁰ And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia, but we beseech you, brethren, that ye continue to grow

¹¹ and that ye procure to be quiet and to do your business and to work with your hands, as we commanded you,

¹² that ye may walk honestly toward those that are without, and that ye may desire nothing from any one.

¹³ ¶ But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as the others who have no hope.

¹⁴ For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so those who sleep in Jesus will God also bring with him.

¹⁵ For this, we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not precede those who are asleep.

¹⁶ For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first;

¹⁷ then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

¹⁸ Therefore comfort one another with these words.