Daily Reading

1 Jehovah now makes the earth desolate and lays it waste; He distorts its surface and scatters its inhabitants:

2 As it is with the people, so will it be with the priest; / As it is with the servant, so will it be with the master; / As it is with the maid, so will it be with the mistress; / As it is with the buyer, so will it be with the seller; / As it is with the lender, so will it be with the borrower; / As it is with the creditor, so will it be with him to whom he gives credit.

3 The earth will be utterly desolated / And utterly spoiled, / For Jehovah has spoken this word.

4 The earth dries up and fades away; / The world languishes and fades away; / The exalted of the people of the earth languish.

5 And the earth is polluted under the weight of its inhabitants; / For they have transgressed laws, they have violated statutes, / They have broken an eternal covenant.

6 Therefore a curse devours the earth / And the inhabitants of it are held guilty; / Therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, / And few men are left.

7 The new wine mourns; the vine languishes; / All the merryhearted sigh.

8 The mirth of the tambourines ceases; / The noise of those who exult stops; / The mirth of the lyre ceases.

9 Men do not drink wine in song; / Liquor is bitter to those who drink it.

10 The city of chaos is broken down; / Every house is shut up that none may enter.

11 A cry for wine is in the streets; / All joy is darkened; / The mirth of the land is departed.

12 In the city desolation remains, / And the gate is crushed to ruins.

13 For thus will it be in the midst of the earth, / Among the peoples: / Like the shaking of an olive tree, / Like the gleanings when the grape harvest is completed.

14 They will lift up their voice; they will give a ringing shout; / Because of the majesty of Jehovah they will cry out from the west.

15 Therefore in the east glorify Jehovah, / Even the name of Jehovah the God of Israel in the coastlands of the sea.

16 From the ends of the earth we hear songs: / Glory to the righteous One! / But I say, Leanness to me! Leanness to me! Woe to me! / The unfaithful deal unfaithfully! / Indeed the unfaithful deal most unfaithfully!

17 Dread, pit, and snare / Are upon you, O inhabitant of the earth.

18 And he who flees from the sound of dread / Will fall into the pit, / And he who comes up out of the pit / Will be taken in the snare; / For the windows from on high are open, / And the foundations of the earth shake.

19 The earth is broken asunder; / The earth is split through and through; / The earth is shaken violently.

20 The earth staggers back and forth like a drunkard / And sways about like a field hut. / And its transgression weighs heavily upon it; / It will fall and will not rise again.

21 And in that day Jehovah will punish / On high the host on high, / And the kings of the earth on the earth.

22 And they will be gathered together, / Like prisoners gathered in a dungeon; / And they will be shut up in prison, / And after many days they will be punished.

23 Then the moon will be abashed, and the sun will be ashamed; / For Jehovah of hosts will reign / In Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, / And His glory will be before His elders.

1 O Jehovah, You are my God; / I will exalt You, I will give thanks to Your name, / For You have done wonderful things — / Counsels of old, in faithfulness, perfect faithfulness.

2 For You have made of a city a heap, / Of a fortified town a ruin. / A palace of strangers becomes no city at all; / It will never be rebuilt.

3 Therefore a strong people will glorify You; / The cities of terrifying nations will fear You.

4 For You have been a stronghold to the weak, / A stronghold to the needy in his distress, / A refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat; / For the breath of those who terrify is like a tempest against a wall.

5 Like the heat in a drought, / You will subdue the uproar of strangers; / Like the heat through the shadow of a cloud, / The song of those who terrify will be brought low.

6 And Jehovah of hosts will make on this mountain / For all the peoples / A feast of fat things, / A feast of wine matured on the lees, / Of fat things full of marrow, / And of filtered wine matured on the lees.

7 And on this mountain He will swallow up / The covering that covers up all the peoples, / Even the veil that veils all the nations.

8 He will swallow up death forever; / And the Lord Jehovah will wipe away the tears from all faces; / And the reproach of His people He will remove from all the earth; / For Jehovah has spoken.

9 And it will be said in that day, / Here, this is our God, / For whom we have waited that He may save us. / This is Jehovah, for whom we have waited; / Let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation.

10 For the hand of Jehovah will rest on this mountain, / And Moab will be threshed in his place, / Even as straw is threshed in the water of a dung heap.

11 And he will spread out his hands in the middle of it, / As a swimmer spreads out his hands to swim; / But Jehovah will abase his pride together with the trickery of his hands.

12 And the lofty fortification of your walls He will bring down, / Lay low, and cast to the ground, even to the dust.

1 In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: We have a strong city; / He will set up salvation as walls and a rampart.

2 Open the gates / So that the righteous nation may enter, / They who maintain faithfulness.

3 You will keep the steadfast of mind / In perfect peace / Because he trusts in You.

4 Trust in Jehovah forever and ever, / For in Jah Jehovah we have an eternal rock.

5 For He has brought down those who dwell on high, / The lofty city; / He lays it low, He lays it low to the ground; / He casts it into the dust.

6 The foot will trample it, the foot of the poor, / The steps of the weak.

7 The path of the righteous is smoothness; / O You who are upright, You make the path of the righteous level.

8 Indeed in the path of Your judgments, / O Jehovah, we have waited for You. / Your name, that is, Your memorial, / Is the desire of our soul.

9 My soul desires You in the night; / Indeed my spirit within me seeks You at the dawn; / For when Your judgments are in the earth, / The inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.

10 Though the wicked is shown grace, / He does not learn righteousness; / In the land of straightforwardness he deals unjustly / And does not perceive the majesty of Jehovah.

11 O Jehovah, Your hand is lifted up, / But they do not see it. / They will see Your zeal for the people and will be put to shame; / Indeed fire will devour Your adversaries.

12 O Jehovah, You will ordain peace for us, / For You have also performed all our works for us.

13 O Jehovah our God, other lords besides You have been master to us, / But through You alone do we mention Your name.

14 The dead will not live, / The deceased will not rise; / Therefore You have visited and destroyed them, / And You have caused all memory of them to perish.

15 You have increased the nation, O Jehovah; / You have increased the nation — You are glorified; / You have far extended all the edges of the land.

16 O Jehovah, in distress they sought You; / They whispered out a prayer, for Your chastening was upon them.

17 As a pregnant woman draws near to giving birth, / She writhes and cries out in her pain; / So we have been before You, O Jehovah.

18 We were pregnant; we writhed; we gave birth, as it were, to wind. / We have not accomplished deliverance for the earth, / Nor have the inhabitants of the world been born.

19 Your dead will live; my corpses will rise. / Awake and give a ringing shout, you who dwell in dust, / For your dew is like the dew of the dawn, / And the earth will bring forth the deceased.

20 Come, my people, enter your rooms, / And shut your doors behind you; / Hide for a short moment / Until the indignation has passed;

21 For Jehovah is now coming forth from His place / To punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; / And the earth will reveal her bloodshed / And will no longer conceal her slain.

1 In that day Jehovah will punish, / With His harsh, great, and mighty sword, / Leviathan the fleeing serpent, / And leviathan the crooked serpent; / And He will slay the dragon that is in the sea.

2 In that day: / A vineyard of wine, sing of it!

3 I, Jehovah, am its keeper; / Every moment I water it. / Lest anyone visit harm upon it, / By night and by day I guard it.

4 I have no wrath. / Oh that I had thorns and thistles! / In battle I would march against them; / I would burn them completely.

5 Or let him grasp at My strength; / Let him make peace with Me; / Let him make peace with Me.

6 In the days to come Jacob will take root; / Israel will blossom and bud; / And they will fill the surface of the world with their produce.

7 Has He struck them like those who struck them? / Have they been slain like those slain by Him?

8 By expulsion and by banishing them, You contended with them; / He sent them away with His harsh wind in the day of the east wind.

9 Thus by this the iniquity of Jacob will be expiated, / And this is all the fruit of the removal of their sin; / When they make all the stones of their altar / Like chalk stones beaten to powder — / Asherahs and sun images will not stand.

10 For the fortified city is isolated; / The habitation is given up and abandoned like a wilderness. / There the calf will feed, / And there he will lie down and consume its branches.

11 When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off; / Women come and make a fire with them; / For they are not a people of understanding. / Therefore He who made them will not have compassion on them, / And He who formed them will not show favor to them.

12 And in that day Jehovah will beat out the grain from the flowing stream of the River / Unto the brook of Egypt; / And you will be gleaned / One by one, O you children of Israel.

13 And in that day a great trumpet will be blown, / And the ones lost in the land of Assyria will come, / As well as the outcasts in the land of Egypt, / And they will worship Jehovah / On the holy mountain in Jerusalem.

19 For I know that for me this will turn out to salvation through your petition and the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ,

20 According to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I will be put to shame, but with all boldness, as always, even now Christ will be magnified in my body, whether through life or through death.

21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

22 But if I am to live in the flesh, if this to me is fruit for my work, then I do not know what I will choose.

23 But I am constrained between the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for this is far better;

24 But to remain in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.

25 And being confident of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy of the faith,

26 That your boast may abound in Christ Jesus in me through my coming again to you.

27 Only, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, that whether coming and seeing you or being absent, I may hear of the things concerning you, that you stand firm in one spirit, with one soul striving together along with the faith of the gospel,

28 And in nothing being frightened by the opposers, which is to them a proof of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God;

29 Because to you it has been graciously granted on behalf of Christ not only to believe into Him but also to suffer on His behalf,

30 Having the same struggle which you saw in me and now hear to be in me.