Day 259 of 365

Isa 14:1–17:14

14:1 For the Lord will have compassion on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land. The foreigner will join himself with them, and they will unite with the house of Jacob.

14:2 The peoples will take them, and bring them to their place. The house of Israel will possess them in the Lord's land for servants and for handmaids. They will take as captives those whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors.

14:3 It will happen in the day that the Lord will give you rest from your sorrow, from your trouble, and from the hard service in which you were made to serve,

14:4 that you will take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, "How the oppressor has ceased! How the attacker has ceased!"

14:5 The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers,

14:6 who struck the peoples in wrath with a continual stroke, who ruled the nations in anger, with a persecution that none restrained.

14:7 The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet. They break out song.

14:8 Yes, the fir trees rejoice with you, with the cedars of Lebanon, saying, "Since you are humbled, no lumberjack has come up against us."

14:9 Sheol from beneath has moved for you to meet you at your coming. It stirs up the dead for you, even all the rulers of the earth. It has raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.

14:10 They all will answer and ask you, "Have you also become as weak as we are? Have you become like us?"

14:11 Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, with the sound of your stringed instruments. Maggots are spread out under you, and worms cover you.

14:12 How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, who laid the nations low!

14:13 You said in your heart, "I will ascend into heaven! I will exalt my throne above the stars of God! I will sit on the mountain of assembly, in the far north!

14:14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds! I will make myself like the Most High!"

14:15 Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the pit.

14:16 Those who see you will stare at you. They will ponder you, saying, "Is this the man who made the earth to tremble, who shook kingdoms;

14:17 who made the world like a wilderness, and overthrew its cities; who did not release his prisoners to their home?"

14:18 All the kings of the nations, sleep in glory, everyone in his own house.

14:19 But you are cast away from your tomb like an abominable branch, clothed with the slain, who are thrust through with the sword, who go down to the stones of the pit; like a dead body trodden under foot.

14:20 You will not join them in burial, because you have destroyed your land. You have killed your people. The seed of evildoers will not be named forever.

14:21 Prepare for slaughter of his children because of the iniquity of their fathers, that they not rise up and possess the earth, and fill the surface of the world with cities.

14:22 "I will rise up against them," says the Lord of hosts, "and cut off from Babylon name and remnant, and son and son's son," says the Lord.

14:23 "I will also make it a possession for the porcupine, and pools of water. I will sweep it with the broom of destruction," says the Lord of hosts.

14:24 The Lord of hosts has sworn, saying, "Surely, as I have thought, so shall it happen; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand:

14:25 that I will break the Assyrian in my land, and tread him under foot on my mountains. Then his yoke will leave them, and his burden leave their shoulders.

14:26 This is the plan that is determined for the whole earth. This is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations.

14:27 For the Lord of hosts has planned, and who can stop it? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?"

14:28 This burden was in the year that king Ahaz died.

14:29 Do not rejoice, O Philistia, all of you, because the rod that struck you is broken; for out of the serpent's root an adder will emerge, and his fruit will be a fiery flying serpent.

14:30 The firstborn of the poor will eat, and the needy will lie down in safety; and I will kill your root with famine, and your remnant will be killed.

14:31 Howl, gate! Cry, city! You are melted away, Philistia, all of you; for smoke comes out of the north, and there is no straggler in his ranks.

14:32 What will they answer the messengers of the nation? That the Lord has founded Zion, and in her the afflicted of his people will take refuge.

15:1 The burden of Moab: for in a night, Ar of Moab is laid waste, and brought to nothing; for in a night Kir of Moab is laid waste, and brought to nothing.

15:2 They have gone up to Bayith, and to Dibon, to the high places, to weep. Moab wails over Nebo and over Medeba. Baldness is on all of their heads. Every beard is cut off.

15:3 In their streets, they dress themselves in sackcloth. In their streets and on their housetops, everyone wails, weeping abundantly.

15:4 Heshbon cries out with Elealeh. Their voice is heard even to Jahaz. Therefore the armed men of Moab cry aloud. Their souls tremble within them.

15:5 My heart cries out for Moab! Her Nazirites flee to Zoar, to Eglath Shelishiyah; for they go up by the ascent of Luhith with weeping; for in the way of Horonaim, they raise up a cry of destruction.

15:6 For the waters of Nimrim will be desolate; for the grass has withered away, the tender grass fails, there is no green thing.

15:7 Therefore they will carry away the abundance they have gotten, and that which they have stored up, over the brook of the willows.

15:8 For the cry has gone around the borders of Moab; its wailing to Eglaim, and its wailing to Beer Elim.

15:9 For the waters of Dimon are full of blood; for I will bring yet more on Dimon, a lion on those of Moab who escape, and on the remnant of the land.

16:1 Send the lambs for the ruler of the land from Selah to the wilderness, to the mountain of the daughter of Zion.

16:2 For it will be that as wandering birds, as a scattered nest, so will the daughters of Moab be at the fords of the Arnon.

16:3 Give counsel! Execute justice! Make your shade like the night in the midst of the noonday! Hide the outcasts! Do not betray the fugitive!

16:4 Let my outcasts dwell with you! As for Moab, be a hiding place for him from the face of the destroyer. For the extortioner is brought to nothing. Destruction ceases. The oppressors are consumed out of the land.

16:5 A throne will be established in loving kindness. One will sit on it in truth, in the tent of David, judging, seeking justice, and swift to do righteousness.

16:6 We have heard of the pride of Moab, that he is very proud; even of his arrogance, his pride, and his wrath. His boastings are nothing.

16:7 Therefore Moab will wail for Moab. Everyone will wail. You will mourn for the raisin cakes of Kir Hareseth, utterly stricken.

16:8 For the fields of Heshbon languish with the vine of Sibmah. The lords of the nations have broken down its choice branches, which reached even to Jazer, which wandered into the wilderness. Its shoots were spread abroad. They passed over the sea.

16:9 Therefore I will weep with the weeping of Jazer for the vine of Sibmah. I will water you with my tears, Heshbon, and Elealeh: for on your summer fruits and on your harvest the battle shout has fallen.

16:10 Gladness is taken away, and joy out of the fruitful field; and in the vineyards there will be no singing, neither joyful noise. Nobody will tread out wine in the presses. I have made the shouting stop.

16:11 Therefore my heart sounds like a harp for Moab, and my inward parts for Kir Heres.

16:12 It will happen that when Moab presents himself, when he wearies himself on the high place, and comes to his sanctuary to pray, that he will not prevail.

16:13 This is the word that the Lord spoke concerning Moab in time past.

16:14 But now the Lord has spoken, saying, "Within three years, as a worker bound by contract would count them, the glory of Moab shall be brought into contempt, with all his great multitude; and the remnant will be very small and feeble."

17:1 The burden of Damascus: "Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it will be a ruinous heap.

17:2 The cities of Aroer are forsaken. They will be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid.

17:3 The fortress shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria. They will be as the glory of the children of Israel," says the Lord of hosts.

17:4 "It will happen in that day that the glory of Jacob will be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh will become lean.

17:5 It will be like when the harvester gathers the wheat, and his arm reaps the grain. Yes, it will be like when one gleans grain in the valley of Rephaim.

17:6 Yet gleanings will be left there, like the shaking of an olive tree, two or three olives in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outermost branches of a fruitful tree," says the Lord, the God of Israel.

17:7 In that day, people will look to their Maker, and their eyes will have respect for the Holy One of Israel.

17:8 They will not look to the altars, the work of their hands; neither shall they respect that which their fingers have made, either the Asherim, or the incense altars.

17:9 In that day, their strong cities will be like the forsaken places in the woods and on the mountain top, which were forsaken from before the children of Israel; and it will be a desolation.

17:10 For you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not remembered the rock of your strength. Therefore you plant pleasant plants, and set out foreign seedlings.

17:11 In the day of your planting, you hedge it in. In the morning, you make your seed blossom, but the harvest flees away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.

17:12 Ah, the uproar of many peoples, who roar like the roaring of the seas; and the rushing of nations, that rush like the rushing of mighty waters!

17:13 The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters: but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far off, and will be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like the whirling dust before the storm.

17:14 At evening, behold, terror! Before the morning, they are no more. This is the portion of those who plunder us, and the lot of those who rob us.

1 Cor 3:1–23

1 Brothers, I could not speak to you as to spiritual, but as to fleshly, as to babies in Christ.

2 I fed you with milk, not with meat; for you weren't yet ready. Indeed, not even now are you ready,

3 for you are still fleshly. For insofar as there is jealousy, strife, and factions among you, are not you fleshly, and do you not walk in the ways of men?

4 For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are not you men?

5 Who then is Apollos, and who is Paul, but servants through whom you believed; and each as the Lord gave to him?

6 I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase.

7 So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.

8 Now he who plants and he who waters are the same, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.

9 For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's farming, God's building.

10 According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another builds on it. But let each man be careful how he builds on it.

11 For no one can lay any other foundation than that which has been laid, which is Jesus Christ.

12 But if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or stubble;

13 each man's work will be revealed. For the Day will declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself will test what sort of work each man's work is.

14 If any man's work remains which he built on it, he will receive a reward.

15 If any man's work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, but as through fire.

16 Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and that God's Spirit lives in you?

17 If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him; for God's temple is holy, which you are.

18 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone thinks that he is wise among you in this world, let him become a fool, that he may become wise.

19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, "He has taken the wise in their craftiness."

20 And again, "The Lord knows the reasoning of the wise, that it is worthless."

21 Therefore let no one boast in men. For all things are yours,

22 whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come. All are yours,

23 and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

Job 13:20–28

20 "Only do not do two things to me; then I will not hide myself from your face:

21 withdraw your hand far from me; and do not let your terror make me afraid.

22 Then call, and I will answer; or let me speak, and you answer me.

23 How many are my iniquities and sins? Make me know my disobedience and my sin.

24 Why hide you your face, and hold me for your enemy?

25 Will you harass a driven leaf? Will you pursue the dry stubble?

26 For you write bitter things against me, and make me inherit the iniquities of my youth:

27 You also put my feet in the stocks, and mark all my paths. You set a bound to the soles of my feet,

28 though I am decaying like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth-eaten.