Daniel 9 Cross References - ISV

¹ Daniel’s Prayer“In the first year of the reign of Darius son of Ahasuerus, a descendant of the Medes, who was made king over the kingdom of the Chaldeans— ² in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, noted in the Scripture the total years that were assigned by the message from the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet for the completion of the desolations of Jerusalem: 70 years.
³ “So I turned my attention to the Lord God, seeking him in prayer and supplication, accompanied with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. ⁴ I prayed to the LORD my God, confessing and saying: ‘Lord! Great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant and gracious love for those who love him and obey his commandments, ⁵ we’ve sinned, we’ve practiced evil, we’ve acted wickedly, and we’ve rebelled, turning away from your commands and from your regulations. ⁶ Furthermore, we haven’t listened to your servants, the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, to our officials, to our ancestors, and to all of the people of the land. ⁷ ‘To you, Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us, open humiliation—even to this day, to the men of Judah, the residents of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, both those who are nearby and those who are far away in all the lands to which you drove them because of their unfaithful acts that they committed against you. ⁸ ‘Open humiliation belongs to us, LORD, to our kings, our officials, and our ancestors, because we’ve sinned against you. ⁹ But to the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we’ve rebelled against him ¹⁰ and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God by walking in his laws that he gave us through his servants the prophets. ¹¹ And all Israel flouted your Law, turning aside from it and not obeying your voice. Because we’ve sinned against him, the curse has been poured upon us, along with the oath written in the Law of Moses the servant of God. ¹² ‘He has confirmed his accusation that he spoke against us and against our rulers who governed us by bringing upon us great calamity, because nowhere in the universe has anything been done like what has been done to Jerusalem. ¹³ As it’s written in the Law of Moses, all this calamity has befallen us, but we still haven’t sought the LORD our God by turning from our lawlessness to pay attention to your truth. ¹⁴ So the LORD watched for the right time to bring the calamity upon us, because the LORD our God is righteous regarding everything he does, but we have not obeyed his voice. ¹⁵ ‘And now, Lord our God, who brought your people from the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and who made a name for yourself that remains to this day—we’ve sinned. We’ve acted wickedly. ¹⁶ Lord, in view of all your righteous acts, please turn your anger and wrath away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain. Because of our sins and the iniquities of our ancestors, Jerusalem and your people have become an embarrassment to all of those around us. ¹⁷ ‘So now, O God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his requests, and look with favor on your desolate sanctuary, for the sake of the Lord. ¹⁸ Turn your ear and listen, O God. Open your eyes and look at our desolation and at the city that is called by your name. We’re not presenting our requests before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great compassion. ¹⁹ ‘Lord, listen!‘Lord, forgive!‘Lord, take note and take action!‘For your own sake, don’t delay, my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.’”
²⁰ Gabriel’s Answer: The Seventy Weeks“While I was still speaking in prayer, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and placing my request in the presence of the LORD my God on behalf of the holy mountain of God— ²¹ while I was still speaking, Gabriel the man of God whom I had seen in the previous vision, appeared to me about the time of the evening offering. ²² He gave instructions, and this is what he spoke to me: ‘Daniel, I’ve now come to give you insight and understanding. ²³ Because you’re highly regarded, the answer was issued when you began your prayer, and I’ve come to tell you. Pay attention to my message and you’ll understand the vision. ²⁴ Seventy weeks have been decreed concerning your people and your holy city: to restrain transgression, to put an end to sin, to make atonement for lawlessness, to establish everlasting righteousness, to conclude vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place. ²⁵ So be informed and discern that seven weeks and 62 weeks will elapse from the issuance of the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed Commander. The plaza and moat will be rebuilt, though in troubled times. ²⁶ Then after the 62 weeks, the anointed one will be cut down (but not for himself). Then the people of the Coming Commander will destroy both the city and the Sanctuary. Its ending will come like a flood, and until the end there will be war, with desolations having been decreed. ²⁷ He will make a binding covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he will suspend both the sacrifice and grain offerings. Destructive people will cause desolation on the pinnacle until it is complete and what has been decreed is poured out on the desolator.’”

²¹ So Daniel remained there in service until the first year of King Cyrus.

³¹ and Darius the Mede took over the kingdom at the age of 62.

²⁸ Daniel achieved success during the reigns of Darius and Cyrus the Persian.

¹ In year one of King Darius the Mede, I arose to fortify and strengthen him.’”

²¹ All of this fulfilled what the LORD had predicted through Jeremiah. And so the land enjoyed its Sabbaths, and the length of the land’s desolation lasted until a 70-year long Sabbath had been completed.

¹ An Edict to Rebuild the Temple
During the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, in fulfillment of the message from the LORD spoken through Jeremiah, the LORD prompted Cyrus, king of Persia, to make this proclamation throughout his entire kingdom, which was also released in written form:

³ Hurry! Look at the permanent ruins— every calamity the enemy brought upon the Holy Place. ⁴ Those who are opposing you roar where we were meeting with you; they unfurl their war banners as signs. ⁵ As one blazes a trail through a forest with an ax, ⁶ now they’re tearing down all its carved work with hatchets and hammers. ⁷ They burned your sanctuary to the ground, desecrating your dwelling place.

¹ A Psalm of Asaph
A Prayer for Jerusalem God, nations have invaded your land to desecrate your holy Temple, to destroy Jerusalem, ² to give the corpses of your servants as food for the birds of the skies and the flesh of your godly ones to the beasts of the earth;

²⁴ I take joy in your decrees, for they are my counselors.

⁹⁹ I am more insightful than my teachers, because your decrees are my meditations. ¹⁰⁰ I have more common sense than the elders, for I observe your precepts.

¹¹ Then I asked, “For how long, LORD?”
He replied: “Until cities lie waste, without inhabitants, and houses without people; and the land becomes utterly desolate. ¹² Until the LORD removes people far away, and there are many empty places in the middle of the land.

¹⁰ The chaotic city lies broken down; every house is closed up so that no one can enter them. ¹¹ There is an outcry in the streets over wine; all cheer turns to gloom; the fun times of the earth are banished. ¹² Desolation remains in the city whose gates lie battered into ruins.

¹⁰ Your holy cities have become a desert; Zion has become like a desert, Jerusalem a desolation.

³⁴ In the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem I’ll bring an end to the sound of gladness and rejoicing, to the sounds of the bridegroom and bride, for the land will become a wasteland.”

¹¹ This entire land will be a desolation and a waste, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon for seventy years.
¹² ‘Then when the seventy years have passed, I’ll judge the king of Babylon and that nation, declares the LORD, I’ll judge the land of the Chaldeans for their iniquity and I’ll make it a desolation forever.

¹⁸ Jerusalem, the cities of Judah, its kings and officials to make them into a ruin, an object of horror and scorn, and a curse, as it is this day;

⁶ then I’ll make this house like Shiloh and make this city into a curse to all the nations of the earth.’”’”

¹⁸ “Micah of Moresheth prophesied during the reign of Hezekiah king of Judah to all the people of Judah, ‘This is what the LORD of the Heavenly Armies says: “Zion will be a plowed field, and Jerusalem a ruin. The Temple Mount will be a wooded hill.”’

⁷ All the nations will serve him, his son, and his grandson until his country’s time also comes, and then many nations and great kings will use him as a slave.

¹⁰ “For this is what the LORD says: ‘When Babylon’s seventy years are completed, I’ll take note of you and will fulfill my good promises to you by bringing you back to this place.

¹ The Sorrowful City How lonely she lies, the city that thronged with people! Like a widow she has become, this great one among nations! The princess among provinces has become a vassal.

¹⁵ Gabriel Interprets the Vision“After I, Daniel, had seen the vision, I tried to understand it. All of a sudden, there was standing in front of me one who appeared to be valiant. ¹⁶ I heard the voice of a man calling out from the Ulai Canal, ‘Gabriel, interpret what that fellow has been seeing.’

¹² “Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed up like a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the Temple Mount like a forest high place.”

⁵ “Talk to everyone in the land, as well as to the priests. Ask them, ‘When you were fasting and mourning during the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, were you really fasting for me?

¹⁵ Signs of the End
“So when you see the destructive desecration, mentioned by the prophet Daniel, standing in the Holy Place (let the reader take note),

¹⁴ Signs of the End
“So when you see the destructive desecration standing where it should not be (let the reader take note), then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains.

³⁴ The eunuch asked Philip, “I ask you, who is the prophet talking about? Himself? Or someone else?”

¹³ Until I arrive, give your full concentration to the public reading of Scripture, to exhorting, and to teaching.

¹⁵ From infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures that are able to give you the wisdom you need for salvation through faith in the Messiah Jesus. ¹⁶ All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good action.

¹⁰ Even the prophets, who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours, carefully researched and investigated this salvation. ¹¹ They tried to find out what era or specific time the Spirit of the Messiah in them kept referring to when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. ¹² It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you in regard to the things that have now been announced to you by those who brought you the good news through the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. These are things that even the angels desire to look into.

¹⁹ Therefore we regard the message of the prophets as confirmed beyond doubt, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a lamp that is shining in a gloomy place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. ²⁰ First of all, you must understand this: No prophecy in Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, ²¹ because no prophecy ever originated through a human decision. Instead, men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

³ How blessed is the one who reads aloud and those who hear the words of this prophecy and obey what is written in it, for the time is near!

²¹ Then I called for a fast there at the Ahava River so we could humble ourselves before our God and seek from him an appropriate way for us and our little ones to live, and how we should guard our personal wealth,

⁵ Ezra’s Prayer of RepentanceAt the time of the evening sacrifice, I arose from my discouragement. Still in my torn garment and robe, I fell to my knees with my hands outstretched to the LORD my God,

⁶ Ezra arose in front of the Temple of God to visit the apartment of Eliashib’s son Jehohanan. While there, he neither ate nor drank because he was in mourning over the sins of those who had returned from exile.

⁴ Nehemiah’s PrayerWhen I heard this, I sat down and cried, mourning for a number of days while I fasted and prayed in the presence of the God of Heaven. ⁵ I said, “Please, LORD, God of Heaven, the great and fearsome God who keeps the covenant, showing gracious love to those who love you and keep your commands, ⁶ please turn your attention to observe carefully and listen to the prayer of your servant today that I am presenting to you day and night on behalf of your servants, the Israelis.
“I confess the sins that we Israelis have committed against you. Both I and my father’s house have sinned. ⁷ We have abandoned you by not keeping your commands, your ceremonies, and your judgments that you proscribed to your servant Moses. ⁸ Please remember what you spoke in commanding your servant Moses. You said, ‘If you rebel, I will scatter you among the nations ⁹ but if you return to me, keeping my commands and doing them, even if your exiled people are in the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place where I have chosen to establish my Name.’
¹⁰ These are your servants as well as your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand.
¹¹ “And now, Lord, I ask you to listen to the prayer of your servant—and to the prayers of your servants who delight in revering your Name. I ask you, please prosper your servant today by granting him to receive favor from this man.”
Now I was the king’s senior security advisor.

¹ The People Confess Their SinsOn the twenty-fourth day of this same month, the Israelis gathered together while fasting, wearing sackcloth, and covering themselves with dust.

¹ Mordecai Seeks Esther’s HelpWhen Mordecai learned all that had been done, he tore his garments and clothed himself in sackcloth and ashes. He went into the middle of the city and cried out with a loud and bitter cry. ² He came as far as the front of the king’s gate, because no one was allowed to enter the king’s gate clothed in sackcloth. ³ In every province where the order of the king and his edict reached, among the Jewish people there was great mourning, fasting, weeping, and lamenting, and many lay down on sackcloth and ashes.

¹⁶ “Go and gather all the Jewish people who are in Susa and fast for me. Don’t eat or drink for three days, night or day. Both I and my young women will also fast in the same way, and then I’ll go in to the king, even though it’s against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”

¹³ But when they were sick, I wore sackcloth, humbled myself with fasting, and prayed from my heart repeatedly for them.

¹⁰ I weep and fast, and I am mocked for it. ¹¹ When I dressed in sackcloth, I became an object of gossip among them.

¹³ You will arise to extend compassion on Zion, for it is time to show her favor— the appointed time has come. ¹⁴ Your servants take pleasure in its stones and delight in its debris. ¹⁵ Nations will fear the name of the LORD, and all the kings of the earth, your splendor. ¹⁶ When the LORD rebuilds Zion, he will appear in his glory. ¹⁷ He will turn to the prayer of the destitute, not despising their prayer.

¹² On that day the Lord GOD of the Heavenly Armies called for weeping and mourning, for shaving heads and wearing sackcloth.

¹⁰ “For this is what the LORD says: ‘When Babylon’s seventy years are completed, I’ll take note of you and will fulfill my good promises to you by bringing you back to this place. ¹¹ For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for well-being, and not for calamity, in order to give you a future and a hope. ¹² When you call out to me and come and pray to me, I’ll hear you. ¹³ You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.

³ ‘Call to me and I’ll answer you, and will tell you about great and hidden things that you don’t know.’

³⁷ “This is what the Lord GOD has to say: ‘I’m going to allow the house of Israel to ask anything they want from me, including this: I’m going to increase their population as a shepherd increases his flock.

¹⁰ Daniel is AccusedWhen Daniel learned that the written document had been signed, he went to an upstairs room in his house that had windows opened facing Jerusalem. Three times a day he would kneel down, pray, and give thanks to his God, just as he had previously done.

² “At that time I, Daniel, had been mourning for three straight weeks. ³ I ate no fancy foods—neither meat nor wine entered my mouth. Furthermore, I didn’t use any ointment until the end of the entire three weeks.

¹³ A Call to Mourn and Repent“Put on your mourning clothes, you priests; and cry aloud, you ministering servants at the altar! Come! Stay the night in mourner’s clothes, you ministers of my God, because the grain offering and the wine offering is held back from the Temple of your God.

¹² Repentance and Restoration“Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “Turn back to me with your whole heart, with fasting, tears, and mourning.

⁶ When the message reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, removed his royal garments, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat down in ashes. ⁷ Then he had this proclamation published throughout Nineveh: “By decree of the king and his nobles: No man or animal, herd or flock, is to taste anything, graze, or drink water. ⁸ Instead, let both man and animal clothe themselves with sackcloth and cry out to God forcefully. Let every person turn from his evil ways and from his tendency to do violence. ⁹ Who knows but that God may relent, have compassion, and turn from his fierce anger, so that we are not exterminated?”

³⁷ and then as a widow for 84 years. She never left the Temple, but continued to worship there night and day with times of fasting and prayer.

³⁰ Cornelius replied, “Four days ago at this very hour, three o’clock in the afternoon, I was praying in my home. All at once a man in radiant clothes stood in front of me

⁸ Come close to God, and he will come close to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹ Be miserable, mourn, and cry. Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into gloom. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves in the Lord’s presence, and he will exalt you.

¹⁶ Therefore, make it your habit to confess your sins to one another and to pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. ¹⁷ Elijah was a person just like us, and he prayed earnestly for it not to rain, and rain never came to the land for three years and six months. ¹⁸ Then he prayed again, and the skies poured out rain, and the ground produced its crops.

⁶ but showing gracious love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.ג

⁶ The LORD passed in front of him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and filled with gracious love and truth. ⁷ He graciously loves thousands, and forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin. But he does not leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of the ancestors on their children, and on their children’s children to the third and fourth generation.”

⁴⁰ Return from Captivity“Nevertheless, when they confess their iniquity, the iniquity of their ancestors, and their unfaithfulness by which they acted unfaithfully against me by living life contrary to me— ⁴¹ causing me to oppose them and take them to the land of their enemies so that the uncircumcised foreskin of their hearts can be humbled and so that they accept the punishment of their iniquity— ⁴² then I’ll remember my covenant with Jacob, my covenant with Isaac, and my covenant with Abraham. I’ll also remember the land.

¹⁸ ‘The LORD is slow to anger and abundant in faithful love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he won’t acquit the guilty. He recalls the iniquity of fathers to the third and fourth generation.’
¹⁹ “Forgive, please, the iniquity of this people, according to your great, faithful love, in the same way that you’ve carried this people from Egypt to this place.”

¹⁰ but showing gracious love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.ג

⁹ Know that the LORD your God is God, the trusted God who faithfully keeps his covenant to the thousandth generation of those who love him and obey his commands.

²¹ Don’t tremble before them, because the LORD your God, who is among you, is a great and awesome God.

²³ and said: “LORD God of Israel, there is no one like you, God in heaven above or on the earth below, who watches over his covenant, showing gracious love to your servants who live their lives in your presence with all their hearts.

⁴⁷ if they turn their hearts back to you in the land where they have been taken captive, repent, and pray to you—even if they do so in the land of their captivity—confessing, ‘We have sinned, we have committed abominations, and practiced wickedness,’ ⁴⁸ if they return to you with all of their heart and with all of their soul in the land of their enemies who have taken them captive, as they pray to you in the direction of their land that you have given to their ancestors and to the city that you have chosen, and to the Temple that I have built for your name, ⁴⁹ then hear their prayer and requests in heaven, where you reside, and fight for their cause,

¹⁴ when my people humble themselves—the ones who are called by my name—and pray, seek me, and turn away from their evil practices, I myself will listen from heaven, I will pardon their sins, and I will restore their land.

⁵ I said, “Please, LORD, God of Heaven, the great and fearsome God who keeps the covenant, showing gracious love to those who love you and keep your commands,

² The remnant of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners. Then they stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their ancestors. ³ While they stood there, they read from the Book of the Law of the LORD their God for one fourth of the day, and they confessed and worshipped the LORD their God for another fourth of the day.

³² “Now therefore, our God, the great, mighty, and awesome God, who keeps the covenant and gracious love, don’t let all of the difficulties seem trifling to you, all of hardships that have come upon us, upon our kings, upon our leaders, upon our priests, upon our prophets, upon our ancestors, and upon all of your people from the time of the kings of Assyria until this day.

⁵ My sin I acknowledged to you; my iniquity I did not hide. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD.” And you forgave the guilt of my sin! Interlude

¹³ ‘Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have rebelled against the LORD your God, and have scattered your favors to strangers under every green tree. But you haven’t obeyed me,’ declares the LORD.

¹⁷ ‘LORD! Look, you made the heavens and the earth with your great power and your outstretched arm. Nothing is too difficult for you! ¹⁸ You, the great God, the mighty one, show gracious love to thousands and repay the parents’ iniquity to their children after them. The LORD of the Heavenly Armies is his name. ¹⁹ You are great in regards to your purposes and mighty in regards to your works. Your eyes are open to everything that people do, and will reward each one according to their ways and just as their actions deserve.

⁵ we’ve sinned, we’ve practiced evil, we’ve acted wickedly, and we’ve rebelled, turning away from your commands and from your regulations. ⁶ Furthermore, we haven’t listened to your servants, the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, to our officials, to our ancestors, and to all of the people of the land. ⁷ ‘To you, Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us, open humiliation—even to this day, to the men of Judah, the residents of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, both those who are nearby and those who are far away in all the lands to which you drove them because of their unfaithful acts that they committed against you. ⁸ ‘Open humiliation belongs to us, LORD, to our kings, our officials, and our ancestors, because we’ve sinned against you. ⁹ But to the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we’ve rebelled against him ¹⁰ and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God by walking in his laws that he gave us through his servants the prophets. ¹¹ And all Israel flouted your Law, turning aside from it and not obeying your voice. Because we’ve sinned against him, the curse has been poured upon us, along with the oath written in the Law of Moses the servant of God. ¹² ‘He has confirmed his accusation that he spoke against us and against our rulers who governed us by bringing upon us great calamity, because nowhere in the universe has anything been done like what has been done to Jerusalem.

¹⁸ Who is like God?Is there any God like you, forgiving iniquity, passing over transgressions by the survivors who are your heritage? He is not angry forever, because he delights in gracious love. ¹⁹ He will again show us compassion; he will subdue our iniquities. You will hurl all their sins into the deepest sea. ²⁰ You will remain true to Jacob, and merciful to Abraham, as you promised our ancestors long ago.

² The LORD’s Anger against AssyriaA jealous God, the LORD avenges. The LORD avenges; The Lord is an angry husband. The LORD takes vengeance on his enemies, reserving anger for his adversaries. ³ The LORD is slow to anger and powerful, and he will never let the guilty go unpunished. The LORD’s path is in the windstorm and hurricane; thunderclouds are dust beneath his feet. ⁴ He rebukes the sea, and it evaporates; he dries up all the rivers. Bashan and Carmel wither, while the flowers of Lebanon languish. ⁵ Mountains shake because of him, and the hills melt. The earth goes into upheaval at his presence, as does the world with all of its inhabitants. ⁶ Who can stand before his fury? And who can endure his fierce anger? His displeasure pours out like fire, and rocks are broken to pieces because of him.
⁷ The LORD’s Goodness in the Midst of JudgmentThe LORD is good— a refuge in troubled times. He knows those who are confiding in him.

⁷² He has shown mercy to our ancestors and remembered his holy covenant,

²⁸ And we know that for those who love God, that is, for those who are called according to his purpose, all things are working together for good.

¹² Trial and TemptationHow blessed is the man who endures temptation! When he has passed the test, he will receive the victor’s crown of life that God has promised to those who keep on loving him.

⁵ Listen, my dear brothers! God has chosen the poor in the world to become rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who keep on loving him, has he not?

⁸ If we say that we do not have any sin, we are deceiving ourselves and we’re not being truthful to ourselves. ⁹ If we make it our habit to confess our sins, in his faithful righteousness he forgives us for those sins and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we say that we have never sinned, we make him a liar and his word has no place in us.

² This is how we know that we love God’s children: we love God and keep his commandments. ³ For this demonstrates our love for God: We keep his commandments, and his commandments are not difficult,

⁴⁷ if they turn their hearts back to you in the land where they have been taken captive, repent, and pray to you—even if they do so in the land of their captivity—confessing, ‘We have sinned, we have committed abominations, and practiced wickedness,’ ⁴⁸ if they return to you with all of their heart and with all of their soul in the land of their enemies who have taken them captive, as they pray to you in the direction of their land that you have given to their ancestors and to the city that you have chosen, and to the Temple that I have built for your name, ⁴⁹ then hear their prayer and requests in heaven, where you reside, and fight for their cause, ⁵⁰ forgiving your people who have sinned against you, along with their transgressions by which they have transgressed against you.“Show your compassion in the presence of those who have taken them captive, so they may show compassion on them,

³⁷ if they turn their hearts back to you in the land where they have been taken captive, repent, and pray to you—even if they do so in the land where they have been taken captive—confessing, ‘We have sinned, we have committed abominations, and practiced wickedness,’ ³⁸ if they return to you with all of their heart and with all of their soul in the land where they have been taken captive, as they pray in the direction of their land that you have given to their ancestors and to the city that you have chosen, and to the Temple that I have built for your name, ³⁹ then hear their prayer and requests from heaven, where you reside, and fight for their cause, forgiving your people who have sinned against you.

⁶ and said, “My God, I am too ashamed and hurt to turn to you, because we’re in our iniquities over our heads. Furthermore, my God, our sins have grown as high as the heavens.

⁶ please turn your attention to observe carefully and listen to the prayer of your servant today that I am presenting to you day and night on behalf of your servants, the Israelis.
“I confess the sins that we Israelis have committed against you. Both I and my father’s house have sinned. ⁷ We have abandoned you by not keeping your commands, your ceremonies, and your judgments that you proscribed to your servant Moses. ⁸ Please remember what you spoke in commanding your servant Moses. You said, ‘If you rebel, I will scatter you among the nations

³³ You are righteous in all that is happening to us, because you have acted faithfully while we have practiced evil. ³⁴ Furthermore, neither our kings, nor our leaders, nor our priests nor our ancestors have practiced your Law or paid attention to your commands and warnings by which you admonished them.

²¹ because I have kept the ways of the LORD, and I have not wickedly departed from my God;

⁶ We have sinned, along with our ancestors; we have committed iniquity and wickedness.

¹⁰² I do not avoid your judgments, for you pointed them out to me.

⁶ All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned, each of us, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

¹³ they’ve rebelled in treachery against the LORD, and are turning away from following our God; and they’ve spoken oppression and revolt, and are conceiving lying words from the heart.

⁵ You come to the aid of those who gladly do what’s right, To those who remember you in your ways. See, you were angry, and we sinned against them for a long time, but we will be saved. ⁶ All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a filthy rag; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind, our iniquities sweep us away. ⁷ There is no one who calls on your name or rouses himself to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have given us into the control of our iniquity.

²⁵ “Let us lie down in our shame, and let our humiliation cover us, because both we and our ancestors have sinned against the LORD our God from our youth until this present time. We haven’t obeyed the LORD our God.”

⁷ The People Cry for HelpLORD, even though our iniquities testify against us, do something for the sake of your name. Indeed, our apostasies are many, and we have sinned against you.

²⁰ Look, LORD, how distressed I am; all my insides are churning. My heart is troubled within me, because I vigorously rebelled. Outside the sword brings loss of life, while at home death rules.

⁹ Your survivors will remember me among the nations where they’ll be taken captives. I’ve been crushed by their unfaithful hearts that have turned against me.

¹¹ And all Israel flouted your Law, turning aside from it and not obeying your voice. Because we’ve sinned against him, the curse has been poured upon us, along with the oath written in the Law of Moses the servant of God.

¹⁵ ‘And now, Lord our God, who brought your people from the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and who made a name for yourself that remains to this day—we’ve sinned. We’ve acted wickedly.

² Hosea’s Wife and FamilyWhen a message from the LORD came to Hosea, the LORD told him, “Go marry a prostitute and have children with her, because the land is prostituting itself by departing from the LORD.”

⁷ God’s Sixth Complaint: Against His People—Gifts and Offerings“Ever since the time of your ancestors, you have turned away from my decrees and haven’t kept them. Return to me and I’ll return to you,” says the LORD of the Heavenly Armies. “But you ask, ‘How will we return?’

¹² See to it, my brothers, that no evil, unbelieving heart is found in any of you, as shown by your turning away from the living God.

¹³ Nevertheless, the LORD had warned both Israel and Judah by means of every prophet and seer: “Turn away from your evil practices and keep my commandments and statutes according to the entire Law that I gave your ancestors and that I sent to you through my servants, the prophets.” ¹⁴ But they would not listen. Instead, they were stubborn, just like their ancestors had been, who did not believe in the LORD their God.

¹⁰ Manasseh Repents and is RestoredThe LORD kept on speaking to Manasseh and to his people, but they paid no attention to him,

¹⁵ The LORD God of their ancestors pleaded with them time and again through his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on the place of his residence, ¹⁶ but they mocked God’s messengers, despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until there was no remedy for the wrath of the LORD that arose to punish his people.

⁷ We have lived in great sin from the days of our ancestors even until today, and because of those iniquities we, our kings, and our priests have been delivered over to foreign kings, for execution, for captivity, for plunder, and for humiliation, as is the case today.

³⁴ Furthermore, neither our kings, nor our leaders, nor our priests nor our ancestors have practiced your Law or paid attention to your commands and warnings by which you admonished them.

¹⁰ They say to the seers, ‘Don’t see visions,’ and to the prophets, ‘Don’t give us visions of what is right! Instead, tell us welcome things, prophesy illusions, ¹¹ get out of the way, turn aside from the path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel.”

¹⁶ Israel Refuses to RepentThis is what the LORD says: “Stand beside the roads and watch. Ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is. Walk in it and find rest for yourselves. But they said, ‘We won’t walk in it!’ ¹⁷ I appointed watchmen over you. Listen for the sound of the trumpet. But they said, ‘We won’t listen!’

¹³ Now, because you have done all these things,” declares the LORD, “I spoke to you over and over again, but you didn’t listen. I called to you, but you didn’t answer.

²⁵ From the day your ancestors left the land of Egypt to this present time, I’ve sent all my servants, the prophets, to you, again and again. ²⁶ But they didn’t listen to me, and they didn’t pay attention. They stiffened their necks, and they did more evil than their ancestors.

³ “From the thirteenth year of the reign of Ammon’s son Josiah, the king of Judah, until the present time, for 23 years this message from the LORD has come to me, and I’ve spoken to you again and again, but you haven’t listened. ⁴ Again and again, the LORD sent all his servants, the prophets, to you, but you wouldn’t listen or even turn your ears in my direction to hear. ⁵ They said, ‘Turn, each one of you, from your evil habits and evil deeds, and live in the land that the LORD gave to you and your ancestors forever and ever. ⁶ Don’t follow other gods to serve and worship them. Don’t provoke me with the idols you make with your hands, and I won’t bring disaster on you.’ ⁷ But you didn’t listen to me,” declares the LORD, “so as to provoke me with the idols you make with your hands to your own harm.

⁵ and listen to the words of my servants, the prophets, whom I’ve sent to you over and over—but you wouldn’t listen—

¹⁹ because they didn’t listen to my words,’ declares the LORD. ‘When I sent my servants, the prophets, to you again and again, you didn’t listen,’ declares the LORD.

³² because of all the evil that the Israelis and Judeans have done to provoke me. They, their kings, their officials, their priests, their prophets, the people of Judah, and those living in Jerusalem have done these things. ³³ They have turned their backs to me rather than their faces. Even though I taught them, teaching them again and again, they didn’t listen to accept correction.

⁴ Yet I sent all my servants the prophets to you again and again, saying, “Don’t do this repulsive thing that I hate.” ⁵ ‘But they didn’t listen or pay attention by turning from their wickedness and not offering sacrifices to other gods.

¹⁶ “As for the message that you reported to us in the name of the LORD, we won’t listen to you!

¹⁰ and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God by walking in his laws that he gave us through his servants the prophets.

⁴ Don’t be like your ancestors, to whom the former prophets proclaimed: ‘This is what the LORD of the Heavenly Armies says: “It’s time to turn from your evil lifestyles and from your evil actions,” ‘but they would neither listen nor pay attention to me,’” declares the LORD.’ ⁵ “Your ancestors—where are they? And the prophets—do they live forever? ⁶ But my words and my statutes that I gave as commands to my servants the prophets—did they not overwhelm your ancestors? And they returned to me: ‘The LORD of the Heavenly Armies acted toward us just as he planned to do—in keeping with our lifestyles and in keeping with our actions.’”

⁸ The Consequence of Turning from GodThis message from the LORD came to Zechariah again: ⁹ “This is what the LORD of the Heavenly Armies says: ‘Administer true justice, and show gracious love and mercy toward each other. ¹⁰ You are not to wrong the widow, orphans, the foreigner, or the poor, and you are not to plan evil against each other. ¹¹ But they refused to pay attention, turned their backs, and stopped listening. ¹² They made their hearts hard like a diamond, to keep from obeying the Law and the messages that the LORD of the Heavenly Armies sent by his Spirit through the former prophets.

³⁴ When harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenant farmers to collect his produce. ³⁵ But the farmers took his servants and beat one, killed another, and attacked another with stones. ³⁶ Again, he sent other servants to them, a greater number than the first, but the tenant farmers treated them the same way. ³⁷ Finally, he sent his son to them, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’ ³⁸ But when the tenant farmers saw his son, they told one another, ‘This is the heir. Come on, let’s kill him and get his inheritance!’ ³⁹ So they grabbed him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. ⁴⁰ Now when the owner of the vineyard returns, what will he do to those farmers?”

³⁷ Jesus Rebukes Jerusalem
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones to death those who have been sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling!

¹⁰ At the right time he sent a servant to the farmers in order to get his share of the produce of the vineyard. But the farmers beat him and sent him back empty-handed. ¹¹ He sent another servant, and they beat him, too, treated him shamefully, and sent him back empty-handed. ¹² Then he sent a third, and they wounded him and threw him out, too.

⁵¹ “You stubborn people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are always opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. ⁵² Which of the prophets did your ancestors fail to persecute? They killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers.

²⁷ For the people who live in Jerusalem and their leaders, not knowing who Jesus was, condemned him and so fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath.

¹⁵ who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, who have persecuted us, and who please neither God nor any group of people, ¹⁶ as they try to keep us from telling the gentiles how they can be saved. As a result, they are constantly adding to the number of sins they have committed. However, wrath has overtaken them at last!

³³ Captivity among the Nations“I’ll scatter you among the nations and draw the sword after you so that your land becomes desolate and your towns become ruins. ³⁴ Then the land will finally be pleased with its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate while you are in the land of your enemies. At that time, the land will rest and take its Sabbaths.

²⁷ Moreover, the LORD will scatter you among the nations, and you’ll be fewer in number in the nations where the LORD your God will drive you.

⁴ Flawless is the work of the Rock, because all his ways are just. A faithful God—never unjust— righteous and upright is he.

⁶ As a result, during the ninth year of the reign of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and took the Israelis off to Assyria, placing them in Halah, along the Habor River in Gozan, and in cities ruled by the Medes.
⁷ The Idolatry of the Northern KingdomThis happened because the Israelis had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up from the land of Egypt and from the domination of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, because they were fearing other gods,

⁶ and said, “My God, I am too ashamed and hurt to turn to you, because we’re in our iniquities over our heads. Furthermore, my God, our sins have grown as high as the heavens. ⁷ We have lived in great sin from the days of our ancestors even until today, and because of those iniquities we, our kings, and our priests have been delivered over to foreign kings, for execution, for captivity, for plunder, and for humiliation, as is the case today.

¹³ “After all that has happened to us because of our evil behavior, and because of our great sin—considering that you our God have punished us less than our iniquities deserve and have given us this deliverance—

³³ You are righteous in all that is happening to us, because you have acted faithfully while we have practiced evil.

¹⁵ My dishonor tortures me continuously; the shame on my face overwhelms me

⁴ Against you, you only, have I sinned, and done what was evil in your sight. As a result, you are just in your pronouncement and clear in your judgment.

¹⁴ Deliver me from the guilt of shedding blood, God, God of my salvation. Then my tongue will sing about your righteousness.

¹³⁷ Tsade
God’s Righteous DecreesLORD, you are righteous, and your judgments are right.

¹¹ At that time, the LORD will reach out his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that is left of his people, from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.

¹⁶ All of them will be put to shame—indeed, disgraced! The makers of idols will go off in disgrace together.

²⁶ “As a thief is disgraced when he’s caught, so the house of Israel is disgraced— they, their kings, their princes, their priests, and their prophets, ²⁷ who say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’ and to a stone, ‘You gave birth to me.’ They have turned their back to me, but not their faces. In the time of their trouble, they’ll say, ‘Rise up! Deliver us!’”

¹ Jeremiah’s Complaint about Justice You are righteous, LORD, even when I bring a complaint to you. But I want to discuss justice with you. Why does the way of the wicked prosper, while all who are treacherous are at ease?

⁹ I’ll make them into a horrifying sight to all the kingdoms of the earth; into a cause for contempt, into a byword, into a taunt, and into a curse in all the places to which I drive them.

⁶³ Then you will remember, be ashamed, and you won’t open your mouth anymore due to humiliation when I will have made atonement for you for everything that you’ve done,’ declares the Lord GOD.”

³¹ Then you’ll remember your lifestyles and practices that were not good. You’ll hate yourselves as you look at your own iniquities and loathsome practices.

⁸ ‘Open humiliation belongs to us, LORD, to our kings, our officials, and our ancestors, because we’ve sinned against you.

¹⁴ So the LORD watched for the right time to bring the calamity upon us, because the LORD our God is righteous regarding everything he does, but we have not obeyed his voice.

⁹ “Look! I’m giving the order: I will sift the house of Israel throughout all the nations, as one sifts with a sieve, yet not a single kernel will reach the ground!

⁴⁰ But the other criminal rebuked him, “Aren’t you afraid of God, since you are suffering the same penalty? ⁴¹ We have been condemned justly, because we are getting what we deserve for what we have done, but this man has done nothing wrong.”

⁵ Now devout Jews from every nation on earth were living in Jerusalem. ⁶ When that sound came, a crowd quickly gathered, startled because each one heard the disciples speaking in his own language. ⁷ Stunned and amazed, they asked, “All of these people who are speaking are Galileans, aren’t they? ⁸ So how is it that each one of us hears them speaking in his own native language: ⁹ Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, ¹⁰ Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, the district of Libya near Cyrene, Jewish and proselyte visitors from Rome, ¹¹ Cretans, and Arabs, listening to them talk in our own languages about the great deeds of God?”

²¹ What benefit did you get from doing those things you are now ashamed of? For those things resulted in death.

²⁰ We acknowledge, LORD, our wickedness, the guilt of our ancestors. Indeed, we have sinned against you.

⁷ Jerusalem remembers her time of affliction and misery; all her valued belongings of days gone by, when her people fell into enemy hands, with no one to help her, and her enemies stared at her, mocking her downfall. ⁸ Jerusalem sinned greatly, and she became unclean. All who honored her now despise her, because they saw her naked. She herself groans and turns her face away.

¹⁸ The LORD is in the right, but I rebelled against his commands. Listen, please, all you people, and look at my pain— my young men and women have gone into captivity.

⁴² As for us, we have sinned and rebelled; but you have not pardoned us.

¹⁶ The crown has fallen from our head— woe to us, because we have sinned!

⁶ Furthermore, we haven’t listened to your servants, the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, to our officials, to our ancestors, and to all of the people of the land. ⁷ ‘To you, Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us, open humiliation—even to this day, to the men of Judah, the residents of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, both those who are nearby and those who are far away in all the lands to which you drove them because of their unfaithful acts that they committed against you.

¹⁷ They would not listen, and did not remember the miracles you did among them. Instead, they became stubborn and appointed a leader to return them to their slavery. “But you are a God of forgiveness, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, and rich in gracious love; therefore you did not abandon them. ¹⁸ Moreover, after they had cast a golden calf for themselves, they said, “This is your god who brought you out of Egypt!” and committed terrible blasphemies. ¹⁹ You, in your great compassion, did not abandon them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud did not leave them in daylight, in order to provide light for them on the path they took. Nor did the pillar of fire abandon them at night, in order to provide light for them and lead them on the path they took.

²⁶ “Then they disobeyed, rebelled against you, and threw your Law behind their backs. They murdered your prophets who had admonished the people to return to you, committing terrible blasphemies. ²⁷ So you delivered them into the control of their enemies, who oppressed them. But when they were oppressed, they cried out to you, and you heard from heaven. In your great compassion you gave them deliverers who rescued them from the control of their enemies. ²⁸ “But after they had gained relief, they returned to doing evil before you. Therefore you abandoned them to the control of their enemies, who continued to oppress them. But when they came back and cried out to you, you listened from heaven and delivered them in your compassion on many occasions.

³¹ Nevertheless, in your great compassion you did not completely destroy them or abandon them, because you are a God of grace and you are merciful.

¹² Also to you, Lord, belongs gracious love, because you reward each person according to what he does.

⁵ Indeed you, Lord, are kind and forgiving, overflowing with gracious love to everyone who calls on you.

¹⁵ But you, Lord, are a compassionate God, merciful and patient, with unending gracious love and faithfulness.

⁴³ He delivered them many times, but they demonstrated rebellion by their evil plans; therefore they sunk deep in their sins. ⁴⁴ Yet when he saw their distress and heard their cries for help, ⁴⁵ he remembered his covenant with them, and so relented according to the greatness of his gracious love.

⁴ But with you there is forgiveness, so that you may be feared.

⁷ Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is gracious love, along with abundant redemption.

⁸ Gracious and merciful is the LORD, slow to become angry, and overflowing with gracious love. ⁹ The LORD is good to everyone and his mercies extend to everything he does.

⁷ Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous person his thoughts. Let him return to the LORD, So he’ll have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he’ll pardon abundantly.

⁷ God’s Grace to IsraelI will recount the gracious deeds of the LORD, the praiseworthy acts of the LORD, according to all the LORD has done for us— yes, the great goodness to the house of Israel that he has granted them according to his mercy, according to the abundance of his gracious love.

²² Because of the LORD’s gracious love we are not consumed, since his compassions never end. ²³ They are new every morning— great is your faithfulness!

⁸ A Brief History of Israel’s Rebellion“But they rebelled against me and weren’t willing to obey me. None of them abandoned their detestable practices or their Egyptian idols. So I said, ‘I’ll pour out my anger on them, extending my fury in the middle of the land of Egypt.’ ⁹ I did this so my reputation might not be tarnished among the nations where they were living, among whom I made myself known in their presence when I brought them out of the land of Egypt.

¹³ Israel Rebels in the Wilderness“But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness. They didn’t live by my statutes. They despised my ordinances, which if a person observes, he’ll live by them. They greatly profaned my Sabbaths. So I said I would pour out my anger on them and bring them to an end in the wilderness.

⁵ we’ve sinned, we’ve practiced evil, we’ve acted wickedly, and we’ve rebelled, turning away from your commands and from your regulations.

⁷ ‘To you, Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us, open humiliation—even to this day, to the men of Judah, the residents of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, both those who are nearby and those who are far away in all the lands to which you drove them because of their unfaithful acts that they committed against you.

² So he prayed to the LORD, “LORD, isn’t this what I said while I was still in my home country? That’s why I fled previously to Tarshish, because I knew you’re a compassionate God, slow to anger, overflowing with gracious love, and reluctant to send trouble.

¹⁸ Who is like God?Is there any God like you, forgiving iniquity, passing over transgressions by the survivors who are your heritage? He is not angry forever, because he delights in gracious love. ¹⁹ He will again show us compassion; he will subdue our iniquities. You will hurl all their sins into the deepest sea.

⁶ so that we would praise his glorious grace that he gave us in the Beloved One. ⁷ In union with him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our offenses, according to the riches of God’s grace ⁸ that he lavished on us, along with all wisdom and understanding,

⁴ But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love for us ⁵ even when we were dead because of our offenses, made us alive together with the Messiah (by grace you have been saved), ⁶ raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavenly realm in the Messiah Jesus, ⁷ so that in the coming ages he might display the limitless riches of his grace that comes to us through his kindness in the Messiah Jesus.

¹³ Nevertheless, the LORD had warned both Israel and Judah by means of every prophet and seer: “Turn away from your evil practices and keep my commandments and statutes according to the entire Law that I gave your ancestors and that I sent to you through my servants, the prophets.” ¹⁴ But they would not listen. Instead, they were stubborn, just like their ancestors had been, who did not believe in the LORD their God. ¹⁵ They rejected the LORD’s statutes, the covenant that he had made with their ancestors, and his warnings that he gave them. They pursued meaninglessness—and became meaningless themselves—as they followed the lifestyles of the nations that surrounded them, a practice that the LORD had warned them not to do.

¹² because they would not obey the voice of the LORD their God. Instead, they transgressed his covenant, including everything that Moses, the servant of the LORD, had commanded, by neither listening nor putting what he had commanded into practice.

¹⁰ Now, our God, what can we say besides this? Because we have abandoned your commandments ¹¹ that you gave in the writings of your servants, the prophets: ‘The land you are entering to possess is a morally unclean land due to the moral uncleanness of the peoples of the lands—along with their abominations—that has filled it from one end to the other with their impurities.

¹³ “You also came down to Mount Sinai, spoke with them from heaven, and gave them impartial regulations, true laws, statutes, and good commands. ¹⁴ You revealed to them your holy Sabbath, and you mandated precepts, statutes, and laws through Moses your servant. ¹⁵ You gave them food from heaven for their hunger and water from the rock for their thirst. You directed them to enter and possess the land that you had promised to give them. ¹⁶ “But they—our ancestors—became arrogant and stubborn, refusing to listen to your commands. ¹⁷ They would not listen, and did not remember the miracles you did among them. Instead, they became stubborn and appointed a leader to return them to their slavery. “But you are a God of forgiveness, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, and rich in gracious love; therefore you did not abandon them.

⁶ Furthermore, we haven’t listened to your servants, the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, to our officials, to our ancestors, and to all of the people of the land.

¹ God Has Spoken to UsGod, having spoken in former times in fragmentary and varied fashion to our forefathers by the prophets,

¹⁴ Cascading Consequences“But if you won’t listen to me and obey all these commands, ¹⁵ and if you refuse my statutes, loathe my ordinances, and fail to carry out all of my commands, thereby breaching my covenant, ¹⁶ then I will certainly do this to you: I’ll appoint sudden terror to infect you like tuberculosis and fever. Your eyes will fail and your life will waste away. You’ll plant in vain, because your enemies will consume what you plant. ¹⁷ I’ll set my face against you so that you’ll be defeated before your enemies. Those who hate you will have dominion over you and you’ll keep fleeing even when no one is pursuing you.
¹⁸ “If, despite all of this, you still don’t listen to me, then I’ll punish you seven times more on account of your sins. ¹⁹ I’ll break your mighty pride. I’ll make the heavens to be like iron and the ground like bronze. ²⁰ Your strength will be spent in vain, because your land won’t yield its produce and the trees of the land won’t yield their fruit.
²¹ “If you live life contrary to me and remain unwilling to listen to me, then I’ll add to your wounds seven times more on account of your sins. ²² I’ll send wild beasts against you from the open country to deprive you of your children, destroy your cattle, and decrease your number so that your roads become desolate.
²³ “If, despite these things, you still won’t return to me, but live life contrary to me, ²⁴ then I’ll certainly oppose you. I’ll take vengeance against you seven fold on account of your sins. ²⁵ I’ll bring the sword against you to execute the vengeance of my covenant. When you gather in your cities, I’ll send a pestilence. As a result, you’ll be delivered into the control of your enemies. ²⁶ When I destroy the source of your bread, ten women will bake bread in one oven. Then they’ll return back your bread by weight. You’ll eat but won’t be satisfied.
²⁷ “If, after all of this time, you don’t listen to me, but instead live life contrary to me, ²⁸ I’ll oppose you with vicious rage. Indeed, I myself will punish you seven fold on account of your sins. ²⁹ At that time, you’ll eat the flesh of your sons and you’ll eat the flesh of your daughters. ³⁰ I’ll destroy your high places and cut down your sun pillars. Then I’ll cast your dead bodies on top of the bodies of your idols. I’ll loathe you. ³¹ I’ll lay your cities to waste and destroy your sanctuaries so I don’t have to smell the scent of your soothing odors. ³² I’ll make the land so desolate that your enemies who live in it will be astonished.”
³³ Captivity among the Nations“I’ll scatter you among the nations and draw the sword after you so that your land becomes desolate and your towns become ruins. ³⁴ Then the land will finally be pleased with its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate while you are in the land of your enemies. At that time, the land will rest and take its Sabbaths. ³⁵ As long as it lies desolate, it will have rest that it will not have had during your Sabbaths when you were living in it.
³⁶ “As for the remnants among you, I’ll bring despair in their hearts in the land of their enemies so that even the sound of a blown leaf will chase them and they flee as though pursued by the sword and fall when no one is pursuing. ³⁷ They’ll stumble over each other as though fleeing before the sword, even though no one is pursuing.
“You won’t have power to resist your enemies. ³⁸ You’ll perish among the nations and the land of your enemies will consume you. ³⁹ The remnants among you will waste away in the land of your enemies due to their iniquity. Indeed, they’ll also waste away on account of the iniquities of their ancestors with them.”
⁴⁰ Return from Captivity“Nevertheless, when they confess their iniquity, the iniquity of their ancestors, and their unfaithfulness by which they acted unfaithfully against me by living life contrary to me— ⁴¹ causing me to oppose them and take them to the land of their enemies so that the uncircumcised foreskin of their hearts can be humbled and so that they accept the punishment of their iniquity— ⁴² then I’ll remember my covenant with Jacob, my covenant with Isaac, and my covenant with Abraham. I’ll also remember the land. ⁴³ They will leave the land so it can rest while it lies desolate without them. That’s when they’ll receive the punishment of their iniquity, because indeed they will have rejected my ordinances and despised my statutes. ⁴⁴ Yet, despite all of these things, when they’re in the land of their enemies, I won’t reject or despise them so as to completely destroy them and by doing so violate my covenant with them, because I am the LORD their God. ⁴⁵ Instead, on account of them, I’ll remember my covenant with their ancestors when I brought them out of the land of Egypt right before the eyes of the nations, so that I could be their God. I am the LORD.”
⁴⁶ These are the statutes, ordinances, and laws that the LORD made between himself and the Israelis on Mount Sinai, as recorded by the hand of Moses.

¹⁵ “‘Cursed is the one who makes a sculptured or cast image—a detestable thing to the LORD, the work of a craftsman—and sets it up secretly.’“Then all the people are to respond by saying, ‘Amen!’ ¹⁶ “Cursed is the one who treats his father and mother with dishonor.’“Then all the people are to respond by saying, ‘Amen!’ ¹⁷ “‘Cursed is the one who moves his neighbor’s boundary stone.’“Then all the people are to respond by saying, ‘Amen!’ ¹⁸ “‘Cursed is the one who misleads a blind person on the road.“Then all the people are to respond by saying, ‘Amen!’ ¹⁹ “‘Cursed is the one who perverts justice due the foreigner, the orphan, or the widow.’“Then all the people are to respond by saying, ‘Amen!’ ²⁰ “Cursed is the one who has sexual relations with his father’s wife, because he has disgraced his father.“Then all the people are to respond by saying, ‘Amen!’ ²¹ “‘Cursed is the one who has sexual relations with any animal.“Then all the people are to respond by saying, ‘Amen!’ ²² “‘Cursed is the one who has sexual relations with his sister, the daughter of his father or mother.“Then all the people are to respond by saying, ‘Amen!’ ²³ “‘Cursed is the one who has sexual relations with his mother-in-law.“Then all the people are to respond by saying, ‘Amen!’ ²⁴ “‘Cursed is one who strikes his neighbor secretly.“Then all the people are to respond by saying, ‘Amen!’ ²⁵ “‘Cursed is one who accepts a bribe to kill an innocent person.“Then all the people are to respond by saying, ‘Amen!’ ²⁶ “‘Cursed is the one who doesn’t uphold the words of this Law and observe them.“Then all the people are to respond by saying, ‘Amen!’”

¹⁵ Reversal of Blessings“But if you don’t obey the LORD your God and faithfully carry out all his commands and statutes that I’m giving you today, then all these curses will come upon you and overwhelm you.
¹⁶ “Cursed will you be in the city and cursed will you be in the country.
¹⁷ “Cursed will be your grain basket and your kneading bowl.
¹⁸ “Cursed will your children be, as well as the produce of your land, the offspring of your beasts and cattle, and the offspring of your flock.
¹⁹ “Cursed will you be in your comings and goings.”
²⁰ Diseases and Drought“The LORD will send the curse among you, will confuse you, and will rebuke you in everything you undertake until you are destroyed and perish quickly because of your evil deeds, since you will have forsaken him. ²¹ The LORD will cause you to be ill with long-lasting diseases until you are wiped out from the land that you are entering to possess. ²² The LORD will afflict you with tuberculosis, fever, inflammation, high fever, drought, blight, and mildew. These will attack you until you are completely destroyed. ²³ The sky above your head will become bronze while the ground beneath you will become iron. ²⁴ The LORD will change the rain on your land to powder and dust. It will come down from the sky until you are exterminated.”
²⁵ From Defeat to Exile“The LORD will cause you to be defeated by your enemies. You’ll go out against them in one direction, but you’ll flee from them in seven directions. Consequently, you’ll be in a state of great terror throughout all the kingdoms of the earth. ²⁶ Your dead bodies will be food for the birds of the sky and the wild animals of the earth, with no one to chase them away.
²⁷ “The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, skin disease, and festering rashes, and none of them will be curable. ²⁸ The LORD will afflict you with insanity, blindness, and mental confusion. ²⁹ As a result, you’ll wander aimlessly in broad daylight just as a blind person wanders in darkness. You won’t prosper in life. Instead you’ll be oppressed and plundered all day long, with no deliverer.
³⁰ You’ll be engaged to a woman, but another man will rape her. You’ll build a house but you won’t live in it. You’ll plant a vineyard but you won’t harvest it. ³¹ Your ox will be slaughtered in front of you, and you won’t be able to eat it. Your donkey will be stolen from you while you watch and won’t be returned to you. Your flock of sheep will be handed to your enemies and there will be no deliverer. ³² Your sons and daughters will be given to another people while you watch, and you won’t be able to approach them at all, and you’ll be powerless to help.
³³ “A people whom you don’t know will devour what your land and labor produces. You’ll be only oppressed and discouraged continuously ³⁴ until you are driven insane from what your eyes will see.
³⁵ “The LORD will inflict you with incurable boils on your knees and legs, and from the sole of your foot to the top of your head.
³⁶ “The LORD will banish you and your king whom you will appoint over you to go to a nation that neither you nor your ancestors have known, and there you’ll serve other gods of wood and stone. ³⁷ You’ll become a desolation and a proverb, and you’ll be mocked among the people where the LORD will drive you.”
³⁸ Complete Reversal“You’ll plant many seeds in a field, but your harvest will be small because the locust will consume it. ³⁹ You’ll plant a vineyard, but you won’t drink wine or harvest any grapes, because worms will consume it. ⁴⁰ You’ll have olive trees throughout your territory, but you won’t be able to anoint yourself with oil, because the olives will drop off the trees. ⁴¹ You’ll bear sons and daughters, but they won’t belong to you, because they’ll go into captivity. ⁴² Whirling locusts will consume every tree and the produce of your land. ⁴³ The foreigner in your midst will be elevated higher and higher over you, while you are brought low little by little. ⁴⁴ He will lend to you, but you won’t lend to him. He’ll be the head, but you’ll be the tail. ⁴⁵ All these curses will come upon you and will overwhelm you until you are exterminated, because you didn’t obey the LORD your God to keep his commands and statutes, which he had commanded you. ⁴⁶ These curses will serve as a sign and wonder for you and your descendants as long as you live.”
⁴⁷ Servitude and Bondage“Because you didn’t serve the LORD your God joyfully and wholeheartedly, despite the abundance of everything you have, ⁴⁸ you’ll serve your enemies whom the LORD your God will send against you. You will serve in famine and in drought, in nakedness, and in lack of everything. They’ll set a yoke of iron upon your neck until they have exterminated you.
⁴⁹ “The LORD will raise a distant nation against you from the other side of the earth. Swooping down like a vulture, ⁵⁰ it will be a nation whose language you don’t understand, whose stern appearance neither shows regard nor extends grace to anyone whether old or young. ⁵¹ Its army will consume the offspring of your animals and the produce of your soil until you are exterminated. They will leave you without your grain, wine, oil, the increase of your cattle, and the lamb of your flock, until you are completely destroyed. ⁵² They’ll besiege all your cities until your high and fortified walls in which you have trusted collapse throughout the land. Indeed, they will besiege all your cities, which the LORD your God gave you.”
⁵³ Cannibalism“You’ll eat your own children—the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God gave you—on account of the siege and the distress with which your enemy will oppress you. ⁵⁴ Even the compassionate man among you—the very sensitive one—will look with evil in his eyes toward his brother, his beloved wife, and his surviving sons, whom he spared. ⁵⁵ He will withhold from each of them the flesh of his sons that he is eating—since there will be nothing left—on account of the siege and distress with which your enemy will oppress you in all your cities. ⁵⁶ The most tender and sensitive lady among you, who doesn’t venture to touch the soles of her feet to the ground on account of her daintiness, will look with hostility in her eyes against her beloved husband, her sons, and her daughters. ⁵⁷ She will eat her afterbirth and her newborn children secretly—since there will be nothing left—on account of the siege and distress with which your enemy will oppress you in your cities.”
⁵⁸ Reduction in Population“If you aren’t careful to observe all the words of this Law that have been written in this book, instructing you to fear this glorious and awesome name of the LORD your God, ⁵⁹ then he will inflict extraordinary plagues on you and your children, great and lasting plagues, and severe and lasting illnesses. ⁶⁰ He will inflict on you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they won’t be curable. ⁶¹ Moreover, the LORD will inflict you with illnesses and plagues that were not written in this Book of the Law, until you are exterminated. ⁶² Because you will not have obeyed the LORD your God, very few of you will be left—instead of you being as numerous as the stars in the heavens. ⁶³ Just as the LORD delighted to prosper and increase you, so now the LORD will delight to destroy, exterminate, and banish you from the land that you are about to enter to possess.”
⁶⁴ Scattering among the Nations“He’ll scatter you among the peoples from one end of the earth to the other, and there you’ll serve other gods made of wood and stones, which neither you nor your ancestors have known. ⁶⁵ Among those nations you’ll have no rest. There’ll be no resting place for the soles of your feet. Instead, the LORD will give you an anxious heart, failing eyesight, and a despairing spirit. ⁶⁶ You’ll cling to life, being fearful by both night and day, with no assurance of survival. ⁶⁷ In the morning you’ll say, ‘I wish it were evening.’ Yet in the evening you’ll say, “I wish it were morning,” on account of what you’ll dread and what you’ll see. ⁶⁸ Finally, the LORD will bring you back to Egypt by ship, a place that I said you’ll never see again. There you’ll try to sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

²⁰ “The LORD won’t forgive such a person. Instead, the zealous anger of the LORD will blaze against him. All the curses that were written in this book will fall on him. Then the LORD will wipe out his memory from under heaven. ²¹ The LORD will set him apart from all the tribes of Israel for destruction, according to the curses of the covenant that were written in this Book of the Law.”
²² A Reminder of Sodom and Gomorrah“Then the generation to come—your descendants after you and the foreigners who come from afar—will see plagues and illnesses infecting the land that the LORD will inflict on it. ²³ The whole land will be covered with salt pits and burning sulfur, with nothing planted, nothing sprouting, and producing no vegetation—overthrown like Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, when the LORD overthrew them in his raging fury. ²⁴ All the nations will ask, ‘Why did the LORD do this to this land? What is the meaning of this fierce and great anger?’ ²⁵ Then they will answer themselves, ‘Because they’ve abandoned the covenant of their LORD, the God of their ancestors that he had made with them when he brought them out of Egypt. ²⁶ They followed and worshipped other gods whom they had not known and whom he did not assign to them. ²⁷ For this reason, the anger of the LORD raged against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that were written in this book. ²⁸ The LORD uprooted them from the land in his anger, wrath, and great fury, deporting them to another land, and that’s the way things are today.’
²⁹ “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but what has been revealed belongs to us and to our children forever, so that we might observe the words of this Law.”

¹⁷ But if you turn your heart away, and do not obey, but instead if you stray away to worship and serve other gods, ¹⁸ I’m declaring to you today that you will surely be destroyed. You won’t live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan River to enter and possess. ¹⁹ I call heaven and earth to testify against you today! I’ve set life and death before you today: both blessings and curses. Choose life, that it may be well with you—you and your children.

¹⁷ When that happens, my anger will burn against them, because they will have abandoned me. I’ll hide my face from them, they will be consumed, and many evils and distresses will find them. When this happens, they will say, ‘These troubles have happened to us because God isn’t among us.’ ¹⁸ I’ll surely hide my face in that day on account of the evil that they will have done for they turned to other gods.”

¹⁹ The LORD’s ResponseThe LORD saw it and became jealous, provoked by his sons and daughters. ²⁰ So he said: “Let me hide my face from them. I will observe what their end will be, because they are a perverted generation, children within whom there is no loyalty. ²¹ They provoked me to jealousy over non-gods, and to be angry over their vanity. Now I’ll provoke them to jealousy over a non-people; and over a foolish nation I’ll provoke them to anger. ²² For a fire breaks out in my anger— burning to the deepest part of the afterlife, consuming the earth and its produce and igniting the foundations of the mountains. ²³ I’ll bury them in misfortunes and bring them to an end with my arrows. ²⁴ Emaciated from famine, feverish from plague, and destroyed by bitterness, I’ll send fanged beasts against them, along with poisonous snakes that glide through the dust. ²⁵ Outside, the sword will cause bereavement; within, there will be terror for the young man and virgin alike, also for the nursing infant and the aged man.” ²⁶ “I said, ‘I will scatter them, erasing their memory from the human race, ²⁷ if it weren’t for dreading the taunting of their enemies— otherwise, their adversary might misinterpret and say, “Our power is great. It isn’t the LORD who made all of this happen.”’”
²⁸ Moses Warns IsraelThey are a nation devoid of purpose and without insight. ²⁹ O, that they were wise to understand this and consider their future! ³⁰ How can one person chase a thousand of them and two put a myriad to flight, unless their Rock delivers them and the LORD gives them up? ³¹ For their rock isn’t like our Rock, as even our enemies admit. ³² Instead, their vine is from the vines of Sodom and the vineyards of Gomorrah. Their grapes are poisonous, their clusters bitter. ³³ Their wine is the venom of serpents, a poisonous cobra.
³⁴ The LORD’s Response“Is this not kept in reserve, sealed up with me in my treasury? ³⁵ To me belong vengeance and recompense. In due time their feet will slip, because their time of calamity is near and the things prepared for them draw near. ³⁶ For the LORD will vindicate his people and bring comfort to his servants, because he will observe that their power has waned, when neither prisoner nor free person remain. ³⁷ “He will say, ‘Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge? ³⁸ Who ate the fat of their offerings and drank the wine that was their drink offering? Let them rise and help you and be your hiding place!’ ³⁹ “Look now! I AM, and there is no other god besides me. I myself cause death and I sustain life; I wound severely and I also heal; from my power no one can deliver. ⁴⁰ “I solemnly swear to heaven— I say ‘As certainly as I’m alive and living forever, ⁴¹ I’ll whet my shining sword, with my hands in firm grasp of judgment. I’ll show vengeance on my adversary and repay those who keep on hating me. ⁴² I’ll make my arrows drunk with blood. My sword will devour flesh, along with the blood of the slain, and I’ll take their enemy leaders captive.’

¹⁸ As a result, the LORD was angry with Israel and removed them from his presence. No one was left except for the tribe of Judah.
¹⁹ But Judah, too, did not keep the commands of the LORD their God. Instead, they lived the lifestyle that Israel had chosen, ²⁰ so the LORD rejected all of the descendants of Israel, afflicted them, and handed them over to the control of plunderers until he had thrown them away from his presence. ²¹ He ripped them away from the heritage of David, even as the people appointed Nebat’s son Jeroboam to be king. Jeroboam drove Israel away from following the LORD and made them commit great sin.
²² The Israelis practiced all the sins that Jeroboam had practiced, and never wavered from them ²³ until the LORD removed Israel from his presence, just as he had warned through all of his prophets who served him. So Israel was carried off into exile from their own land into Assyria, where they remain to this day.

⁴ “Oh, you sinful nation! You people burdened down by iniquity! You offspring of those who keep practicing what is evil! You corrupt children! “They’ve abandoned the LORD; they’ve despised the Holy One of Israel; in their estrangement, they’ve walked away from me. ⁵ “Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel? Your whole head is sick, and your whole heart is faint. ⁶ From the sole of your foot to the top of your head, there’s no soundness evident— only bruises, sores, and festering wounds that haven’t been cleaned out, bandaged, or treated with oil.”

⁵ Why has this people turned away? Why does Jerusalem continue in apostasy? They hold on to deceit and refuse to repent. ⁶ I’ve listened and I’ve heard, and what they say is not right. No one repents of his evil and says, ‘What have I done?’ “They all turn to their own course like a horse racing into battle. ⁷ Even the stork in the sky knows its seasons, and the dove, the swallow, and the crane observe the time for migration. But my people don’t know the requirements of the LORD. ⁸ How can you say, ‘We’re wise, and the Law of the LORD is with us,’ when, in fact, the deceitful pen of the scribe has made it into something that deceives. ⁹ The wise men will be put to shame. They’ll be dismayed and taken captive. Look, they have rejected the message from the LORD! So what kind of wisdom do they have? ¹⁰ Therefore, I’ll give their wives to others, and their fields to new owners. Indeed, from the least important to the most important, they’re all greedy for dishonest gain. From prophet to priest, they all act deceitfully.

²⁶ Egypt, Judah, Edom, the people of Ammon, Moab, all those who live in the desert and shave the corners of their beard; indeed all the other nations that are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel that is uncircumcised of heart.”

²⁶ Her priests have violated my Law and profaned my sacred things. They didn’t differentiate between what’s sacred and what’s common. They didn’t instruct others to discern clean from unclean things. They refused to keep my Sabbaths.
“‘I’m constantly being profaned among them. ²⁷ Her princes within her are like wolves tearing their prey apart. They shed blood, destroying souls, and make unjust gain.
²⁸ “‘Her prophets whitewashed all of these things through false visions and lying divinations. They kept on saying, “This is what the Lord GOD says…”, when the LORD has not spoken. ²⁹ The people of the land were vigorously oppressive and took possession of plunder by violence. They’ve afflicted the poor and the needy and unjustly treated the foreigner. ³⁰ I sought for a man among them to build the wall and stand in the breach in my presence on behalf of the land so that it won’t be destroyed, but I found no one, ³¹ so I poured my indignation over them. With my fierce anger, I’ve consumed them. I brought the consequences of their behavior upon them,’ declares the Lord GOD.”

⁹ So give your servant an understanding mind to govern your people, so I can discern between good and evil. Otherwise, how will I be able to govern this great people of yours?”

¹⁷ He leads counselors away naked; he turns judges into fools.

¹⁰ Therefore, kings, act wisely! Earthly rulers, be warned!

² “How long will you judge partially by showing favor on the wicked? Interlude ³ “Defend the poor and the fatherless. Vindicate the afflicted and the poor.

¹¹ earthly kings and all peoples, nobles and all court officials of the earth,

¹⁶ By me leaders rule, as do noble officials and all who govern justly.

²⁶ who carries out the words of his servants, and fulfills the predictions of his messengers, who says of Jerusalem, “It will be inhabited,” and of Judah’s cities, “They will be rebuilt,” and of her ruins, “I’ll raise them up”;

² “This is what the LORD of the Heavenly Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘You have seen the disaster that I brought on Jerusalem and all the cities of Judah. Look, they’re in ruins today, with no one living in them, ³ because of the wickedness that they did, provoking me to anger by continuing to offer sacrifices and worship other gods that neither they nor you nor your ancestors had known. ⁴ Yet I sent all my servants the prophets to you again and again, saying, “Don’t do this repulsive thing that I hate.” ⁵ ‘But they didn’t listen or pay attention by turning from their wickedness and not offering sacrifices to other gods. ⁶ My wrath and my anger were poured out, and they burned in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem so that they have become a ruin and a desolate place, as is the case today.’

¹² May it not befall you, all who pass along the road! Look and see: Is there any grief like my grief dealt out to me, by which the LORD afflicted me in the time of his fierce wrath?

¹³ What can be said about you? To what should you be compared, fair Jerusalem? To what may I liken you, so I may comfort you, fair one of Zion? Indeed, your wound is as deep as the sea— who can heal you?

¹⁷ The LORD did what he planned. He carried out his threat. Just as he commanded long ago, he has torn down without pity; He let the enemy boast about you and has exalted the power of your enemies.

⁶ The guilt of my cherished people surpasses the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment, without a hand to help her.

⁹ In fact, I’m going to do what I’ve never done before and what I’ll never again do, because of all of your loathsome behavior:

⁶ Instead, they crafted false prophecies and divination.
“‘They say, “…declares the LORD,” even though the LORD didn’t send them. And they hope for the fulfillment of their message.

² A day of doom and gloom, a day of clouds and shadows like the dawn spreads out to cover the mountains— a people strong and robust. Never has there been anything like it, neither will anything follow to compare with it, even through the lifetime of generation upon generation.”

² ‘You alone have I known from among all of the families of mankind; therefore I will hold you accountable for all your iniquities.’”

⁶ But my words and my statutes that I gave as commands to my servants the prophets—did they not overwhelm your ancestors? And they returned to me: ‘The LORD of the Heavenly Armies acted toward us just as he planned to do—in keeping with our lifestyles and in keeping with our actions.’”

⁸ “I stared into the night, and there was a man mounted on a red horse! The horse was standing among the myrtle trees in a ravine. Behind him there were red, brown, and white horses.”

¹⁸ because I tell all of you with certainty that until heaven and earth disappear, not one letter or one stroke of a letter will disappear from the Law until everything has been accomplished.

²¹ because at that time there will be great suffering, the kind that hasn’t happened from the beginning of the world until now and certainly won’t ever happen again.

¹⁹ because those days will be a time of suffering, a kind that has not happened from the beginning of God’s creation until now, and certainly will never happen again.

²² because these are the days of vengeance when all that is written will be fulfilled.

⁸ For I tell you that the Messiah became a servant of the circumcised on behalf of God’s truth in order to confirm the promises given to our ancestors,

⁴ Yet to this day, the LORD hasn’t given you a heart that understands, eyes that perceive, and ears that discern.

¹³ The godless at heart cherish anger; they won’t cry out for help when God afflicts them.

⁴ Restore us, God of our salvation, and stop being angry with us.

¹⁸ Open my eyes so that I will observe amazing things from your instruction.

²⁷ Help me understand how your precepts function, and I will meditate on your wondrous acts.

⁷³ Yod
Prayer for God’s GraceYour hands made and formed me; give me understanding, that I may learn your commands.

¹³ Judgment for Not Repenting“But the people have not returned to rely on him who struck them, nor have they sought the LORD of the Heavenly Armies.

⁹ See, the former things have taken place, and I’m announcing the new things— before they spring into being
I’m telling you about them.”

⁷ There is no one who calls on your name or rouses himself to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have given us into the control of our iniquity.

³⁰ “I’ve punished your children with no results, they have accepted no discipline. Your sword has devoured your prophets like a destroying lion.”

³ The Prophet SpeaksLORD, don’t your eyes look for truth? You struck them, but they didn’t flinch. You brought them to an end, but they refused to receive discipline. They made their faces harder than stone, and they refused to repent.

¹⁸ Ephraim’s Prayer and Confession“I’ve certainly heard Ephraim shuddering with grief as they said, ‘You have disciplined me, and I’m disciplined like an untrained calf. Restore me, and let me return, for you are the LORD my God.

²⁷ “‘Look, I’m watching over them to bring disaster rather than good. Every person of Judah in the land of Egypt will be brought to an end by the sword and by famine until they’re completely gone.

¹⁵ Everyone who passes by on the road shake their fists at you. They hiss and shake their heads at cherished Jerusalem: “Is this the city men used to call ‘The Perfection of Beauty,’ and ‘The Joy of the Entire Earth’”? ¹⁶ All of your enemies insult you with gaping mouths. They hiss and grind their teeth while saying, “We have devoured her completely. Yes, this is the day that we anticipated! We found it at last; we have seen it!” ¹⁷ The LORD did what he planned. He carried out his threat. Just as he commanded long ago, he has torn down without pity; He let the enemy boast about you and has exalted the power of your enemies.

²¹ Restore us to yourself, LORD, so that we may return. Renew our days as before,

⁷ They all burn like an oven; they have consumed their judges; all their kings have fallen— not even one of them calls on me.

¹⁰ Israel’s arrogance testifies against him; but they do not return to the LORD their God, nor seek him in all of this.

¹⁴ They will not cry to me from their heart— instead, they wail on their beds. They gather together to eat and drink, turning away from me.

⁴⁵ Then he opened their minds so that they might understand the Scriptures.

⁴⁵ It is written in the Prophets, ‘And all of them will be taught by God.’ Everyone who has listened to the Father and has learned anything comes to me.

³² And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

³⁵ If he called those to whom a message from God came ‘gods’ (and the Scripture cannot be disregarded),

¹⁷ I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah, the most glorious Father, would give you a wise spirit, along with revelation that comes through knowing the Messiah fully. ¹⁸ Then, with the eyes of your hearts enlightened, you will know the confidence that is produced by God having called you, the rich glory that is his inheritance among the saints,

²¹ Surely you have listened to him and have been taught by him, since truth is in Jesus.

⁵ Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to everyone generously without a rebuke, and it will be given to him.

²⁸ Just as I’ve watched over them to pull up, tear down, overthrow, destroy, and bring disaster, so I’ll watch over them to build and to plant,” declares the LORD.

¹ God Promises to Deliver IsraelThe LORD told Moses, “Now you’re about to see what I’ll do to Pharaoh. Indeed, he’ll send them out under compulsion and he’ll drive them out of his land violently.”

⁶ Therefore, tell the Israelis, ‘I am the LORD. I’ll bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I’ll deliver you from their bondage. I’ll redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.

¹⁶ However, I’ve kept you standing in order to show you my power and to declare my name in all the earth.

¹ Crossing the Reed SeaThe LORD told Moses, ² “Tell the Israelis that they are to turn back and camp in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. You are to camp in front of Baal-zephon, opposite it by the sea. ³ Pharaoh will say about the Israelis, ‘They’re wandering aimlessly in the land, and the desert has closed in on them.’ ⁴ I’ve made Pharaoh’s heart stubborn so he will pursue them. But I’ll receive honor by means of Pharaoh and his army, so that the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD.” So this is what the Israelis did.
⁵ When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, the minds of Pharaoh and his officials changed toward the people, and they said, “What have we done in releasing Israel from serving us?” ⁶ So Pharaoh had his chariot prepared and took his troops with him.
⁷ He took 600 of the best chariots, and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers in charge of each one. ⁸ The LORD made the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, stubborn, and he defiantly pursued the Israelis as they were leaving. ⁹ The Egyptians pursued them—all the chariot-horses of Pharaoh, along with his horsemen and army—and they overtook them camped by the sea, near Pi-hahiroth, in front of Baal Zephon.
¹⁰ As Pharaoh approached, the Israelis looked up, and there were the Egyptians bearing down on them! Extremely frightened, the Israelis cried out to the LORD. ¹¹ They also told Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you took us out to die in the desert? What have you done to us, by bringing us out of Egypt? ¹² Is this not what we told you in Egypt, when we said, ‘Leave us alone!’ and ‘Let us serve the Egyptians!’? Indeed, it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”
¹³ Moses told the people, “Don’t be afraid! Stand still and watch how the LORD will deliver you today, because you will never again see the Egyptians whom you’re looking at today. ¹⁴ The LORD will fight for you while you keep still.”
¹⁵ Then the LORD told Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelis to move out!

¹⁸ Then the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I receive honor by means of Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen.”

¹¹ But Moses implored the LORD his God: “LORD, why are you angry with your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a show of force?

⁵¹ since they are your people and your heritage, which you brought out of Egypt, from an iron fire furnace.

¹⁰ These are your servants as well as your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand.

¹⁰ You sent signs and wonders against Pharaoh, against all of his officials, and against all the people of his land, because you knew they acted arrogantly against your people. So you established your name with them, as it remains to this day.

⁸ He delivered for the sake of his name, to make his power known.

¹³ Instead of thornbushes, pine trees will grow, and instead of briers, myrtles will grow; and they will be a sign for the LORD, and an everlasting name that will not be cut off.”

¹⁰ I signed the deed and sealed it. I called in witnesses and used scales to weigh out the silver.

²⁰ You are the one who performed signs and wonders in the land of Egypt and continue to do so until this day, both in Israel and among the rest of humanity. You made a reputation for yourself that continues to this day. ²¹ By your strong hand and outstretched arm, and with great terror, you brought your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and wonders. ²² And you gave them this land which you had promised their ancestors that you would give them—a land flowing with milk and honey. ²³ They came and took possession of it, but they didn’t obey you or walk according to your Law. They didn’t do what you commanded them to do, so you caused all this calamity to happen to them.

¹⁸ I will get up, go to my father, and say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and you. ¹⁹ I don’t deserve to be called your son anymore. Treat me like one of your hired men.”’

²¹ Then his son told him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and you. I don’t deserve to be called your son anymore.’

¹³ “But the tax collector stood at a distance and would not even look up to heaven. Instead, he continued to beat his chest and said, ‘O God, be merciful to me, the sinner that I am!’

¹⁰ He has rescued us from a terrible death, and he will continue to rescue us. Yes, he is the one on whom we have set our hope, and he will rescue us again,

⁵ You are not to bow down to them in worship or serve them, because I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the iniquity of the parents to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me,

³⁹ The remnants among you will waste away in the land of your enemies due to their iniquity. Indeed, they’ll also waste away on account of the iniquities of their ancestors with them.”
⁴⁰ Return from Captivity“Nevertheless, when they confess their iniquity, the iniquity of their ancestors, and their unfaithfulness by which they acted unfaithfully against me by living life contrary to me—

⁷ The LORD makes people poor and he makes people rich, he brings them low, and he also exalts them.

⁷ then I will eliminate Israel from the land that I gave them and from the Temple that I’ve consecrated for my name. I will throw them out of my sight, and Israel will become the butt of jokes and a means of ridicule among people worldwide! ⁸ “This Temple will become a pile of ruins. Everyone who passes by it will be so astounded that they will ask, ‘Why did the LORD do this to this land and to this Temple?’ ⁹ They will answer, ‘Because they abandoned the LORD their God, who brought their ancestors out of the land of Egypt, and they adopted other gods and served them. That’s why the Lord has brought all of this disaster on them.’”

⁸ You found him faithful in your sight; you made a covenant with him and you gave the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, and the Girgashites to his descendants. And you have kept your word, because you are righteous.

¹ To the Director: A Davidic Psalm.
Prayer and Thanksgiving In you, LORD, I have taken refuge. Let me never be ashamed. Because you are righteous, deliver me!

¹³ Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, from eternity to eternity. Amen and amen!

² Rescue and deliver me, because you are righteous. Turn your ear to me and save me.

⁴ We have become a reproach to our neighbors, a mockery and a derision to those around us.

¹ A psalm by the descendants of Korah. A song.
The Holy City for All People God’s foundation is in the holy mountains. ² The LORD loves the gates of Zion more than the dwellings of Jacob. ³ Glorious things are spoken about you, city of God. Interlude

⁶ We have sinned, along with our ancestors; we have committed iniquity and wickedness. ⁷ In Egypt, our ancestors neither comprehended your awesome deeds nor remembered your abundant gracious love. Instead, they rebelled beside the sea, the Reed Sea. ⁸ He delivered for the sake of his name, to make his power known. ⁹ He shouted at the Reed Sea and it dried up; and led them through the sea as though through a desert. ¹⁰ He delivered them from the power of their foe; redeeming them from the power of their enemy. ¹¹ The water overwhelmed their enemies, so that not one of them survived. ¹² Then they believed his word and sung his praise. ¹³ But they quickly forgot his deeds and did not wait for his counsel. ¹⁴ They were overwhelmed with craving in the wilderness, so God tested them in the wasteland. ¹⁵ God granted them their request, but sent leanness into their lives. ¹⁶ They were envious of Moses in the camp, and of Aaron, the holy one of the LORD. ¹⁷ The earth opened and swallowed Dathan, closing over Abiram’s clan. ¹⁸ Then a fire burned among their company, a flame that set the wicked ablaze. ¹⁹ They fashioned a calf at Horeb and worshipped a carved image. ²⁰ They exchanged their glory with the image of a grass-eating bull. ²¹ They forgot God their Savior, who performed great things in Egypt— ²² awesome deeds in the land of Ham, astonishing deeds at the Reed Sea. ²³ He would have destroyed them but for Moses, his chosen one, who stood in the breach before him to avert his destructive wrath. ²⁴ They rejected the desirable land, and they didn’t trust his promise. ²⁵ They murmured in their tents, and didn’t listen to the voice of the LORD. ²⁶ So he swore an oath concerning them— that he would cause them to die in the wilderness, ²⁷ to cause their children to perish among the nations and be scattered among many lands. ²⁸ For they adopted the worship of Baal Peor and ate sacrifices offered to the dead. ²⁹ They had provoked anger by their deeds, so that a plague broke out against them. ³⁰ But Phinehas intervened and prayed so that the plague was restrained. ³¹ And it was credited to him as a righteous act, from generation to generation—to eternity. ³² They provoked wrath at the waters of Meribah, and Moses suffered on account of them. ³³ For they rebelled against him, so that he spoke thoughtlessly with his lips. ³⁴ They never destroyed the people, as the LORD had commanded them. ³⁵ Instead, they mingled among the nations and learned their ways. ³⁶ They worshipped their idols, and this became a trap for them. ³⁷ They sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons. ³⁸ They shed innocent blood— the blood of their sons and daughters— whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, thereby polluting the land with blood. ³⁹ Therefore, they became unclean because of what they did; they have acted like whores by their evil deeds. ⁴⁰ The LORD’s anger burned against his people, so that he despised his own inheritance. ⁴¹ He turned them over to domination by nations where those who hated them ruled over them. ⁴² Their enemies oppressed them, so that they were humiliated by their power. ⁴³ He delivered them many times, but they demonstrated rebellion by their evil plans; therefore they sunk deep in their sins. ⁴⁴ Yet when he saw their distress and heard their cries for help, ⁴⁵ he remembered his covenant with them, and so relented according to the greatness of his gracious love. ⁴⁶ He caused all their captors to show compassion toward them. ⁴⁷ Deliver us, LORD our God, gather us from among the nations so we may praise your holy name and rejoice in praising you. ⁴⁸ Blessed are you, LORD God of Israel, from eternity to eternity; Let all the people say, “Amen!” Hallelujah!

¹ A Davidic Song
Longing for God LORD, hear my prayer; pay attention to my request, because you are faithful; answer me in your righteousness.

⁹ Don’t be angry beyond measure, LORD, and don’t remember our iniquity for a season. Please look now, we are all your people. ¹⁰ Your holy cities have become a desert; Zion has become like a desert, Jerusalem a desolation. ¹¹ Our holy Temple and our splendor, where our ancestors praised you, have become a conflagration of fire, and all our dearest places have become ruins.

¹⁸ I’ll pursue them with the sword, with famine, and with plague, and I’ll make them a horrifying sight to all the kingdoms of the earth. I’ll make them a curse, an object of horror, and scorn, and a desolation in all the nations to which I’ve driven them,

³² because of all the evil that the Israelis and Judeans have done to provoke me. They, their kings, their officials, their priests, their prophets, the people of Judah, and those living in Jerusalem have done these things.

⁸ Jerusalem sinned greatly, and she became unclean. All who honored her now despise her, because they saw her naked. She herself groans and turns her face away. ⁹ Uncleanness has soiled her skirts, and she gave no thought to what would follow. She fell in such a startling way, with no one to comfort her. Look, LORD, upon my affliction, because my enemy is boasting.

¹⁵ Everyone who passes by on the road shake their fists at you. They hiss and shake their heads at cherished Jerusalem: “Is this the city men used to call ‘The Perfection of Beauty,’ and ‘The Joy of the Entire Earth’”? ¹⁶ All of your enemies insult you with gaping mouths. They hiss and grind their teeth while saying, “We have devoured her completely. Yes, this is the day that we anticipated! We found it at last; we have seen it!”

¹⁴ I’m also going to turn you into a waste and an object of insult among the nations that surround you and in front of every person who passes by.

²⁰ Gabriel’s Answer: The Seventy Weeks“While I was still speaking in prayer, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and placing my request in the presence of the LORD my God on behalf of the holy mountain of God—

¹⁷ God’s Blessings on His People“And truly you will know that I am the LORD your God, dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain. Then Jerusalem will be holy, and no foreigners will invade her again.

⁴ For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and ransomed you from the house of slavery, sending Moses, Aaron, and Miriam into your presence. ⁵ “My people, recall how king Balak of Moab deliberated, and how Beor’s son Balaam counseled him from Shittim to Gilgal, so that you may know the righteousness of the LORD.”

³ “This is what the LORD says: ‘I will return to Zion and I will live in the midst of Jerusalem. And Jerusalem will be called, “The City of Truth” and the mountain of the LORD of the Heavenly Armies will be called, “The Holy Mountain”.’

³¹ Therefore, you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets. ³² Then finish what your ancestors started!

⁴⁷ How terrible it will be for you! You build monuments for the prophets, and it was your ancestors who killed them! ⁴⁸ So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your ancestors, because they killed those for whom you are building monuments. ⁴⁹ That is why the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles. They will kill some of them and persecute others,’ ⁵⁰ so those living today will be charged with the blood of all the prophets that was shed since the foundation of the world, ⁵¹ from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who died between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation!

⁶ Certainly it is right for God to pay back those who afflict you with affliction,

⁹ If we make it our habit to confess our sins, in his faithful righteousness he forgives us for those sins and cleanses us from all unrighteousness.

²³ “Teach Aaron and his sons to bless the Israelis: ²⁴ May the LORD bless you and guard you. ²⁵ May the LORD’s face enlighten you and bestow favor on you. ²⁶ May the LORD turn to face you, lavishing peace on you!

⁶ Many are asking, “Who will help us to see better days?” LORD, may the light of your favor shine upon us.

¹ To the Director of music: Accompanied by stringed instruments. A Psalm. A song.
A Call to Thanksgiving May God show us favor and bless us; may he truly show us his favor. Interlude

¹ For the Director of Music: According to “The Lilies”. A testimony of Asaph. A psalm.
A Prayer for Jerusalem Shepherd of Israel, listen! The one who leads Joseph like a flock, the one enthroned on the cherubim, display your glory.

³ God, restore us, show your favor and deliver us.

⁷ God of the Heavenly Armies, restore us and show your favor, so we may be delivered.

¹⁹ God of hosts, restore to us the light of your favor. Then we’ll be delivered.

¹³⁵ Show favor to your servant, and teach me your statutes.

¹⁸ Because Mount Zion is desolate; foxes roam around it.

¹⁹ ‘Lord, listen!‘Lord, forgive!‘Lord, take note and take action!‘For your own sake, don’t delay, my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.’”

²⁴ So far you haven’t asked for anything in my name. Keep asking and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.”

²⁰ For all God’s promises are “Yes” in him. And so through him we can say “Amen,” to the glory of God.

²³ The city doesn’t need any sun or moon to give it light, because the glory of God gave it light, and the lamb was its lamp.

⁷ The LORD said, “I have certainly seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their cry caused by their slave masters. I really do understand their pain,

²⁹ Let your eyes always look toward this Temple night and day, toward the location where you have said ‘My name will reside there.’ Listen to the prayer that your servant prays in this direction.

¹⁶ Turn your ear, LORD, and listen! Open your eyes, LORD, and observe! Listen to the message sent by Sennacherib to insult the living God!

⁶ I call upon you, for you will answer me, God. Listen closely to me and hear my prayer. ⁷ Show forth your gracious love, save those who take refuge in you from those who rebel against your sovereign power.

¹⁴ God of the Heavenly Armies, return! Look down from heaven and see. Show care toward this vine. ¹⁵ The root that your right hand planted, the shoot that you tended for yourself, ¹⁶ was burned with fire, cut off, and destroyed on account of your rebuke. ¹⁷ May you support the man at your right hand; the son of man whom you have raised for yourself. ¹⁸ Then we will not turn away from you. Restore us, so we can call upon your name. ¹⁹ God of hosts, restore to us the light of your favor. Then we’ll be delivered.

¹⁷ Extend your ear, LORD, and listen! Open your eyes, LORD, and look! Listen to all the words Sennacherib has sent to mock the living God.

¹⁵ God the FatherLook down from heaven, and see from your holy and glorious dwelling. Where are your zeal and your might? Where are the yearning of your heart and your compassion? They are held back from me. ¹⁶ But you are our Father, even Abraham does not know us and Israel has not acknowledged us; you are he, O LORD, our Father, from long ago, ‘Our Redeemer’ is your name. ¹⁷ Why, LORD, do you make us wander from your ways and harden our hearts, so that we do not fear you? Turn back for the sake of your servants, for the sake of the tribes that are your heritage. ¹⁸ Your holy people took possession for a little while, but now our enemies have trampled down your sanctuary. ¹⁹ For a long time we have been those you do not rule, those who are not called by your name.

⁶ All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a filthy rag; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind, our iniquities sweep us away.

¹² LORD, after all this, can you hold yourself back? Can you keep silent and punish us so severely?

¹⁰ and then come to stand before me in this house that is called by my name and say, ‘We’re delivered’ so we can continue to do all these things that are repugnant to God? ¹¹ Has this house that is called by my name become a hideout for bandits in your eyes? Look, I’m watching,” declares the LORD. ¹² “Go to my place that was in Shiloh, where I first caused my name to dwell. See what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel.

⁹ Why are you like a man taken by surprise, like a strong man who can’t deliver? You are among us, LORD, and your name is the one by which we’re called. Don’t abandon us!

¹⁶ Your words were found, and I consumed them. Your words were joy and my hearts delight, because I bear your name, LORD God of the Heavenly Armies.

²⁹ Look, I’m beginning to bring disaster on the city that is called by my name, and do you actually think you will avoid punishment? You won’t avoid punishment because I’m summoning the sword against all those who live in the land,” declares the LORD of the Heavenly Armies.’”

⁷ Perhaps their pleas for help will come to the LORD’s attention, and each of them will turn from his evil lifestyle in light of the great anger and wrath that the LORD has declared against this people.”

²⁰ Now, please listen, your majesty, and pay attention to what I’m asking you. Don’t make me go back to the house of Jonathan the scribe, so I don’t die there.”

³² I won’t be doing any of this for your sake,” declares the Lord GOD, “so keep that in mind. Be ashamed and frustrated because of your behavior, you house of Israel!”’”

² To: God’s church in Corinth, to those who have been sanctified by the Messiah Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah—their Lord and ours.

¹⁹ “Forgive, please, the iniquity of this people, according to your great, faithful love, in the same way that you’ve carried this people from Egypt to this place.”

³⁰ Listen to the requests from your servant and from your people Israel as they pray in this direction, listen from the place where you reside in heaven, then hear and forgive. ³¹ “If a man should sin against his neighbor and he is required to take an oath, and he then comes to take an oath in front of your altar in this Temple, ³² then listen in heaven, act, and judge your servants, condemning the wicked by bringing back to him the consequences of his choices and by justifying the righteous by recompensing him according to his righteousness. ³³ “If your people Israel are defeated in a battle with their enemy because they have sinned against you, when they return to you and confess to you, pray, and in this Temple they ask you to show grace to them, ³⁴ then hear in heaven, forgive the sin of your people Israel, and return them to the soil that you gave to their ancestors. ³⁵ “When heaven remains closed, and there is no rain because they have sinned against you, and they pray in the direction of this place, confessing your name and turning from their sin when you afflict them, ³⁶ then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of your servants and of your people Israel. Indeed, teach them the best way to live and send rain on your land that you have given to your people as an inheritance. ³⁷ “If a famine comes to the land, or if plant diseases, mildew, locust, or grasshoppers appear, or if their enemies attack them in their settlements of the land, no matter what the epidemic or illness is, ³⁸ whatever prayer or request is made, no matter whether it’s made by a single man or by all of your people Israel, each praying out of his own hurting heart and anguish and stretching out his hands toward this Temple, ³⁹ then hear from heaven, the place where you reside, and forgive, repaying each person according to all of his ways, since you know their hearts—for you alone know the hearts of all human beings—

²¹ Listen to the requests from your servant and from your people Israel as they pray in this direction, and listen from the place where you reside—from heaven!—then hear and forgive.

²⁵ then hear from heaven, forgive the sin of your people Israel, and return them to the soil that you gave to them and to their ancestors. ²⁶ “When the skies remain closed, and there is no rain because they have sinned against you, and they pray in the direction of this place, confessing your name and turning from their sin when you afflict them, ²⁷ then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of your servants and of your people Israel. Indeed, teach them the best way to live and send rain on your land that you have given to your people as an inheritance. ²⁸ “If a famine comes to the land, or if there comes plant diseases, mildew, locusts, or grasshoppers, or if their enemies attack them in their settlements of the land, no matter what the epidemic or illness is, ²⁹ whatever prayer or request is made, no matter whether it’s made by a single man or by all of your people Israel, each praying out of his own illness and anguish and stretching out their hands toward this Temple, ³⁰ then hear from heaven, the place where you reside, and forgive, repaying each person according to all of his ways, since you know their hearts—for you alone know the hearts of human beings—

³⁹ then hear their prayer and requests from heaven, where you reside, and fight for their cause, forgiving your people who have sinned against you.

²³ Wake up! Why are you asleep, Lord? Get up! Don’t cast us off forever! ²⁴ Why are you hiding your face? Why are you ignoring our affliction and oppression? ²⁵ For we have collapsed in the dust; our bodies cling to the ground. ²⁶ Arise! Deliver us! Redeem us according to your gracious love!

⁹ We see no signs for us; there is no longer a prophet, and no one among us knows the future. ¹⁰ God, how long will the adversary scorn while the enemy despises your name endlessly? ¹¹ Why do you not withdraw your hand— your right hand—from your bosom and destroy them?

⁵ How long, LORD, will you be angry? Forever? Will your jealousy burn like fire? ⁶ Pour out your wrath upon the nations that do not acknowledge you, and over the kingdoms that do not call on your name.

⁸ Don’t charge us for previous iniquity, but let your compassion come quickly to us, for we have been brought very low. ⁹ Help us, God, our deliverer, on account of your glorious name, deliver us and forgive our sins on account of your name. ¹⁰ Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?” Let vengeance for the blood of your servants be meted out before our eyes and among the nations.

⁵ Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger from generation to generation? ⁶ Will you restore our lives again so that your people may rejoice in you?

¹³ You will arise to extend compassion on Zion, for it is time to show her favor— the appointed time has come. ¹⁴ Your servants take pleasure in its stones and delight in its debris. ¹⁵ Nations will fear the name of the LORD, and all the kings of the earth, your splendor. ¹⁶ When the LORD rebuilds Zion, he will appear in his glory.

¹ The Impotence of Idols Not to us, LORD, not to us, but to your name be given glory on account of your gracious love and faithfulness. ² Why should the nations ask “Where now is their God?”

⁹ Don’t be angry beyond measure, LORD, and don’t remember our iniquity for a season. Please look now, we are all your people. ¹⁰ Your holy cities have become a desert; Zion has become like a desert, Jerusalem a desolation. ¹¹ Our holy Temple and our splendor, where our ancestors praised you, have become a conflagration of fire, and all our dearest places have become ruins. ¹² LORD, after all this, can you hold yourself back? Can you keep silent and punish us so severely?

²⁰ We acknowledge, LORD, our wickedness, the guilt of our ancestors. Indeed, we have sinned against you. ²¹ For the sake of your name don’t despise us. Don’t dishonor your glorious throne. Remember, don’t break your covenant with us!

⁹ I did this so my reputation might not be tarnished among the nations where they were living, among whom I made myself known in their presence when I brought them out of the land of Egypt.

¹⁴ I did this so my reputation wouldn’t be tarnished among the nations in whose presence I had brought them out.

²² But I withdrew my decision so my reputation wouldn’t be tarnished among the nations before whose eyes I brought them out.

²² The Coming Renewal of Israel“Therefore tell the house of Israel, ‘This is what the Lord GOD says: “I’m not about to act for your sake, you house of Israel, but for the sake of my holy reputation, which you have been defiling throughout all of the nations where you’ve gone.

²⁵ The Final Restoration of Israel“Therefore this is what the Lord GOD has to say: ‘I’m going to restore the resources of Jacob and show mercy to the entire house of Israel. I’ll be zealous for my own reputation and for my holiness.

¹⁸ Turn your ear and listen, O God. Open your eyes and look at our desolation and at the city that is called by your name. We’re not presenting our requests before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great compassion.

² And so it came about that when the swarm had finished eating the grass of the land, I was saying, “Lord GOD, forgive—please! How will Jacob stand, since he is small?”

⁸ I tell you, even though that man doesn’t want to get up and give him anything because he is his friend, he will get up and give him whatever he needs because of his persistence.

⁶ so that we would praise his glorious grace that he gave us in the Beloved One.

¹² so that we who had already fixed our hope on the Messiah might live for his praise and glory.

¹⁰ He did this so that now, through the church, the wisdom of God in all its variety might be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realm

⁵ If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand cease to function. ⁶ May my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I don’t remember you, if I don’t consider Jerusalem to be more important than my highest joy.

¹⁸ The LORD remains near to all who call out to him, to everyone who calls out to him sincerely.

²⁰ For there is not a single righteous man on earth who practices good and does not sin.

⁵ “How terrible it will be for me!” I cried, “because I am ruined! I’m a man with unclean lips, and I live among a people with unclean lips! And my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of the Heavenly Armies!”

⁷ these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices will rise up to be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for everyone.”

⁹ Then you’ll call, and the LORD will answer; you’ll cry for help, and he’ll respond, ‘Here I am.’ “If you do away with the yoke among you, and pointing fingers and malicious talk;

⁶ “Upon your walls, Jerusalem, I have posted watchmen; all day and all night they won’t remain silent. You who make mention of the LORD, take no rest, ⁷ and give him no rest until he prepares, establishes and makes Jerusalem a song of praise throughout the earth.

²⁴ Before they call, I will answer, while they are still speaking, I’ll hear.

³ “So I turned my attention to the Lord God, seeking him in prayer and supplication, accompanied with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. ⁴ I prayed to the LORD my God, confessing and saying: ‘Lord! Great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant and gracious love for those who love him and obey his commandments,

¹⁶ Lord, in view of all your righteous acts, please turn your anger and wrath away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain. Because of our sins and the iniquities of our ancestors, Jerusalem and your people have become an embarrassment to all of those around us.

² “At that time I, Daniel, had been mourning for three straight weeks.

³¹ When they had prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken, and all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak messages from God boldly.

³⁰ Cornelius replied, “Four days ago at this very hour, three o’clock in the afternoon, I was praying in my home. All at once a man in radiant clothes stood in front of me ³¹ and said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard. God has remembered your gifts to the poor,

²³ since all have sinned and continue to fall short of God’s glory.

² For all of us make many mistakes. If someone does not make any mistakes when he speaks, he is perfect and able to control his whole body.

² I also saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.

¹⁰ He carried me away in the Spirit to a large, high mountain and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven.

³⁹ “You are to offer one lamb in the morning and the other at twilight,

³⁶ Elijah’s Prayer and God’s Answer by FireAs the time for the evening offering arrived, Elijah the prophet approached and said, “LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I, your servant, have done all of this in obedience to your word.

⁴ Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel gathered together as a group because of the sin committed by those who had been led astray. As for me, I remained seated, in shock, until the evening sacrifice.
⁵ Ezra’s Prayer of RepentanceAt the time of the evening sacrifice, I arose from my discouragement. Still in my torn garment and robe, I fell to my knees with my hands outstretched to the LORD my God,

²⁰ Bless the LORD, you angels who belong to him, you mighty warriors who carry out his commands, who are obedient to the sound of his words.

⁴ He makes the winds his messengers, blazing fires his servants.

² The seraphim stood above him. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he was flying.

⁶ The Calling of IsaiahThen one of the seraphim flew to me, carrying a burning coal in his hand that he had taken from the altar with tongs. ⁷ He touched my mouth and said, “Look! Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt is taken away, and your sins atoned for.”

¹¹ That’s what their faces were like. Their wings spread out above and around them, one pair overlapping another, with one pair covering themselves.

¹⁴ The living beings moved around, in appearance resembling lightning.

¹⁶ I heard the voice of a man calling out from the Ulai Canal, ‘Gabriel, interpret what that fellow has been seeing.’

¹⁸ “While he had been speaking with me, I had fainted on my face, but he touched me and enabled me to stand upright on my feet.

¹⁰ Daniel is Given Understanding“All of a sudden, a hand touched me and lifted me upon my hands and knees.

¹⁶ But suddenly someone who resembled a human being touched my lips, so addressing the one who was standing in front of me, I opened my mouth and said, ‘Sir, I’m overwhelmed with anguish by this vision. I have no strength left.

¹⁸ “Then this person who looked like a man touched me again and strengthened me

⁴⁶ About three o’clock, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eli, eli, lema sabachthani?”, which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

¹⁹ The angel answered him, “I am Gabriel! I stand in the very presence of God. I have been sent to speak to you and to announce this good news to you.

¹ A Crippled Man is HealedOne afternoon, Peter and John were on their way to the Temple for the three o’clock prayer time.

³ One day, about three in the afternoon, he had a vision and clearly saw an angel of God coming to him and saying to him, “Cornelius!”

⁹ Peter Has a VisionAround noon the next day, while they were on their way and coming close to the town, Peter went up on the roof to pray.

⁷ Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He tapped Peter on his side, woke him up, and said, “Get up quickly!” His chains fell from his wrists.

⁷ Now about the angels he says, “He makes his angels winds,
and his servants flames of fire.”

¹⁴ All of them are spirits on a divine mission, sent to serve those who are about to inherit salvation, aren’t they?

²⁴ Seventy weeks have been decreed concerning your people and your holy city: to restrain transgression, to put an end to sin, to make atonement for lawlessness, to establish everlasting righteousness, to conclude vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place. ²⁵ So be informed and discern that seven weeks and 62 weeks will elapse from the issuance of the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed Commander. The plaza and moat will be rebuilt, though in troubled times. ²⁶ Then after the 62 weeks, the anointed one will be cut down (but not for himself). Then the people of the Coming Commander will destroy both the city and the Sanctuary. Its ending will come like a flood, and until the end there will be war, with desolations having been decreed. ²⁷ He will make a binding covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he will suspend both the sacrifice and grain offerings. Destructive people will cause desolation on the pinnacle until it is complete and what has been decreed is poured out on the desolator.’”

²¹ I’ll inform you about what has been recorded in the Book of Truth. No one stands firmly with me against these opponents, except Michael your prince.

⁹ Then I asked, “Who are these, sir?”
The messenger who was talking to me answered, “I will tell you who these are.”

¹⁴ The LORD’s Concern for ZionThen the angel who was speaking to me told me, “Announce this: ‘This is what the LORD of the Heavenly Armies says: “I have a deep concern for Jerusalem, a great concern for Zion.

⁴ In response, I asked the angel who had been talking with me, “Sir, what are these?”
⁵ The angel told me, “These are four heavenly spirits that are going out on patrol after having presented themselves to the Lord of the whole earth.

¹ The Vision of God’s ThroneAfter these things, I saw a door standing open in heaven. The first voice that I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must happen after this.”

¹⁰ I belong to my beloved, and his desire is for me.

¹⁶ “Son of Man, pay attention! I’m about to take away your most precious treasure with a single, fatal stroke, but you are not to mourn, weep, nor even let tears well up in your eyes.

¹² They will plunder your riches and loot your businesses. They’ll tear down your walls and demolish your luxurious homes. They’ll grab the stones, wood, and rubble from the destruction and dump it all into the Mediterranean Sea.

¹¹ He told me, ‘Daniel, man highly regarded, understand the message that I’m about to relate to you. Stand up, because I’ve been sent to you.’ When he spoke this statement to me, I stood there trembling.
¹² “‘Don’t be afraid, Daniel,’ he told me, ‘because from the first day that you committed yourself to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard. I’ve come in answer to your prayers.

¹⁹ and said, ‘Don’t be afraid, man highly regarded. Be at peace, and be strong.’
“As soon as he spoke to me, I gained strength and replied, ‘Sir, please speak, now that you’ve strengthened me.’

²⁸ The angel came to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you!”

¹⁵ So Moses slaughtered it, took the blood, and applied some of it at the horns of the altar and around it with his fingers, thus purifying the altar. Then he poured the blood at the base of the altar, thereby sanctifying it as a means to make atonement with it.

⁸ “Count for yourselves seven years of Sabbaths—seven times seven years. This set of seven weeks of years total 49 years for you.

³⁴ Just as you explored the land for 40 days, you’ll bear the consequences of your iniquities for 40 years—one year for each day—as you experience my hostility.

²⁴ and then the priests slaughtered them and purged the altar with their blood as a sin offering to atone for all Israel, because the king ordered that the burnt offering and the sin offering be made for all Israel.

⁶ “I have set my king on Zion, my holy mountain.”

⁷ You love justice and hate wickedness. That is why God, even your God, has anointed you rather than your companions with the oil of gladness.

⁶ “Lift up your eyes, you heavens and look to the earth beneath; and see who created these. Its inhabitants will die just like this; but my salvation will be forever, and my deliverance will never fail.

⁸ For moths will eat them up just like a garment, and worms will devour them like wool; but my deliverance will last forever, and my salvation to all generations.

¹⁰ The Exaltation of the Servant“Yet the LORD was willing to crush him, and he made him suffer. Although you make his soul an offering for sin, he will see his offspring, and he will prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will triumph in his hand. ¹¹ Out of the suffering of his soul he will see light and find satisfaction. And through his knowledge his servant, the righteous one, will make many righteous, and he will bear their iniquities.

¹ The Covenant Extended to the Righteous For this is what the LORD says: “Maintain justice, and do what is right, for soon my salvation will come, and soon my deliverance will be revealed.

¹ Good News of Deliverance “The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed and to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness for the prisoners;

⁵ “The time is coming,” declares the LORD, “when I’ll raise up a righteous branch for David. He will be a king who rules wisely, and he will administer justice and righteousness in the land. ⁶ In his time Judah will be delivered and Israel will dwell in safety. This is the name by which he will be known: ‘The LORD Our Righteousness.’

²² The punishment for your sin is complete, you women of Zion, and God will no longer exile you. He will punish your iniquity, you women of Edom, and he will expose your sins.

⁶ When you have completed this, you are to sleep on your right side, symbolically bearing the iniquity of Judah for 40 days. Each day that I’ve assigned to you represents one year.

¹² “Son of Man, start singing this lamentation for the king of Tyre. Tell him, ‘This is what the Lord GOD says: “You served as my model, my example of complete wisdom and perfect beauty.

²¹ She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he is the one who will save his people from their sins.”

¹³ because the Law and all the Prophets prophesied up to the time of John.

²⁴ “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”

³⁵ The angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come over you, and the power of the Most High will surround you. Therefore, the child will be holy and will be called the Son of God.

¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; he has anointed me to tell the good news to the poor. He has sent me to announce release to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to set oppressed people free, ¹⁹ and to announce the year of the Lord’s favor.”
²⁰ Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. While the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him, ²¹ he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled, as you’ve heard it read aloud.”

²⁵ Then Jesus told them, “O, how foolish you are! How slow you are to believe everything the prophets said! ²⁶ The Messiah had to suffer these things and then enter his glory, didn’t he?” ²⁷ Then, beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them all the passages of Scripture about himself.

⁴⁴ Then he told them, “These are the words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms had to be fulfilled.”
⁴⁵ Then he opened their minds so that they might understand the Scriptures.

⁴¹ The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and say to him, “We have found the Anointed One!” (which is translated “Messiah”).

³⁴ The one whom God sent speaks the words of God, because God does not give the Spirit in limited measure to him.

²⁸ Jesus Dies on the Cross
After this, when Jesus realized that everything was now completed, he said (in order to fulfill the Scripture), “I’m thirsty.” ²⁹ A jar of sour wine was standing there, so they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. ³⁰ After Jesus had taken the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and released his spirit.

¹⁴ You rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer released to you,

²² In fact, Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. You must listen to everything he tells you.

²¹ God Gives Us Righteousness through FaithBut now, apart from the Law, God’s righteousness is revealed and is attested by the Law and the Prophets— ²² God’s righteousness through the faithfulness of Jesus the Messiah— for all who believe. For there is no distinction among people,

¹⁰ For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life!

³⁰ It is because of God that you are in union with the Messiah Jesus, who for us has become wisdom from God, as well as our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

¹⁸ All of this comes from God, who has reconciled us to himself through the Messiah and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, ¹⁹ for through the Messiah, God was reconciling the world to himself by not counting their sins against them. He has committed his message of reconciliation to us. ²⁰ Therefore, we are the Messiah’s representatives, as though God were pleading through us. We plead on the Messiah’s behalf: “Be reconciled to God!” ²¹ God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that God’s righteousness would be produced in us.

⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the Law, but one that comes through the faithfulness of the Messiah, the righteousness that comes from God and that depends on faith.

²⁰ Through the Son, God also reconciled all things to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, thereby making peace through the blood of his cross.

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.

⁸ But about the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, and the scepter of your kingdom is a righteous scepter. ⁹ You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. That is why God, your God, anointed you rather than your companions with the oil of gladness.”

¹⁷ thereby becoming like his brothers in every way, so that he could be a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God and could atone for the people’s sins.

²⁶ We need such a high priest—one who is holy, innocent, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.

¹¹ The Messiah Has Offered a Superior SacrificeBut when the Messiah came as a high priest of the good things that have come, he went through the greater and more perfect tent that was not made by human hands and that is not a part of this creation. ¹² Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood he went into the Most Holy Place once for all and secured our eternal redemption. ¹³ For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are unclean purifies them physically, ¹⁴ how much more will the blood of the Messiah, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from dead actions so that we may serve the living God!

²⁶ Then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the creation of the world. But now, at the end of the ages, he has appeared once for all to remove sin by his sacrifice.

¹⁴ For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

¹ GreetingsFrom: Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus, the Messiah.
To: Those who have received faith that is as valuable as ours through the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus the Messiah.

⁸ The person who practices sin belongs to the evil one, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason that the Son of God was revealed was to destroy what the devil has been doing.

⁷ The Letter to the Church in Philadelphia“To the messenger of the church in Philadelphia, write: ‘The one who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens a door that no one can shut, and who shuts a door that no one can open, ‘says this:

⁶ The Vision of Angels Sounding a WarningThen I saw another angel flying overhead with the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on earth—to every nation, tribe, language, and people.

²⁵ The king told Zadok, “Take the Ark of God back to the city. If I’m shown favor in the LORD’s sight, then he’ll bring me back again and show me both it and the place where it rests.

²⁴ As a result, work on the Temple of God in Jerusalem ceased and did not begin again until the second year of the reign of King Darius of Persia.

¹ King Darius Verifies the DecreeThen King Darius issued an order to search the Hall of Records where the Babylonian archives were stored. ² The following was found written on a scroll in Ecbatana at the summer palace of the province of Media: ³ DATE: First year of Cyrus the King FROM: King Cyrus SUBJECT: The Temple of God in Jerusalem Let the Temple be rebuilt where they offered sacrifices. Let the foundations thereof be laid with a height of 60 cubits and a width of 60 cubits, ⁴ constructed with three layers of foundation stone interlaced with a row of new timber, the expenses for which are to be paid from the king’s treasury. ⁵ Furthermore, let the gold and silver utensils from the Temple of God (that Nebuchadnezzar took from the Temple in Jerusalem and carried off to Babylon) be brought back to the Temple at Jerusalem and restored to their respective places in the Temple of God.
⁶ King Darius Confirms the DecreeTo: Tattenai, Trans-Euphrates Governor, Shethar-bozenai, and your colleagues living beyond the Euphrates River. Stay away from there! ⁷ Leave the work on this Temple of God alone! Let the Jewish governor and the Jewish leaders build this Temple of God on its site. ⁸ Furthermore, I hereby decree what you are to do for the Jewish leaders who are building this Temple of God: you are to pay the expenses of these men out of the king’s assets from taxes collected beyond the River so that they are not hindered. ⁹ And be sure that you don’t fail to provide their daily needs—including young bulls, rams, and lambs for the burnt offerings of the God of Heaven, along with wheat, salt, wine, and oil, as the priests in Jerusalem tell you— ¹⁰ so they may approach the God of Heaven with fragrant sacrifices and pray for the life of this king and his sons. ¹¹ I hereby also decree that whoever shall alter the wording of this edict, let his residence be torn down for timber to build a gallows, hang him on it, and turn his home into an outhouse. ¹² And may the God who causes his Name to rest there destroy any king or people who might attempt to destroy this Temple of God in Jerusalem. I, Darius, have issued this decree. Let it be carried out quickly.
¹³ Because of what King Darius had mandated, Tattenai, the Trans-Euphrates Governor, Shethar-bozenai, and their colleagues carried out his orders quickly.
¹⁴ Progress and CompletionAnd so the Jewish leaders continued their building, and prospered because of the prophecies of Haggai the prophet and Iddo’s son Zechariah. They completed the rebuilding in accordance with the commandment from the God of Israel and the edicts of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes, king of Persia. ¹⁵ The Temple was completed on the third day of the month Adar during the sixth year of the reign of King Darius.

¹ Ezra’s Return to Jerusalem
After all of this, during the reign of King Artaxerxes of Persia, Seraiah’s son Ezra (who was the grandson of Azariah, son of Hilkiah,

⁸ He arrived in Jerusalem during the fifth month of the seventh year of the king’s reign.

¹¹ The Letter from King ArtaxerxesHere is a copy of the letter that King Artaxerxes gave to Ezra, the priest-scribe, a scholar in matters concerning the commandments of the LORD and concerning his statutes pertaining to Israel: ¹² From: Artaxerxes, King of Kings To: Ezra, the Priest, a scholar in matters concerning the laws of the God of Heaven Greetings! ¹³ I hereby decree that all of the people of Israel— along with their priests and descendants of Levi in my kingdom—who are determined to return to Jerusalem with you may do so. ¹⁴ You have authority to act for the king and for his Council of Seven to conduct an inquiry concerning Judah and Jerusalem in accordance with the Law of your God, which is in your possession. ¹⁵ You are carrying silver and gold that the King and his advisors have freely given to the God of Israel, whose Temple is in Jerusalem, ¹⁶ together with all of the silver and gold that you can raise in the province of Babylon, plus the freewill offerings given by the people and the priests, contributed for the Temple of their God, which is in Jerusalem. ¹⁷ Accordingly, you are to exercise due diligence to utilize this money to purchase bulls, rams, lambs, grain offerings, and drink offerings, and to offer them upon the altar of the Temple of your God, which is in Jerusalem. ¹⁸ Furthermore, the balance remaining of the silver and gold may be used for whatever other purpose you and your people desire, as long as such use is consistent with the will of your God. ¹⁹ Furthermore, you are to deliver to the God of Jerusalem the vessels for the service of the Temple of your God that have been given to you. ²⁰ Furthermore, provide from the royal treasury whatever else may be needed for the Temple of your God. ²¹ I, Artaxerxes, in my capacity as king, hereby decree to all royal treasuries beyond the Euphrates River that whatever Ezra the priest-scribe of the Law of the God of Heaven, may require of you are to be performed with all due diligence, ²² up to 100 silver talents, 100 measures of wheat, 100 measures of wine, 100 measures of oil, and salt without limitation. ²³ Whatever is commanded by the God of Heaven is to be done with all due diligence for the Temple of the God of Heaven, or wrath will come against the king’s realm and his sons. ²⁴ Furthermore, we decree that with respect to any of the priests, descendants of Levi, singers, gatekeepers, Temple Servants, or other servants of this Temple of God, it is not to be lawful to impose any tribute, tax, or toll on them. ²⁵ And you, Ezra, in accordance with the wisdom given to you by your God, are to appoint magistrates and judges to administer justice to all the people beyond the Euphrates River. All of them are to know the laws of your God, and you are to instruct those who do not know them. ²⁶ Whoever refuses to practice the law of your God and the law of the king is to see judgment executed quickly, whether to death, banishment, confiscation of goods, or imprisonment.

¹ Nehemiah’s Conversation with the KingIt came about in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, during the month of Nissan, the king was about to drink some wine that I was preparing for him. Now I had never looked troubled in his presence.
² The king asked me, “Why do you look so troubled, since you’re not ill? This cannot be anything else but troubles of the heart.”
Then I was filled with fear. ³ I replied to the king, “May the king live forever. Why shouldn’t I be troubled, since the city where my ancestral sepulchers are located lies waste, with its gates burned by fire?”
⁴ The king answered, “What do you want?”
So I prayed to the God of heaven ⁵ and I replied to the king, “If it seems good to you, and if your servant has found favor with you, would you send me to Judah, to the city where my ancestral sepulchers are located, so I can rebuild it?”
⁶ With his queen seated beside him, the king asked me, “How long will your journey take, and when will you return?” The king thought it was a good idea to send me, so I presented him with a prepared plan.
⁷ I also asked the king, “If it seems good to you, order that letters of authorization be given me for the Trans-Euphrates governors, so they will allow me to pass through to Judah, ⁸ along with a letter to Asaph, the royal Commissioner of Forests, so that he will supply me with timber to craft beams for the gatehouses of the Temple, for the city walls, and for the house in which I will be living.”
The king granted this for me, according to the good hand of my God.

¹ Those who Worked on the WallSo Eliashib the high priest came forward, along with his fellow priests, and reconstructed the Sheep Gate. They consecrated it and installed its doors. They also consecrated the wall as far as the Tower of the Hundred and the Tower of Hananel.

⁸ So they all conspired together to invade and fight against Jerusalem, creating confusion there.

¹⁶ From that day on, half of my helpers engaged in the work while the other half kept spears, shields, bows, and armor ready. The senior officials backed all of the Judeans ¹⁷ who worked on the wall. Those who carried building materials worked with one hand, carrying a spear in the other. ¹⁸ Each builder worked with a sword strapped to his side, while a trumpeter remained beside me to sound an alarm.

¹⁵ So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth day of Elul in 52 days.

¹⁰ For my enemies talk against me; those who seek to kill me plot together

⁶ For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name is called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

⁴ “Look! I have made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander of the peoples.

¹¹ Then it set itself in arrogant opposition to the Prince of the Heavenly Army, from whom the regular burnt offering was taken away, in order to overthrow his sanctuary.

²⁵ Through his skill he’ll cause deceit to prosper under his leadership. He’ll promote himself and will destroy many while they are secure. He’ll take a stand against the Prince of Princes, yet he’ll be crushed without human help.

²³ Because you’re highly regarded, the answer was issued when you began your prayer, and I’ve come to tell you. Pay attention to my message and you’ll understand the vision.

² The Ruler from Bethlehem“As for you, Bethlehem of Ephrathah, even though you remain least among the clans of Judah, nevertheless, the one who rules in Israel for me will emerge from you. His existence has been from antiquity, even from eternity.

²³ But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the person who hears the word, understands it, and produces a crop that yields 100, 60, or 30 times what was sown.”

²⁵ The woman told him, “I know that the Anointed One is coming, who is being called ‘the Messiah’. When that person comes, he will explain everything.”

¹⁵ and you killed the source of life, whom God raised from the dead. We are witnesses to that.

³¹ God has exalted to his right hand this very man as our Leader and Savior in order to extend repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel.

³⁰ So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah out loud.
Philip asked, “Do you understand what you’re reading?”

¹⁶ making the best use of your time because the times are evil.

⁵ and from Jesus the Messiah, the witness, the faithful one, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To the one who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood

¹⁶ On his robe that covers his thigh he has a name written:
KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS

¹⁵ My strength is dried up like broken pottery; my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth, and you have brought me down to the dust of death.

⁷ watch out! The LORD God is about to bring the flood waters of the Euphrates River against them, mighty and strong.
“It’s the king of Assyria and all of his arrogance! He will rise over all of the river’s channels and run over all of its banks.

⁸ “From detention and judgment he was taken away— and who can even think about his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living, he was stricken for the transgression of my people.

⁷ Who is this, rising like the Nile, like rivers whose waters surge?

²⁷ He will make a binding covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he will suspend both the sacrifice and grain offerings. Destructive people will cause desolation on the pinnacle until it is complete and what has been decreed is poured out on the desolator.’”

¹⁰ His sons will prepare for war, assembling an army of considerable force. One of them will come on forcefully, overflowing, passing through, and waging war up to his own fortress.

¹⁷ He’ll decide to come with the full power of his kingdom, bringing with him an alliance that he’ll implement. He’ll give him a daughter in marriage to overthrow it, but it won’t succeed or work out for him.

⁹ so the LORD told Hosea, “Name him ‘Lo-ammi,’ because you are not my people, and I will not be your God.

⁸ Surely the land will tremble because of this, won’t it? And all who live in it will mourn, won’t they? The entire land will swell up like a flooded river. It will be stirred up and then will sink like the river of Egypt.

⁵ “The Lord GOD of the Heavenly Armies who is touching the earth so that it melts and all of its inhabitants mourn there— the land rises like the Nile River, but sinks like the river of Egypt—

⁸ But with an overwhelming deluge he will bring utter desolation to Nineveh, and his enemies he will pursue with darkness.

² “The kingdom from heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.

⁷ Then the king became outraged. He sent his troops, and they destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

³⁸ Look! Your house is left abandoned!

² But he told them, “You see all these things, don’t you? I tell all of you with certainty, there isn’t a single stone here that will be left standing on top of another. They will all be torn down.”

⁶ You’ll hear of wars and rumors of wars. See to it that you aren’t alarmed. These things must take place, but the end hasn’t come yet, ⁷ because nation will rise up in arms against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. ⁸ But all these things are only the beginning of the birth pains.”
⁹ Future Persecution, Apostasy, and Evangelism
“Then they’ll hand you over to suffer and will kill you, and you’ll be hated by all the nations because of my name. ¹⁰ Then many people will fall away, will betray one another, and will hate one another. ¹¹ Many false prophets will appear and deceive many people, ¹² and because lawlessness will increase, the love of many people will grow cold. ¹³ But the person who endures to the end will be saved. ¹⁴ And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”

¹² He told them, “Elijah is indeed coming first and will restore all things. Why, then, is it written that the Son of Man must suffer a great deal and be treated shamefully?

² “Do you see these large buildings?” Jesus responded. “Not one stone here will be left on another that will not be torn down.”

⁷ But when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, stop being alarmed. These things must take place, but the end hasn’t come yet,

⁴³ because the days will come when your enemies will build walls around you, surround you, and close you in on every side. ⁴⁴ They will level you to the ground—you and those who live within your city limits. They will not leave one stone on another within your walls, because you didn’t recognize the time when you were visited.”

⁶ “As for these things that you see, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another that won’t be knocked down.”

²⁴ They will fall by the edge of the sword and be carried off as captives among all the nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled on by the unbelievers until the times of the unbelievers are fulfilled.”

²⁶ The Messiah had to suffer these things and then enter his glory, didn’t he?”

⁴⁶ He told them, “This is how it is written: the Messiah was to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day,

⁵¹ Now he did not say this on his own initiative. As high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, ⁵² and not only for the nation, but that he would also gather into one the children of God who were scattered abroad.

³² As for me, if I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.” ³³ He said this to indicate the kind of death he was about to die.
³⁴ Then the crowd answered him, “We have learned from the Law that the Messiah remains forever. So how can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?”

³⁰ I won’t talk with you much longer, because the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me.

¹³ They had false witnesses stand up and say, “This man never stops saying things against this Holy Place and against the Law. ¹⁴ For we have heard him say that this Jesus from Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs that Moses handed down to us.”

²¹ God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that God’s righteousness would be produced in us.

¹³ The Messiah redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, “A curse on everyone who is hung on a tree!”

²¹ This is, in fact, what you were called to do, because: The Messiah also suffered for you and left an example for you to follow in his steps.

²⁴ “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the tree, so that we might die to those sins and live righteously. “By his wounds you have been healed.”

¹⁸ For the Messiah also suffered for sins once for all, an innocent person for the guilty, so that he could bring you to God. He was put to death in a mortal body but was brought to life by the Spirit,

²⁶ Heaven and earth will testify against what has occurred today: you’ll surely and swiftly be destroyed from the land that you are about to possess by crossing the Jordan River. You won’t live long in it, because you’ll certainly be exterminated. ²⁷ Moreover, the LORD will scatter you among the nations, and you’ll be fewer in number in the nations where the LORD your God will drive you. ²⁸ There you’ll serve gods made by human hands, serving trees and stones that cannot see, hear, eat, nor smell.

¹⁸ Be alert so there is no man, woman, family, or a tribe whose heart is turning away from the LORD your God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Be alert so there will be no root among you that produces poisonous and bitter fruit, ¹⁹ because when such a person hears the words of this oath, he will bless himself and say: ‘I will have a peaceful life, even though I’m determined to be stubborn.’ By doing this he will be sweeping away both watered and parched ground alike.’

¹⁷ But if you turn your heart away, and do not obey, but instead if you stray away to worship and serve other gods, ¹⁸ I’m declaring to you today that you will surely be destroyed. You won’t live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan River to enter and possess.

²⁸ Gather together the leaders of your tribes and your foremen so I can speak these words in their hearing and call heaven and the earth as witnesses against them, ²⁹ because I know that after my death, you’ll surely act wickedly and turn from the road that I’ve instructed you. As a result, evil will fall on you in days to come, because you’ll act wickedly in the sight of the LORD, causing him to become angry due to your behavior.”

¹⁹ The LORD’s ResponseThe LORD saw it and became jealous, provoked by his sons and daughters. ²⁰ So he said: “Let me hide my face from them. I will observe what their end will be, because they are a perverted generation, children within whom there is no loyalty. ²¹ They provoked me to jealousy over non-gods, and to be angry over their vanity. Now I’ll provoke them to jealousy over a non-people; and over a foolish nation I’ll provoke them to anger. ²² For a fire breaks out in my anger— burning to the deepest part of the afterlife, consuming the earth and its produce and igniting the foundations of the mountains. ²³ I’ll bury them in misfortunes and bring them to an end with my arrows. ²⁴ Emaciated from famine, feverish from plague, and destroyed by bitterness, I’ll send fanged beasts against them, along with poisonous snakes that glide through the dust. ²⁵ Outside, the sword will cause bereavement; within, there will be terror for the young man and virgin alike, also for the nursing infant and the aged man.” ²⁶ “I said, ‘I will scatter them, erasing their memory from the human race, ²⁷ if it weren’t for dreading the taunting of their enemies— otherwise, their adversary might misinterpret and say, “Our power is great. It isn’t the LORD who made all of this happen.”’”
²⁸ Moses Warns IsraelThey are a nation devoid of purpose and without insight. ²⁹ O, that they were wise to understand this and consider their future! ³⁰ How can one person chase a thousand of them and two put a myriad to flight, unless their Rock delivers them and the LORD gives them up? ³¹ For their rock isn’t like our Rock, as even our enemies admit. ³² Instead, their vine is from the vines of Sodom and the vineyards of Gomorrah. Their grapes are poisonous, their clusters bitter. ³³ Their wine is the venom of serpents, a poisonous cobra.
³⁴ The LORD’s Response“Is this not kept in reserve, sealed up with me in my treasury? ³⁵ To me belong vengeance and recompense. In due time their feet will slip, because their time of calamity is near and the things prepared for them draw near. ³⁶ For the LORD will vindicate his people and bring comfort to his servants, because he will observe that their power has waned, when neither prisoner nor free person remain. ³⁷ “He will say, ‘Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge? ³⁸ Who ate the fat of their offerings and drank the wine that was their drink offering? Let them rise and help you and be your hiding place!’ ³⁹ “Look now! I AM, and there is no other god besides me. I myself cause death and I sustain life; I wound severely and I also heal; from my power no one can deliver. ⁴⁰ “I solemnly swear to heaven— I say ‘As certainly as I’m alive and living forever, ⁴¹ I’ll whet my shining sword, with my hands in firm grasp of judgment. I’ll show vengeance on my adversary and repay those who keep on hating me. ⁴² I’ll make my arrows drunk with blood. My sword will devour flesh, along with the blood of the slain, and I’ll take their enemy leaders captive.’ ⁴³ “Sing for joy, nations! Sing for joy, people who belong to him! For he’ll avenge the blood of his servants, turn on his adversary, and cleanse both his land and his people.”
⁴⁴ Moses’ Final CounselSo Moses and Nun’s son Joshua came and recited all the words of this song while the people were assembled.

²² May their dining tables entrap them, and become a snare for their allies. ²³ May their eyes be blinded and may their bodies tremble continuously. ²⁴ May you pour out your fury on them. May your burning anger overtake them. ²⁵ May their camp become desolate and their tents remain unoccupied. ²⁶ For they persecute those whom you have struck, and they brag about the pain of those you have wounded. ²⁷ May you punish them for their crimes; may they receive no verdict of innocence from you. ²⁸ May they be erased from the Book of Life, and their names not be written with the righteous.

²² For even if your people of Israel number as many as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Overwhelming, righteous destruction is decreed, ²³ because the Lord GOD of the Heavenly Armies will bring about destruction, as has been decreed, throughout the entire region.

²² But as for you, don’t start mocking, or your chains will become tighter; for I have heard from the LORD of the Heavenly Armies about destruction, and it is decreed against the whole land.

⁶ “I’ve called you in righteousness. I’ll take hold of your hand. I’ll preserve you and appoint you as a covenant to the people, as a light for the nations,

¹¹ Out of the suffering of his soul he will see light and find satisfaction. And through his knowledge his servant, the righteous one, will make many righteous, and he will bear their iniquities.

³ Pay attention to me, come to me; and listen, so that you may live; then I’ll make an everlasting covenant with you, as promised by my faithful, sure love for David.

³¹ The New Covenant“Look, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I’ll make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ³² It won’t be like the covenant I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. They broke my covenant, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. ³³ “Rather, this is the covenant that I’ll make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD. “I’ll put my Law within them and will write it on their hearts. I’ll be their God and they will be my people. ³⁴ No longer will a person teach his neighbor or his relative: ‘Know the LORD.’ Instead, they’ll all know me, from the least to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD. “Indeed, I’ll forgive their iniquity, and I’ll remember their sin no more.”

⁴⁰ I’ll make an everlasting covenant with them that I won’t turn away from doing good for them. I’ll put the fear of me in their hearts so they won’t turn away from me. ⁴¹ I’ll rejoice over them to do good for them, and I’ll faithfully plant them in this land with all my heart and soul.’
⁴² “Indeed, this is what the LORD says: ‘Just as I’m bringing all this great disaster on this people, so I’ll bring on them all the good things that I’m promising concerning them.

⁶⁰ “‘Meanwhile, as for me, I’ll remember my covenant with you from when you were young, because I’ll establish an eternal covenant with you. ⁶¹ Then you’ll remember your behavior and be ashamed when you greet your sisters—your elder sister and your younger sister. I’ll give them to you as daughters, but not on account of my covenant with you. ⁶² I’ll establish my covenant with you, and then you’ll know that I am the LORD. ⁶³ Then you will remember, be ashamed, and you won’t open your mouth anymore due to humiliation when I will have made atonement for you for everything that you’ve done,’ declares the Lord GOD.”

¹³ The Duration of the Desolation“Then I heard one holy person speaking, and another holy person addressed the one who was speaking: ‘In the vision about the regular burnt offering, how much time elapses while the desecration terrifies and both the Holy Place and the Heavenly Army are trampled?’

³⁶ The King Who Calls Himself God“‘The king will do as he pleases. He’ll exalt and magnify himself above every god, speaking amazing things against the God of Gods. He’ll succeed until the indignation is completed, because what has been determined must be carried out.

¹¹ There will be 1,290 days from the time the regular burnt offering is rescinded and the destructive desolation established.

²⁸ because this is my blood of the new covenant that is being poured out for many people for the forgiveness of sins.

⁵¹ Suddenly, the curtain in the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom, the earth shook, rocks were split open,

²⁰ Signs of the End
“When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then understand that its devastation is approaching.

¹⁵ But God’s free gift is not like Adam’s offense. For if many people died as the result of one man’s offense, how much more have God’s grace and the free gift given through the kindness of one man, Jesus the Messiah, been showered on many people!

¹⁹ For just as through one man’s disobedience many people were made sinners, so also through one man’s obedience many people will be made righteous.

²⁶ In this way, all Israel will be saved, as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion; he will remove ungodliness from Jacob.

⁸ For I tell you that the Messiah became a servant of the circumcised on behalf of God’s truth in order to confirm the promises given to our ancestors, ⁹ so that the gentiles may glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, “That is why I will praise you among the gentiles; I will sing praises to your name.”

¹³ The Messiah redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, “A curse on everyone who is hung on a tree!” ¹⁴ This happened in order that the blessing promised to Abraham would come to the gentiles through the Messiah Jesus, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
¹⁵ Brothers, let me use an example from everyday life. Once a person’s will has been ratified, no one can cancel it or add conditions to it. ¹⁶ Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his descendant. It doesn’t say “descendants,” referring to many, but “your descendant,” referring to one person, who is the Messiah. ¹⁷ This is what I mean: The Law that came 430 years later did not cancel the covenant that God ratified previously. The promise was never nullified.

¹³ God’s Promise is ReliableFor when God made his promise to Abraham, he swore an oath by himself, since he had no one greater to swear by. ¹⁴ He said, “I will certainly bless you and give you many descendants.” ¹⁵ And so he obtained what he had been promised, because he patiently waited for it. ¹⁶ For people swear by someone greater than themselves, and an oath given as confirmation puts an end to all argument. ¹⁷ In the same way, when God wanted to make the unchangeable character of his purpose perfectly clear to the heirs of his promise, he guaranteed it with an oath, ¹⁸ so that by these two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to prove false, we who have taken refuge in him might be encouraged to seize the hope set before us.

⁸ but God found something wrong with his people when he said, “Look! The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. ⁹ It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors at the time when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. Because they did not remain loyal to my covenant, I ignored them, declares the Lord. ¹⁰ For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord: I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. ¹¹ Never again will everyone teach his neighbor or his brother by saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because all of them will know me, from the least important to the most important. ¹² For I will be merciful regarding their wrong deeds, and I will never again remember their sins.” ¹³ In speaking of a “new” covenant, he has made the first one obsolete, and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.

¹⁵ The Messiah is the Mediator of a New CovenantThis is why the Messiah is the mediator of a new covenant; so that those who are called may receive the eternal inheritance promised them, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the offenses committed under the first covenant. ¹⁶ For where there is a will, the death of the one who made it must be established. ¹⁷ For a will is in force only when somebody has died, since it never takes effect as long as the one who made it is alive. ¹⁸ This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood. ¹⁹ For after every commandment in the Law had been spoken to all the people by Moses, he took the blood of calves and goats, together with some water, scarlet wool, and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people, ²⁰ saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God ordained for you.”

²⁸ so the Messiah was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people. And he will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to bring salvation to those who eagerly wait for him.

⁴ for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
⁵ The Messiah Offered One SacrificeFor this reason, the Scriptures say, when the Messiah was about to come into the world: “You did not want sacrifices and offerings, but you prepared a body for me. ⁶ In burnt offerings and sin offerings you never took delight. ⁷ Then I said, ‘See, I have come to do your will, O God’ In the volume of the scroll this is written about me.” ⁸ In this passage he says, “You never wanted or took delight in sacrifices, offerings, burnt offerings, and sin offerings,” which are offered according to the Law. ⁹ Then he says, “See, I have come to do your will.” He takes away the first in order to establish the second. ¹⁰ By God’s will we have been sanctified once and for all through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus, the Messiah.
¹¹ Day after day every priest stands and repeatedly offers the same sacrifices that can never take away sins. ¹² But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, “he sat down at the right hand of God.” ¹³ Since that time, he has been waiting for his enemies to be made a footstool for his feet. ¹⁴ For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. ¹⁵ The Holy Spirit also assures us of this, for he said: ¹⁶ “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws in their hearts and will write them on their minds, ¹⁷ and I will never again remember their sins and their lawless deeds.” ¹⁸ Now where there is forgiveness of these sins, there is no longer any offering for sin.
¹⁹ How We Should LiveTherefore, my brothers, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰ the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), ²¹ and since we have a great high priest over the household of God, ²² let us continue to come near with sincere hearts in the full assurance that faith provides, because our hearts have been sprinkled clean from a guilty conscience, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.

²⁰ Now may the God of peace, who by the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, the Great Shepherd of the sheep, ²¹ equip you with everything good to do his will, accomplishing in us what pleases him through Jesus, the Messiah. To him be glory forever and ever! Amen.